Tourism
Shipwreck Basco Shore
For
a very long time now I have
thoughts of getting to Batanes
and explore what the province
may offer and what the people
of the island are like in provisos of their traditional
culture, social living, and economic.
Batanes is an island province in the region of
Cagayan Valley, Philippines. It is the northernmost
province of the Philippines and is also the smallest
province, both in terms of population and land area.
The provincial capital is Basco on Batan Island.
Batanes still is consider the country’s “Last Frontier”,
as an isolated island province in which most of its
cultures was preserved and three-quarters of the
population still live on farming and fishing.
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The people of Batanes are called Ivatan and share
prehistoric cultural and linguistic commonalities with
the Babuyan on Babuyan Island and the Tao people of
Orchid Island.
For those who have been in Batanes, one may
observed that it is not only the beauty of province
that have fascinated them but also the daily life of the
Ivatans. Batanes is very often visited by typhoons and it
is the resiliency of the Ivatans that made them unique
in adapting to the condition. This unique characteristic
of being resilient have made the people of Batanes
developed a distinctive bonding amongst themselves of
helping one another in times of calamity. Barter among
neighbors and “bayanihan” (common efforts) of many
forms are ways of life.