page_title: Isabela, Basilan
section_title: Philippine Commonwealth
hierarchical_section_title: Isabela, Basilan / History / Spanish arrival / Philippine Commonwealth
caption_attribution_description: English: Basilan_Expanded_1936-1941
context_page_description: Isabela, officially the City of Isabela, is a 4th class component city in the province of Basilan, Philippines. According to the 2015 census, it has a population of 112,788 people.
  It is also colloquially known as Isabela de Basilan to differentiate the city's name from the province of Isabela in Luzon.
  While administratively the island province of Basilan is part of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, Isabela, which previously served as its capital since the province's creation, itself is not part of this region, being placed instead under the Zamboanga Peninsula region. While the city is still regulated by the Basilan provincial government and provincial services are provided by Basilan, regional services are provided by the Zamboanga Peninsula regional government. The Philippine Statistics Authority lists Isabela as statistically independent from Basilan. This prompted the provincial government to transfer the capital to Lamitan.
context_section_description: Politically, Basilan became a part of the Moro Province (1899–1914, encompassing most of Mindanao Island). Basilan was then included in the Department of Mindanao and Sulu (1914–1920), a district of Zamboanga Province (1920–1936), and then of the Chartered City of Zamboanga (1936–1948), before it became a Chartered City on its own right at the beginning of the Philippine Republic.
  Alongside military suppression came a policy of education.  Public schools were built but Muslim enrollment was way below Christian school attendance.  Muslims considered public education a threat to their culture and religion.
  To ensure Muslim participation in government affairs, the Americans soon adopted a Policy of Attraction for western Mindanao.  Moreover, the Philippine Constabulary (PC) replaced the United States Army units pursuant to colonial efforts to reduce American presence.  The replacement of American troops, mostly by Christians under the PC, increased the hostility between Muslims and Christians.
  In the political sphere, the management of Muslim affairs through the organization of the Department of Mindanao and Sulu in 1914 was unsuccessful, as leadership in the department fell in the hands of Christians.  Thus, the Muslim leaders were historically opposed to the idea of independence, which meant the incorporation of Muslim areas into a political system dominated by Christians.
  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 D. 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 clan (progeny of the legendary Datu Kalun) in Lamitan and the Pardo, Barandino, Brown, Dans, Golveo, and Nuñal families of Isabela itself soon followed suit, establishing sizeable plantations, usually engaged in coconut/copra production.
caption: Basilan island 1936–1941
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