Isabela City
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| Location | |
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| Government | |
| Region | Zamboanga Peninsula (Region IX) |
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| Province | Basilan |
| District | Legislative district of Basilan |
| Barangays | 45 |
| Income class: | 5th class city; partially urban |
| Mayor | Cherrylyn Santos-Akbar |
| Cityhood | April 25, 2001 |
| Physical characteristics | |
| Area | 223.73 km² |
| Population | |
| Total (2000) | 73,032 |
| Density | 326.4/km² |
| Coordinates | Coordinates: |
Isabela City is a 5th class city and the capital of the province of Basilan, Philippines. The city is located on the northern shore of Basilan. Across the Basilan Strait to the north is Zamboanga City. Zamboanga City is very accessible via ferry boat (lantsa) or fast sea craft (which takes only 45 minutes ride) and even pumpboat.
While administratively, the island province of Basilan is part of the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), Isabela City itself is in not part of this region and is placed under the Zamboanga Peninsula region.
Institutionally, the Military has played a major part in Isabela City's and Basilan's volatile history, owing to the incessant conflicts borne out of the Moro Secessionist wars of the 1970s, and more recently, by Al Qaeda-backed Islamic fundamentalist groups fomenting a running gun-battle with the Philippines' armed forces for over a decade now.
Also exerting great influence in everyday life is the Roman Catholic Church and the Islamic Mufti and Imams, religious scholars and leaders who exercise a moral ascendancy over their respective groups.
Politically, just as is the case in the rest of the Philippines, Isabela City has been controlled by a few families since its inception. Foremost of which are the Dans, Barandino, Brown, Pioquinto, Nuñal, Guevarra, Biel and Alano Families, whose economic interests still dominate the City's business scene. On a fast clip to equal the established economic business names, are the cash-rich Yakan traders and land-owners who have themselves taken up residence in the City of late.
Trading and commerce is still predominantly East Asian (Fookien Chinese), aided more so by a recent influx of immigrants from Taiwan and by Koreans as well.
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[edit] DEMOGRAPHY
According to the 2000 census, Isabela City has a population of 73,032 people in 13,753 households. Roughly 70% of which profess the Christian faith (predominantly Roman Catholic), and 30% are Muslims. The biggest ethnic grouping are the Chavacanos (from nearby Zamboanga City), followed by the Tausugs (from Sulu), and the Bisaya (from the rest of Mindanao and the Visayas). The fastest growing ethnic grouping in the City are the native Yakans (now pegged at about 11%), due to continued migration from the hinterlands. Also of note are the relatively significant Samal/Badjao, Maranao, Ilocano, Ilonggo and to a much lesser extent, Tagalog and Chinese presence.
The sizeable ex-patriate population of Swiss, Swedes, Germans, Spanish, British and Americans dwindled towards the end of the 1960s when the Moro rebellion started razing the plantations, and in so doing demoting Basilan from its erstwhile 1st class City status in the early to mid 1960s to a 5th Class province by the late 1970s.
[edit] HISTORY
Records of Pre-historic Philippines gleaned from the extensive archives of China's Imperial courts mentions a "Kingdom of Kumalarang" located in one of the southern islands of Ma-yi (the Chinese name for the Philippine archipelago), whose King sent regular tribute to the Chinese Emperor through Chinese traders who frequented the place in the 13th to 14th centuries. Local historians attribute this long lost kingdom to modern-day Kumalarang (now reduced to a Barangay) located along the western coast of Isabela City.
The proselytization of Basilan started in earnest when Fr. Francisco Lado, a Jesuit, established the first Catholic mission in an area called "Pasangen" by the native Yakans. This coastal area, however, was predominantly populated even then by natives of the Tausug and Samal tribes.
Towards the second part of the 19th century, pirate raids from Sulu increasingly harassed the Spanish settlement in nearby Zamboanga, usually using the island of Basilan as a staging ground for some of their more successful forays. By this time, a flourishing kingdom of Yakans and Samals was established in the area of modern-day Lamitan City. Headed by a Datu (local tribal chieftain), the kingdom traded with Yakans who usually lived farther inland.
To check the inroads of both the increasingly bloody Tausug pirate raids and the growing influence of Lamitan's Yakan kingdom, as well as to thwart any further attempt by other European powers to colonize Basilan (the Dutch in 1747 and the French in 1844) the Spanish commandery in Zamboanga City sent over an expeditionary force tasked at establishing a Spanish settlement on Basilan island in 1845, both to serve as an early beacon and defensive perimeter against the pirate parties, and as a trading post for Spanish interests on the island.
In 1845, Don Ramon Lobo, a Marine Chief of Zamboanga, accompanied Don Cayetano Suarez de Figueroa, District Governor of Zamboanga, to a coastal settlement of Pasangen. A wooden palisade was initially erected on a high promontory facing the narrow channel that was easily defensible from attacks and raids from the sea. By 1848, a stone fort was constructed on the same site, and thereafter, a wooden Catholic Church further downhill was built to serve the fledgling Christian settler colony which grew around the Fort, named: Fuerte de Isabela Segunda. The community thus established was subsequently named in honor of Queen Isabella II of Spain after the Spanish Fort was dedicated to her. The military garrison thus established was initially placed under the direct command of the Fuerza dela Nuestra Senora del Pilar de Zaragosa (Fort Pilar) in Zamboanga. In 1863, Fort Isabela Segunda became the focal point of the 6th District of the Police-Military Government of Mindanao.
In 1879, the Spanish garrison built a "floating" Naval Hospital on shallows guarding the eastern entrance to the Isabela Channel.
Fort Isabela Segunda was used by invading Japanese forces during World War II as a military camp, as well as an ammunition dump and was thereafter blown up during liberation, together with the Naval Hospital. The Provincial Capitol now occupies the same site where the old Fort used to stand. Recent excavations yielded rusted cannon balls piled in underground cellars dug up during the Spanish era.
Early in the American period, American plantation owners cleared vast expanses of Basilan's virgin forest land and established what was to be Basilan's primary economic activity - plantation agriculture, mainly rubber and copra. American Dr. James W. Strong, the Father of the Philippine Rubber Industry, inaugurated the first rubber plantation in the Philippines (inauguration was attended by President Manuel L. Quezon no-less) in Baluno, a plaque and shrine to this pioneering individual may be visited in the same Barangay to this day.
The success of what was soon to be the B. F. Goodrich rubber concession in the northern part of Isabela City, enticed other multi-national firms, such as the British-Malaysian Sime Darby and the Hispano-German Hans Menzi Corporation to open rubber plantations in the City's southern areas. The first Filipino-owned plantation was established on Malamawi Island by Don Juan S. Alano, originally of Malolos, Bulacan, who served as Representative of the entire Moro Province (Mindanao) during the Commonwealth Era (1936-1942), and the first Congressman of Zamboanga Province (now comprising Zamboanga del Norte, Zamboanga del Sur, Zamboanga Sibugay, Zamboanga City and Basilan) in the Republic's first Congress (1946-1949). He authored the Charter of both the Cities of Basilan and Zamboanga.
More Filipino settler families, such as the Cuevas-Flores-Pamaran-Antonio combine (progeny of the legendary Datu Kalun, also known by his Christian name as Don Pedro Cuevas of Cavite) in Lamitan and the Pardo, Barandino, Brown, Dans and Nuñal families of Isabela itself soon followed suit, establishing sizeable plantations, usually engaged in coconut/copra production.
From July 1, 1936 to December 27, 1973, Isabela was a district of the now defunct Chartered City of Basilan. On the latter date, former Philippine President Ferdinand E. Marcos issued a Presidential Decree creating the Province of Basilan, concurrently converting Isabela into a Municipality, and appointing its first Mayor, Ricardo G. Mon.
On March 5, 2001 Republic Act No. 9023 “An Act Converting the Municipality of Isabela, Province of Basilan into a component city to be known as the City of Isabela” was signed by President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. Then on April 25, 2001 the Isabeleños overwhelmingly ratified Isabela's Cityhood The Bill for Cityhood was filed by former Deputy Speaker Gerry A. Salapuddin, a Sorbonne University-educated former MNLF Commander, who likewise served three terms as Governor of the Province.
On the same year, the residents of Basilan Province opted to join the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) in yet another plebiscite. However, the citizens of the capital, Isabela, opted out of the autonomous government experiment so the city remained a part of the Zamboanga Peninsula region pursuant to Executive Order No. 36.
Through the administration of the first City Mayor, Luis Rubio Biel II, Isabela was regarded as "The Rising City of the South".
This nascent optimism took a backseat with the untimely assassination of the abovementioned Mayor on March 3, 2006. He was succeeded by then Vice Mayor Rodolfo Tan, an erstwhile notable businessman, who finished the late mayor's term until the May 2007 elections produced the City's current Mayor, Cherrylyn Santos-Akbar, second wife of the Representative of the Province, Wahab Akbar, who was himself assassinated by a bomb at the Philippine Congress on November 13, 2007.
Gradually, the optimism of Isabela City's people has returned as the new Mayor's programs and projects promises to give the City a fresh new start.
Talks of either dividing the present Isabela City into three distinct political units, namely (Isabela City, composed of the existing Poblacion and adjacent built-up mostly residential Barangays; Calvario Municipality, composed of Barangays located east of the central barangays towards the Lamitan boundary; and Pasangen or Kumalarang Municipality, composed of Barangays located in the western coastal and inland barangays towards the Lantawan and Sumisip town boundaries) are currently making the rounds of coffeeshops around town. Yet another proposal making some news is the proposed revival of the City of Basilan, which shall comprise the merged Isabela and Lamitan Cities on the northern part of Basilan Island, distinct and separate from the Province of Basilan which shall then comprise Tuburan, Tipo-Tipo, Sumisip, Maluso and Lantawan (the new towns of Al-Barka, Akbar, Muhammad Ajul and Ungkaya Pukan are creations of the ARMM Regional Assembly).
The violent politics that has characterized Isabela and Basilan of late, has left much of the populace guessing as to the future of their City and Province as new political alignments take shape and new political leaders appear.
[edit] GEOGRAPHY
1. Topography
The Topography of the whole area of Isabela is an irregular, rolling terrain. The steepest grades of over 60% are found in some parts of the Barangays of Menzi, Busay, Panunsulan, Calvario, Kapayawan and Kapatagan in the mainland and in the barangays of Panigayan and Sta. Barbara in Malamawi Island.
2. Climate
Based on the Modified Coronas Climate Classification Scheme by the Philippine Atmospheric Geophysical and Astronomical Service Administration (PAGASA), Isabela City is classified under Type III zone, in which there are no pronounced maximum rain periods with short dry season lasting from 1 to 3 months.
[edit] BARANGAYS
Isabela City is politically subdivided into 45 barangays.
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[edit] BUSINESS PROFILE
- THE BUSINESS SECTOR -
- Isabela City's business sector is represented by the Basilan Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Inc., established in 1975.
- Nearly 90% of the agriculturally productive land area is owned by Isabela City residents, usually Christian and mostly Catholic.
- Almost all trading activities are handled by the resident Chinese community, who has a significant presence in the professions as well.
- Chavacanos are mostly working either as professionals or as City Government employees
- Tausugs/Maranaos are engaged primarily in retail commerce, vending and fishing
- Bisayas are into micro-small enterprises and rural farming
- Yakans are mostly copra dealers, traders, or Provincial Government employees
- the Department of Trade and Industry Isabela City Office is located at the Isabela City Hall Complex, Sunrise Barangay
- PRIMARY ECONOMIC ENTERPRISES -
- Baluno and Menzi are two baranggays that produce agricultural products, primarily rubber. They have their own rubber processing plants from the raw rubber sap, and sell these products to merchants for export. Also these rubber processing cooperatives contribute much to Isabela City's employment rate.
- Isabela City's OTOP (One Town One Product)showcase is: crumb rubber, owing to the number of rubber processing plants located within City limits.
- BF Goodrich and Sime Darby Tires are the major international investments in the city.
- The Barandino Estate, Alano Group of Companies, The Biel Transportion are some of the longtime local investors in the city.
- Other Major Economic Activities include coconut/copra production and, to a lesser extent, bamboo crafts/furnitures
- RESTAURANTS -
- Jollibee Basilan, the first Manila-based fastfood company to locate in the province, is the 500th Jollibee branch opened in early 2005.
- Twin's Pavilion, for elegant night soirees and other special occasions
- Font's and Mon's Restaurant, fastfood located at the center of town
- Emerald Cafe, sidewalk cafe located beside Isabela City Plaza
- Lolo Jose Grille and Restaurant, offering native dishes, located in Sunrise Barangay
- The Hidden Garden - located in J.S.Alano Compound, Doña Ramona T. Alano Barangay
- SPORTS & ENTERTAINMENT -
- D'Biel Bowling Center, located in Sunrise Barangay
- RAFCER Entertainment Complex - disco, videoke, bowling, located in Menzi Barangay
- 3 Tennis Courts (Basilan Tennis Club at Tabuk, Basilan PNP Tennis Club and Menzi Tennis Club both in Menzi Barangay)
- Badminton games are played nightly at the Isabela City Gym
- Volleyball games may be played in the schools, as well as the BNHS Grandstand and J.S.Alano Compound
- a number of Videoke Bars and Restaurants are open until 2AM
- BUSINESS CONCERNS -
- High electricity rates - calculated to be second only to Japan in the whole of Asia
- Outdated communication facilities - the City is serviced by an analog phone system, with little or no national/international direct dial capabilities
- High Freight Expenses - onerous rates charged by inter-island ferry/cargo shipping operators
[edit] TOURISM
- ATTRACTIONS -
- Annual Cocowayan Festival - Anniversary of the Cityhood of Isabela, April 25
- Fiesta Santa Isabel - Annual Feast of St. Elizabeth of Portugal, July 8
- Cathedral of Santa Isabel de Portugal - the seat of the Diocese of Basilan and Prelature of Isabela, built in 1960s mod-art style with a distinctively Classical Roman mosaic for an altar wall.
- Provincial Capitol - constructed along elegant middle-eastern architectural lines reflecting the majority Muslim population (70%) of the Island Province
- Kaumpurnah Mosque - historic seat of Islamic faith and teaching in Basilan, can be seen as you enter the Isabela Channel
- Alano White Beach Resort - located on the northern part of scenic Malamawi Island, features white sand beaches, day cottages and basic amenities for a day of fun with family and friends
- Barandino Farm - located on the eastern part of city, it is 12 kilometers from the main city and has hectares coconut and fruit trees
- Sumagdang Beach Resort - a publicly owned beach resort for affordable weekend getaways for the family
- ISAWAD Resort - a refreshing inland pool and water park located in Cabunbata Barangay
- Cabunbata Falls - a natural watering hole for the environmentally conscious and the eco-friendly traveler
- Yakan Crafts - showcasing authentic Yakan cloth designs and souvenir products, located at J.S.Alano (Zenith) Bldg.
- ACCOMMODATIONS -
- The Farmland Resort - a cool family retreat located at the nearby hills of Lanote Barangay
- Anson's Hotel - offering business and tourist accommodations for the occasional traveler
- Other smaller accommodations include: Royal Issra Pension House, Charina's Pension House, Basilan Hostel, Basilan Hotel all located within a kilometer from the City Center
- ACCESS - By Sea...
- Isabela City is accessible by sea, through several sea ferries plying the busy Isabela City - Zamboanga City route
- Basilan lines Inc. - operators of M/V Dona Ramona, M/V Lenora and M/V Don Julio
- A. Sakaluran Shipping - operators of AS Express, MS Express and RS Express fastcraft ferries
- Aleson Shipping Lines - operators of M/V Stefanie Marie and M/V Kristel Jane
- Ever Lines - operators of M/V Ever Sweet and M/V Ever Princess Nicole
- ferries leave on an average of 30-minute intervals
By Land...
- Isabela City is served by the D'Biel La Virgen Milagrosa Transportation Co., whose buses ply the Isabela-Lamitan route
- a number of franchised vans and multi-cabs also ply the Isabela-Lamitan, Isabela-Maluso routes
[edit] EDUCATION
- PUBLIC -
- Basilan State College - located at Barangay Sumagdang, offers the biggest number of courses among tertiary institutions in the City
- All public high schools and elementary schools are administered by the City Schools Division of Isabela, DepEd Zamboanga Peninsula
- Basilan National High School - the premier secondary educational institution in the Province
- PRIVATE -
- Claret College of Isabela - formerly Fatima School, the only Catholic-run sectarian school in the City, located at Barangay Sta. Cruz, also has a High School and Elementary Department
- Juan S. Alano Memorial School, Inc. - affiliated with the Juan S. Alano Memorial Hospital, Inc., offers Midwifery and related health science courses, located at Dona Ramona T. Alano Barangay
- Jack n Jill Integrated Learning Center and Hansel and Gretel International School provide preparatory and Kindergarten learning for pre-school toddlers, with the former offering Elementary grades up to the 6th grade level
- An unspecified number of Sunday Schools for Christian children and Madaris (Madrassah) for Muslim learners are also operating within City limits
[edit] HEALTH
- HOSPITALS -
- Juan S. Alano Memorial Hospital, Inc. - first private hospital in Basilan established in 1953
- Dr. Alejandro Infante Memorial Hospital, Inc.
- Basilan Community Hospital, Inc.
- Basilan General Hospital (government run facility)
- HEALTH CENTERS & PHARMACIES -
- nearly all Barangays have newly built Health Centers staffed by competent Barangay Health Workers
- numerous pharmacies dot the Isabela City poblacion
[edit] SECURITY
- POLICE -
- Isabela City Police Station - located at Marketsite Barangay, alongside the BJMP - Isabela City Jail
- Philippine National Police - Basilan Police Provincial Office - located in Menzi Barangay
- ARMED FORCES - Main Philippine Marines Camp - located at Barangay Tabiawan Army Scout Rangers Camp - located at Barangay Cabunbata Secondary Philippine Marines Camp - located at Barangay Tabuk
- OTHER -
- Isabela City hosted the Balikatan 02-1 Exercises between the Philippine Military and U. S. Armed Forces in 2002, and then again in 2005
[edit] SHOPPING
- Isabela City Public Market
- Central Square Department Store
- Basilan Shopping Center
- Ever Shopping Center
- YC Sales and Company
[edit] External links
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