1.
Regions of the Philippines
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In the Philippines, regions, ISO 3166-2, PH) are administrative divisions that serve primarily to organize the provinces of the country for administrative convenience. Currently, the republic of the Philippines is divided into 18 regions. Most government offices are established by region instead of individual provincial offices, the regions themselves do not possess a separate local government, with the exception of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, which has an elected regional assembly and governor. The Cordillera Administrative Region was originally intended to be autonomous, since that time, other regions have been created and some provinces have been transferred from one region to another. June 22,1973, Pangasinan was transferred from Region III to Region I, july 7,1975, Region XII created and minor reorganization of some Mindanao regions. July 25,1975, Regions IX and XII declared as Autonomous Regions in Western, august 21,1975, Region IX divided into Sub-Region IX-A and Sub-Region IX-B. Minor reorganization of some Mindanao regions, november 7,1975, Metropolitan Manila created. June 2,1978, Metropolitan Manila declared as the National Capital Region, july 15,1987, Cordillera Administrative Region created. August 1,1989, Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao created, Region XII reverted to an administrative region. October 23,1989, First creation of Cordillera Autonomous Region, ratification rejected by residents in a plebiscite. October 12,1990, Executive Order 429 issued by President Corazon Aquino to reorganize the Mindanao regions, february 23,1995, Region XIII created and minor reorganization of some Mindanao regions. Sultan Kudarat transferred to Region XI,1997, Minor reorganization of some Mindanao regions. December 22,1997, Second creation of Cordillera Autonomous Region, ratification rejected by residents in a plebiscite. December 18,1998, Sultan Kudarat returned to Region XII, september 19,2001, Most Mindanao regions reorganized and some renamed. May 17,2002, Region IV-A and Region IV-B created from the former Region IV region, may 23,2005, Palawan transferred from Region IV-B to Region VI, Mimaropa renamed to Mimaro. August 19,2005, Transfer of Palawan to Region VI held in abeyance, may 29,2015, Negros Island Region created. Negros Occidental and Bacolod from Region VI and Negros Oriental from Region VII transferred to form new region, july 17,2016, Republic Act No.10879 established the Southwestern Tagalog Region from the former Region IV-B. As of May 2015, the Philippines comprises 18 administrative regions and these regions are geographically organized into the three island groups of Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao
2.
Cagayan de Oro
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Cagayan de Oro is a first class highly urbanized city and the capital of the province of Misamis Oriental in the Philippines. It is a city where governance is independent and separate from Misamis Oriental. According to the 2015 census, the city has a population of 675,950, Cagayan de Oro is also famous for its white water rafting or kayaking adventures, one of the tourism activities being promoted along the Cagayan de Oro River. The name Cagayan de Oro can be traced back to the arrival of the Spanish Augustinian Recollect friars in 1622, early Spanish written documents in the 16th century already referred to the place as Cagayán. The region of Northern Mindanao, which included Cagayan de Oro, was granted as Encomienda to a certain Don Juan Griego on January 25,1571 and it was then former Vice President of the Philippines Emmanuel Peláez who appended de Oro to Cagayan. There are also places in the Philippines with the Cagayan name, these include the province of Cagayan in northern Luzon. The area was first inhabited around 377 C. E. island natives lived in a settlement then known as Himologan, the natives were polytheistic animists, Austronesian in origin with seafaring capabilities similar to the Badjaos. Their customs were closely related to the prosperous Rajahnate of Butuan with rich Sri Vijayan and Indian culture and they also wore tribal and traditional costumes and dressings having similarities to those found in Bali, Indonesia. Ceramics have been found in the area, Chinese probably having visited from the period of the Song to Ming dynasties and it was also possibly an old thriving port of the Srivijaya Empire with an overseas trading link to China, India and even to America. De San Pedro later fortified the new settlement against Sultan Kudarats raiders, in 1738, Spanish dominance was felt in Cagayan de Oro. When Misamis gained the status of province in 1818, one of its four districts was the Partidos de Cagayan, in 1871, the Partidos became a town and was made a permanent capital of Misamis. On February 27,1872, Governor-General Carlos María de La Torre issued a decree declaring Cagayan the permanent capital of Segundo Distrito de Misamis, during this era, the name of the town was known as Cagayan de Misamis. In 1883, the became a seat of the Spanish government in Mindanao for the provinces of Misamis Oriental, Misamis Occidental, Bukidnon. On January 10,1899, Cagayan de Misamis joined the government of Emilio Aguinaldo and it was the second time the Aguinaldo government was declared and the new Philippine flag raised on the Mindanao island. By virtue of the 1898 Treaty of Paris, Spain ceded the Philippines to the United States, this caused friction and resulted in the Philippine-American War. On March 31,1900, Americans occupied the town of Cagayan de Misamis and on April 7,1900 and this would later become known as the Battle of Cagayan de Misamis. The Americans won the war, and about forty years later, the war years in Cagayan de Oro were prompted by the presence of the Americans in 1898. The Americans were initially and successfully repulsed by the Kagay-anons forces led by Mayor Don Apolinar Vélez at the historic Battle of Makahambus on June 4,1900, after the troubled years, peace finally brought back the economic activities to normality under the guidance of the United States
3.
Cagayan
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Cagayan is a province of the Philippines in the Cagayan Valley region in the northeast of Luzon Island, and includes the Babuyan Islands to the north. The province borders Ilocos Norte and Apayao to the west, and Kalinga, Cagayan was one of the early provincias that existed during the Spanish Colonial Period. The former capital was Nueva Segovia, which served as the seat of the Diocese of Nueva Segovia. Today, only 9,295.75 square kilometres remain of the vastness of the province. The entire region, however, is referred to as Cagayan Valley. In 2013, Cagayan was host to the 27th and 28th seasons of the American reality game show, present-day chroniclers hold that the name was originally derived from the tagay, a plant that grows abundantly in the northern part of the province. The term Catagayan, the place where the tagay grows was shortened to Cagayan, perhaps more conventionally, etymological scholars hold that cagayan comes from an ancient word that means river. Variations of this word—karayan, kayayan, and kalayan—all mean river, Cagayan has a prehistoric civilization with rich and diverse culture. According to archaeologists, the earliest man in the Philippines probably lived in Cagayan thousands of years ago, evidences to this effect are now convincing beyond scientific doubt to consider it as an incontestable fact. From available evidences, the Atta or Negrito - a short dark-skinned nomad - was the first man in Cagayan. They were later moved to the uplands by the Malays who eventually became the Ibanags, Itawes, Yogads, Gaddangs, Irayas and these are the people found by the Spaniards in the different villages along the rivers all over Cagayan. Cagayan is also the site of a Wokou state when the Japanese pirate-lord Tay Fusa, the expeditionary force was sent to explore the Cagayan Valley, to convert the natives to Catholicism, and to establish ecclesiastical missions and towns throughout the valley. On 29 June 1583, Spanish conquistador Juan de Salcedo traced the northern coastline of Luzon and set foot on the Massi, Tular, the provincias territorial delineation encompassed the present provinces of Batanes, Isabela, Quirino, Nueva Vizcaya, including portions of Kalinga and Apayao. The Spanish friars soon established mission posts in Camalaniugan and Lal-lo, the see was moved in 1758 to Vigan because of its relative distance. The Spanish influence can still be seen in the massive churches, in 1839, Nueva Vizcaya was established as a politico-military province and was separated from Cagayan. Later, Isabela was founded as a province on May 1,1856, its areas carved from southern Cagayan. During the late 18th century, the New Spain government encouraged the expansion of trade and he worked in the Philippines as Minister of the Indies from 1776 to 1787, constructing a similar monopoly there under Governor-General Basco y Vargas. The Spanish development of industry affected all their economic gains in the Philippines
4.
Cagua Volcano
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Cagua Volcano is a stratovolcano located in the Philippine province of Cagayan. It is one of the volcanoes in the Philippines and has erupted twice in recorded history. Its last eruption was in 1907, cagua is one of the active volcanoes in the Philippines located in the province of Cagayan in the Cagayan Valley Region of northern Luzon in the northernmost part of the Sierra Madre mountain range. The mountain is approximately 12 kilometres south of Gonzaga, Cagayan and 14 kilometres south of Port Irene in Santa Ana, activity of the early Pleistocene erupted basaltic andesite or effusive basalt. The volcano was covered by lava flows from 600,000 to 300,000 years ago. It has seen activity ranging from phreatic eruptions to ash flows, the volcano is topped by a 1. 5-kilometer wide crater marked by sharp and precipitous walls. Maasok near the crater, Marafil in the northwest, Manaring,5 kilometres north-northeast, San Jose,10 km north-northeast, Kabinlangan,3 km northwest, two historical eruptions have taken place at the volcano. Activity in 1860 was a phreatic eruption though it was possibly followed by a pyroclastic flow. Renewed eruptions took place in 1907, Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology
5.
Bayombong Cathedral
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The Saint Dominic Cathedral, commonly referred to as the Bayombong Cathedral, is an 18th-century, Baroque church located at Brgy. The cathedral, which is the seat of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Bayombong, is under the patronage of Saint Dominic. The mission in present-day Bayombong had its roots in the century when it was formally accepted by the Dominicans as mission center in a region previously referred to as Paniqui. Soon after founding the mission, the erection of the structure took place in 1780 under the supervision of Father Juan Crespo. According to records, the church, and other structures, was gutted by fire in 1892. Father Cerefino Martinez, O. P. initiated the reconstruction of the church and it was completed three years after, in 1895, with the installation of galvanized iron roofing, new altarpieces and a new pulpit. A difference, however between this church and the two above-mentioned churches is the lack of columns framing the windows, the slightly-detached, octagonal campanile is also distinct to the church of Bayombong. The façade, with its appearance, is divided into four sections by cornices. The façade is ornamented with two windows on the level and an oculus on the third level. Media related to Bayombong Cathedral at Wikimedia Commons
6.
Geographic coordinate system
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A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system used in geography that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation, to specify a location on a two-dimensional map requires a map projection. The invention of a coordinate system is generally credited to Eratosthenes of Cyrene. Ptolemy credited him with the adoption of longitude and latitude. Ptolemys 2nd-century Geography used the prime meridian but measured latitude from the equator instead. Mathematical cartography resumed in Europe following Maximus Planudes recovery of Ptolemys text a little before 1300, in 1884, the United States hosted the International Meridian Conference, attended by representatives from twenty-five nations. Twenty-two of them agreed to adopt the longitude of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, the Dominican Republic voted against the motion, while France and Brazil abstained. France adopted Greenwich Mean Time in place of local determinations by the Paris Observatory in 1911, the latitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle between the equatorial plane and the straight line that passes through that point and through the center of the Earth. Lines joining points of the same latitude trace circles on the surface of Earth called parallels, as they are parallel to the equator, the north pole is 90° N, the south pole is 90° S. The 0° parallel of latitude is designated the equator, the plane of all geographic coordinate systems. The equator divides the globe into Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the longitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle east or west of a reference meridian to another meridian that passes through that point. All meridians are halves of great ellipses, which converge at the north and south poles, the prime meridian determines the proper Eastern and Western Hemispheres, although maps often divide these hemispheres further west in order to keep the Old World on a single side. The antipodal meridian of Greenwich is both 180°W and 180°E, the combination of these two components specifies the position of any location on the surface of Earth, without consideration of altitude or depth. The grid formed by lines of latitude and longitude is known as a graticule, the origin/zero point of this system is located in the Gulf of Guinea about 625 km south of Tema, Ghana. To completely specify a location of a feature on, in, or above Earth. Earth is not a sphere, but a shape approximating a biaxial ellipsoid. It is nearly spherical, but has an equatorial bulge making the radius at the equator about 0. 3% larger than the radius measured through the poles, the shorter axis approximately coincides with the axis of rotation
7.
Philippines
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The Philippines, officially the Republic of the Philippines, is a sovereign island country in Southeast Asia situated in the western Pacific Ocean. It consists of about 7,641 islands that are categorized broadly under three main geographical divisions from north to south, Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao, the capital city of the Philippines is Manila and the most populous city is Quezon City, both part of Metro Manila. The Philippines has an area of 300,000 square kilometers, and it is the eighth-most populated country in Asia and the 12th most populated country in the world. As of 2013, approximately 10 million additional Filipinos lived overseas, multiple ethnicities and cultures are found throughout the islands. In prehistoric times, Negritos were some of the archipelagos earliest inhabitants and they were followed by successive waves of Austronesian peoples. Exchanges with Chinese, Malay, Indian, and Islamic nations occurred, then, various competing maritime states were established under the rule of Datus, Rajahs, Sultans or Lakans. The arrival of Ferdinand Magellan in Homonhon, Eastern Samar in 1521 marked the beginning of Hispanic colonization, in 1543, Spanish explorer Ruy López de Villalobos named the archipelago Las Islas Filipinas in honor of Philip II of Spain. With the arrival of Miguel López de Legazpi from Mexico City, in 1565, the Philippines became part of the Spanish Empire for more than 300 years. This resulted in Roman Catholicism becoming the dominant religion, during this time, Manila became the western hub of the trans-Pacific trade connecting Asia with Acapulco in the Americas using Manila galleons. Aside from the period of Japanese occupation, the United States retained sovereignty over the islands until after World War II, since then, the Philippines has often had a tumultuous experience with democracy, which included the overthrow of a dictatorship by a non-violent revolution. It is a member of the United Nations, World Trade Organization, Association of Southeast Asian Nations, the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum. It also hosts the headquarters of the Asian Development Bank, the Philippines was named in honor of King Philip II of Spain. Spanish explorer Ruy López de Villalobos, during his expedition in 1542, named the islands of Leyte, eventually the name Las Islas Filipinas would be used to cover all the islands of the archipelago. Before that became commonplace, other such as Islas del Poniente. The official name of the Philippines has changed several times in the course of its history, during the Philippine Revolution, the Malolos Congress proclaimed the establishment of the República Filipina or the Philippine Republic. From the 1898 Treaty of Paris, the name Philippines began to appear, since the end of World War II, the official name of the country has been the Republic of the Philippines. The metatarsal of the Callao Man, reliably dated by uranium-series dating to 67,000 years ago is the oldest human remnant found in the archipelago to date and this distinction previously belonged to the Tabon Man of Palawan, carbon-dated to around 26,500 years ago. Negritos were also among the archipelagos earliest inhabitants, but their first settlement in the Philippines has not been reliably dated, there are several opposing theories regarding the origins of ancient Filipinos
8.
Island groups of the Philippines
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The geographical divisions of the Philippines are the three island groups of Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao. Luzon and Mindanao are both named after the largest island in their groups, while the Visayas is an archipelago. If a province is reassigned into a new region, it can also be reassigned to a new group, as is the case with Palawan. The island groups themselves do not have governments of their own, but are divided into provinces, cities, municipalities and barangays. Although the island groups do not have local governments, hence capitals, certain cities have become the political, economic, Manila is the national capital and is the de facto capital of Luzon, though neighbouring Quezon City, a former capital, has more inhabitants than Manila. Cebu, on the province and island of the name, is the chief city of the Visayas. Mindanaos main city is Davao, towards its southeast
9.
Luzon
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Luzon (/luːˈzɒn/, Tagalog pronunciation, is the largest and most populous island in the Philippines. It is ranked 15th largest in the world, with a population of 52.99 million as of 2015, it is the fourth most populous island in the world, containing about 53% of the countrys total population. Luzon may also refer to one of the three island groups in the country. The name Luzon is thought to derive from the Tagalog word lusong, from just before the first millennium, the Tagalog and Kapampangan peoples of south and central Luzon had established several Indianized kingdoms, notably among them those of Tundok and Namayan. The Laguna Copperplate Inscription, the first Philippine document written in 900AD, names places in and these kingdoms were based on leases between village rulers and landlords or Rajahs, to whom tributes and taxes were levied. These kingdoms were coastal thalassocracies based on trade with neighboring Asian political entities at that time, some parts of Luzon were Islamized when the Sultanate of Brunei expanded its realms from Borneo to the Philippines and set up the Kingdom of Maynila as its puppet-state. In addition, other kingdoms like the Wangdom of Pangasinan had become tributary states to China and were largely Sinified kingdoms, certain kilns were renowned over others and prices depended on the reputation of the kiln. Of this flourishing trade, the Burnay jars of Ilocos are the large clay jar manufactured in Luzon today with origins from this time. The Yongle Emperor instituted a Chinese Governor on Luzon during Zheng Hes voyages, China also had vassals among the leaders in the archipelago. China attained ascendancy in trade with the area in Yongles reign, in the 1500s, people from Luzon were called Lucoes and were actively employed in trading, seafaring and military campaigns across Southeast Asia. The Portuguese were the first European explorers who recorded it in their charts as Luçonia or Luçon, edmund Roberts, who visited Luzon in the early 19th century, wrote that Luzon was discovered in 1521. Many people from Luzon had active-employment in Portuguese Malacca and his father and wife carried on his maritime trading business after his death. Another important Malacca trader was Curia de Raja who also hailed from Luzon, the surname of de Raja or diraja could indicate that Regimo and Curia, and their families, were of noble or royal descent as the term is an abbreviation of Sanskrit adiraja. Pinto noted that there were a number of Lucoes in the Islamic fleets that went to battle with the Portuguese in the Philippines during the 16th century, the Sultan of Aceh gave one of them the task of holding Aru in 1540. Pinto also says one was named leader of the Malays remaining in the Moluccas Islands after the Portuguese conquest in 1511, pigafetta notes that one of them was in command of the Brunei fleet in 1521. However, the Luções did not only fight on the side of the Muslims, pinto says they were also apparently among the natives of the Philippines who fought the Muslims in 1538. On Mainland Southeast Asia, Lusung/Lucoes warriors aided the Burmese king in his invasion of Siam in 1547 AD, at the same time, Lusung warriors fought alongside the Siamese king and faced the same elephant army of the Burmese king in the defence of the Siamese capital at Ayuthaya. Scholars have thus suggested that they could be valued by all sides
10.
Tuguegarao
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Tuguegarao, is a 3rd-class component city in the Philippines. It is the capital of the province of Cagayan and the regional and institutional center of Cagayan Valley Region, the population of the city as of the 2015 census is 153,502 people. Most of the inhabitants are Ilocanos, Ibanags and Itawes, some are of Chinese and Indian descent. The highest temperature recorded in the Philippines --42.2 °C —was recorded in Tuguegarao on April 29,1912. Average temperature during March and April is 38 °C, one of the highest in the country, the city is politically subdivided into 49 barangays. 31 of these barangays have been classified by the city as urban, most of the rural barangays have agricultural territories, although some of the urbanized ones have mixed commercial, residential, and agricultural sites. There are several versions of legends looming about the origin of the name of the city of Tuguegarao, one is the abundance of tarrao trees in the area. Another is from the word meaning fire. Another recorded version is, the town was formerly called Tuerao by the people of the northern towns, still another is that the name Tuguegarao comes from two Ibanag words tuggi and aggao, possibly referring to a daytime fire that happened in the town. The settlement was a small in terms of population but was big in territory, as a mission pueblo and with assigned encomendero to Tuguegarao, the inhabitants were made to pay taxes in the form of poultry products and other food products. Resentments later flared and the people of Tuguegarao revolted in 1605, again, the people of Tuguegarao revolted in 1718 and then 1761 under a leader named Rivera. The present chapel is the latest in a process of rebuilding started in 1724 when it was rebuilt by Fr. Bernabe de la Magdalena, O. P. Tuguegarao became the capital of Cagayan province in 1839 when the seat of power was relocated from Lal-lo. The decline of Lal-lo became the transformation of Tuguegarao as the most important town in Cagayan, Tuguegarao was occupied by American troops on December 12,1899. During World War II, the city and its airfield of some significance was captured by the Japanese Imperial Army on December 12,1941 as part of the Japanese invasion of Aparri. The General Headquarters of the Philippine Commonwealth Army, Philippine Constabulary, the city and airfield were bombed by the US and Philippine regularly between January and May 1945, and attacked by Donald Blackburns guerrilla forces in June 1945. Sitio Capatan was elevated into a barrio Capatan of Tuguegarao on April 3,1959, Tuguegarao was once the only first-class municipality in the province of Cagayan. It has served as the capital of Cagayan since 1839 because of the notable socio-economic progress of the town
11.
Philippine Standard Time
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Philippine Standard Time, also known as Philippine Time and informally Juan Time, is the official name for the time in the Philippines. The country only uses one time zone, and for a short period, geographically, the Philippines lies within 116°40′ and 126°34′ east of the Prime Meridian, and is physically located within the UTC+08,00 time zone. Philippine Standard Time is maintained by the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration, the Philippines shares the same time zone with Hong Kong, Macau, Singapore, most parts of China, Taiwan, Malaysia, Brunei, central Indonesia, and Western Australia. Philippine Standard Time was instituted through Batas Pambansa Blg,8, approved on 2 December 1978 and implemented on 1 January 1983. The Philippines is one of the few countries to officially and almost exclusively use the 12-hour clock in non-military situations. From 1521 to 1844, the Philippines had the date as Mexico. Monday,30 December 1844 was immediately followed by Wednesday,1 January 1845 and this meant that International Date Line moved from going west of the Philippines to go on the east side of the country. At the time, local time was used to set clocks, meaning that every place used its own local time based on its longitude. Television and radio stations in the Philippines display the time, in September 2011, the Department of Science and Technology proposed to synchronise time nationwide in an effort to discourage tardiness. On May 15,2013, President Benigno Aquino III signed Republic Act No,10535, better known as the The Philippine Standard Time Act of 2013 as a last step to finally implement the Juan Time. Effective June 1,2013, all government offices and media networks will be required to use Philippine Standard Time as a basis to set their timepieces, in addition, the first week of January will be regularly observed as the National Time Consciousness Week. The IANA time zone database contains one zone for the Philippines in the file zone. tab, hapon starts at 1,00 PM and ends 5,59 PM. Gabí starts at 6,00 PM and ends 12,00 AM which is Hatinggabi, madalíng Araw starts at 12,01 AM and ends 4,59 AM. Except in very formal situations, Filipinos rarely use the numbers in telling time. - Alas otso kwarenta y uno ng gabí or Apatnapút-isá makalipas ng ikawaló ng gabí5,30 A. M, - Alas singko y medya ng umaga or Tatlumpûng minuto makalipas ng ikalimá ng umaga or ikalimá at kalaháti ng umaga 3,00 P. M. - Alas tres ng hapon o Ikatló ng hapon 12,00 P. M, - Alas dose ng tanghalì o Ikalabíndalawá ng tanghalì12,00 A. M. - Alas dose ng hatinggabi o Ikalabíndalawá ng hatinggabí2,00 A. M
12.
Provinces of the Philippines
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The provinces of the Philippines are the primary political and administrative divisions of the Philippines. There are 81 provinces at present, further subdivided into component cities and municipalities, the National Capital Region, as well as independent cities, are independent of any provincial government. Each province is governed by a legislature called the Sangguniang Panlalawigan. The provinces are grouped into 18 regions based on geographical, cultural, fifteen of these regions are designated with numbers corresponding to their geographic location in order from north to south. The Cordillera Administrative Region, National Capital Region, Negros Island Region, each province is a member of the League of Provinces of the Philippines, an organization which aims to address issues affecting provincial and metropolitan government administrations. A provincial government is autonomous of other provinces within the Republic, each province is governed by two main elected branches of the government, executive and legislative. Judicial affairs are separated from provincial governance and are administered by the Supreme Court of the Philippines, the provincial governor is chief executive and head of each province. The vice governor acts as the president for each Sangguniáng Panlalawigan, every SP is composed of regularly elected members from provincial districts, as well as ex officio members. The number of regularly elected SP members allotted to each province is determined by its income class, first- and second-class provinces are provided ten regular SP members, third- and fourth-class provinces have eight, while fifth- and sixth-class provinces have six. Exceptions are provinces with more than five congressional districts, such as Cavite with 14 regularly elected SP members, every SP has designated seats for ex officio members, given to the respective local presidents of the Association of Barangay Captains, Philippine Councilors League, and Sangguniáng Kabataan. The vice governor and regular members of an SP are elected by the voters within the province, ex officio members are elected by members of their respective organisations. National intrusion into the affairs of each provincial government is limited by the Philippine Constitution, the President of the Philippines however coordinates with provincial administrators through the Department of the Interior and Local Government. For purposes of representation, each province is guaranteed its own congressional district. One congressional representative represents each district in the House of Representatives, senatorial representation is elected at an at-large basis and not apportioned through territory-based districts. Those classified as highly urbanized or independent component cities are independent from the province. Local government units classified as component cities and municipalities are under the jurisdiction of the provincial government, the provincial government does not have direct relations with individual barangays. Supervision over a government is the mandate of the mayor. Provinces are classified according to annual income based on the previous 4 calendar years
13.
Batanes
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Batanes is an archipelago province in the Philippines situated in the Cagayan Valley region. It is the northernmost province in the country, and also the smallest and its capital is Basco located in the island of Batan. The ancestors of todays Ivatans descended from Austronesians who migrated to the islands 4,000 years ago during the Neolithic period and they lived in fortified mountain areas called idjangs and drank sugar-cane wine, or palek. They also used gold as currency and produced a thriving agriculture-based industry and they were also seafarers and boat-builders. In 1687, a crew of English freebooters headed by William Dampier came with a Dutch crew, Itbayat was named Orange Isle after William of Orange, and Batan was named Grafton Isle after Henry FitzRoy, 1st Duke of Grafton. Sabtang Isle was named Monmouth Isle after James Scott, 1st Duke of Monmouth, capt. Dampier stayed for less than three months, and did not claim the islands for the British crown. In 1783, the Spanish claimed Batanes as part of the Philippines under the auspices of Governor-General José Basco y Vargas, however, the Ivatan remained on their idjangs, or mountain fortresses. In 1790, Governor Guerrero decreed that Ivatans were to leave their idjang and to live in the lowlands, Basco and Ivana were the first towns. Mahatao was then administered by Basco, while Uyugan and Sabtang, Itbayat was not organized until the 1850s, its coast being a ridge. Ivatans were ordered to dress like the other Filipinos, and it didnt take long to adapt. Soon, Ilocanos were being put in the islands, so as to control the population there. Limestone technology used by the Spanish also spread to the islands, so that their bridges became strong, some of these bridges still remain at Ivana and Mahatao. By 1890, many Ivatans were in Manila, and became ilustrados and these Ivatans, who were then discontented with Spanish rule, killed the ruling General Fortea and declared the end of Spanish rule. Toward the end of the Spanish regime, Batanes was made a part of Cagayan, in 1909, the American authorities organized it into an independent province. During the American colonial period, public schools were constructed and more Ivatan became aware of their place in the Philippines, in 1920, the first wireless telegraph was installed, followed by an airfield in 1930. Roads were constructed and the Batanes High School was instituted, because of their strategic location, the islands was one of the first points occupied by invading Japanese imperial forces at the outbreak of the Pacific War. The morning of December 8,1941, the Batan Task Force from Taiwan landed on the Batan Islands, the purpose of the invasion was to secure the existing small airfield outside Basco, which was accomplished without resistance. Japanese fighters from Basco took part in the raid on Clark Air Base the following day, one of the first School Superintendents on Batan was Victor de Padua, an Ilocano, who in 1942–45 during the Japanese occupation was made Provincial Governor
14.
Isabela (province)
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Isabela is the second largest province of the Philippines, and the largest on the island of Luzon in land area. Its capital is the city of Ilagan and this primarily agricultural province is the rice and corn granary of Luzon due to its plain and rolling terrain. In 2012, the province was declared as the top producer of corn with 1,209,524 metric tons. Isabela is the 10th richest province in the Philippines in 2011, the province has four trade centers in the cities of Ilagan, Cauayan, Santiago and the municipality of Roxas. Prior to 1856, the Cagayan Valley was divided into two provinces, Cagayan and Nueva Vizcaya. The Province of Cagayan at that time consisted of all towns from Tumauini to Aparri in the north, all other towns from Ilagan southward to Aritao comprised the Province of the old Nueva Vizcaya. The province was placed under the jurisdiction of a governor with Ilagan as the capital and it was initially called Isabela de Luzón to differentiate from other places in the Philippines bearing the name of Isabela. The new province was named after Queen Isabella II of Spain, Isabela was re-organized as a province under the American military government through Act No. The Americans built schools and other buildings and instituted changes in the political system. However, the economy remained particularly agricultural with rice replacing corn. World War II stagnated the provinces economic growth but it recovered dramatically after the war, in 1942, Imperial Japanese occupied Isabela. A new wave of immigration began in the late 19th and 20th centuries with the arrival of the Ilokano who came in large numbers and they now constitute the largest group in the province. Other ethnic groups followed that made Isabela the Melting Pot of the Northern Philippines, in 1995, Republic Act Number 7891 was passed legislating that Isabela be divided into two new provinces, Isabela del Norte and Isabela del Sur. A referendum was held on the year with a strong majority voting against partitioning the province. In 2012, the town of Ilagan officially became a city. The night after the plebiscite, Ilagan was declared as a component city of the province, Isabela comprises an aggregate land area of 12,414.93 square kilometres, representing almost 40 percent of the regional territory. It is the largest province in the island of Luzon and the second largest province in the Philippines by land area, to the east lies the Philippine Sea, making Isabela one of the typhoon-prone provinces in the country. The province is divided into three physiographic areas, the eastern area, straddled by the Sierra Madre mountain range, is rugged and thickly forested
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Nueva Vizcaya
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Nueva Vizcaya is a province of the Philippines located in Cagayan Valley region in Luzon. It is bordered by Benguet to the west, Ifugao to the north, Isabela to the northeast, Quirino to the east, Aurora to the southeast, Nueva Ecija to the south, and Pangasinan to the southwest. The name Nueva Vizcaya is derived from the name of the province of Biscay in the Spanish rule period and this can be seen in the right part of the seal, a representation of the heraldic of Vizcaya in Spain. The areas of present-day Nueva Vizcaya used to be a territory of the vast Provincia de Cagayan, organized religion in Nueva Vizcaya dates back to the year 1607, when the Dominican Order arrived at the hinterlands of the province to preach their beliefs. It was not until 1609, however, that the first settlement of an order was established in the southern half of the province. In 1702, a convent was erected in Burubur at the foot of the Caraballo Mountains in Santa Clara and it was on this site that the first mass in Nueva Vizcaya was celebrated and the first baptism of a Christian convert was held. In 1839, upon the advice of the mayor of Cagayan. The order was approved by a Royal Decree on April 10,1841, the original province covered the areas of present-day Nueva Vizcaya, Quirino, Mountain Province, and a large portion of Isabela, as well as much of Aurora. Civil government was established in the province by the Philippine Commission in 1902, in 1908, the northwestern territory of Nueva Vizcaya was annexed to the newly organized sub-province of Ifugao. The survey executed by the Bureau of Lands in 1914 further caused the diminution of its area, during the Second World War, Balete Pass was the scene of a major battle between the Japanese and American forces, with the Americans gaining the victory on 31 May 1945. In 1971, with the passage of Republic Act No,6394, Quirino, which was then a sub-province of Nueva Vizcaya, was separated from its mother province and made into a regular province. Since Nueva Vizcayas birth as a province, traces of the culture and customs of its early settlers—the Ilongots, Igorots, Ifugaos, Isinais, the influx of civilization and the infusion of modern technology to the life stream of the province induced immigration from adjacent provinces. Surrounded by North Luzons three large mountain ranges, Nueva Vizcaya is generally mountainous, varying from steep mountains to rolling hills, with some valleys and plains. It is bordered on the west by the Cordillera mountains, on the east by the Sierra Madre mountains, the province are separated from the Central Luzon plains by the Caraballo Mountains. The province has a land area of 3,975.67 square kilometres. The southernmost province in the Cagayan Valley region, Nueva Vizcaya lies approximately 268 kilometres north of Metro Manila, all municipalities are encompassed by a lone legislative district. The 15 municipalities of the province comprise a total of 275 barangays, with Roxas in Solano as the most populous in 2010, and Santa Rosa in Santa Fe as the least. The population of Nueva Vizcaya in the 2015 census was 452,287 people, Nueva Vizcaya is home to about 18 indigenous peoples, which includes the major tribes of the Ifugao, Gaddang, Isinai, Dumagat, Kalanguya, and the Bugkalot
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Quirino
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Quirino is a landlocked province in the Philippines located in the Cagayan Valley region in Luzon and named after Elpidio Quirino, the sixth President of the Philippines. The province borders Aurora to the southeast, Nueva Vizcaya to the west, Quirino used to be part of the province of Nueva Vizcaya, until it was separated in 1966. Long before its creation as an independent province, Quirino was the forest region of the province of Nueva Vizcaya. They roamed the hinterlands and built their huts at the heart of the jungle, on June 21,1969, Republic Act 5554 was enacted, amending RA4734 and creating the municipality of Cabarroguis, which was taken from portions of Diffun, Saguday, and Aglipay. Republic Act 6394, authored by then Congressman Leonardo B, perez, was passed on September 10,1971 further amending RA5554 and separating the sub-province of Quirino from its mother province, Nueva Vizcaya, constituting it into a regular province. On February 25,1983, Batas Pambansa Blg.345 was enacted, creating within Quirino the municipality of Nagtipunan, Quirino covers a total area of 2,323.47 square kilometres occupying the southeastern section of the Cagayan Valley region. The Sierra Madre mountain range provides a barrier on the eastern and southern border of the province. The province is mountainous, with about 80 percent of the total land area covered by mountains. A large portion of the lies within the Quirino Protected Landscape. The province has an annual temperature of 33.6 °C. May is generally the warmest month and the wettest months are March to August, heavy, sustained rainfall occurs from September to November. Quirino comprises 6 municipalities, all encompassed by a legislative district. The 6 municipalities of the province comprise a total of 132 barangays, with Gundaway in Cabarroguis as the most populous in 2010, and Rang-ayan in Aglipay as the least. The population of Quirino in the 2015 census was 188,991 people, the major languages are Ilocano and Ifugao. Other languages are Bungkalot, Pangasinan, Kankana-ey, Tagalog, Quirino is predominantly Roman Catholic with 70 percent adherence while Aglipayan and United Methodist Church serve as minorities. Some people still practice indigenous beliefs, other Christians are also well represented. Agriculture is the industry in the province, with rice. These supply the demand of neighboring provinces and the metropolis and it is the leading producer of banana in the Cagayan Valley region
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Cities of the Philippines
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A city is one of the units of local government in the Philippines. As of December 12,2015, there are 145 cities, Cities are entitled to at least one representative in the Philippine House of Representatives if its population reaches 250,000. They are allowed to use a common seal, only an Act of Congress can create or amend a city charter, and with this city charter Congress confers on a city certain powers that regular municipalities or even other cities may not have. A citys local government is headed by an elected by popular vote. The vice mayor serves as the officer of the Sangguniang Panlungsod. Upon receiving their charters, cities also receive a full complement of executive departments to serve their constituents. Some departments are established on a basis, depending on the needs of the city. Source, Local Government Code of 1991, Cities, like municipalities, are composed of barangays, which can range from urban neighborhoods, to rural communities. Barangays are sometimes grouped into officially defined administrative districts, examples of such are the cities of Manila, Davao, Iloilo, and Samal. Some cities such as Caloocan, Manila and Pasay even have a level between the district and barangay levels, called a zone. However, geographic districts and zones are not political units, there are no elected city government officials in these city-specific administrative levels, rather they only serve to make city planning, statistics-gathering other administrative tasks easier and more convenient. Cities are classified according to annual income based on the previous four calendar years. There are currently 33 highly urbanized cities in the Philippines,16 of which are located in Metro Manila, Component Cities, Cities which do not meet the preceding requirements are deemed part of the province in which they are geographically located. If a component city is located along the boundaries of two or more provinces, it shall be considered part of the province of which it used to be a municipality, majority of the remaining cities are considered component cities. The five exceptions are listed below, independent Component Cities, Cities of this type have charters that explicitly prohibit their residents to vote for provincial officials. These cities are considered independent from the province in which they are geographically located, there are five such cities, Cotabato, Dagupan, Naga, Ormoc and Santiago. There are 38 independent cities in the Philippines, all of which are classified as highly urbanized or independent component cities. Some independent cities are still grouped with their provinces for the purposes of representation in the Congress of the Philippines
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Cauayan, Isabela
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Cauayan, officially the City of Cauayan or simply Cauayan City, is a 3rd class city in the province of Isabela, Philippines. According to the 2015 census, it has a population of 129,523 people, a small town is founded in 1852 along the Cagayan River and in 2001, converted to a component city. During the Spanish regime, the city is a part of the Tobacco industry, Cauayan City is nearly the geographic center of the province and bordered by 7 neighboring towns which makes it as an important economic center of the province. In the recent years, there is an increase in economic activities, Cauayan City is a fast-growing rural industrial center centrally located in the province and in the entire stretch out of Cagayan Valley. Cauayan have its name from the word Kawayan meaning bulo in the Ilocano language, how it got its name is vaguely told by the natives. In the tale, early Spaniards reached the place found abundant bamboo trees along creeks that circled the town site of Bulod, Sipat, Bungkol and it was also a common to see crocodiles basking under the cluster of bamboo along the creeks in the early morning sun. Another version of how the town was named is this way, for many weeks, a tireless search was undertaken but it was nowhere to be found. Then one day in October the image was found among the bamboo groves, not a single sign of mishandling or scratch was detected on the image. Cauayan used to be a big municipality in terms of land area, with the creation of the neighboring municipalities of Luna Cabatuan, Reina Mercedes, Aurora and San Mateo, however, the land area was reduced to about 336.40 square kilometers. Cauayan town was once a part of the province of Cagayan, when Nueva Vizcaya was created as a province in 1839, Cauayan was transferred to it. On May 1,1856, the province of Isabela was created by a Royal Decree, Cauayan was again administratively transferred, founded in 1740, Cauayan antedates the establishment of Isabela by 116 years. The town site was first located in a place called Calanusian along the Cagayan River, after a series of disastrous floods, the town site was moved to its present location. Cauayan City is politically subdivided into 65 barangays, in the 2015 census, the population of Cauayan, Isabela, was 129,523 people, with a density of 390 inhabitants per square kilometre or 1,000 inhabitants per square mile. Cauayan is a third city in the province of Isabela. Cauayan City has been selected to host the Proposed Isabela Special Economic Zone, there are over 2,422 commercial establishments that include distributors, wholesalers and retailers. Cauayan city is a producer of rice and corn. A total of 24,004 hectares or 69. 9% hectares is utilized for palay production, average yield per hectare per cropping is 4.5 MT for rice and corn. Other products include livestock and poultry, fruits and vegetables, and fishery products such as hito, the National Irrigation Administration has an office in the city
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Ilagan
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Ilagan, officially the City of Ilagan, is a 2nd class city and the provincial capital of the province of Isabela, Philippines. It is the most populous city in the province with a population of 145,568 according to 2015 census. With a total area of 116,626 hectares, it is the largest city in the island of Luzon. It holds the title as the most number of voters in the province with 88,413 voters, Ilagan was a first class municipality before becoming a city. The town was called by its native Gaddang settlers as Bolo during the pre-Spanish conquest era. It is one of the settlement during that period and site of the vast tobacco plantation in the region making it one of the most important economic areas in northern Luzon. Shortly after Juan de Salcedo conquered Northern Luzon in 1587, Gov. Rodrigo de Penalosa sent Capt. Pablo de Carreon to explore Cagayan Valley as well as to establish missions in towns. Among the Spanish missionaries who penetrated deeply into the region was P. Pedro Jimenez, the town of Bolo was founded by the Dominicans in 1619 in honor of Saint Ferdinand of Castile. The old Bolo was situated in the side of Cagayan River in what is known today as Barangay Naguilian-Baculod. The natives abandoned their settlement after burning their church and houses until 1622 when the Spanish government pardoned and exempted them from paying tribute within three years, after the Gaddang revolt, the natives re-established their settlement upon the efforts of Fr. Pedro Jimenez in 1678 on the east side of the river giving the legendary name for Ilagan which is the reverse of the word Nagali meaning transfer. The Dominicans accepted the settlement as a mission given the name San Fernando de Ilagan in honor of its patron. On May 4,1686, Ilagan was founded and missionaries converted the natives to Christianity, Ilagan was made the capital of Cagayan Valley when Brig. Manuel Sanchez Mira was then the governor of the whole territory. Upon the separation of Isabela on May 1,1856, Ilagan became the capital of the province, rafael Maramag, a former municipal president of Ilagan was appointed as the first governor. The act then re-established Ilagan as the provincial capital, on November 13,1925, Gaffud has approved a resolution filed by all Municipal Presidents of the Isabela following a four-day convention. The resolution called for the erection of a monument in honor of the countrys National Hero José Rizal in the old Ilagan public plaza in Barangay Bagumbayan. By the turn of the 1950s the new Poblacion was located uphill from the old Saint Ferdinand Parish Church to Barangay San Vicente, site of the current City Hall, Ilagan could have been the second city of the Philippines after Nueva Segovia, now Lal-Lo, Cagayan. During the administration of then Mayor Paguirigan, but was shelved during the American occupation, on February 2,1998, congress passed Republic Act No.8474 which sought to convert Ilagan into a city
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Santiago (Philippine city)
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It is the gateway to the vast plains of Cagayan Valley. According to the 2015 census, it has a population of 134,830 people, Santiago is situated 331 kilometres north of Metro Manila. The early inhabitants were the Gaddangs and the Ibanags, when the Spanish settled in, the city was named Pueblo of Santiago Apostol de Carig, with Santiago as the Spanish name of Saint James the Apostle. In the early 1950s, the Municipal President Vicente Carreon changed the name to simply Santiago, Santiago remained a municipality for 84 years. Santiago was originally a part of the province Cagayan, which was reorganized as a subdivision in 1583 with Nueva Segovia as its capital. On May 1,1856, when the Province of Isabela was carved out by a Royal Decree, the first five barrios after the Cadastral survey in 1927 were Patul, Batal, Nabbuan, Buenavista and Dubinan. It was said there were only about three Filipino-owned sari-sari stores in Santiago in 1917. It was when the Villa-Verde Trail was opened when things were set in motion and it facilitated the entry of immigrants from various provinces in Luzon to the Cagayan Valley and Santiago absorbed a sizable share of these travelers. The new route served as an impetus for growth and introduced new technologies and business opportunities, in 1942 during World War II, the Japanese forces entered and occupied the town of Santiago. Santiago survived through wars, although badly damaged, and from then on developed to become the leading trading. On December 17,1993, the bill converting Santiago into an independent component city was approved by the Lower House spearheaded by the then Mayor Pempe Miranda, on the following year, the Senate Committee on Local Government approved another public hearing dated February 23,1994. On May 5,1994, by virtue or Republic Act 7720 signed by President Fidel V. Ramos, Santiago was pronounced as an independent component city and this made Santiago self-governing and independent from the province of Isabela. Republic Act 8528 repealed this statute transforming it to a component city and it was not until December 29,1999, when the Supreme Court contested the validity of the latter decision and favored Santiago to be once again an independent component city. The total land area the city is 80% flat or nearly level land in the portions of northwestern, eastern and western parts of the city, while adjacent areas have gently undulating and moderately rolling areas, and the remaining areas constitutes steeply undulating and rolling lands. The Balintocatoc Hills is the highest point in the city, the geographic coordinate of the city lies between 16º35’00” to 16º47’30” north latitude and 121º25’00” to 121º37’00” east longitude. The city has a climate with no pronounced wet or dry season, usually, the city has considerably dry climate with minimum rainfall. The average yearly temperature is measured at 24.9 °C, annual and daily temperature variation is minimal. Temperature ranges are usually from 18 to 35 °C, in the 2015 census, the population of Santiago, was 134,830 people, with a density of 530 inhabitants per square kilometre or 1,400 inhabitants per square mile
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Municipalities of the Philippines
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A municipality is a local government unit in the Philippines. Municipalities are also usually called towns and they are distinct from cities, which are a different category of local government unit. Provinces of the Philippines are divided into cities and municipalities, which in turn, are divided into barangays, as of June 2015, there are 1,490 municipalities across the country. A municipal district is a local government unit, previously certain areas were created first as municipal districts before they were converted into municipalities. Municipalities have some autonomy from the National Government of the Republic of the Philippines under the Local Government Code of 1991 and they have been granted corporate personality enabling them to enact local policies and laws, enforce them, and govern their jurisdictions. They can enter into contracts and other transactions through their elected and appointed officials and they are tasked with enforcing all laws, whether local or national. The National Government assists and supervises the local government to make sure that they do not violate national law, the Judicial Branch of the Republic of the Philippines also caters to the needs of local government units. Local governments, such as a municipalities, do not have their own judicial branch and these responsibilities shall be under approval of the Sangguniang Bayan. The vice mayor shall sign all warrants drawn on the municipal treasury, in circumstances where the mayor permanently or temporarily vacates the position, he shall assume executive duties and functions. While vice mayor presides over the legislature, he cannot vote unless the necessity of tie-breaking arises, laws or ordinances proposed by the Sangguniang Bayan, however, may be approved or vetoed by the mayor. If approved, they become local ordinances, if the mayor neither vetoes nor approves the proposal of the Sangguniang Bayan for ten days from the time of receipt, the proposal becomes law as if it had been signed. If vetoed, the draft is sent back to the Sangguniang Bayan, the latter may override the mayor by a vote of at least two-thirds of all its members, in which case, the proposal becomes law. A municipality, upon reaching a certain requirements – minimum population size, first, a bill must be passed in Congress, then signed into law by the President and then the residents would vote in the succeeding plebiscite to accept or reject cityhood. One benefit in being a city is that the city government gets more budget, but taxes are much higher than in municipalities
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Barangay
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A barangay, formerly referred to as barrio, is the smallest administrative division in the Philippines and is the native Filipino term for a village, district or ward. In colloquial usage, the term refers to an inner city neighbourhood. The word barangay originated from balangay, a kind of boat used by a group of Austronesian peoples when they migrated to the Philippines, as of June 2015, there were 42,029 barangays throughout the Philippines. When the first Spaniards arrived in the Philippines in the 16th century, the name barangay originated from balangay, a Malay word meaning sailboat. The first barangays started as small communities of around 50 to 100 families. By the time of contact with Spaniards, many barangays have developed into large communities, some of these barangays had large populations. In Panay, some barangays had 20,000 inhabitants, in Leyte,15,000 inhabitants, in Cebu,3,500 residents, in Vitis,7,000 inhabitants, there were smaller barangays with less number of people. But these were generally inland communities, or if they were coastal and these smaller barangays had around thirty to one hundred houses only, and the population varies from one hundred to five hundred persons. According to Legazpi, he found communities with twenty to thirty people only, traditionally, the original “barangays” were coastal settlements of the migration of these Malayo-Polynesian people from other places in Southeast Asia. Most of the ancient barangays were coastal or riverine in nature and this is because most of the people were relying on fishing for supply of protein and for their livelihood. They also travelled mostly by water up and down rivers, trails always followed river systems, which were also a major source of water for bathing, washing, and drinking. The coastal barangays were more accessible to trade with foreigners and these were ideal places for economic activity to develop. Business with traders from other countries also meant contact with cultures and civilizations, such as those of Japan, Han Chinese, Indian people. These coastal communities acquired more cosmopolitan cultures, with developed social structures, during the Spanish rule, through a resettlement policy called the Reducción, smaller scattered barangays were consolidated to form compact towns. Each barangay was headed by the cabeza de barangay, who formed part of the Principalía - the elite ruling class of the municipalities of the Spanish Philippines and this position was inherited from the first datus, and came to be known as such during the Spanish regime. The Spanish Monarch ruled each barangay through the Cabeza, who collected taxes from the residents for the Spanish Crown. When the Americans arrived, slight changes in the structure of government was effected. Later, Rural Councils with four councilors were created to assist, now renamed Barrio Lieutenant, it was later renamed Barrio Council, the Spanish term barrio was used for much of the 20th century until 1974, when President Ferdinand Marcos ordered their renaming to barangays
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House of Representatives of the Philippines
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The House of Representatives of the Philippines, is the lower house of the Congress of the Philippines. It is often informally called Congress, Members of the House are officially styled as Representative and sometimes informally called Congressmen/Congresswomen and are elected to a three-year term. They can be re-elected, but cannot serve more than three consecutive terms, around eighty percent of congressmen are district representatives, representing a particular geographical area. There are 234 legislative districts in the country, each composed of about 250,000 people, there are also party-list representatives elected through the party-list system who constitute not more than twenty percent of the total number of representatives. The House of Representatives is headed by the Speaker, currently Pantaleon Alvarez of Davao del Norte, the official headquarters of the House of Representatives is at the Batasang Pambansa located in the Batasan Hills in Quezon City in Metro Manila. The building is simply called Batasan and the word has also become a metonym to refer to the House of Representatives. At the beginning of American colonial rule, from March 16,1900, william Howard Taft was chosen to be the first American civilian Governor-General and the first leader of this Philippine Commission, which subsequently became known as the Taft Commission. This bicameral legislature was inaugurated in October 1907, under the leadership of Speaker Sergio Osmeña and Floor Leader Manuel L. Quezon, the Rules of the 59th United States Congress was substantially adopted as the Rules of the Philippine Legislature. It is this body, founded as the Philippine Assembly, that would continue in one form or another, in 1916, the Jones Act, officially the Philippine Autonomy Act, changed the legislative system. The Philippine Commission was abolished and a new fully elected, bicameral Philippine Legislature consisting of a House of Representatives, the legislative system was changed again in 1935. The 1935 Constitution established a unicameral National Assembly, but in 1940, through an amendment to the 1935 Constitution, a bicameral Congress of the Philippines consisting of a House of Representatives and a Senate was adopted. The Liberal bloc of the Nacionalistas permanently split from their ranks and these two will contest all of the elections in what appeared to be a two-party system. This set up continued until President Ferdinand Marcos declared martial law, the 1987 Constitution restored the presidential system of government together with a bicameral Congress of the Philippines. Corazon Aquino who nominally had no party, supported the Laban ng Demokratikong Pilipino, with the victory of Fidel V. This also meant the restoration of Lakas-NUCD as the top party in the chamber, the same would happen when Benigno Aquino won in 2010, which returned the Liberals into power. The presiding officer is the Speaker, the members of the House of Representatives who are also its officers are also ex officio members of all of the committees and has a vote. The Speaker is the head of the House of Representatives, the speaker is elected by majority of all the members of the house, including vacant seats. The speaker is elected at the convening of each Congress
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Languages of the Philippines
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There are some 120 to 175 languages and dialects in the Philippines, depending on the method of classification. Four others are no longer spoken, almost all are Malayo-Polynesian languages, whereas one, Chavacano, is a creole derived from a Romance language. Two are official, while nineteen are official auxiliary languages, including second-language speakers, there are more speakers of Filipino than English in the Philippines. The Komisyon sa Wikang Filipino enumerated 135 Philippine languages present in the country through its Atlas Filipinas map published in 2014. The indigenous scripts of the Philippines are no longer used, instead, Filipino languages are written in the Latin script because of the Spanish. The Arabic script is used in Muslim areas in some areas in southern Philippines. The 1987 Constitution declares Filipino as the language of the country. Spanish and Arabic are to be promoted on an optional and voluntary basis, in 1863 a Spanish decree introduced universal education, creating free public schooling in Spanish. It was also the language of the Philippine Revolution, and the 1899 Malolos Constitution effectively proclaimed it as the language of the First Philippine Republic. National hero José Rizal wrote most of his works in Spanish, luciano de la Rosa established that Spanish was spoken by a total of 60% of the population in the early 20th century as a first, second or third language. Following the American occupation of the Philippines and the imposition of English, under the U. S. occupation and civil regime, English began to be taught in schools. By 1901, public education used English as the medium of instruction, around 600 educators who arrived in that year aboard the USAT Thomas replaced the soldiers who also functioned as teachers. The 1935 Constitution added English as an official language alongside Spanish, a provision in this constitution also called for Congress to take steps toward the development and adoption of a common national language based on one of the existing native languages. On November 12,1937, the First National Assembly created the National Language Institute, President Manuel L. Quezón appointed native Waray speaker Jaime C. De Veyra to chair a committee of speakers of other regional languages. Their aim was to select a language among the other regional languages. Ultimately, Tagalog was chosen as the base language December 30,1937, in 1939, President Manuel L. Quezón renamed the Tagalog language as Wikang Pambansa. The language was renamed in 1959 as Pilipino by Secretary of Education Jose Romero. The 1973 constitution declared the Pilipino language to be co-official, along with English, in addition, Spanish regained its official status when President Marcos signed Presidential Decree No
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Ilocano language
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Ilocano is the third most-spoken native language of the Philippines. An Austronesian language, it is related to languages as Malay, Tetum, Chamorro, Fijian, Maori, Hawaiian, Samoan, Tahitian, Paiwan. It is closely related to some of the other Austronesian languages of Northern Luzon, and has slight mutual intelligibility with the Balangao language, Ilocano, like all Philippine languages, is an Austronesian language, a very expansive language family believed to originate in Taiwan. Ilocano comprises its own branch within the Philippine Cordilleran language subfamily and it is spoken as first language by seven million people. The language is spoken in northwest Luzon, the Babuyan Islands, Cordillera Administrative Region, Cagayan Valley, parts of Central Luzon, the language is also spoken in the United States, with Hawaii and California having the largest amount of speakers. It is the third most spoken language in Hawaii after Tagalog and Japanese. They used a system that is termed as an abugida, or an alphasyllabary and it was similar to the Tagalog and Pangasinan scripts, where each character represented a consonant-vowel, or CV, sequence. Before the addition of the virama, writers had no way to designate coda consonants, in the Spanish system words of Spanish origin kept their spellings. Native words, on the hand, conformed to the Spanish rules of spelling. Nowadays, only the generation of Ilocanos use the Spanish system. In the system based on that of Tagalog there is more of a phoneme-to-letter correspondence, the letters ng constitute a digraph and counts as a single letter, following n in alphabetization. As a result, numo humility appears before ngalngal to chew in newer dictionaries, Words of foreign origin, most notably those from Spanish, need to be changed in spelling to better reflect Ilocano phonology. Words of English origin may or may not conform to this orthography, a prime example using this system is the weekly magazine Bannawag. The following are two versions of the Lords Prayer, the one on the left is written using the Spanish-based orthography, while the one on the right uses the Tagalog-based system. It is recognized by the Commission on the Filipino Language as one of the languages of the Philippines. Constitutionally, Ilocano is an official language in the regions where it is spoken. In recent years, a movement in both the Lower and the Upper House of the Congress pressed for the usage of the tongue as a medium of instruction until the sixth grade. Ilocano animistic past offers a background in folklore, mythology
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Ibanag language
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Most of the speakers can also speak Ilocano, the lingua franca of northern Luzon island. The name Ibanag comes from the prefix I which means people of and it is closely related to Gaddang, Itawis, Agta, Atta, Yogad, Isneg, and Malaweg. Ibanag is one of the MTB languages now taught in Philippine schools, a E I O U Y Monophthongization of diphthongs is observable in Ibanag. For example, the words umay, balay or aggaw are sometimes pronounced as ume, bale, Ibanag is also one of the Philippine languages which are included in the - allophony. The Ibanag language is distinct in that it features sounds that are not present in many related Philippine languages. Certain unique phonemes of Ibanag compared to its sister languages feature consonants specifically as in innafi or rice, as in bavi or pig, as in kazzing or goat, in addition to this, Ibanag also features gemination. On the other hand, it belongs to the Northern Philippine languages subgroup where related yet larger Ilokano, since Ibanag is spoken in various areas of Northeastern Region of the Philippines, there are also minor differences in the way that it is spoken in these areas. Ibanag spoken in Tuguegarao is known to be the standard dialect, and other native Ibanag speakers usually distinguish if the speaker is from Tuguegarao City with the variation of their pronunciation and accent. Most who have adapted the urban dialects of Ibanag tend to have a Hispanic accent, in Tuguegarao City, before the Spaniards came, the language was Irraya. Spaniards introduced Ibanag to the city from Lal-lo and made the language as the lingua franca of the Northeastern Philippines, but with the introduction of Ilocano settlers, Ilocano has become the new lingua franca since the late 20th Century. Cauayan City speakers and Ilagan speakers in Isabela have an accent as opposed to the Tuguegarao Ibanag that sounded Hispanic. But, native speakers of Northern Cagayan have a harder accent, for example, Ibanags from towns in Northern Cagayan, which includes Abulug, Aparri, Camalaniugan, Pamplona and Lallo, tend to replace their ps with more fs. Also, certain Ibanag words differ from these areas as opposed to the Tuguegarao, on the other hand, Tuguegarao Ibanag, besides having Spanish influences may have acquired elements from nearby Itawis. At the same time, Isabela Ibanag may have acquired elements from the original Gaddang language predominant in the province. Some words used in the present such as innafi or rice, bavi or pig, afi or fire, are listed in Spanish texts as innafuy, bavuy, and afuy respectively. Also, the Ibanag term for the one, tadday, was once used interchangeably with the word itte. There are two ways that Ibanag can be written, in older texts, the Spanish style is often used. This is where qus, cs take place of ks, however, this method can make the language even harder to read
27.
Itawis language
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Itawis is a Northern Philippine language spoken by the Itawis people and is closely related to the Ibanag and Ilocano. Unlike the rest of Philippine languages, Itawit and its relatives use the consonants /z/, /f/, /v/, for example, fefeg, madyan, kazzing, and bavi. Itawis is spoken by the Itawis people of Northern Luzon who inhabit the province of Cagayan Valley and their range is from the lower Chico and Matalag rivers. In many towns by these rivers, Itawis are found with Ibanags, speakers of Itawis and Ibanag can easily understand each other because of the close relationship of their languages. The Itawis are linguistically and culturally closely related to the Ibanag. The Itawis language is classified as a Malayo-Polynesian language, in the family of languages called Austronesian. During the pre-Spanish period of the Philippines, words were borrowed from Spanish to stand in place for words that did not exist in the Itawis language, one such word is la mesa which means table, for Ancient Itawis didnt eat on tables which were introduced by the Spanish. In the town of Rizal, Cagayan, a language called Malaueg is spoken by a group of people of the same name and it is not yet clear whether Malaueg is a distinct language or not because its proximity to Itawis may possibly make it a dialect of the latter. Comparison to Ibanag Tharp, James A. and Mateo C, new Haven, CT, Human Relations Area Files. Itawis language word list from the Austronesian Basic Vocabulary Database
28.
Isinai language
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Isinai is a Northern Luzon language primarily spoken in Nueva Vizcaya province in the northern Philippines. By linguistic classification, it is divergent from other South-Central Cordilleran languages, such as Kalinga, Itneg or Ifugao. According to the Ethnologue, Isinai is spoken in Bambang, Dupax del Sur, Isinai contains a definite article with three different forms that vary depending on the relation of the noun. The forms of the article are, ar, ardari. Reid, Lawrence A. and Analyn Salvador-Amores, Baguio, Cordillera Studies Center, University of the Philippines, Baguio
29.
Tagalog language
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Tagalog is an Austronesian language spoken as a first language by a quarter of the population of the Philippines and as a second language by the majority. Its standardized form, officially named Filipino, is officially the national language, the word Tagalog is derived from the endonym taga-log, composed of tagá- and ilog. Linguists such as Dr. David Zorc and Dr. Robert Blust speculate that the Tagalogs, the first written record of Tagalog is the Laguna Copperplate Inscription, which dates to 900 CE and exhibits fragments of the language along with Sanskrit, Old Malay, Javanese and Old Tagalog. The first known book to be written in Tagalog is the Doctrina Christiana. Tagalog differs from its Central Philippine counterparts with its treatment of the Proto-Philippine schwa vowel *ə, in Bikol and Visayan, this sound merged with /u/ and. In Tagalog, it has merged with /i/, for example, Proto-Philippine *dəkət is Tagalog dikít and Visayan & Bikol dukot. Proto-Philippine *r, *j, and *z merged with /d/ but is /l/ between vowels, Proto-Philippine *ŋajan and *hajək became Tagalog ngalan and halík. Proto-Philippine *R merged with /ɡ/. *tubiR and *zuRuʔ became Tagalog tubig, the first substantial dictionary of the Tagalog language was written by the Czech Jesuit missionary Pablo Clain in the beginning of the 18th century. Clain spoke Tagalog and used it actively in several of his books and he wrote the first dictionary, which he later passed over to Francisco Jansens and José Hernandez. Tagalog was declared the language by the first constitution in the Philippines. In 1939, President Quezon renamed the proposed Tagalog-based national language as wikang pambansâ, in 1959, the language was further renamed as Pilipino. The 1987 constitution designated Filipino as the national language mandating that as it evolves, it shall be developed and enriched on the basis of existing Philippine. The regional languages are the official languages in the regions. In secondary school, Filipino and English become the primary languages of instruction and it is the first language by a quarter of the population of the Philippines and a second language by the majority. Tagalog is a Central Philippine language within the Austronesian language family, being Malayo-Polynesian, it is related to other Austronesian languages, such as Malagasy, Javanese, Malay, Tetum, and Yami. It is closely related to the languages spoken in the Bicol Region and the Visayas islands, such as the Bikol group and the Visayan group, including Hiligaynon and Cebuano. At present, no comprehensive dialectology has been done in the Tagalog-speaking regions, though there have been descriptions in the form of dictionaries and grammars of various Tagalog dialects. Some example of differences are, Many Tagalog dialects, particularly those in the south, preserve the glottal stop found after consonants
30.
Ilokano language
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Ilocano is the third most-spoken native language of the Philippines. An Austronesian language, it is related to languages as Malay, Tetum, Chamorro, Fijian, Maori, Hawaiian, Samoan, Tahitian, Paiwan. It is closely related to some of the other Austronesian languages of Northern Luzon, and has slight mutual intelligibility with the Balangao language, Ilocano, like all Philippine languages, is an Austronesian language, a very expansive language family believed to originate in Taiwan. Ilocano comprises its own branch within the Philippine Cordilleran language subfamily and it is spoken as first language by seven million people. The language is spoken in northwest Luzon, the Babuyan Islands, Cordillera Administrative Region, Cagayan Valley, parts of Central Luzon, the language is also spoken in the United States, with Hawaii and California having the largest amount of speakers. It is the third most spoken language in Hawaii after Tagalog and Japanese. They used a system that is termed as an abugida, or an alphasyllabary and it was similar to the Tagalog and Pangasinan scripts, where each character represented a consonant-vowel, or CV, sequence. Before the addition of the virama, writers had no way to designate coda consonants, in the Spanish system words of Spanish origin kept their spellings. Native words, on the hand, conformed to the Spanish rules of spelling. Nowadays, only the generation of Ilocanos use the Spanish system. In the system based on that of Tagalog there is more of a phoneme-to-letter correspondence, the letters ng constitute a digraph and counts as a single letter, following n in alphabetization. As a result, numo humility appears before ngalngal to chew in newer dictionaries, Words of foreign origin, most notably those from Spanish, need to be changed in spelling to better reflect Ilocano phonology. Words of English origin may or may not conform to this orthography, a prime example using this system is the weekly magazine Bannawag. The following are two versions of the Lords Prayer, the one on the left is written using the Spanish-based orthography, while the one on the right uses the Tagalog-based system. It is recognized by the Commission on the Filipino Language as one of the languages of the Philippines. Constitutionally, Ilocano is an official language in the regions where it is spoken. In recent years, a movement in both the Lower and the Upper House of the Congress pressed for the usage of the tongue as a medium of instruction until the sixth grade. Ilocano animistic past offers a background in folklore, mythology
31.
Itawit language
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Itawis is a Northern Philippine language spoken by the Itawis people and is closely related to the Ibanag and Ilocano. Unlike the rest of Philippine languages, Itawit and its relatives use the consonants /z/, /f/, /v/, for example, fefeg, madyan, kazzing, and bavi. Itawis is spoken by the Itawis people of Northern Luzon who inhabit the province of Cagayan Valley and their range is from the lower Chico and Matalag rivers. In many towns by these rivers, Itawis are found with Ibanags, speakers of Itawis and Ibanag can easily understand each other because of the close relationship of their languages. The Itawis are linguistically and culturally closely related to the Ibanag. The Itawis language is classified as a Malayo-Polynesian language, in the family of languages called Austronesian. During the pre-Spanish period of the Philippines, words were borrowed from Spanish to stand in place for words that did not exist in the Itawis language, one such word is la mesa which means table, for Ancient Itawis didnt eat on tables which were introduced by the Spanish. In the town of Rizal, Cagayan, a language called Malaueg is spoken by a group of people of the same name and it is not yet clear whether Malaueg is a distinct language or not because its proximity to Itawis may possibly make it a dialect of the latter. Comparison to Ibanag Tharp, James A. and Mateo C, new Haven, CT, Human Relations Area Files. Itawis language word list from the Austronesian Basic Vocabulary Database
32.
Filipino language
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Filipino /ˌfɪlɪˈpiːnoʊ/, in this usage, refers to the national language of the Philippines. Filipino is also designated, along with English, as a language of the country. It is the register of the Tagalog language, an Austronesian. As of 2007, Tagalog is the first language of 28 million people, or about one-third of the Philippine population, Filipino is among the 185 languages of the Philippines identified in the Ethnologue. Filipino is ideally a pluricentric language, in reality, however, Filipino has been variously described as simply Tagalog in syntax and grammar, with no grammatical element or lexicon coming from. Other major Philippine languages, and as essentially a version of Tagalog. In most contexts, Filipino is understood to be a name for Tagalog. There was no language in the Philippine archipelago when the Spanish arrived in the 16th century. The four major trade languages were Visayan, Kapampangan, Pangasinan, as the Philippine languages are all closely related and therefore easy for Filipinos to learn, most speakers of smaller languages spoke two or more of such regional languages. The first dictionary of Tagalog was written by the Franciscan Pedro de San Buenaventura, a latter book of the same name was written by Czech Jesuit missionary Paul Klein at the beginning of the 18th century. Klein spoke Tagalog and used it actively in several of his books and he wrote the first dictionary, which he later passed over to Francisco Jansens and José Hernandez. On November 13,1936, Commonwealth act No, on November 12,1937, the First National Assembly of the Philippine Commonwealth approved the law for the establishment of the Surián ng Wikang Pambansâ. This institute would be responsible for surveying and researching existing native languages in order to determine among them the basis for a national language of the Philippines. Then-president Manuel L. Quezon later appointed representatives for each major regional language to form NLI, sales Rodriguez, Hadji Butu, and Cecilio Lopez. On December 13,1937, Presisis of the new national language, Spanish was the language of the 1896 Revolution and the Katipunan, but the revolution was led by people who also spoke Tagalog. In 1959, the became known as Pilipino in an effort to dissociate it from the Tagalog ethnic group. However, neither the nor the amended version specified either Tagalog or Pilipino as the basis for Filipino. Instead they tasked the National Assembly to, take steps toward the development and this move has drawn much criticism from the nations other ethnic groups
33.
Cordillera Central (Luzon)
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The Cordillera Central is a massive mountain range situated in the northern central part of the island of Luzon, in the Philippines. To the north, the mountain terminates at the northern shores of Luzon along the Babuyan Channel in Ilocos Norte. At its southeastern part, the Central Cordillera is linked to the Sierra Madre Mountains, during Spanish colonial period, the whole range was called Nueva Provincia. The Cordillera Central is the highest mountain range in the Philippines and it comprises about 1/6 of the whole Luzon island with a total area of 18,300 km2. The highest mountain in the range, Mount Pulag, is also the highest mountain on Luzon Island at 2,922 metres and it is officially the third highest mountain in the country after Mount Dulang-dulang and Mount Apo on Mindanao Island, the second largest island of the Philippines. Mount Patoc,1, 865-meter high about 6 km north of Bontoc town proper in Mountain Province, has several springs in Barangay Mainit, Bontoc. Mount Santo Tomas,2, 260-meter high in Tuba, Benguet near Baguio City, has Asin Hot Springs on its western slope. Elevations above 1000m are covered in Luzon tropical pine forests of Benguet pine except in the north of the range where the slopes consist of Luzon montane rain forests. At the time of American rule in the Philippines, the people of the Cordilleras were not well understood and were all lumped together under the name Igorot. In some circles, especially political ones, this acquired a pejorative characteristic. In current usage, Northern Cordillerans use it disparagingly, when speaking of people from eastern Mountain Province, most of the Cordillera Central is the ancestral domain of the people of the mountains. These ethno-linguistic groups include, Abra, Apayao, Benguet, Ifugao, Kalinga, each of these major ethno-linguistic groups has its own family of languages and cultures. Not withstanding their resistance to invasion from the lowlands, the lingua franca used throughout the Cordilleras is Ilocano, Cordillerans are a group of indigenous people, recognized as such by Republic law, with their own sets of customary laws. Customary law takes precedence over Republic law, tribal criminal law takes precedence over the Criminal Code of the Philippines. Murder and manslaughter, for instance is usually dealt with under tribal law which might include blood debt. Tribal land law applies in preference to lowland registration law, Spanish deeds were never issued for the land in the Cordilleras since the Spanish were continuously repelled for the whole of Spanish colonial period. Cordillerans view land as the source of life, a part of their cultural identity. Land is considered sacred and tribal land can neither be owned nor sold, the Cordillera Central is one of the countrys richest regions in terms of natural resources, a major resource base of the Philippines
34.
Sierra Madre (Philippines)
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The Sierra Madre is the longest mountain range in the Philippines. It is bordered by the Pacific Ocean to the east, some of communities east of the mountain range and along the coast are so remote they are only accessible by plane or boat. The countrys largest protected area, the Northern Sierra Madre Natural Park, is situated at the part of the range in the province of Isabela. The Sierra Madre is the longest mountain range in the Philippines, in the north, the range starts in the province of Cagayan and ends in the south in the province of Quezon. In the province of Nueva Vizcaya, the Caraballo Mountains connect Sierra Madre Mountain range with the Cordillera Central range, towns like Palanan and Maconacon, Isabela can only be reached by plane from Cauayan City or a boat ride from Aurora province, south of Isabela. The ranges highest point is unclear, and several peaks are attributed as the highest, Mount Anacuao in Aurora province stands at 6,069 feet, while Mount Cetaceo in Cagayan is of similar altitude. However, an expedition in April 2012 to Mount Guiwan preliminarily measured an altitude of 6,283 feet on the summit, Ecoregions in the range are in the tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests and tropical and subtropical coniferous forests biomes. The Sierra Madre mountain range forest habitat is threatened by human activities, settlers living at the lower portions of the slopes generally are supported by work in logging and charcoal-making. Some portions of the forest cover are already second growth forest, geography of the Philippines Ecoregions in the Philippines Sierra Madre Biodiversity Corridor
35.
Cagayan River
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The Cagayan River, also known as the Rio Grande de Cagayan, is the second longest river in the Philippines, and the largest river by discharge volume of water. It has a length of approximately 350 kilometres and a drainage basin covering 27,753 square kilometres. It is located in the Cagayan Valley region in part of Luzon Island and traverses the provinces of Nueva Vizcaya, Quirino, Isabela. The rivers headwaters are at the Caraballo Mountains of the Central Luzon at an elevation of approximately 1,524 metres, the river flows north for some 350 kilometres to its mouth at the Babuyan Channel near the town of Aparri, Cagayan. The river drops rapidly to 91 metres above sea level some 227 kilometres from the river mouth and its principal tributaries are the Pinacanauan, Chico, Siffu, Mallig, Magat and Ilagan Rivers. Magat River, is the largest tributary with an annual discharge of 9,808 million cubic meters. It lies in the portion of the basin, stretching approximately 150 kilometres from Nueva Vizcaya down to its confluence with Cagayan River about 55 kilometres from the river mouth. Both Magat and Chico Rivers have extensive drainage areas which comprise about 1/3 of the whole basin and it flows westward and joins the Cagayan River at Ilagan, Isabela,200 kilometres from the mouth. The Siffu-Mallig system lies on the slope of the Central Cordillera ranges flowing almost parallel to the Magat River, marshes and swamps are found in some parts of its lower reaches. The river has an area of about 27,300 square kilometres. in the provinces of Apayao, Aurora, Cagayan, Ifugao, Isabela, Kalinga, Mountain Province, Nueva Vizcaya. The estimated annual discharge is 53,943 million cubic meters with a reserve of 47,895 million cubic meters. The Cagayan River and its tributaries are subject to flooding during the monsoon season in Southeast Asia from May to October. The average annual rainfall in 1,000 millimetres in the part and 3,000 millimetres in the southern mountains where the rivers headwaters lie. Water from the flow down very slowly because of surface retention over the extensive flood plain, the gorges in the gently-sloping mountains. The inundation of the Cagayan River and its tributaries have caused loss of life and property. The Philippine government has established several flood warning stations along the river, experts are specifically monitoring the lower reaches from Tuguegarao to Aparri and the alluvial plain from Ilagan to Tumauini, Isabela. The Cagayan River passes through one of the few remaining primary forests in the Philippines and it supports the lives of numerous endemic and endangered species, like the Luzon bleeding-heart pigeon, Philippine eagle and a rare riverine fish, locally called ludong. The ludong spawns in Cagayan Rivers upper reaches in Jones, Isabela, in late October until mid-November, the fish travel down the river to release their eggs at the river mouth near Aparri
36.
Luzon Strait
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The Luzon Strait is the strait between Taiwan and Luzon island of the Philippines. The strait thereby connects the Philippine Sea to the South China Sea in the western Pacific Ocean, the strait is divided into a number of smaller channels. The Babuyan Channel separates Luzon from the Babuyan Islands, which is separated from the Batanes Islands by the Balintang Channel, Batanes is separated from Taiwan by the Bashi Channel. This is an important strait for shipping and communications, many ships from the Americas use this route to go to important East Asian ports. Many submarine communications cables pass through the Luzon Strait and these cables provide important data and telephony services to China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan and South Korea. Some of the largest ocean waves in the world are found in the north of the strait, at times over 170 metres, stemming from tides and ocean currents. These waves or currents are underwater and rarely break the surface, the oscillation is largely prompted by a long north-south ridge which covers almost all of the strait, then amplified in the northern section by a second parallel ridge. The depth of the strait reaches the 3,500 m and 4,000 contours in north-south trenches in the middle, the Luzon Strait was part of the Japanese invasion route during the Second World War. On 8 December 1941, forces of the Empire of Japan landed on Batanes, by 10 December, they had occupied Camiguin de Babuyanes in the Babuyan Islands in a soon-abandoned attempt to establish a seaplane base, and on the same day landed at Aparri, Cagayan on Luzon. Subsequently, during the Second World War, many US submarines hunted Japanese convoys passing through the strait on their way from the East Indies to Japan
37.
Aparri
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Aparri is a first class municipality in the province of Cagayan, Luzon, Philippines. It sits at the mouth of the Cagayan River, the longest river in the Philippines, about 55 miles north of Tuguegarao, according to the 2015 census, it has a population of 65,649 people. Aparri has an income of ₱90 million. The valley is one of the largest tobacco-producing sections in the Philippines, and it has a meteorological station located in Barangay Punta where the Cagayan River meets the Babuyan Channel. It also administers Fuga Island, which is part of the Babuyan Group and is closer to Claveria. Aparri was formerly a Japanese trading post because of its location at the tip of Luzon at the mouth of the Cagayan River. It was the area for trade for Japan in the island of Luzon. Much of the area was home to the native Ibanag people. It was formally established under Spanish rule in 1605 after the Spanish Crown seized the Philippines, the original inhabitants of this town were the Ybanags. Later, as the Spaniards settled and because of its location, Ilocanos. In the years before the outbreak of World War II, it became a transshipment point for smuggled goods from China, Taiwan, and other neighboring Southeast Asian nations. In 2006, work was started to rebuild the port, after the old pier deteriorated due to the level of water, the common storms. Aparri is politically subdivided into 42 barangays, Aparri has a tropical monsoon climate with warm temperatures year round though temperatures dip slightly during the winter months. In the 2015 census, the population of Aparri, was 65,649 people, Aparri is known for its foods such as the bulung-unas, or Ribbon Fish, which are in abundance during January and early February. Kilawin naguilas-asan is a fillet of smaller bulung-unas which are leftover baits, soaked in Ilocos vinegar, seasoned salt and pepper, finely cut onions. Ludong, a variety of Pacific salmon, is the Philippines most expensive fish, because of its price and its distinct taste and smell, it is also nicknamed President Fish. Freshwater fish by nature, the salt water contributes to their super delicious taste, ludong is available only in the rainy months of October and early November. Aparris attractions also include its beaches and town fiesta
38.
Babuyan Islands
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The Babuyan Islands, also known as the Babuyan Group of Islands, is an archipelago in the Philippines, located in the Luzon Strait north of the main island of Luzon. The archipelago consists of four islands and their surrounding smaller islands. These main islands are, counterclockwise starting from northeast, Babuyan, Calayan, Dalupiri, Fuga, the Babuyan Islands are separated from Luzon by the Babuyan Channel, and from the province of Batanes to the north by the Balintang Channel. The origins of the Babuyan people date back some 60, 000+ years ago when Negrito tribes inhabited the islands, in the late 1580s large groups Filipinos fled the mainland when Spain began to invade the Philippines. The small islands now have a mixture of different ethnic groups, since the early 1800s people from Hawaii, Samoa, Tonga and even Japan have settled on the group of islands. While the native people are considered Filipino they are a mix of the people from Samoa, Hawaii, Japan. Some Babuyan people are majority polytheistic and believe in multiple gods, in the 1940s American soldiers introduced the native people to the Christian religion and now 30% of the natives are Christian. The eastern islands of the archipelago are part of the Luzon Volcanic Arc, three volcanoes from two of the islands have erupted in historical times – Camiguin de Babuyanes on Camiguin Island, Babuyan Claro on Babuyan Island. The following are the islands of Babuyan and their islets and rocks
39.
Archaeology
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Archaeology, or archeology, is the study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, Archaeology can be considered both a social science and a branch of the humanities. In North America, archaeology is considered a sub-field of anthropology, archaeologists study human prehistory and history, from the development of the first stone tools at Lomekwi in East Africa 3.3 million years ago up until recent decades. Archaeology as a field is distinct from the discipline of palaeontology, Archaeology is particularly important for learning about prehistoric societies, for whom there may be no written records to study. Prehistory includes over 99% of the human past, from the Paleolithic until the advent of literacy in societies across the world, Archaeology has various goals, which range from understanding culture history to reconstructing past lifeways to documenting and explaining changes in human societies through time. The discipline involves surveying, excavation and eventually analysis of data collected to learn more about the past, in broad scope, archaeology relies on cross-disciplinary research. Archaeology developed out of antiquarianism in Europe during the 19th century, Archaeology has been used by nation-states to create particular visions of the past. Nonetheless, today, archaeologists face many problems, such as dealing with pseudoarchaeology, the looting of artifacts, a lack of public interest, the science of archaeology grew out of the older multi-disciplinary study known as antiquarianism. Antiquarians studied history with attention to ancient artifacts and manuscripts. Tentative steps towards the systematization of archaeology as a science took place during the Enlightenment era in Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries, in Europe, philosophical interest in the remains of Greco-Roman civilization and the rediscovery of classical culture began in the late Middle Age. Antiquarians, including John Leland and William Camden, conducted surveys of the English countryside, one of the first sites to undergo archaeological excavation was Stonehenge and other megalithic monuments in England. John Aubrey was a pioneer archaeologist who recorded numerous megalithic and other monuments in southern England. He was also ahead of his time in the analysis of his findings and he attempted to chart the chronological stylistic evolution of handwriting, medieval architecture, costume, and shield-shapes. Excavations were also carried out in the ancient towns of Pompeii and Herculaneum and these excavations began in 1748 in Pompeii, while in Herculaneum they began in 1738. The discovery of entire towns, complete with utensils and even human shapes, however, prior to the development of modern techniques, excavations tended to be haphazard, the importance of concepts such as stratification and context were overlooked. The father of archaeological excavation was William Cunnington and he undertook excavations in Wiltshire from around 1798, funded by Sir Richard Colt Hoare. Cunnington made meticulous recordings of neolithic and Bronze Age barrows, one of the major achievements of 19th century archaeology was the development of stratigraphy. The idea of overlapping strata tracing back to successive periods was borrowed from the new geological and paleontological work of scholars like William Smith, James Hutton, the application of stratigraphy to archaeology first took place with the excavations of prehistorical and Bronze Age sites
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