Camotes Islands

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Camotes Islands

Camotes islands

Map showing location of Camotes islands within the
Philippines
Show
map of Visayas

Camotes islands

Camotes islands (Philippines)
Show map of
Philippines

Geography

Location

Camotes
Sea

Coordinates

10°40′N 124°24′E / 10.67°N
124.4°E / 10.67;
124.4Coordinates:
10°40′N 124°24′E / 10.67°N
124.4°E / 10.67;
124.4

Archipelago

Camotes Islands

Total islands

4 (habitable)

Major islands

Pacijan

Ponson

Poro

Area

236.36 km2 (91.26 sq mi)

Highest elevation

388 m (1,273 ft)

Administration

Philippines

Region

Central
Visayas (Region VII)

Province

Cebu

Demographics

Population

102,996 (2015 census)[1]

Pop. density

440/km2 (1,140/sq mi)

Camotes Islands is a group of islands in the Camotes Sea, Philippines. Combined area
is 236.36 kilometres (146.87 mi). The island group is located east of Cebu
Island, southwest of Leyte
Island, and north of Bohol
Island. It is 34 nautical miles (63 km; 39 mi) from Cebu City and is part of Cebu. According to
the 2015 census, it has a population of 102,996.[1]
Population has grown 34.3% since 1990, equivalent to an annual growth rate of
1.19%.

Nearest landfall, from north end of Ponson island to southern Leyte, is about
7.2 kilometres (4.5 mi; 3.9 nmi). From Consuelo port to Danao is 32
kilometres (20 mi; 17 nmi) as the crow flies. From south of Pacijan to
Bohol is about 47 kilometres (29 mi; 25 nmi).

Sometimes known as the "Lost Horizon of the south",[a]
within recent years Camotes has seen increased visitors and tourism and a
growing expatriate community. Apart from natural attractions on land, there is
also a score of dive sites around the islands.

Contents

1 Geography

1.1 Demographics

1.2 Languages

2 Transport

3 Environment

3.1 Climate

3.2 Biota

4 History

4.1 Protohistory

4.2 Spanish
conquistadores

4.3 Modern
times

5 Economy

6 Notes

7 References

8 Sources

9 External
links

Geography[edit]

The
islands, municipalities and barangays of the Camotes

Camotes Islands comprises three major islands and one minor islet, divided
between four municipalities. On Poro
Island are the municipalities of Poro
and Tudela. Pacijan
Island's sole municipality is San
Francisco. Ponson
Island's sole municipality is Pilar.
Tulang
Island is an islet and part of San Francisco. The main islands of Pacijan
and Poro are connected by a 1.5-kilometre-long (0.93-mile) causeway. Ponson lies
about four kilometres (2.5 mi) northeast of Poro, across the Kawit Strait.
Tulang is located a short distance north of Pacijan.

The Camotes are low-lying with several hills, some used for
telecommunications relay stations. The highest point is Altavista, 388 metres
(1,273 ft) above sea level, on Poro. Pacijan has a large lake, Lake
Danao, which at 650 hectares (1,600 acres) is the largest freshwater lake in
the province.

Demographics[edit]

Population
of Camotes Islands

Year

Pop.

±%
p.a.

1903

21,123

—

1918

27,635

+1.81%

1939

43,345

+2.17%

1948

47,309

+0.98%

1960

50,826

+0.60%

1970

55,479

+0.88%

1975

63,945

+2.89%

Year

Pop.

±%
p.a.

1980

67,260

+1.02%

1990

76,707

+1.32%

1995

81,181

+1.07%

2000

84,351

+0.82%

2007

89,324

+0.79%

2010

92,278

+1.19%

2015

102,996

+2.11%

Source: Philippine
Statistics Authority[1][2][3]

Languages[edit]

Cebuano
is the primary language, then English and Filipino.
School children are taught all three languages.

Porohanon
or Camotes Visayan is spoken in the town of Poro only, and is one of the most
endangered languages in the Visayas. The language is classified as distinct from
Sebwano (Bisaya) by the Komisyon ng
Wikang Filipino and is vital to the culture and arts of the Porohanon
people.

The dialect is very similar to the language spoken in the rest of Camotes
Islands and throughout the province of Cebu, Northern Mindanao and other parts
of the Visayas. Porohanon is distinguished by the way the locals substitute the
/y/ sound for /z/. Example: maayong buntag (good morning) in Cebuano
would be changed to maazong buntag in Porohanon, na-a diha (in
Cebuano), ara dira (in Porohanon)

Transport[edit]

Ferries

LS Pilar ⛯

⛯ LS
Poro

LS Tulang ⛯

✈

⛴

⛴

⛴

Around
Camotes islands: lightstations ⛯,[4]
ports ⛴, and airstrip ✈

There are several ports around the islands:

⛴

Poro is the main port, where the ferry from Cebu
city arrives

⛴

Consuelo, for the service to/from Danao

⛴

Pilar, for Ormoc and Leyte

In addition, at some other places, such as Kawit, the
pumpboat is just pulled up onto the beach.

Lightstations [4]

There are three lightstations
around the islands

⛯

LS Pilar

10°48′18″N 124°34′00″E / 10.80500°N
124.56667°E / 10.80500; 124.56667

⛯

LS Poro

10°37′48″N 124°24′40″E / 10.63000°N
124.41111°E / 10.63000; 124.41111

⛯

LS Tulang

10°43′30″N 124°19′00″E / 10.72500°N
124.31667°E / 10.72500; 124.31667

Air

✈

airstrip – Northern poblacion, San Francisco

10°39′23″N 124°22′12″E / 10.65639°N
124.37000°E / 10.65639; 124.37000

Camotes
airstrip seen from light plane climbing after take-off

There is a small rolled-earth airstrip on Pacijan island. It is
approximately 1,450 metres (4,760 ft) long, aligned more or less
north-south. It has not been classified by
the CAAP,
hence has no airport code, however following a visit to the area by President
Aquino in February 2014, investigations are taking place into
developing the airport as a prerequisite to expanded tourism.[5]

In February 2015[update]
it was reported that initial work was under way on the construction
project to build new airports at Bantayan and Camotes.[6][7]
The initial project phase is to determine a suitable location for the new
airport, implying that it may be at an entirely different location on the
islands. However, in these islands there are few roads, and badly kept;
the only transport are bad (and expensive) motorbikes, tricycles and a few
multis. Thus there are other things more pressing than an air bridge.

From mid-November 2017[update]
CAAP stopped operation of Bantayan airstrip, due to the airport's
dilapidated state.[8]
Camotes was even worse – 'closed'
rather than 'stopped'.

Environment[edit]

Climate[edit]

Tropical
monsoon climate (Köppen
climate classification category "Am"), with rainfall more or less
evenly distributed throughout the year – Coronas
climate type IV.

Biota[edit]

By Presidential Proclamation 2152 of 1981, the islands of Ponson, Poro and
Pacihan were declared Mangrove swamp forest reserves.[9]

Exemplars of the rare, critically
endangered tree species Cebu
Cinnamon (Cinnamomum cebuense) have been discovered on the Camotes
Islands.[10][11]

Palm
trees are the dominant plant on the islands. There are also numerous native
varieties of fruit including banana, mango and pineapple.

History[edit]

Protohistory[edit]

Little is known of the islands' early history. The twentieth century saw a
number of archaeological studies, but nothing of major significance emerged.

An early visitor was Carl
Guthe, who led an expedition from the University of Michigan which spent
three years 1923–1925 investigating and exploring many sites across the
archipelago.[12]
He conducted an archaeological dig in a cave site on Tulang. Located on the
southeastern coast of the island, the cave measures about 3.7 by 2.7 metres (12
by 9 feet). Guthe reported it to contain bone fragments and teeth of about 60
individuals. Associated grave goods included earthenware pottery, shell
bracelets, bronze and iron artefacts (iron tang, bronze chisel, iron blade),
glass and stone beads, hammerstone and pestle. Filed teeth were also recovered
from this site.[b]

Otley Beyer
(Philippine's "Father of Anthropology") never visited, although he is reported
to have described Camotes as a "basket of interesting archaeological finds."

In the early 1970s, residents unearthed a variety of artefacts dating back to
the 16th century. An excavation at Mactang, a purok within Esperanza,
Poro, revealed spears, daggers, swords, crosses, iron pendants and a skull
pierced with an arrowhead. This heavily disturbed and looted site located along
the shoreline of sitio Mactang was excavated by Bailen and Cabanilla of UP
Diliman in the early 1990s and explored by Bersales and USC in 2001. Porcelain
and earthenware sherds are strewn on the surface of what would otherwise have
been a 13th- or 14th-century CE burial site.

In one barangay, Bailen and Cabanilla found a complex of caves which they
believed had been inhabited by primitive people. Cabanilla asked municipal
officials to preserve the site and wait while their project proposal would be
approved. They planned to conduct a digging and leave whatever artefacts would
be found in the caves. Meaning, they would transform the place into an onsite
museum that should attract students, archaeologists. etc.

A few months later, Cabanilla returned to Camotes, having secured project
funding from a foreign institution. To his surprise and dismay, despite earlier
assurances of its safekeeping, he found the caves already mined of stone which
had been sold to a sinter plant in Leyte by the mayor. Only one cave remained,
but Cabanilla lost the drive and returned to Manila, his project scuttled.

Because of that, even the plan to set up a town museum for the artefacts dug
during the survey was abandoned.

Spanish
conquistadores[edit]

Pigafetta's
Journal of Magellan's Voyage (in French)[c]:77

Pigafetta's
Journal of Magellan's Voyage – map showing (top) Bohol, (centre)
Mactan, (bottom) Cebu. The three unnamed islands to right must be
Camotes.[c]:114

The islands were first mentioned by Antonio
Pigafetta, one of the survivors on Ferdinand Magellan's fateful voyage, as
they waited off the islands for several days before going on to Cebu in the
first week of April 1521:

De mazaua agatighan sonno vinti leghe partendone de gatighan al ponente
il re de mazaua no ne puote seguir por che lo espectassemo circa tres ysolle
cioe polo ticobon et pozon.[14]
There is a distance of twenty leguas from Mazaua to Gatighan.[d]
We set out westward from Gatighan, but the king could not follow us [closely]
and consequently we awaited him near three islands, namely Polo, Ticobon and
Pozon.[15]

Writing in 1582, Miguel de Loarca stated:[16]

ysla de camotes. Por la pte del leste de la ysla de
çubu esten dos ysletas pequeñas qe ternan de box cada vna çinco leguas que
llaman ysletas de camotes ternan entrambas como treçientos yndios son proprios
de la çiudad de çubu es gte pobre aunqe tienen alguna çera, y muçho Pescado
son las poblaçones pequeñas de siete y a ocho casas estan apartadas de la ysla
de çubu como tres leguas y siete de la çiudad— Island of Camotes.
East of the island of Çubu are two small islets, each about five leagues in
circumference.[d]
They are called the islets of Camotes. The two are inhabited by about three
hundred Indians, and are under the jurisdiction of the city of Çubu. The
people are poor, although they possess some wax and a great quantity of fish.
The villages are small, consisting of only seven or eight houses each. These
islets are about three leagues from the island of Çubu, and seven from the
city of that name.

He also wrote:[17]

"todos son de vna manera tienen tambien gallinas y puercos y algunas
cabras frisoles y vnas Rayçes como batatas de sancto domingo qe llaman
camotes

All are provided with fowls, swine, a few goats, beans, and a kind of root
resembling the potatoes of Sancto Domingo, called by the natives
camotes."

Modern times[edit]

In 1942 Japanese forces occupied Camotes Islands. In 1945 Japanese soldiers
massacred almost all of the inhabitants in Pilar which led to a war crimes trial
after the war[citation
needed]. The liberation of the islands happened soon after
the massacre when Philippine and American soldiers landed and fought the
remaining Japanese soldiers in the Battle
of Camotes Islands.

Economy[edit]

The predominant industries on the Camotes Islands are farming (including
corn, rice, pigs, chicken and cattle), fishing and tourism.

There are about 22 tourist resorts catering to both domestic and
international visitors with many public and private beaches.

Also in the Camotes Islands you can find tourist spots such as Buho Rock,
Greenlake Park, Mt. Calvary (Kalbaryo), Lake Danao and the vast mangrove swamp
along the sides of the road from Pacijan (San Francisco) to Poro. There are many
caves such as Bukilat Cave, Timubo Cave and Guadalupe Cave which has a
fresh-water underground lake. There are also two waterfalls, one in Poro and one
in Tudela. There is diving and snorkeling opportunities at some of the resorts.

The major employers are CELCO (Camotes Electric Cooperative), Camotes
Hillside Academy and Kinoshita Pearl Farm. There is a small hospital. Fiesta
Mall, the first mall on the island opened in 2015.[e]
A new integrated casino resort with condos is scheduled to open in December,
2016. Tourism in the key economic development for the future of the island with
a focus on the white sand beaches, safe and clean environment.

There are two colleges on the island: Cebu Technology University (Camotes)
and Mount Moriah College.

Notes[edit]

^
Presumably a bad-geography allusion to Lost
Horizon, 1933 novel by James Hilton, whose principal location was a
land where people never aged – Shangri-La

^
Carl Guthe explored 485 sites comprising 120
caves, 134 burial grounds and 231 graves all over the Philippines that are
contained in an inventory report now deposited at the University of
Michigan.

^ a
b
This manuscript volume, dating from around 1525,
details Ferdinand Magellan's voyage around the world in 1519-22. The work is
attributed to Antonio Pigafetta, a Venetian scholar who was born in Vincenza,
Italy, around 1490 and who accompanied Magellan on the voyage. Pigafetta kept
a detailed journal, the original of which is lost. However, an account of the
voyage, written by Pigafetta between 1522 and 1525, survives in four
manuscript versions: one in Italian and three in French. This version, in
French, is from the library of Yale University, and is the most complete and
handsomely produced of the four surviving manuscripts. It includes 23
beautifully drawn and illuminated maps. Pigafetta's work is important not only
as a source of information about the voyage itself, but also includes an early
Western description of the people and languages of the Philippines. Of the
approximately 240 men who set out with Magellan, Pigafetta was one of only 18
who returned to Spain. Magellan himself was killed, on 27 April 1521, in a
battle on Mactan Island, the Philippines, which Pigafetta witnessed and
recounts in this work.[13]

^ a
b
The league (legua) was not well defined,
but was about 4 nautical miles (4.6 miles; 7.4 kilometres) ± 5%

^
unconfirmed report that mall opened October
2014.[18]

References[edit]

^ a
b
c
Census of
Population (2015). Highlights of the Philippine Population 2015 Census of
Population. PSA. Retrieved 20 June
2016.

^
Census of
Population and Housing (2010). Population and Annual Growth Rates for The Philippines and
Its Regions, Provinces, and Highly Urbanized Cities (PDF).
NSO. Retrieved 29 June
2016.

^
Censuses of
Population (1903–2007). Table 1. Population Enumerated in Various Censuses by
Region: 1903 to 2007. NSO.

^ a
b
Department
of Transport and Communications 2016

^
Balita
2014

^
The
Freeman 2014

^
Cebu
Daily News 2015

^
The
Freeman 2017b

^
Presidential
Proclamation No. 2152 s. 1981 (29 December
1981), Declaring the entire province of Palawan and certain parcels
of the public domain and/or parts of the country as Mangrove Swamp Forest
Reserves, retrieved 11
November 2014

^
Basingan
et al. 2012.

^
Global
Trees Campaign 2014.

^
Guthe
1927

^
World
Digital Library 1525.

^
Pigafetta
1874, p. 108.

^
Blair
& Robertson 1906a, pp. 132–134, 137.

^
Blair
& Robertson 1906a, p. 48.

^
Blair
& Robertson 1903e, p. 38.

^
"SOON TO OPEN: GAISANO CAPITAL SAN FRANCISCO". Gaisano
Capital Group. 18 August 2014. Archived from the original on 17 December 2014.
Retrieved 10 November 2014.

Sources[edit]

Balita, LAP / EB (4
July 2014). "President Aquino wants to develop Bantayan airport – Gov.
Davide". Archived from the original on 6 November 2014.

Basingan; Caspillo; Masauding; Pendon; Racpan
(30 August 2012). Philippine Trees – Fruit Trees. History
Trees. p. 44. Retrieved 5 January 2018.

Blair, Emma Helen
& Robertson,
James Alexander, eds. (1903e). The Philippine Islands, 1493–1803. Volume 5 of 55
(1582–1583). Historical introduction and additional notes by Edward Gaylord
Bourne. Cleveland, OH: Arthur
H. Clark.

Blair, Emma Helen
& Robertson,
James Alexander, eds. (1906a). The Philippine Islands, 1493–1898. Volume 33 of 55
(1519–1522). Historical introduction and additional notes by Edward Gaylord
Bourne. Cleveland, OH: Arthur
H. Clark.

Cebu Daily
News, Melissa Q. Cabahug (2 February 2015). "Bantayan, Camotes to have airports". Archived from the original on 4 February 2015.

Department
of Transport and Communication, Maritime Safety Services Command (2016). "Coast Guard District Central Visayas". Archived from the original on 23 March 2016.

Global Trees
Campaign. "Cebu Cinnamon". Archived from the original on 10 March 2014.

Guthe, Carl E. (1927).
"The University of Michigan Philippine Expedition". American
Anthropologist. 29 (1): 69–76. doi:10.1525/aa.1927.29.1.02a00040. ISSN 1548-1433.

Philippine
Star, Fred Languido (18 June 2005). "Commercial flights soon between Camotes, Mactan". Archived from the original on 13 January 2018.

Pigafetta, Antonio
(1874) [c.1523]. Primo Viaggio Intorno Al Mondo [First Voyage
Around the World] (various). translated by
Henry
Edward John Stanley. London: Hakluyt
Society. ISBN 978-0511708046.
Reprinted by Filipiniana Book Guild of Manila, 1969

The Freeman,
Michael Vencynth H. Braga / JMO (2 February 2015). "Dev't of Camotes, Bantayan airports on". Archived from the original on 20 July 2015.

The Freeman,
Lorraine Mitzi A. Ambrad (20 November 2017b). "Capitol to fix 2 airports: CAAP stops operation of Bantayan
airstrip". Archived from the original on 11 November 2017.

van den Berg,
S. G. (2011). Development of tourism on Camotes Islands,
Philippines (PDF) (Thesis).
Nederlandse Universiteiten Utrecht.
Retrieved 12 November 2014.

World
Digital Library (1525). "Journal of Magellan's Voyage" (in French).

External links[edit]

Mystical
Tudela Website

How
to get to Camotes Island

Camotes Islands Travel Guide

TourCamotes.Com: All About Camotes Islands, Cebu,
Philippines

Cebu Destinations

Local government site

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