page_title: Baybayin
section_title: Modern Usage
hierarchical_section_title: Baybayin / Usage / Modern Usage
caption_attribution_description: English: Zoom-in on the Baybayin displayed in the Philippine passport (2016 edition)
context_page_description: Baybayin is an old writing system that was used in the Philippines. It is an alphasyllabary belonging to the family of the Brahmic scripts. It was widely used in Luzon and other parts of the Philippines during the 16th and 17th centuries before being supplanted by the Latin alphabet. The characters are in the Basic Multilingual Plane of Unicode, proposed to be encoded in 1998 by Michael Everson together with three other known indigenous scripts of the Philippines. In the 19th and 20th centuries, Baybayin survived and evolved into the forms of Tagbanwa script of Palawan, Hanuno'o and Buhid scripts of Mindoro, and was used to create the modern Kulitan script of the Kapampangan, and Ibalnan script of the Palaw'an tribe.
  The Archives of the University of Santo Tomas in Manila, one of the largest archives in the Philippines, currently possesses the world's biggest collection of ancient writings in Baybayin script. The chambers which house the writings are part of a tentative nomination to UNESCO World Heritage List that is still being deliberated on, along with the entire campus of the University of Santo Tomas.
context_section_description: A number of legislative bills have been proposed periodically aiming to promote the writing system, among them is the "National Writing System Act" (House Bill 1022/Senate Bill 433). It is used in the most current New Generation Currency series of the Philippine peso issued in the last quarter of 2010. The word used on the bills was "Pilipino" (ᜉᜒᜎᜒᜉᜒᜈᜓ).
  It is also used in Philippine passports, specifically the latest e-passport edition issued 11 August 2009 onwards. The odd pages of pages 3–43 have "ᜀᜅ᜔ ᜃᜆᜓᜏᜒᜇᜈ᜔ ᜀᜌ᜔ ᜈᜄ᜔ᜉᜉᜇᜃᜒᜎ ᜐ ᜁᜐᜅ᜔ ᜊᜌᜈ᜔" ("Ang katuwiran ay nagpapadakila sa isang bayan"/"Righteousness exalts a nation") in reference to Proverbs 14:34.
caption: Philippine passport (2016 edition) showing the Baybayin script
exif: {"Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)"}