FILIPINO
Excerpts from Wikipedia.org
Filipinos are the citizens of the Philippines, located in Southeast Asia. The term (feminine: Filipina) may also refer to people of Philippine descent, regardless of citizenship.
Throughout the colonial era, the term "Filipino" originally referred to Spaniards born in the Philippines, also known as insulares, criollos or español filipino. This distinguished them from Spaniards born in Europe who were known as peninsulares. By the mid to late nineteenth century, however, the term "Filipino" had begun to refer to the indigenous population of the Philippines. According to historian Ambeth Ocampo, José Rizal was the first to call the native inhabitants "Filipinos". Today, Filipino is also used to signify the nationality and citizenship of one who is from the Philippines. This means that not only Austronesian Malay population are included but also other ethnic groups such as the Chinese, Japanese, Spanish, and American.
History
The first humans in the Philippines are the Tabon Man, who was postulated to have lived at 0-1 BCE, and the Cagayan Man, who is in turn thought to live at about 250,000-500,000 BCE. The archaeological evidences indicate similarities of the two aforementioned fossils to fossils found in China and Indonesia.
The next group that arrived are the nomadic Negritos, whose ancestors were similar to the ancestors of the Andamanese and occupied several scattered areas throughout the islands. Unlike the following groups, they arrived before the Last Ice Age ended and were able to use land bridges.
Current archaeological evidences subscribe to the "Mainland Theory" of Peter Bellwood, that the ancestors of the present-day Filipinos, as well as that of the Malays, Indonesians, and the Pacific Islanders first crossed the Taiwan Strait 4,000 years ago, during the Iron Age. These early voyagers are thought to be the Austronesians. They used balangays (boats) to cross the Bashi Channel to the Philippines. This is attested by the fact that in Taiwan and the Philippines, the peoples are subdivided into several small tribes, whereas in Malaysia and Indonesia, most peoples are homogenous or are divided into large tribes, indicating that Taiwan, then the Philippines, was the starting point for Austronesian migration, and that the present-day Malays and Indonesians, as well as the Pacific Islanders instead came from the Philippines, and not from Malaya or Sumatra.
By the 14th century, the ethnic landscape in the country was already relatively fixed. The Austronesians from Taiwan gradually supplanted the Negritos then occupied the plains, deltas, and the coastal areas. Together with the later migrant Southern Chinese, they formed the primary ancestral lineage of the present-day Filipinos.
Frequent trades with China and Japan in the north, and with the Malays, Indians, Persians, and Arabs from the west and south also contributed to the ethnic and cultural make-up of the coastal areas. These included th adoption of Baybayin, Islam, as well as the concept of Karma.
With the Spanish colonization of the Philippines, two new groups of people were introduced to the country. These are the Spaniards and the American Indians. The Spaniards settled in the plains around Manila and Cavite, and some of them intermarried with the natives and the Southern Chinese. These gave rise to the Mestizos for peoples of mixed Austronesian and Spanish descent, and the "Tornatras" for peoples of mixed Austronesian and Southern Chinese descent. Over time, Mestizo and Tornatra communities have also sprung up in various parts of the archipelago, particularly in Cebu, Iloilo, and Bacolod. The American Indians that were brought here, according to author Austin Craig, nearly numbered similar to the native population. Most of them are of Nahuatl (Aztec) or Yaqui descent, or are Mexican mestizos themselves. Many of them intermarried with the indigenous population, particularly in Luzon. By the opening of the Suez Canal in 1867, the Philippines was opened for foreign trade, and there are many Europeans, particularly Britons, Germans, and French, who have settled in the islands.
American colonization in 1898 brought in a new ethnic group, the Anglo-Americans, and the Philippines was held by most American authors as the westernmost outpost of American ethnic and territorial expansion. A plan formulated by the American government was to transfer all the African Americans in the Mainland United States to the Philippines, but this never materialized, due to the Philippine-American War. From 1898 until the present-day, a continuous trickle of American immigration to the Philippines, mostly White Americans, has resulted to the country’s having the largest American and Amerasian population outside of North America.
Presently, the Philippines has over 160 distinct indigenous ethnic groups, over half of which are unique linguistic groups, but aside from this, there has been a great deal of intermarriage between the indigenous population and the foreign colonizers and immigrants that it is nearly impossible to set the proportion constants between the various groups. Prehistoric movements of people throughout the region have resulted to the country’s having a large minority comprised of Southern Chinese, Indians, and Arabs, while contemporary migrations have also led to a sizeable Spanish and American populations. More modern immigrations to the country have seen large numbers of Americans, Koreans, Japanese, and Indonesians settle in the islands, particularly during the 21st century. As of now, about 10% of all Filipinos have Southern Chinese ancestry, and 10% of the population is at least partly descended from the European and American colonizers and immigrants. Current increasing trends in immigration and interracial marriage with Caucasians, particularly Americans, as well as with East Asians, particularly Chinese and Japanese, are expected to result to a significant rise in the number of Filipino mestizos by the end of the first half of this century.
Ancestry
A Stanford University study conducted during 2001 revealed that Y-chromosome Haplogroup O3-M122 (labeled as "Haplogroup L" in this study) predominates among Filipino males. This particular haplogroup is also predominant among Chinese and Korean males. That finding is consistent with the theory that people migrated from China south into the Philippines.
Another haplogroup, Haplogroup O1a-M119 (labeled as "Haplogroup H" in this study), is also found among Filipinos. The rates of Haplogroup O1a are highest among the Taiwanese Aborigines. Overall, the genetic frequencies found among Filipinos points to the Ami tribe of Taiwan as their nearest genetic relative.
A 2002 China Medical University study indicated that certain Filipinos shared a particular gene marker that is also found among Taiwanese aborigines and Indonesians.
A 2003 University of the Philippines study based on 50 participants each from the islands of Luzon and Cebu provided some insight into the various places of origin of early Filipinos. Some rare genetic markers were found which are shared by people from parts of Asia.
