Yakan people

The Yakan people are among the major indigenous Muslim Filipino ethnolinguistics groups in the Sulu archipelago. Having a significant number of followers of Islam, it is considered as one of the 13 Moro groups in the Philippines. The Yakans mainly reside in Basilan but are also in Zamboanga City. They speak a language known as Bahasa Yakan, which has characteristics of both Sama-Bajau Sinama and Tausug (Jundam 1983: 7-8). It is written in the Malayan Arabic script, with adaptations to sounds not present in Arabic (Sherfan 1976).

History

The Yakans reside in the Sulu Archipelago, situated to the west of Zamboanga in Mindanao. Traditionally they wear colorful, handwoven clothes. The women wear tightfitting short blouses and both sexes wear narrowcut pants resembling breeches. The women covers it partly with a wrap-around material while the man wraps a sash-like cloth around the waist where he places his weapon – usually a long knife. Nowadays most Yakans wear western clothes and use their traditional clothes only for cultural festivals.

Basilan

The Province of Basilan (Zamboangueño: Provincia de Basilan; Filipino: Lalawigan ng Basilan) is an island province of the Philippines within the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM). Basilan Island is the largest and northernmost of the major islands of the Sulu Archipelago. It is located just off the southern coast of the geographic Zamboanga Peninsula. Its capital, Isabela City, is grouped together with Basilan for geographical and statistical purposes, but is administered independently as part of the Zamboanga Peninsula Region.

Basilan is home to three main ethnic groups, the indigenous Yakans, and the later-arriving Tausugs and Zamboangueño. The Yakans and Tausugs are predominantly Muslim, while the Zamboangueño are mainly Christian. There are also a number of smaller groups. Although the official language is English, the major language is Yakan and lingua franca is Zamboangueño Chavacano, but other languages are well represented, including Tausug and Samal.

Basilan, although classified as a 3rd-Class Province in terms of gross provincial income, has one of the lowest incidence of poverty in the Philippines (26.19% of the general population), ranked 20 among the Philippines' 80 provinces (in comparison, Maguindanao which is ranked last at number 80 has a poverty incidence of 44.24%). The gap between Basilan's rich and poor residents are among the narrowest in the country (ranked 3rd nationwide), pointing to one of the most equitable distributions of wealth anywhere in the country (GINI Coefficient 0.2826, which is slightly better than the Provinces of Pampanga, Bulacan, Nueva Ecija, Tarlac, Cavite, Batanes and Batangas).

Basilan (disambiguation)

Basilan may refer to: