Yakan

Yakan refers to the majority Muslim group in Basilan, an island just south of Zamboanga province in Mindanao. The Spaniards called them Sameacas and considered them aloof and sometimes hostile hill people (Wulff 1978:149; Haylaya 1980:13). Basilan Island measures 1339 sqkm, the largest in the archipelago. Located at the northern end of the Sulu Archipelago, it is bounded in the north by Zamboanga City; in the south by the Sulu archipelago, with Jolo as the major island; in the east by Mindanao; and in the west by the Sulu Sea and Sabah (North Borneo). Basilan enjoys good weather since it is located below the typhoon belt. Abundant rainfall throughout the year keeps the soil wet and fertile (Sherfan 1976:3; Jundam 1983:3). The island has a mountainous terrain once covered with thick forests. There are three main waterfalls, which provide waterpower: Kumalarang Falls, Busay Falls, and Bulingan Waterfalls. However, this small island has not been spared the ravages of environmental abuse. Basilan at present suffers from water shortage because of unabated illegal logging, which according to statistics destroys Basilan's forest reserves at the rate of 2,000 ha annually. Forest denudation has reduced by over half the water overflow from its watersheds, caused heavy siltation, and dried up the two main rivers, Busay and Aguada. Basilan is inhabited by five ethnic groups, which were headed by the Yakan, who number around 196,000 (NCCP-PACT 1988). The other ethnic groups in order of population size are the Chavacano, Samal, Tausug, Badjao, and Visayan (Jundam 1983:7). The Yakan have Malay features. They are small of frame, with brown skin, slanting eyes and black hair - characteristics similar to the Dyak of North Borneo, leading to speculation that they originated from this race. They speak a language known as Bahasa Yakan, which is a variation of the Samal Sinama or Siama and the Tausug languages (Jundam 1983: 7-8). It is written in the Malayan Arabic script, with adaptations to sounds not present in Arabic (Sherfan 1976).