Most foreigners would ask me if the Philippines has it’s own system of writing like how the Chinese have the Kanjis and how the Koreans have the Hanggul. This would be my typical answer.

We do and we call it Baybayin (some call it Alibata)! But when the Spaniards came and colonized the Philippines, they forced us to use Roman Letters and Baybayin just died a natural death. Nobody uses it anymore except maybe the language scholars in Universities and at least two tribes, one in Palawan island and another in Mindoro island.

Just to give you an idea how it looks like, I prepared this little message for you using a Windows font I downloaded from the web.

It reads “Ako si Enrico Pangan. Filipino ako. Baybayin po ang tawag dito.” (I’m Enrico Pangan. I’m Filipino. This is called Baybayin). I doubt though if present-day Filipinos would understand what is written on this message. I may have even misspelled some words myself.

If you want to know more about this script, just search google for Baybayin or Alibata.