THE MAKING OF A FILIPINO
The Filipino people (Filipino: Mamamayang Pilipino) or
Filipinos are an ethnic group native to the islands of
the Philippines. There are about 104 million Filipinos
in the Philippines,[31] and about 13 million living
outside the Philippines.[32]
There are around 180 languages spoken in the
Philippines, most of them belonging to the Austronesian
language family, with Tagalog and Cebuano having the
greatest number of native speakers.[33] The official
languages of the Philippines are Filipino and English
and most Filipinos are bilingual or trilingual.
The Philippines were a Spanish colony for over 300
years, leaving what can now be called Filipino culture
and people semi-Hispanicized. Under Spanish rule, most
of the Filipino populace embraced Roman Catholicism,
yet revolted many times to its hierarchy. Due to a
colonial program, many families adopted Spanish
surnames from the Catálogo alfabético de apellidos
published in 1849 by the Spanish colonial
government.[36] As the Philippine Statistics Department
does not account for the racial background or ancestry
of an individual, the official percentage of Filipinos
with Spanish ancestry is unknown.
The majority of present day Filipinos are a product of
the long process of evolution and movement of people.
After the mass migrations through land bridges,
migrations continue by boat during the maritime era of
South East Asia. The ancient races became homogenized
into the Malayo-Polynesians which colonized the
majority of the Philippine, Malaysian and Indonesian
Archipelagos
The arrival of Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan
in 1521 began a period of European colonization. During
the period of Spanish colonialism beginning in the 16th
century, the Philippines was part of the Viceroyalty of
New Spain, which was governed and controlled from
Mexico City. Early Spanish settlers were mostly
explorers, soldiers, government officials and religious
missionaries born in Spain and Mexico. Most Spaniards
1 who settled were of Andalusian ancestry but there were
also Catalonian, Moorish and Basque settlers. The
Peninsulares (governors born in Spain), mostly of
Castilian ancestry, settled in the islands to govern
their territory. Most settlers married the daughters of
rajahs, datus and sultans to reinforce the colonization
of the islands. The Ginoo and Maharlika castes (royals
and nobles) in the Philippines prior to the arrival of
the Spanish formed the privileged Principalía
(nobility) during the Spanish period. In the 16th and
17th centuries, thousands of Japanese traders also
migrated to the Philippines and assimilated into the
local population.[62]
The arrival of the Spaniards to the Philippines
attracted new waves of immigrants from China, and
maritime trade flourished during the Spanish period.
The Spanish recruited thousands of Chinese migrant
workers called sangleys to build the colonial
infrastructure in the islands. Most Chinese immigrants
converted to Christianity, intermarried with the
locals, and adopted Hispanized names and customs and
became fully assimilated. The children of unions
between Filipinos and Chinese that became fully
assimilated were designated in official records as
mestizos de sangley but viewed themselves as Filipinos.
The Chinese mestizos were largely confined to the
Binondo area until the 19th century. However, they
eventually spread all over the islands, and became
traders, moneylenders and landowners.
As a part of the Seven Years' War, the British forces
occupied Manila between 1762 and 1764. However, the
only part of the Philippines which the British held was
the Spanish colonial capital of Manila and the
principal naval port Cavite, both of which are located
on Manila Bay. The war was ended by the Treaty of Paris
(1763). At the end of the war the treaty signatories
were not aware that Manila had been taken by the
British and was being administered as a British colony.
Consequently, no specific provision was made for the
Philippines. Instead they fell under the general
provision that all other lands not otherwise provided
for be returned to the Spanish Empire. Many Indian
2 Sepoy troops and their British captains mutinied and
were left in Manila and some parts of the Ilocos and
Cagayan. The ones in Manila settled at Cainta, Rizal
and the ones at the north settled at Isabela. Most were
assimilated into the local population.
After the defeat of Spain during the Spanish–American
War in 1898, Filipino general, Emilio Aguinaldo
declared independence on 12 June while General Wesley
Merritt became the first American governor of the
Philippines. On 10 December 1898, the Treaty of Paris
formally ended the war, with Spain ceding the
Philippines and other colonies to the United States in
exchange for $20 million.[64][65] After the Philippine–
American War, the United States civil governance was
established in 1901, with William Howard Taft as the
first American Governor-General.[66] A number of
Americans settled in the islands and thousands of
interracial marriages between Americans and Filipinos
have taken place since then. Due to the strategic
location of the Philippines, as many as 21 bases and
100,000 military personnel were stationed there since
the United States first colonized the islands in 1898.
These bases were decommissioned in 1992 after the end
of the Cold War, but left behind thousands of Amerasian
children.[67] The country gained independence from the
United States in 1946. The Pearl S. Buck International
Foundation estimates there are 52,000 Amerasians
scattered throughout the Philippines. In addition,
numerous Filipino men enlisted in the US Navy and made
careers in it, often settling with their families in
the United States. Some of their second or third
generation-families returned to the country.
Following its independence, the Philippines has seen
both small and large-scale immigration into the
country, mostly involving Americans, British,
Europeans, and some Chinese and Japanese peoples. After
World War II, South Asians continued to migrate into
the islands. Most of which assimilated and avoided the
local social stigma instilled by the early Spaniards
against them by keeping a low profile and/or by trying
to pass as Spanish mestizos. This was also true for the
3 Chinese and Arab immigrants, majority of whom are also
post WWII arrivals. More recent migrations into the
country by Koreans, Persians, Brazilians, and other
Southeast Asians have contributed to the enrichment of
the country's ethnic landscape, language and culture.
Centuries of migration, diaspora, assimilation, and
cultural diversity made most Filipinos accepting of
interracial marriage and multiculturalism. Philippine
nationality law is currently based upon the principles
of your place of birth or origin, and therefore descent
from a parent who is a citizen of the Republic of the
Philippines is the primary method of acquiring national
citizenship. Birth in the Philippines to foreign
parents does not in itself confer Philippine
citizenship, although RA9139, the Administrative
Naturalization Law of 2000, does provide a path for
administrative naturalization of certain aliens born in
the Philippines.
Filipinos of mixed ethnic origins are still referred to
today as mestizos. However in common parlance, mestizos
are only used to refer to Filipinos mixed with Spanish
or any other European ancestry. Filipinos mixed with
any foreign ethnicities are named depending on their
predominant physical aspect.
LANGUAGE:
In 1863 a Spanish decree introduced universal
education, creating free public schooling in
Spanish.[81] It was also the language of the Philippine
Revolution, and the 1899 Malolos Constitution
proclaimed it as the "official language" of the First
Philippine Republic. Spanish continued to be the
predominant lingua franca used in the islands and
formed a second language for most Filipinos before and
during the American colonial regime. Following the
American occupation of the Philippines and the
imposition of English, the overall use of Spanish
declined gradually, especially after the 1940s.
According to Ethnologue, there are about 180 languages
spoken in the Philippines. The Constitution of the
Philippines designates Filipino (which is based on
Tagalog as the national language and designates both
Filipino and English as official languages. Regional
languages are designated as auxiliary official
4 languages. The constitution also provides that Spanish
and Arabic shall be promoted on a voluntary and
optional basis.
Other Philippine languages in the country with at least
320,000 native speakers include Cebuano, Ilocano,
Hiligaynon, Waray-Waray, Kapampangan, Chavacano
(Spanish creole), Northern Bicol, Pangasinan, Southern
Bicol, Maranao, Maguindanao, Kinaray-a, Tausug,
Surigaonon, Masbatenyo, Aklanon, and Ibanag. The 28letter modern Filipino alphabet, adopted in 1987, is
the official writing system.[86]
R ELIGION:
Most Filipinos today are Christians, with around eighty
percent of the population professing Roman Catholicism.
The latter was introduced by the Spanish beginning in
1521, and during their 300-year colonization of the
islands, they managed to convert a vast majority of
Filipinos, resulting in the Philippines becoming the
largest Catholic country in Asia. There are also large
groups of Protestant denominations, which either grew
or were founded following the disestablishment of the
Catholic Church during the American Colonial period.
The Iglesia ni Cristo is currently the single largest
indigenous church, followed by United Church of Christ
in the Philippines. The Iglesia Filipina Independiente
(also known as the Aglipayan Church) was an earlier
development, and is a national church directly
resulting from the 1898 Philippine Revolution. Other
Christian groups such as the Jesus Miracle Crusade,
Mormonism, Orthodoxy, and the Jehovah's Witnesses have
a visible presence in the country.
Cuisine
Philippine cuisine
Filipinos cook a variety of foods influenced by Western
and Asian cuisine. The Philippines is considered a
melting pot of Asia.
Eating out is a favorite Filipino pastime. A typical
Pinoy diet consists at most of six meals a day;
breakfast, snacks, lunch, snacks, dinner, and again a
midnight snack before going to sleep. Rice is a staple
in the Filipino diet, and is usually eaten together
5 with other dishes. Filipinos regularly use spoons
together with forks and knives. Some also eat with
their hands, especially in informal settings, and when
eating seafood. Rice, corn, and popular dishes such as
adobo (a meat stew made from either pork or chicken),
lumpia (meat or vegetable rolls), pancit (a noodle
dish), and lechón (roasted pig) are served on plates.
Other popular dishes brought from Spanish and Southeast
Asian influences include afritada, asado, chorizo,
empanadas, mani (roasted peanuts), paksiw (fish or
pork, cooked in vinegar and water with some spices like
garlic and pepper), pan de sal (bread of salt), pescado
frito (fried or grilled fish), sisig, torta (omelette),
kare-kare (ox-tail stew), kilawen, pinakbet (vegetable
stew), pinapaitan, and sinigang (tamarind soup with a
variety of pork, fish, or prawns). Some delicacies
eaten by some Filipinos may seem unappetizing to the
Western palate include balut (boiled egg with a
fertilized duckling inside), longanisa (sweet sausage),
and dinuguan (soup made from pork blood).
Popular snacks and desserts such as chicharon (deep
fried pork or chicken skin), halo-halo (crushed ice
with evaporated milk, flan, and sliced tropical fruit),
puto (white rice cakes), bibingka (rice cake with
butter or margarine and salted eggs), ensaymada (sweet
roll with grated cheese on top), polvoron (powder
candy), and tsokolate (chocolate) are usually eaten
outside the three main meals. Popular Philippine
beverages include San Miguel Beer, Tanduay Rhum,
coconut arrack, and tuba.
Every province has its own specialty and tastes vary in
each region. In Bicol, for example, foods are generally
spicier than elsewhere in the Philippines. Patis, suka,
toyo, bagoong, and banana catsup are the most common
condiments found in Filipino homes and restaurants.
Western fast food chains such as McDonald's, Wendy's,
KFC, and Pizza Hut are a common sight in the country.
IMMIGRATION TO THE UNITED STATES
Since the 1960s, the Philippines has sent the largest
number of professional immigrants to the United States
(Rumbaut 1991). Due to the shortage of medical personnel in
6 this country, particularly in the inner cities and in rural
areas, doctors, nurses, and other health-related
practitioners are over represented among the recent
Filipino immigrants. Just as the early Filipino immigrants
were recruited for farm labor, by the 1970s recent medical
graduates in the Philippines were recruited to work in U.S.
hospitals, nursing homes, and health organizations (Pido
1986, 85). In fact, the Philippines is the largest supplier
of health professionals to the United States, sending
nearly 25,000 nurses to this country between 1966 and 1985,
and another 10,000 between 1989 and 1991 (Ong and Azores
1994, p. 154). Indeed, many of the nursing programs in the
Philippines are oriented towards supplying the U.S. nursing
labor market (Ong and Azores 1994). Once in the United
States, however, strict licensing procedures and racial
discrimination have forced many Filipino medical
professionals to work as nurses' aides and laboratory
assistants or in jobs that were totally unrelated to their
knowledge and expertise (Takaki 1989, 434-36). Not all of
the contemporary immigrants from the Philippines are
professionals, however. Instead, the dual goals of the 1965
Immigration Act--to facilitate family reunification and to
admit workers needed by the U.S. economy--have produced two
distinct chains of emigration from the Philippines: one
comprising the relatives of Filipinos who had immigrated to
the United States prior to 1965; the other of highly
trained immigrants who entered during the late 1960s and
early 1970s. During the period from 1966-1975, about the
same proportion of Filipino immigrants (subject to
numerical limitation) came under the occupational
preference categories as under the family preference
categories. However, in the 1976-1988 period, the
proportion of occupational preference immigrants dropped to
19-20 percent while the proportion of family preference
immigrants rose to about 80 percent--the result of
tightening entry requirements for professional immigrants
in the mid-1970s and their subsequent reliance on family
reunification categories to enter the United States (Carino
et al 1990, 11-12). Because new immigrants tend to be of
similar socioeconomic backgrounds as their sponsors, family
reunification immigrants represent a continuation of the
unskilled and semi-skilled Filipino labor that had
emigrated before 1965. In contrast, professional immigrants
originate from the middle to upper social, economic, and
educational sectors of Philippine society; and they, in
turn, sponsor relatives who possess the same backgrounds
(Liu et al 1991). As a result of these two distinct chains
of emigration from the Philippines, the contemporary
7 Filipino American community is more diverse than it had
been in the past in terms of class. ETHNICITY: IDENTITY, LANGUAGE, AND RACE The socioeconomic
data just discussed suggest that most Filipino Americans
have achieved economic assimilation. This section examines
the assumption that upward social mobility is linked to
sociocultural similarity by focusing on ethnic selfidentity and language preference--two key indices of
cultural assimilation. An assimilationist perspective would
predict that over time and generation, immigrants and their
children will move in the direction of both increasing
identificational assimilation (i.e. as an unhyphenated
American) and increasing linguistic assimilation (i.e.
anglicization) (Rumbaut 1997). However, the available data
suggest a more dynamic and complex pattern of cultural
adaptation: While most Filipino Americans self-identified
by national origin, most also preferred English to their
parents' native language. Race also shapes the identity of
these young Filipinos as they struggled between their
belief in the American dream and their experience with
racial discrimination.
Filipino Values
[edit]
Family
The Philippines is known to be a family centered nation. The Filipinos
recognize their family as an important social structure that one must take
care of. They give importance to the safety and unity of one’s family. The
Filipino family is so intact that it is common for members of the same family
work for the same company. It is also common to find the whole clan living
in the same area as that the Filipinos are afraid to be too far from their own
family.
People get strength from their family, thus a child may have several
godparents to ensure his future in case his parents will not be there for
him. They also do not let their elders live too far away from them. The
Filipinos take care of their elders by taking them into their homes. Unlike
the Westerners, the Filipinos do not send their elders to nursing homes to
be taken care of. They believe that when their elders are unable to live
8 alone, the time has come for them to pay their respects and to be able to
serve their parents just as they were cared for when they were younger.
[edit]
Politeness
Filipinos are taught to become respectful individuals. This is mainly due to
the influence of Christianity that tells us to honor both our parents and our
elders. The use of ‘’po’’ and ‘’’opo’’’ when in conversation with an elder or
someone who is older is a manifestation of how Filipinos respect their
elders.
[edit]
Hospitality
The Filipinos are very hospitable when it comes to their fellowmen. They
will invite their visitors to come into their homes and offer them treats such
as snacks and drinks after a long journey. There are also instances when
the Filipinos will serve only the best to their visitors even if at times they
may not be able to afford it. They also go the extremes as to give up the
comfort of their own bedrooms for their guests and to the point of sleeping
on floor just to ensure that their guests are comfortable.
[edit]
Gratitude
Gratitude or ‘’’utang na loob’’’ is a very popular Filipino characteristic. One
does not forget the good deeds that others may have done to him or her
especially at times of great need. This debt of gratitude are sometimes
abused by those who have done well to others as they may ask favors or
things that may either be unreasonable or beyond the means of the one in
debt.
[edit]
Shame
Shame or ‘’’Hiya’’’ is a very common Filipino value. It is said that Filipinos
would go to great lengths in order for one not to be ashamed. Hiya has a
great influence on one’s behavior for one will do everything, even if it is
beyond his means just to save his reputation as well as the family’s.
Filipinos feel pressured to meet the status quo of the society when it
comes to economic standing. One indication of this might be a willingness
to spend more than they can afford on a party rather than be shamed by
their economic circumstances.
9 [edit]
Flexibility, Adaptability, and Creativity
Filipino's sense of joy and humor is evident in their optimistic approach to
life and its travails. The ability to laugh at themselves and their
predicament is an important coping mechanism that contributes to
emotional balance and a capacity to survive. These are manifested in the
ability to adjust to often difficult circumstances and prevailing physical and
social environments. Filipinos have a high tolerance for ambiguity that
enables them to respond calmly to uncertainty or lack of information.
Filipinos often improvise and make productive and innovative use of
whatever is available. These qualities have been repeatedly demonstrated
in their capacity to adapt to living in any part of the world and in their ability
to accept change.
[edit]
Loyalty
Loyalty or ‘’’Pakikisama’’’ is another Filipino value. Filipinos are said to be
loyal to their friends and fellowmen in order to ensure the peace in the
group. This is manifested in their basic sense of justice and fairness and
concern for other's well being. Filipinos recognize the essential humanity of
all people and regard others with respect and empathy. With this
orientation, Filipinos develop a sensitivity to the nature and quality of
interpersonal relationships, which are their principal source of security and
happiness.
[edit]
Hard work and Industry
The related capacity for hard work and industry among Filipinos is widely
recognized. Filipinos are universally regarded as excellent workers who
perform well whether the job involves physical labor and tasks or highly
sophisticated technical functions. This propensity for hard work, which
often includes a highly competitive spirit, is driven by the desire for
economic security and advancement for oneself and one's family. This
achievement orientation is further accompanied by typically high
aspirations and great personal sacrifices.
[edit]
Resignation
Trust in God or the concept of ‘’’Bahala na’’’ has been over-used time and
again. This ideal is used when a person does not know what to do or is to
10 lazy to do anything at all. This belief to put fate in
God’s hands may be a sign of how religious Filipinos may be
at the same time, it may show that the Filipinos are freespirited and that they put their life in fate’s hands.
THE PHILIPPINE EDUCATION SYSTEM
The education system of the country includes formal
and non-formal education. Compared to other Asian
countries, the Philippine education system differs in a
number of ways. Basic education in the Philippines is only
10
years as against 12 in other countries. The
Philippine education system is closely related to
the American system of
formal education while other Asian countries are influenced
by the English, French or Dutch system. The Philippines is
using a bilingual medium of instruction. Certain subjects
are taught in English and the rest in the national language
which
is Filipino.
2.1 Formal education
The formal education is a sequential progression of
academic schooling at three levels,
namely,elementary,secondary and tertiary or higher
education.
11