Alabat Island
Location within Quezon province
Alabat Island is located in Philippines
Alabat Island
Alabat Island
Location within the Philippines
Geography
LocationLamon Bay
Coordinates14°7′4″N 122°3′6″E / 14.11778°N 122.05167°E / 14.11778; 122.05167
Adjacent toPhilippine Sea
Area192 km2 (74 sq mi)
Highest elevation418 m (1371 ft)
Highest pointMount Camagong
Administration
RegionCalabarzon
ProvinceQuezon
Municipalities
Largest settlementAlabat (pop. 15,936)
Demographics
Population44,589 (2020)
Additional information

Alabat Island is an island of the Philippine archipelago, in the Quezon Province of the Calabarzon region, situated just off the east coast of Southern Luzon. The island has an area of 192 square kilometres (74 sq mi) and a population of 41,822. The island has a mountain ridge with peaks ranging from 1,083 ft (330.10 m) to 1,384 ft (421.84 m) which look like islands at a distance.[1] The highest peak is called Mt. Camagong.[2]

Alabat Island comprises three municipalities: Perez in the northern tip, Alabat town proper in the center and Quezon in the south. The first inhabitants of the island were the indigenous Inagta Alabat people who are Negritos, the earliest settlers in the Philippines. The indigenous people spoke the Inagta Alabat language, one of the most endangered languages in the world.

The island is located in Lamon Bay and (33 km long) has an extensive mangrove fringe along its southwest shore, with several hundred hectares of intertidal mudflats exposed at low tide. Large portions of the original mangrove forest have been degraded or completely destroyed for the construction of fish and shrimp ponds.

Alabat enjoys a humid tropical climate with no dry season, but a very pronounced period of maximum rainfall from November to January. The island is home to the indigenous Alabat Agta people, whose language is critically endangered.

Aerial view of Gerardo Point in Alabat Island, 1938

Inagta Alabat language

In 2010, UNESCO released its 3rd world volume of Endangered Languages in the World, where 3 critically endangered languages were in the Philippines. One of these languages in the Alabat Island Agta language which has an estimated speaker of 30 people in the year 2000. The language was classified as Critically Endangered, meaning the youngest speakers are grandparents and older, and they speak the language partially and infrequently and hardly pass the language to their children and grandchildren anymore. If the remaining 30 people do not pass their native language to the next generation of Alabat Agta people, their indigenous language will be extinct within a period of 1 to 2 decades.

The Alabat Agta people live only on the island of Alabat in Quezon province and a small area is Guinayangan in mainland Luzon. They are one of the original Negrito settlers in the entire Philippines. They belong to the Aeta people classification, but have distinct language and belief systems unique to their own culture and heritage.

The Secret Island Full of Twins

In November 2022, Nas Daily posted a video on their facebook page referencing Alabat Island as "The Secret Island Full of Twins" [3]

References

  1. U. S. Coast and Geodetic Survey (1919). United States Coast Pilot, Philippine Islands. U.S. Government Printing Office. p. 118. Retrieved 4 September 2022.
  2. Sailing Directions (enroute) Philippine Islands. The Center. 1993. p. 162. Retrieved 4 September 2022.
  3. "The Secret Island Full of Twins". facebook.com/nasdaily. Nas Daily. Retrieved 22 November 2022.


This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.