Mindoro


Mindoro is the seventh largest island in the Philippines by land area with a total of 10,571 km2 and with a total population of 1,331,473 as of 2015. It is located off the southwestern coast of Visayas and northeast of Palawan. Mindoro is divided into two provinces: Occidental Mindoro and Oriental Mindoro. San Jose is the largest settlement on the island with a total population of 143,430 inhabitants as of 2015. The southern coast of Mindoro forms the northeastern extremum of the Sulu Sea. Mount Halcon is the highest point on the island, standing at above sea level located in Oriental Mindoro. Mount Baco is the island's second highest mountain with an elevation of, located in the province of Occidental Mindoro.

Etymology

The name Mindoro was likely a corruption of the its native name "Minolo". Domingo Navarette wrote "The island which the natives call Minolo is named Mindoro by the Spaniards...".

History

In past times, it has been called Ma-i or Mait by Han Chinese traders. Indigenous groups are called Mangyans. The Spaniards called the place as Mina de Oro from where the island got its current name. According to the late historian William Henry Scott, an entry in the official history of the Sung Dynasty for the year 972 mentions Ma-i as a state which traded with China. Other Chinese records referring to Ma-i or Mindoro appear in the years that follow.
The products that Mindoro traders exchanged with the Chinese included "beeswax, cotton, true pearls, tortoise shell, medicinal betelnuts and yu-ta cloth" for Chinese porcelain, trade gold, iron pots, lead, copper, colored glass beads and iron needles.
The island was briefly invaded by the Sultanate of Brunei and housed Moro settlements before the Spanish invaded and Christianized the population. Afterwards, the area was depopulated due to wars between the Spaniards and the Moros from Mindanao who sought to enslave the hispanized people and to re-islamize the island. Consequently, most of the population fled to nearby Batangas and the once rich towns of Mindoro fell to ruin. In the seventeenth century, Giovanni Francesco Gemelli Careri visited the island.
In 1898, Mindoro joined in the Philippine Revolution against Spain due to the influx of rebels settling into the island from Cavite and Bataan. Local patriotism died down however during the American occupation of the Philippines and the Japanese era.
The island was the location of the Battle of Mindoro in World War II.
Nevertheless, upon Philippine independence, the area recovered and from 1920 to 1950, the island was a single province with Calapan as the provincial capital. In 1950, it was partitioned into its two present-day provinces, Occidental Mindoro and Oriental Mindoro, following a referendum.

Economy

The economy of Mindoro is largely based on agriculture. Products consist of a wide variety of fruits, such as citrus, bananas, lanzones, rambutan and coconuts, grains, sugarcane, peanuts, fish, livestock and poultry. Logging and the mining of marble and copper also thrive.
Tourism is a lucrative business as well, with locations such as Apo Reef National Park, Lubang Island, Puerto Galera, Sabang Beach and Mount Halcon. Puerto Galera's beaches are the island's most known tourist attraction and are widely visited.

Culture

The principal language in Mindoro is Tagalog, although in some parts it has been greatly influenced by the native Mangyan and Visayan languages. Visayan and Mangyan languages, too, are spoken on the island, as are Ilocano, Bicolano, and some foreign languages – e.g., English, Hokkien, and to a lesser extent, Spanish.
The following indigenous languages are spoken in Mindoro:
Only the indigenous Mangyan language spoken in the southern part of the island is not part of the Philippine branch, but it is still a Malayo-Polynesian languages, historically developed separately from a common Proto-Malay substrate but under the influence of very ancient and more extensive contacts with Sino-Tibetan languages and cultures, and to a lesser extent with Indo-Aryan languages. Today, however, their local language is under strong influence of other Philippines languages and the more recent influence of English.
The common religions on the island fall under Christianity. The religion of the indigenous Mangyan population is animism. Though they are into animism as a principal religion, the Roman Catholic Church in some of Mindoro's parts is also active, so are a few independent subdivisions, like Iglesia Ni Cristo and Philippine Independent Church, as well as the Baptist Church.

Fauna

Mindoro is also home to the tamaraw or Mindoro dwarf buffalo, which is endemic to the island. The tamaraw is a bovine related to the water buffalo and is an endangered species.