The Filipino people (Filipino: Mamamayang Pilipino) or Filipinos(feminine: Filipinas) are a Southeast

Asian ethnic group native to the islands of the Philippines. According to the 2010 Census, there were
92,337,852 in the Philippines[32] and about 10 million living outside the Philippines.[33]
There are around 180 languages spoken in the Philippines, most of them belonging to the Austronesian
language family, with Tagalogand Cebuano having the greatest number of native speakers.[34] The
official languages of the Philippines are Filipino and English and most Filipinos
are bilingual or trilingual.[35][36]
The Philippines was 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 inhabitants
adopted Spanish surnames from the Catlogo alfabtico de apellidos published in 1849 by the Spanish
colonial government.[37] As neither past governments nor the modern National Statistics Office account
for the racial background of an individual, the exact percentage of Filipinos with Spanish ancestry is
unknown.
Etymology and orthography[edit]
Most Filipinos refer to themselves colloquially as "Pinoy" (feminine:"Pinay"), which is a slang word
formed by taking the last four letters of "Filipino" and adding the diminutive suffix "-y". The lack of the
letter"F" in the pre-1987 Philippine alphabet, Abakada, had caused the letter "F" to be substituted
with "Ph". This is why, when the 28-letter modern Filipino alphabet was made official in 1987, the
name Filipinowas preferred over Philipino. The name Filipino was chosen by the Spanish explorer Ruy
Lpez de Villalobos, who named the islands "las Islas Filipinas" ("the Philippine Islands") after Philip II of
Spain.[38]
History[edit]
Main article: History of the Philippines
Pre-Colonial[edit]
In 2010, a metatarsal from "Callao Man" discovered in 2007 was dated through uranium-series dating as
being 67,000 years old.[39]
Prior to that, the earliest human remains found in the Philippines were thought to be the fossilized
fragments of a skull and jawbone, discovered in the 1960s by Dr. Robert B. Fox, an anthropologist from
the National Museum.[40] Anthropologists who examined these remains agreed that they belonged to
modern human beings. These include the Homo sapiens, as distinguished from the mid-
PleistoceneHomo erectus species.
The "Tabon Man" fossils are considered to have come from a third group of inhabitants, who worked
the cave between 22,000 and 20,000 BCE. An earlier cave level lies so far below the level containing
cooking fire assemblages that it must represent Upper Pleistocene dates like 45 or 50 thousand years
ago.[41] Researchers say this indicates that the human remains were pre-Mongoloid, from about 40,000
years ago. Mongoloid is the term which anthropologists applied to the ethnic group which migrated to
Southeast Asia during the Holocene period and evolved into the Austronesian people(associated with
the Haplogroup O1 (Y-DNA) genetic marker), a group of Malayo-Polynesian-speaking people including
those from Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia, Malagasy, the non-Han Chinese Taiwanese
Aboriginals.[42]
Fluctuations in ancient shorelines between 150,000 BP and 17,000 BP connected to the Malay
Archipelago region with Maritime Southeast Asia and the Philippines. This may have enabled ancient
migrations into the Philippines from Maritime Southeast Asia approximately 50,000 BP to 13,000 BP.[43]
The Negritos are likely descendants of the indigenous populations of the Sunda landmass and New
Guinea, predating the Mongoloid peoples who later entered Southeast Asia.[44] Multiple studies also
show that Negritos from Southeast Asia to New Guinea share a closer cranial affinity with Australo-
Melanesians.[44][45] They were the ancestors of such tribes of the Philippines as the Aeta, Agta, Ayta,
Ati, Dumagat and other tribes of the Philippines, today making up 0.03% of the total Philippine
population.[46]
The majority of present day Filipinos are a product of the long process of evolution and movement of
people.[47] 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.[48]
Since at least the 3rd century, various ethnic groups established several communities. These were
formed by the assimilation of various native Philippine kingdoms.[46] South Asian and East Asian people
together with the people of the Indonesian Archipelago and the Malay Peninsula, traded with Filipinos
and introduced and passed Hinduism and Buddhism to the native tribes of the Philippines. Most of these
people stayed in the Philippines where they were slowly absorbed into the local society.
Many of the barangay (tribal municipalities) were, to a varying extent, under the de jure jurisprudence
of one of several neighboring empires, among them the Malay Sri
Vijaya, Javanese Majapahit, Brunei, Melaka, Indian Chola, Champa, andKhmer empires, although de
facto had established their own independent system of rule. Trading links
with Sumatra,Borneo, Java, Malay Peninsula, Indochina, China, India, Arabia, Japan and the Ryukyu
Kingdom flourished during this era. Athalassocracy had thus emerged based on international trade.
Even scattered barangays, through the development of inter-island and international trade, became
more culturally homogeneous by the 4th century. Hindu-Buddhist culture and religion flourished among
the noblemen in this era.
In the period between the 7th to the beginning of the 15th centuries, numerous prosperous centers of
trade had emerged, including the Kingdom of Namayan which flourished alongside Manila
Bay,[49][49][50] Cebu, Iloilo,[51] Butuan, the Kingdom of Sanfotsi situated in Pangasinan, the Kingdom
of Luzon now known as Pampanga which specialized in trade with China, Japan and the Kingdom of
Ryukyu in Okinawa, and most of what is now known as South East Asia.
From the 9th century onwards, a large number of Arab traders from the Middle East settled in the Malay
Archipelago and intermarried with the local Malay, Malaysian, Indonesian, and Luzon and Visayas
indigenous populations.[52]
In the years leading up to 1000 C.E., there were already several maritime societies existing in the islands
but there was no unifying political state encompassing the entire Philippine archipelago. Instead, the
region was dotted by numerous semi-autonomous barangays (settlements ranging is size from villages
to city-states) under the sovereignty of competingthalassocracies ruled by datus, rajahs or sultans[53] or
by upland agricultural societies ruled by "petty plutocrats". States such as the Kingdom of
Maynila and Namayan, the Dynasty of Tondo, the Confederation of Madyaas, the Rajahnates
ofButuan and Cebu and the sultanates of Maguindanao and Sulu existed alongside the highland societies
of the Ifugao andMangyan.[54][55][56][57] Some of these regions were part of the Malayan empires
of Srivijaya, Majapahit and Brunei.[58][59][60]
By the 13th century, Arab and Indian Missionaries/Traders from Malaysia and Indonesia brought Islam
to the Philippines, where it both replaced and was practiced together with indigenous religions. Before
that, most indigenous tribes of the Philippines practiced a mixture of Animism, Hinduism and Buddhism.
Native villages, called barangays were populated by locals called Timawa (Middle Class/ freemen) and
Alipin (servants & slaves). They were ruled by Rajahs, Datus and Sultans, a class called Maginoo (royals)
and defended by the Maharlika (Lesser nobles, royal warriors and aristocrats).[46] These Royals and
Nobles are descended from native Filipinos with varying degrees of Indo-aryan, East
Asian and Dravidianancestry which is evident in today's DNA analysis among South East Asian Royals.
This tradition continued among the Spanish and Portuguese traders who also intermarried with the local
populations.[61]
Colonial influence[edit]


A figure of a Filipino Family that belong to Principalia


A mestiza de sangleywoman in a photograph by Francisco Van Camp, c. 1875.
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 who settled were of Andalusian ancestry but there were
also Catalonian, Moorish and Basque settlers. The Peninsulares (governors born in Spain), mostly
ofCastilian ancestry, settled in the islands to govern their territory. Most settlers married the daughters
of rajahs, datusand sultans to reinforce the colonization of the islands. TheGinoo and Maharlika castes
(royals and nobles) in the Philippines prior to the arrival of the Spanish formed the
privileged Principala (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]
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.[63] Many Indian 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.
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.
A total of 110 Manila-Acapulco galleons set sail between 1565 to 1815, during the Philippines trade with
Mexico. Until 1593, three or more ships would set sail annually from each port bringing with them the
riches of the archipelago to Spain. European criollos, mestizos and Portuguese, French and Mexican
descent from the Americas, mostly from Latin America came in contact with the
Filipinos. Japanese, Indian and Cambodian Christians who fled from religious persecutions and killing
fields also settled in the Philippines during the 17th until the 19th centuries.
With the inauguration of the Suez Canal in 1867, Spain opened the Philippines for international trade.
European investors such as British, Dutch, German, Portuguese, Russian, Italian and French were among
those who settled in the islands as business increased. More Spaniards arrived during the next century.
Many of these European migrants intermarried with local mestizos and some assimilated with the
indigenous population. Their enterprises became the precursors of the current Chinese and Asian-
dominated major corporations and conglomerates of the country.


Marcelo Azcrraga Palmero, the only Spanish prime minister of Filipino descent.


Devotees flock to the Basilica Minore del Santo Nio during the novena masses
After the defeat of Spain during the SpanishAmerican War in 1898, Filipino general, Emilio
Aguinaldo declaredindependence on 12 June while General Wesley Merritt became the first
Americangovernor 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 PhilippineAmerican War, the United States civil governance was
established in 1901, withWilliam 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 ofAmerasian 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


Devotees inside the Bascilica del Santo Nio in Cebu City.
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 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 one's
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.