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Baybayin - an Ancient Philippine Script

Baybayin is a 17-character indigenous script that has been used before the Spanish colonization. There are other scripts in the Philippines that most of us tend to overlook such as the Kulitan script in Pampanga.

However, I see that reviving Baybayin is a step towards Filipinos learning and appreciating writing in this script more.

Some of the reasons why this has been a dying tradition of the Philippines is mainly due to colonization. After many years of being under the influence of the Spanish, Americans, and the Japanese, we have instilled in ourselves almost all of their practices. 

In present times, personally, I still see that most of us still follow the ways of Americans in terms of the food we eat, the way we dress, and even our language. In school, we are often taught about Filipino and English.

It only recently started, that we see baybayin slowly making it’s way to pop culture. In social medias, a number of users create texts, images, and videos encompassing the Baybayin script.

When I was a student in Senior High School, we actually learned how to read and write a bit in Baybayin, it was not part of our curriculum, however my teacher at that time taught it was something important for us to learn about, which I truly appreciated.

Education has played a big role for us students to learn about the dying traditions of the Philippines, and to find a way to somehow bring it back.

As a student, I am encouraging other people in various age brackets to be attentive and to appreciate our lessons in school, because just like me, it may be taught to you out of the blue. We can reflect upon ourselves and see just how much our country is rich with art.

Using the available technology that we have, we can apply these traditions to our to our posts. Baybayin can be something very aesthetically pleasing in my eyes, and I love following accounts that incorporate the script to their posts.