Monday, July 30, 2007

Paradise Philippines A new Reality

travel poster concept - representing Philippines
by: abstractation

Saturday, July 7, 2007

Bugsuk Island

Bugsuk Island is an island in the Palawan region, Philippines. Its area is 119 km2.

Balabac Island

Balabac Island is an island in the Philippines, at 7.95° N 117.0208333° E. It is a part of the Palawan province.

The island is home to various endemic species. It is the home of birds like Grey Imperial-pigeon (Ducula pickeringii), Philippine Cockatoo (Cacatua haematuropygia), Blue-headed Racquet-tail (Prioniturus platenae), and the Palawan Hornbill (Anthracoceros marchei). The Philippine Mouse Deer, a subspecies of the Greater Mouse Deer (Tragulus napu) can only be found in this island.

The Molbogs, a Muslim ethnolinguistic group, is concentrated in this island. Their livelihood includes farming, fishing and barter trading with the nearby Sulu Bangsamoro and Sabah market centers.

Mindoro

Mindoro is the seventh-largest island in the Philippines. It is located southwest of Luzon, and northeast of Palawan. In past times, it has been called Ma-i or Mait by ancient Chinese traders and, by Spaniards, as Mina de Oro (meaning "gold mine") from where the island got its current name. The island was divided into its two present-day provinces, Occidental Mindoro and Oriental Mindoro, in 1950. Before then, since 1921, the entire island was one province.

According to the late historian William Henry Scott in his book Prehispanic Source Materials For The Study of Philippine History (rev. ed., 1984), an entry in the official history of the Sung Dynasty for the year 972 mentions Ma-i as a trading partner of China. Other Chinese records referring to Ma-i or Mindoro appear in the years that follow.

Prehispanic Source Materials enumerates the products that Mindoro traders exchanged with the Chinese as "beeswax, cotton, true pearls, tortoise shell, medicinal betelnuts and yu-ta [jute?] cloth" for Chinese porcelain, trade gold, iron pots, lead, colored glass beads and iron needles.