The Camotes Islands are a group of islands in the Camotes Sea, Philippines. Its combined area is . The island group is located east of Cebu Island, southwest of Leyte Island, and north of Bohol Island. It is from Cebu City and is part of the Province of Cebu. According to the 2020 census, it has a population of 109,278. Population has grown % since 1990, equivalent to an annual growth rate of .
Nearest landfall, from north end of Ponson Island to southern Leyte, is about . From Consuelo port to Danao is as the crow flies. From south of Pacijan to Bohol is about .
Sometimes known as the "Lost Horizon of the south", the Camotes has seen increased visitors and tourism and a growing expatriate community. Among the natural attractions are dive sites around the islands.
Camotes Islands comprises three major islands and one minor islet, divided between four municipalities. On Poro Island are the municipalities of Poro and Tudela. Pacijan Island's sole municipality is San Francisco, which also governs the offshore islet of Tulang. Ponson Island's sole municipality is Pilar. The main islands of Pacijan and Poro are connected by a causeway. Ponson lies about northeast of Poro, across the Kawit Strait, while Tulang is located a short distance north of Pacijan.
The Camotes are low-lying with several hills, some used for telecommunications relay stations. The highest point is Altavista, above sea level, on Poro. Pacijan has a large lake, Lake Danao, which at is the largest freshwater lake in the province.
Cebuano is the primary language, then English and Filipino. Schoolchildren are taught all three languages.
Porohanon or Camotes Visayan is spoken chiefly in the town of Poro, and is one of the most endangered languages in the Visayas. The language is classified as distinct from Cebuano (Bisaya) by the Komisyon ng Wikang Filipino, and is essential to the culture and arts of the local Porohanon people. Porohanon is mutually intelligible with other varieties of Bisaya spoken elsewhere in the Camotes Islands and Cebu, the Visayas, and northern Mindanao. The language is noted for substituting the /y/ sound for /z/ and the /h/ sound becoming /r/.
Example: Maayong buntag (Cebuano, "Good morning") is Maazong buntag in Porohanon; Na-a diha (Cebuano, "It is there") is Ara dira (Porohanon).
Tropical monsoon climate (Köppen climate classification category "Am"), with rainfall more or less evenly distributed throughout the year â Coronas climate type IV.
By Presidential Proclamation 2152 of 1981, the islands of Ponson, Poro and Pacihan are protected mangrove swamp forest reserves.
Exemplars of the rare, critically endangered Cebu Cinnamon (Cinnamomum cebuense) or kaningag tree have also been discovered on the Camotes Islands. Palm trees are the dominant plant on the islands, as are native varieties of fruit-bearing plants including banana, mango, and pineapple.
Little is known of the islands' early history. The twentieth century saw a number of archaeological studies, but nothing of major significance emerged.
An early visitor was Carl Guthe, who led an expedition from the University of Michigan which spent three years (1923âÂÂ1925) investigating and exploring many sites across the archipelago. He conducted an archaeological dig at a on Tulang on the southeastern coast of the island, with the cave measures about . Guthe reported it to contain bone fragments and teeth of about 60 individuals. Associated grave goods included earthenware pottery, shell bracelets, bronze and iron artefacts (iron tang, bronze chisel, iron blade), glass and stone beads, hammerstone and pestle. Filed teeth were also recovered from this site.
Otley Beyer, dubbed the Philippines "Father of Anthropology", never visited, although he is reported to have described Camotes as a "basket of interesting archaeological finds."
In the early 1970s, residents unearthed a variety of artefacts dating back to the 16th century. An excavation at Mactang, a purok of Barangay Esperanza, Poro, revealed spears, daggers, swords, crosses, iron pendants and a skull pierced with an arrowhead. This heavily disturbed and looted site along the shoreline of Mactang was excavated in the 1990s by Bailen and Cabanilla of the University of the Philippines Diliman in the early 1990s and explored by Bersales and the University of San Carlos in 2001. Porcelain and earthenware sherds are strewn on the surface of what would otherwise have been a 13th- or 14th-century CE burial site.
In one barangay, Bailen and Cabanilla found a complex of caves which they believed had been inhabited by primitive people. Cabanilla asked municipal officials to preserve the site and wait while their project proposal would be approved. They planned to conduct a digging and leave whatever artefacts would be found in the caves, transforming the place into an onsite museum to attract students and archaeologists, among others. A few months later, Cabanilla returned to Camotes, after having secured project funding from a foreign institution to find the caves already mined of stone sold to a sinter plant in Leyte by the mayor, despite earlier assurances of its safekeeping. Only one cave remained, but Cabanilla lost the drive and returned to Manila, while the town's plan to erect a museum for recovered artefacts from the survey was abandoned.
The islands were first mentioned by Antonio Pigafetta, one of the survivors from Ferdinand Magellan's expedition, as they waited off the islands for several days before going on to Cebu in the first week of April 1521:
Writing in 1582, Miguel de Loarca stated:
He also wrote:
Administratively, the Camotes Islands were previously part of Leyte Province before being transferred to Cebu during the American period.
In 1942, Imperial Japanese forces invaded the Camotes Islands as part of their their occupation of the Philippines in World War II. In 1945, Japanese soldiers massacred almost all the inhabitants of Pilar, which were counted among the war crimes in a later trial. Liberation of the islands happened soon after the massacre, when combined Philippine and American soldiers landed and fought remaining Japanese troops in the Battle of Camotes Islands.
The predominant industries on the Camotes Islands are farming (including corn, rice, pigs, chicken and cattle), fishing and tourism. Major employers are CELCO (Camotes Electric Cooperative) and Kinoshita Pearl Farm. There is a small hospital, while Fiesta Mall - the first mall on the island - opened in 2015.
There are about 22 tourist resorts catering to both domestic and international visitors with many public and private beaches. Diving and snorkeling are available at some of the resorts. A new integrated casino resort with condos is scheduled to open in December 2016. Tourism in the key economic development for the future of the island with a focus on the white sand beaches, safe and clean environment.
Tourist spots in the island group include Buho Rock, Greenlake Park, Mount Calvary (Kalbaryo), Lake Danao and the vast mangrove swamp along the sides of the road from Pacijan (San Francisco) to Poro. There are many caves such as Bukilat Cave, Timubo Cave and Guadalupe Cave, which has a freshwater underground lake. Poro has two waterfalls, one in Poro and one in Tudela.
There are two tertiary educational institutions on the island: the local campus of Cebu Technological University, and Mount Moriah College. Camotes Hillside Academy meanwhile offers private education from kindergarten to secondary levels.