The Philippines is 110 years old

What does that mean? Well, it means that it has been 110 years since the Philippines declared independence from the 300-plus years under Spanish colonization.

Emilio Aguinaldo and his group did just that in Kawit, Cavite on June 12, 1898. It was short-lived though since the US decided to stay for about half a century more for the "benevolent assimilation".

I'm not a history buff but this occasion was a good time for me to look up a bit of Philippine History. I intended it to be just a short summary but I found lots of interesting things so I will just focus on those right now. Maybe next time, I will come back on the Philippine history topic again.

One of the information I stumbled upon is about literacy even before the Spaniards came. I am revealing a lot of my ignorance here but it was my first time to hear about a "Laguna Copperplate Inscription" or LCI - a "written" (actually hammered into a copper sheet) artifact discovered just about 2 decades ago. Work by 2 Dutch experts on ancient writings and a Fil-Am history buff later revealed that it was as early as 900 AD and that the "document" is a record of debt pardon. The writing was similar to the Indonesian script of kavi.

Just before the Spanish colonization in the 1500's though, it is reported that the style of writing was different from the LCI. This form of writing is what is now called the baybayin. Remember this?

I do remember seeing something like this either in elementary Pilipino or Social Studies subjects but we called it alibata. Supposedly, the latter term is a modern invention with no valid basis. Anyhow, this is my name in baybayin...

These information were culled from Ang Baybayin. It is a website created by Paul Morrow, a Canadian living in Winnipeg, Manitoba who has an interest in Filipino culture and who is a self-taught Tagalog speaker.

Mabuhay ang Pilipinas!