Republic of the Philippines

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
Quezon City

FIFTEENTH CONGRESS
First Regular Session

HOUSE RESOLUTION No. 346

Introduced by Reps. TEDDY A. CASIÑO, RENE L. RELAMPAGOS,

ARTHUR C. YAP and ERICO B. AUMENTADO

RESOLUTION
DIRECTING THE COMMITTEE ON NATIONAL CULTURAL
COMMUNITIES TO CONDUCT AN INVESTIGATION, IN AID OF
LEGISLATION, ON THE VARIOUS CONTROVERSIES, INCLUDING THE
DECLINE OF THEIR LINGUISTIC AND CULTURAL TRADITIONS, THAT
HOUND THE INDIGENOUS ESKAYA TRIBE, THE CULTURAL MINORITY
OF THE ISLAND OF BOHOL

WHEREAS, the Eskaya is the collective name for the members of a cultural minority found
in Bohol island, Central Visayas. It is distinguished by its cultural heritage, particularly its
literature and language, although many of its earlier traditional practices are no longer strictly
observed;

WHEREAS, various reports indicate that the Eskaya linguistic and cultural education has
been in steady decline since the mid-1980s;

WHEREAS, legally, the Eskaya are classified as an indigenous group under the Indigenous
Peoples Rights Act of 1997 (Republic Act 8371);

WHEREAS, most members of the Eskaya community inhabit a mountainous area that
intersects the municipalities of Duero, Guindulman, Pilar, and Sierra Bullones in the once-
forested region of Bohol's southeast interior. The original Eskaya settlement of Biabas
(Guindulman), was established in the early 20th century by Mariano Datahan who died in
1949. In 1951, the second township of Taytay (municipality of Duero) was founded by
Fabian Baja. Today, significant Eskaya populations may be found in the nearby townships of
Canta-ub, Lundag, Tambongan, Cadapdapan and Fatima;

WHEREAS, in 1996, the Eskaya community was awarded a Certificate of Ancestral

Domain Title (CADT) by then President Fidel Ramos. But an official census of the Eskaya
population has yet to be done. One unofficial report estimates that in 1991 there were 130
Eskaya families living in Bohol;
WHEREAS, the speech variety of the Eskaya is known as Eskayan, or Ineskaya in the local
Cebuano language. Lexically, Eskayan shows no clear relationship with any known language
although there is strong but inconsistent Spanish influence. A striking feature of the
language is its unusual phonotactics, such as its patterns of consonant and vowel clusters;

WHEREAS, the Eskayan writing system takes the form of a syllabary of over 1,000
characters, all modeled on parts of the human body including internal organs. This unique
script has been compared variously to Phoenician, Etruscan, Hebrew, and even the
undeciphered script of the Butuan paleograph. While there are no mother-tongue speakers
of Eskayan, it is taught to both adults and children in volunteer-run cultural schools. The
Eskayan language and script has been the object of ongoing controversy that imperils the
Eskaya tribe itself;

WHEREAS, under the direction of Mariano Datahan, the group converted en masse to the
nascent Philippine Independent Church in about 1902. Community members still revere the
entity Suno which is conflated with the Santo Niño, and in addition to weekly church
services they are served by appointed spiritual leaders known as biki and beriki. The Eskaya
also retain spiritual traditions once widespread in lowland Boholano rural communities;

WHEREAS, the teaching of Eskayan in the volunteer schools is one of the few remaining
cultural practices of the Eskaya community. In the past, Eskaya men would wear shirts made
of piña raffia with a Chinese-style collar, black breeches, and cotton berets while the women
wore piña dresses with bulging sleeves;

WHEREAS, until recently, the Eskaya practiced a form of communal farming in which a
portion of the land in their areas was tilled for the benefit of the whole community;

WHEREAS, the Eskaya community has been the object of an ongoing controversy,
particularly with regards to its status as an indigenous group and the classification of the
Eskayan language;

WHEREAS, intense speculation in the 1980s and 1990s on the part of journalists and lay
historians generated a number of theories that continue to be elaborated without resolution;

WHEREAS, it has been argued variously that the Eskaya are a remnant of the original
indigenous settlers on Bohol; that they migrated to Bohol from Sumatra in the seventh
century A.D.; that they are descendants of the resistance groups that fought under Francisco
Dagohoy; that they are a cult or secret society; or that they are a conscious reconstruction of
an imagined pre-colonial society;

WHEREAS, the dearth of government information on the Eskaya tribe’s progress and
government efforts to deliver social services to their ancestral domain add fuel to the
speculation from various quarters and contribute to the decline of various aspects of their
traditions;
WHEREAS, in order to put to rest any controversy that may endanger the gains, if not the
very existence of the Eskaya tribe, there is a need to ascertain their current conditions, assess
the work done by concerned government agencies to preserve their way of life, and the
progress of efforts to uplift their communities as mandated by law;

NOW THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED, that the Committee on National Cultural

Communities conduct an investigation, in aid of legislation, on the various controversies,
including the decline of the linguistic and cultural traditions, that hound the indigenous
Eskaya tribe, the cultural minority of the island of Bohol.

Adopted,