Kumusta?

Hi! My name is Jommel and I am the artist behind Bring Back Baybayin.

I became interested in Baybayin way back in 2014 when I was in college. I didn’t know that the Philippines has its own way of writing. I thought it’s cool that we have one. It made me proud.

A few years later, I started working in an office in the city. My life has become monotonous. Day in and day out, I was the doing the same thing over and over again. I had to stop and think, “Is this what I have to do for the rest of my life?”

I want to do something different.

I want to make a dent in the universe.

So, I brainstormed for things that I should do; things that I want to do.

Then, I got scared. It felt like a really big responsibility. But something inside me was telling me that I can do it.

Then it hit me. I hate the current state of the country. I hate the heavy traffic everyday. I hate the high cost of groceries. I hate to see good honest working people become poorer and corrupt politicians become richer. I hate the flawed and illogical social system.

Filipinos are great and kind people. They deserve better. We deserve better.

I want to change the Philippines.

I got scared even more. It sounded ridiculous coming from a nobody like me.

But I had to do this and I kept thinking of how can I possibly do this. Then I remembered this timeless advice:

So, I had to start small. If I want to change something big, I need to start from its very basic component.

To change a whole country, I need to start with its people.

I looked into developed countries and noticed that most of them have a high sense of nationalism. And I realized, this is what Filipinos lack. This might be what we needed.

We Filipinos have a tendency to see something from another country better than what we have, all the time. This could be the reason why we are so hospitable. We instinctively become submissive to foreign people.

We needed something to call our own. And be proud of it.

Then, I remembered. We have Baybayin.

It’s a way of writing that we can call our own. Our ancestors were using it before the Philippines was colonized. At one point, these colonizers even wanted to remove everything written in Baybayin.

Right now, not many people know about it and it’s almost forgotten. I thought that if we can put Baybayin into the mainstream, maybe we can improve our sense of nationalism.

Maybe we’ll love our country even more.

Maybe we’ll love our fellow countrymen even more.

And if the Filipino people are kind and considerate to each other, maybe we’ll grow and develop as a nation.

This is how the Bring Back Baybayin project was born back in 2017. I wanted to revive the script and bring it to the mainstream media.

At this era of the internet, social media was the perfect tool to achieve this dream. So, I started a Facebook page and an Instagram account.

From that day, I started posting as often as I could. And it grew to where it is right now.

Right now, I am still far from my goal. But I can see progress. As little as they may be, they’re still progress.

I now see shirt designs, store signages, and even government offices use Baybayin.

I am not taking credit for these milestones. But I like to think, just to myself, that maybe someone saw one of my works and it sparked something in them which eventually led to these gradual changes.

But ultimately, I am just glad I can be a part of something big.

Let’s help each other out.