GMA 7: Pintados Remake

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A new show from the Philippine network GMA 7 uses Baybayin in the opening credits to promote Pintados. What’s interesting is what character set they used. I would’ve expected them to use fonts from Paul Morrow. This looks like it’s in a style made popular by Bayani Mendoza de Leon. The Baybayin reads Pi-N-Ta-Do-S.

Couple notes:
1) The kudlit style appears to be pattered after Bayani’s “The Ancient Script of the Philippines” manual. Instead of + kudlits, a hash at the bottom right of the character represented the vowel cancellation.
2) The 2nd character Na is in a style I haven’t seen before in any old samples or new modern styles by artists.

Here’s an overview of the show:

After several rich Filipino families become victims of terrible crimes, they agree to set up and fund a foundation to battle the criminals. Under the command of “Guro”, an unsanctioned agency of the government sets up a clandestine crime fighting unit. Each of the members is themself a victim of hideous crimes. This elite unit taken from all walks of life take a leaf from Filipino warriors of old, and cloak themselves in armour, ethnic war paint and tattoos, gaining the name “The Pintados” (Painted Ones). Opposing Pintados is the army of the human/reptile hybrid Katana.

Way of the Ancient Healer

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Way of the Ancient Healer – Sacred Teachings from the Philippine Ancestral Traditions by Virgil Mayor Apostol was just released and has a section on Baybayin. He covers the script in the”Inheritance and Documentation of Knowledge” section of Chapter 1. What’s interesting is that Virgil covers how early Baybayin was probably also used to “Record, formulate of magical and religious significance”. Check it out

Baybayin on coins

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This is a guest post from MARY ANN UBALDO (Panday Ginto Urduja)
www.urduja.com
———————–
I have known from Professor Gandhi Cardenas about the Baybayin “Pi” in our Pilipino coins in the denominations of 1 peso ( Year 1996,1997,1998,2000,&2001) & 10 peso Philippine Millenium 2000-2001 Series. I have 14 of these coins as a gift from Gandhi from the early 2000. I have been wearing this Philippine Millenium Series 2001, 10 peso coin as a necklace & have given Perla Daly one of these coins as a gift. The font used in these coins are from Baybayin Lopez 1620. The Baybayin “Pi” is located below the neck of Andres Bonifacio.

VIEW THE PICTURE OF THE Philippine Millenium Series 2000-2001
Ten Piso Coin

Baybayin Buhayin iPhone app now available in iTunes Philippines

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The Baybayin Buhayin app has just been released on the Philippine Apple app store. It’s FREE for a limited time. If your outside the Philippines, you can get it by creating another Apple account and choosing the Philippines as your home country. Once all setup, search for Baybayin. For Philippine accounts, here’s the direct link. This is only V1. Look out for more features soon.

Some basic info about the script

The most interesting part is the tutorial where you can trace the strokes. There’s even audio of the pronunciation.

Baybayin on American TV show Burn Notice

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I think it’s a given that Baybayin will certainly gain exposure in 2011 with several projects like the Baybayin keyboard and my documentary but just this week, we have the new Peso bills and this American TV show.

On the 12/16 episode of Burn Notice (Season 4 episode 17: Out of the Fire), Baybayin was shown on explosives.

The context is that this guy wants to blow something up but have the authorities think it’s Filipinos from Manila. Pretty funny stuff. He has an instruction manual that has some Baybayin on it and the guy says, “I know you want to frame some guys in Manila but I don’t read Tagalog”. I couldn’t make out any of the words. Could just be random garbage.

It looks like the Baybayin is incorrect on the explosives. You can see in one of the photos below, there are no kudlits. One common mistake is to forget that each consonant already has an inherent vowel. Adding a vowel after it would be redundant.

I think one of the words is supposed to say Patok. The longer word looks like it has the following characters: Pa-Nga-Ya-Na-e/i. I think the Nga is supposed to be N but when you type a capital N, it outputs the Nga. The last photo has the A & E/I characters. Anyone have any guesses?

You can watch the whole dumb episode here. Forward to about 18 minutes. Be patient as there are a few annoying commercials. The female lead is hot though.

Poor Paul Morrow, 1 day he get’s the prestige of having his fonts on the new Philippine Peso bills and the very next day his work is on some crappy show that doesn’t do enough research.

Thanks to Nathan DjHyped Partida from PSTGear for the tip

The man behind the Baybayin on the new Peso bills

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The Baybayin community is quite excited with the new Peso bills just announced. This isn’t the 1st time Baybayin has been on our money. It’s been on Peso bills in the 1940’s on the Katipunan flag and most recently a microscopic “Pi” on coins. These new bills have an actual word spelled – Pilipino. You can see it partially on the bottom right front of the bills. Too bad it has to be held in the light to be seen.

The moment I saw it, I knew it was one of Paul Morrow‘s fonts. For those that don’t know, Paul is actually not Filipino. He’s a white guy from Canada who knows more about Filipino culture than most Filipinos.

I reached out to him to see how felt about having is work on the new bills. To my surprise, he didn’t even know about it. Here’s his statement:

From what I can see in the photos, it is definitely my “Tagalog Stylized” font, which I created in 1992. I would need to see one of the new bills up close to see if it is my current version or an older one, which has some very minor differences.

Nobody from the Philippine government consulted me about using one of my fonts, but I have always offered them for free on my website, so I can’t complain. It’s definitely in the public domain now. Actually, I feel honoured, even though it was not the government’s intention to honour me.

I assume that whoever designed the bills wanted a modern look and chose this font over my other fonts, which are historical replicas of old typefaces. My website and the information sheet that is part of the font’s download state that my “Tagalog Stylized” font is a modern interpretation of the old baybayin script and is not historically accurate.

Project updates…Baybayin toys, documentary, new book, art

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I originally aimed to release my Baybayin Documentary late 2010 but I’ll need to push it out to early next year. Why? 1) There’s still a few more people I want to interview, 2) I want to feature some of the interesting activity Baybayin enthusiasts are doing on Facebook and Twitter, 3) I finally opened my online art store and 4) Have been a couple art shows coming up (more details soon).

One of my upcoming projects will be in Pasadena, CA on November 20. This one will not be a Filipino event, it’s actually an Urban Art and Toy show. Over the past few months I’ve been working on customizing a couple Kid Robot toys. Here’s one of the figures that will be on sale soon. Contact me if your interested in purchasing one.