BRIEF FILIPINO HISTORY

By GGR

(1) BEFORE 1571 THERE WAS NO PHILIPPINES, NO FILIPINO PEOPLE BEFORE 1521 AND 1571. To quote Senator and Academician Raul S. Manglpus, in his book "Nationhood, Culture...", page 79: "Before the Sixteenth century (1521 and 1571), there was no Philippines, no Filipino... Only a group of over seven thousand Islands intermittently invaded by Negritos, Proto-Malays and Indonesians and nominally ruled by the Madyapahit and the ShriVishaya empires and swept by the tide of the Chinese Mings." It is an incontrovertible fact, indeed, that these seven thousand Islands were subdivided by several and mutually independent and antagonistic Ethnic States or small Kingdoms like, respectively, that of the Tagalogs, the Pampangueos, the Visayans, the Taga-Mindanao Lumads, the Northern Luzon Ilocanos, Zambales, Ibanagues, the Cordillera tribes, and the Bicolanos, each with its own leaders, chieftains, laws, languages and mini-subsistence economies. (2) PRE-HISPANIC CHINESE OF MAYI-IN-I-LA An enclave of 150 Chinese shipwrecks composed the pre-Hispanic Chinese community in the Baybay area, which was later known as San Nicols and an Island called Binundok. These 150 Chinese with their native Tagalong women called their settlement Mayi-in-I-la Kung Shing Fu. They are the possible remnants of the Orang Dampuan settlement previously established as a trade center in Northern Mindanao but which the Moros of the Sultanate of Jol raided and destroyed some 200 years before the establishment of Manila by Miguel Lpez de Legazpi in 1571. (3) SLAVES AS MONEY The Sultanate of Jol or Sul was the most organized State and with its warring bands, it exacted tribute or taxes from the other Ethnic States. The extraction of these so-called taxes was done through kidnapping for ransom as it is the norm used by the separatists Moros of the present time. The tribute exacted was in the form of a number of slaves to be given annually. There was no money. What was used as legal tender were people that were born slaves, known as mga alipin or ulipon. There were literally two social classes in each of these Pre-Hispanic Ethnic States, the DatuMaharlika class or the class of the slave owners and the class of the mentioned alipin or ulipon who were the slaves owned. (4) THE FILIPINO STATE WAS FOUNDED IN 1571 WITH THE ACCEPTANCE OF THE KING OF SPAIN AS THE NATIVE'S NATURAL SOVEREIGN. In 1565, Miguel Lpez de Legazpi arrived from Mexico and founded Manila as the Cabecera, or Capital City, of the new State composed of the Islands he called Filipinas. He heared the name "Manilh" from the Visayans. He discovered upon arrival at the mouth of the Psig River that the Tagalogs called the place "Maynila". He called the Capital city "Manila", a Hispanized name rooted in the Visayan "Manilh" which he heared first since he was in Panay.

What happened is that these Islands became the territory of the Spanish-created "FILIPINO STATE under the Spanish Crown" and was henceforth ruled from the Vice-Kingdom (Virreynato) of Mxico, (then Nueva Espaa), as a sub-province or "Capitana General". In 1598-99, the majority of the existing Ethnic States freely accepted, in a Referendum-Sinode held in Manila, the King of Spain as their "natural sovereign' (see: John Leddy Phelan's "The Hispanization of the Philippines" pp. 23 to 25), aside from the previously celebrated blood compacts (pactos de sangre, sandug) with Legaspi and other Spanish Conquistadores. (5)SPANISH GIFTS FOR ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT To economically develop and sustain the Filipino State, the Spanish Friars brought to the Islands the horse (kabayo, caballo) from Mexico and China, the carabao (kalabaw) from Vietnam, the cow (baka, vaca), the sheep, the gueeze (gans), the turkey (pavo) and mule (mula, kabayong mola) from Spain... To enrich the land and its indigenous (Indio) impoverished inhabitants, the same Spanish Friar missionaries brought them, with their version of agricultural technology, the plow (arado,araro) , the hoe (azadn, asarol), the technology of irrigation (riego) and cultivation and industrial crops like sugar cane, corn, man, couffee, cacao, camote (camotelc), potatoes, ube, gabe taro, casava, sincamas, indigo, papaya and vegetables like tomatoes, onions, garlic, patola, patani, hot chili (sili), pepper (pamiyenta), pprica, squash, watermelon (sanda), and fruit trees like, lanca, papaya, guayabbano, guayabas, santol, camachile (camachitelc) , caimito, dates (cerezo), avocado, macopa, mangoes, atis, sayote, achuete, etcetera. All these vegetables and fruit trees and animals of burden greatly changed for the better and clearly improve the daily diet of the native indigenous, or the Indios, enabling them to be healthier, more productive and to increase in population from the original half a million that they were at the arrival of the Spaniards and the Mexicans to the ten million that they became by the 1890s. (6) THE INTERNATIONAL GALLEON TRADE AND ITS EFFECTS The Spanish Conquistadores headed by Legazpi established the profitable Galleon Trade since 1571and it lasted for 215 years. The main products of this trade were Chinese silk, porcelain, sandal wood and jade in the form of exquisite ornaments and furniture. Because of the Galleon Trade, the center of little trade within the context of this archipelago, shifted from Jol to Manila, thereby economically affecting the old Sultanate in the biggest Islandsof the Sul archipelago. Because of this economic shift, the Moro or Muslim raids, attacks and plunder against the more progressive Christian towns and settlements, greatly intensified until the Spanish administration acquired steamships (vapor) and better war equipment. (7) TAXATION AND CLASSIFICATION OF THE POPULATION Also because of the profitable Manila-Acapulco Galleon trade, the number of Chinese that accepted the King of Spain as their "natural sovereign" greatly increased. More Chinese traders came from

the Asiatic mainland and began to settle in Manila and its extramuros arrabales including provincial towns and "Cabeceras" like Tondo, Vigan, Iloilo, Ceb, Malolos, Psig, Zamboanga, Naga, where their intermarriage with native Christian women established what we know up to now as the "Sectores de Mestizos" or "Parianes y Pariancillos" . But the tribute, or tax, collected from the natives of the Islas Filipinas, was not enough to sustain the infrastructure of development and the needed military defense of the islands. Due to this, and for over 200 years, the Government of New Spain (now Mexico) was annually subsidizing the Filipino Government in Manila with a budgetary aid yearly delivered by the Manila-Acapulco galleons. The Chino Cristiano Catlico was the one called "mestizo" during Spanish times while the Spanish half-breeds were called "criollos". The native was called "naturales", "indio", -----short for "indgena" or indigenous, which means native. (8) FEW SPANISH TAXES In comparison to the excessive taxation of the present time due to foreign loans imposed by the highly exploitative new economic colonization in English, there were only five basic taxes to pay the then Filipino-Spanish government: cdula, personal income tax which was paid by only the head of the family at fixed rate of five reales a year, licencia to practice a profession or start a business, aduana o vandala, to sell locally or export or import products, amillar, land tax and herencia, inheritance tax. Due to the improvement of the native economy, from a subsistent one to a Spanish one that could export and activate local inter-Island trade, the indigenous people, as well as the Chinese and Japanese traders, gladly opted to convert to Catholicism in order to became Filipinos as well as Citizens of Spain. They all adopted Spanish as their official language of transaction and trade. (9) NATURAL INCREASE IN POPULATION AND TRUE DEVELOPMENT UNDER SPAIN Under Spain the Filipino population increased from half a million in 1571 to almost ten million in 1896. But this population was reduced in 1905 because of the genocidal 1899-1907 massacre of Filipinos by the U.S. WASP colonizer. Most of those killed were Spanish-speaking Filipinos who defended their 1898 Repblica de Filipinas. This explains why Philippine population by 1905 was reduced to only a little over seven million. And the Filipino-Spanish Nation State called Filipinas grew, developed and progressed immensely, a far cry from what it was before 1571. From an economy of subsistence, the Filipinos as Spanish citizens produced more than what they could consume and the excess production of rice, corn, sugar cane, cacao, coffee, potatoes, indigo, maguey, camote, casava, mani, was exported to

neighboring countries, especially China. (10) ECONOMIC MODERNIZATION UNDER SPAIN Some Filipinos of today, mis-educated as they are in English, do not even know that Spain, aside from the above mentioned agricultural and industrial products, also introduced into our Islands modern facilities and public utilities which really gave Filipinos economic progress and advancement without the burden of foreign loans later imposed by the U.S. WASP colonizers in connivance with certain Americanized elected politicians out to first enrich themselves while in power. TELEGRAM. In 1872 a nationwide telegram system was established at very little expense on the part of the Filipino masses that greatly improved communication throughout the Islands, aside from the founding of daily nespapers and magazines in Spanish and the native languages. RAILWAY. Aside from a port system, a road and highway system complete with stone bridges, the Spanish government also established a good Luzn railway system from Manila which was judged the second best in all of Asia. TELEPHONE. As a public utility the telephone was established in Manila in 1890 without the need of any imposed foreign loan that is to be made with a U.S.WASP controlled banking institution such as the World Bank or the IMF. ELECTRICITY. Electricity as another important public service was established in Manila in 1895 by the Spanish government without the need of any foreign loan or any extra taxation, or vandala, imposed upon the Filipino people. Before 1898, the Filipino masses were never burdened with confiscatory electric rates as they are burdened today. There were no Spanish laws like the present day EPIRA law, that is solely inspired by the economic oppression now prevalent under American neo-colonialism disguised as "globalization" . MOVIE INDUSTRY. In 1897, the cinema was introduced by Spaniards in Manila and this introduction started the Filipino movie industry which died in 2006 because of the American imposed Free Trade, a system now condemned by the Roman Catholic Pope and some sectors of the United Nation Organization. At its early stage Filipino movies were both in Spanish and Tagalog. The Spanish language movies had an international market and were competing with Hollywood movies that also had a Spanish version. To remove the international market for Filipino movies in Spanish, the U.S. WASP colonizers prohibited the extensive use of Spanish as an official language and as the medium of instruction in local schools. With the disappearance of Spanish, Filipino movies were only made in Tagalog and Visayan. In the 1960s, the Visayan movies were killed by a movie-distribution scheme that glaringly favored American movies only. Today, Filipino movies do not have a regular international market and its local market is now monopolized by Hollywood films. Thus the death of the Filipino movie as an industry and as a vehicle of the Filipino's national culture and identity.

(11) NO COMPULSORY FOREIGN LOANS NOR A DAMAGING 'FREE TRADE' UNDER SPAIN No economic oppression, as understood today, ever existed since there was no such thing as the U.S. WASP international banks that have to be paid back usurious interests for the foreign capital loaned as a political imposition upon elected politicians that owe election campaign money to U.S. transnational investors present today. "Foreign loans" and their accompanying anomalies like plunder, graft and corruption was never allowed to exist in the then Filipino-Spanish commercial and economic landscape in these Islands. There was delicadeza and palabra de honor. POTABLE WATER. A working potable water system was established since 1882 and water was distributed FREE OF ANY CHARGE to the consuming public under the maligned Spanish regime in our so-called "Philippine History texbooks" written in English. Under the highly exploitative colonialism in English, potable water service is now turned into a system of extortion and plunder that burdens, insults, exploits and impoverishes the Filipino masses because it is also being used as a collateral for foreign loans with excessive interests that has to be paid for by every Filipino taxpayer due to a politically imposed "sovereignty guarantee" What is worse is that ordinary Filipino households of today do not even get enough clean potable water due to so-called "low pressure" and corruption. TRANSPORTATION. Transportation was inexpensive under the Filipino-Spanish administration, because the introduction of the railway and inter-Island road systems were deemed enough aside from the native made boats on then clean and navigable waterways, esteros and the Pasig River, that brought to, and from, Manila people and products. (12) NO COMMERCIALIZATION NOR PRIVATIZATION OF PUBLIC UTILITIES UNDER SPAIN SUBJECT TO "SOVEREIGN GUARANTEES" Alongside the Carriedo FREE Potable Water system, the use of clean artesian wells, or the "pozo", was also introduced to all provincial capitals and municipios by the maligned Spanish administration. Whatever so-called modern amenities and appliances that there are under today's American economic colonialism, these are so expensive to buy and so expensive to maintain that only the rich can afford them. It is due to their high cost that their value and use for the majority of the impoverished Filipino masses is almost nil. And the malady of fake medicines, fake diplomas, commercialized hospitalization, and commercialized education in English, was not known. And if ever known, would have never been tolerated under the Filipino-Spanish administration before 1898. Gasoline and crude oil as an economic imposition to generate electricity and fuel-imported transportation, was minimal and mostly non-existent under Spain, since transportation was still indigenous and was never conceptualized as an economic factor that could impoverish the whole country because of the politics and the armed conflicts over crude oil sources.

In proportion, GRAFT AND CORRUPTION as well as the crime rate under the Filipino-Spanish administration prior to 1898, was minimal because servility, ignorance and permissiveness as a social evil was not allowed to set in. The Filipino Spanish society was an upright one in comparison to the present colonial Americanized society that is pervasively mis-educated and amoral because thoroughly debased and brutally exploited. In fine, and because of the U.S. WASP imposed "free trade", as well as the grossly legislated imposition of the English language as a colonial tool of subjugation, social and economic progress in present day Philippines is a myth for the vat majority of Filipinos. Most Filipinos as so poor that English is irrelevant to them for even if they had a smattering of it, their socio-economic existence goes from bad to worse. English is the language of ill-gotten richness of exploiters and it should be offered as only an optional subject in all Filipino tax paid schools. (13) AN INEXPENSIVE SYSTEM OF EDUCATION UNDER SPAIN Whenever the history of Philippine education is told, it is only what the 1900 Americans established that is the object of praise, when in fact that system of so-called "education" was forced, with the English language, upon the Filipino people as a military strategy, to "pacify them" and to finally mis-educate them with the cruel objective of turning them into thoughtless consumers of every stateside U.S. export product that in turn impoverishes them economically and morally, as Filipinos, in the vast majority of cases. The compulsory teaching, for example, of the English language could only be justified if the Philippines were accepted as a U.S. State with all Filipinos automatically becoming American citizens including all the benefits that this status may give them. But without American citizenship for every Filipino, the teaching of English should be optional and not compulsory as is the present practice by law and force. There is no denying about the international importance of English, but to force it upon every Filipino who is a citizen of an independent and sovereign Filipino State from the USA, is plainly foolish. The neighboring Chinese, Japanese, Koreans, Indonesians, Vietnamese and Malaysians do not deny the importance of English, but, unlike the Filipinos of today, they have not imposed English upon themselves and their unwary children replacing in the process their own native languages as the main official medium of their respective school systems, judiciary and legislation. So long as Filipinos are not granted American citizenship, compulsory English is an anomaly and has, therefore, no place as the compulsory official language and the compulsory medium of education that it is in these Islands. English should be optional. The actual economic poverty of Filipinos is precisely due to the compulsory imposition of English in their own educational system. Instead of paying soaring tuition fees for an education that takes so long because of so many English language subjects, education content should be taught in Tagalog, with Visayan and Ilocano as auxiliary languages. With Tagalong as the medium, instead of English, illiteracy in the Philippines will disappear and students will better understand the content of their education and their national identity as Filipinos who should unite for the progress of their own country. Moreover, Education as a social service in present-day Philippines is a failure and the main culprit is compulsory English. Not all Filipinos finish college and most of those that finish High School most often end up being functional illiterates in English as well as in their national language based on Tagalog. To remedy this educational failure, an entire curriculum in Tagalog, and in each of the

major native languages, is needed to really educate the Filipino youth. If Chinese schools in the Philippines have their curriculum in Chinese, why don't Filipino public schools have an entire curriculum in Tagalog and in their major native languages? Why can't Filipinos, like the Chinese in the Philippines, have their own curriculum in their own national native language? Why do the Chinese progress economically in the Philippines and the Filipinos don't? Why are the Chinese more united as a people than the Filipinos? The main reason is the colonial obligatory imposition of an un-phonetic and difficult language like English which words are not pronounced as they are spelled, nor spelled as they are pronounced. Another reason is the overAmericanizatio n of Filipinos which is something that is really unnecessary if Filipinos are not to be permanently employed in American call centers and American Trans-nationals or prepared to become full fledge USA citizens. After all, Filipinos have to work, live and die in the Philippines, ---unless sent out as Oversea Workers who never come home and if they do come home, they come in a coffin or to a broken families. There is nothing wrong with knowing English well for a specific job or employment purpose. What is wrong is to force every Filipino to learn English and in so going force them to invest a lot of money, a lot of time and a lot of effort only to end up unemployed and frustrated at the end of the road. Compulsory English in the Philippines is responsible for the creation of a corrupt citizenry and a corrupt government. Let us now take a second look at the educational system established by Spain in these Islands since 1571. The first schools were the Doctrina Catlica schools established by the Spanish Friar missionaries to teach the Catholic Religion. When Catholic parishes were established with the founding and erection of 'pueblos', these Doctrina Schools became parochial schools run by the Spanish Religious and the their local assistants. They taught children as well as adults to read and write in their native languages so that they may be able to read the early Doctrina Cristiana books published since 1593. The main subject was catechism. Aside from these parochial schools, the Spanish religious orders opened private schools for both boys and girls like San Juan de Letra, Ateneo de Manila, Santa Rosa, Santa Isabel and the University of Santo Toms de Manila since 1611. The University of San Carlos de Ceb was even founded earlier than UST. In 1864, the Spanish government established a public school system in the Islands to complement the existing parochial schools of the Religious orders. The establishment of this Spanish system of education was a real success, but, as we said, this success is being denied by those educated in American English and in ignorance of the Spanish language. For a a clearer view of the Spanish educational system, we give the floor to Prof. Po Andrade, Jr.: THE BLACK LEGEND ON THE STATE OF EDUCATION Filipinos in the 20th Century were repeatedly taught or told in schools and in the press, that Spain always kept their ancestors uneducated to have them ignorant and the always docile subjects of Spain. The blame was, in particular, thrown upon the friars, "who, from motives of their own,

discouraged the learning of Spanish by the natives, in order that they may always act as intermediaries between the people and the civil authorities, and thus, retain their influences over their charges". The most common proof cited for the alleged uneducatedness and ignorance supposedly reigning in Hispanic Philippines is the incontrovertible fact that only the Philippines, among all the other former Spanish colonies, is not Spanish-speaking today. But was this really so? The 1896 revolution, the first revolution in Asia by a colonized people for independence from the colonizer, refutes the charge that Spain did not educate the Filipinos, for revolutions are not made by the ignoramuses but by the educated folks. Indeed, most of the leading lights and leaders of the 1896 Revolution were Ilustrados, or educated folks. The propaganda literature and the communications coming from the Revolutionaries were mostly in Spanish; and, the Malolos Constitution was debated and drafted in Spanish. The revolution was made possible by the widespread knowledge of Spanish. Thus, Spanish was the language of the 1896 Revolution and Philippine nationhood. King Philip II's Law of the Indies (Leyes de Indias) mandated Spanish authorities in the Philippines to educate the natives, to teach them how to read and write and to learn Spanish. However, the latter objective was well-nigh impossible given the realities of the time. First, there were very few Spaniards in the Archipelago to teach Spanish at that time. Second, the Philippines, at the coming of Spain was inhabited by diverse tribes with different languages, customs, and religion. Third, the geographical barriers - - - the seas, the mountain ranges, lush virgin forest and the absence of enough roads made travel and communication difficult during those years. Thus, the friars, the vanguard of evangelization and education, opted instead to learn the native languages first and in order to use them as tools to evangelize and teach the natives in the missionary schools. But Spanish was also taught to those who wished to learn the language. Among these were the native principala and the Chinese traders who only began to come in greater numbers after the coming of Spain to the Philippines. Another proof that Spain's language education was taking place in the first years of Hispanization in this Country was the Galleon Trade. The Galleon Trade would not have been possible if the Filipinos, Spaniards and Chinese could not communicate with each other in Spanish. In 1863, with the passage of the Education Reform Act in the Spanish Cortes, the Philippine public school system was born. Separate schools for boys and girls were established in every pueblo for the compulsory education of Filipino children. The law also established the Escuela Normal to train male and female teachers. This was ten years before Japan had a compulsory form of education and forty years before the American government started a so-called public school system in the country. One of the most vociferous voices claiming that Spain did not educate the Filipinos was UP historian emeritus Teodoro Agoncillo who wrote in THE REVOLT OF THE MASSES that "When the Americans took over the Philippines, only 2.5% of the Filipinos spoke and wrote in Spanish". This figure was taken from the 1880 book of Cavada Mendez de Vigo. Later, in his history textbook , THE HISTORY OF THE FILIPINO PEOPLE, Agoncillo also claimed that "it is safe to say that the literacy rate of the native population was somewhere between 5% and 8%". These Agoncillo claims are wrong for these two statements on the Philippine literacy can not be sustained by factual evidence. Agoncillo failed to see that since 1811 with the publication of DEL SUPERIOR GOBIERNO, the

Philippines had a popular press which further disseminated the Spanish language in the country. The Philippines was the first country in Asia to have a popular press in Spanish and, by the coming of Dewey, there were many more popular newspapers and books published in Spanish. The several newspapers in the native languages most always carried Spanish language sections. Manila, itself, (then with about half a million people) had three Spanish language dailies in the morning and three other dailies, also in Spanish, in the afternoon. These dailies in Spanish had no equal counterparts in other Oriental countries. Another factor for increased Spanish literacy was the Chinese population. The Chinese community obligates Chinese cabecillas or Chinese baran captains to teach rudimentary Spanish to new Chinese immigrants. After a month in these Chinese-owned schools, the Chinese immigrants spoke kastilang tindahan, or Cal Chino Espaol, a kind of Spanish Chabacano, that later become fluent albeit accented Spanish . When these Chinese immigrants intermarried, they brought forth Spanish-speaking mestizos. The 100,000 Chinese population at the turn of the century were all conversant in Spanish though in varying proficiency, from the kastilang tindahan of the new Chinese immigrants to the fluent Spanish of Chinese old timers. Actually, Spanish grew even more during the 1900-1920 period. Professor Henry Jones Ford of Princeton University in his 1913 secret report on his six months travel and research about the Philippine situation to President Woodrow Wilson, had this to say on the use of Spanish in the country at that time: "There is however, another aspect of the case that should be considered. I had this forcibly presented to me as I traveled through the Islands, using the ordinary conveyances and mixing with all sorts and conditions of people. Although on the basis of School statistics the statement is made that more Filipinos now speak English than any other language, no one would think of the testimony of one's own ears. Everywhere Spanish is the speech of business and social intercourse. For one to receive prompt attention, Spanish is always more useful than English and outside of Manila, is almost indispensable. Americans travelling about the Islands, use it habitually. What is more, they discourage the use of English. This was a development that took me by surprise. I asked an American I met on an inter-island steamboat why he always spoke Spanish to the stewards and waiters, and whether they could not understand him in English. He said that probably many of them could but one would not be treated with as much respect using English and not Spanish; that Filipinos seem to loose their manners using English, becoming rude, familiar and insolent." Professor Ford further underscored the widespread use of Spanish in the country by writing about the existing press thus: "There is unmistakable significance in the fact that there is not in all the Islands one Filipino newspaper published in English. All of the many native newspaper are published in Spanish and in the dialect. It is relevant to mention here that as late as 1930, the Spanish dailies had a much bigger circulation than either Tagalog or English dailies. Noteworthy also is the fact that in the 1930's there were a few Chinese periodicals in both Chinese and Spanish. Modesto Reyes Lim in a 1924 issue of the Rizalian Magazine ISAGANI vehemently criticized the imposition of English upon the Filipinos. He wrote: "No es acaso de sentido comn, que hubiera sido muy fcil propagar ms el castellano, que ya se usaba como lengua oficial y se hablada ya por muchsimas familias filipinas dentro y fuera de sus hogares, y del cual contaba entonces el pas con muchos literatos, poetas y escritores distinguidos? " (Is it not of plain common sense to know that it would have been far easier to further propagate Spanish, which was already the official language

and the mother tongue of so many pure Filipino families, in and out of their homes, and from whom where born so many writers, poets and distinguished men of letters?) "Indudablemente, como dice un ilustre filipno miembro actual prominente de la administraci n de justicia, que con el mismo tiempo y dinero gastado, sistema y otros medios modernos de instruccin empleados en la ensea del ingls, si en lugar de ste se hubiera propagado en mucha mayor proporcin que se haya hoy propagado el ingls." (There is absolutely no doubt, says a Filipino jurist of today, that if the same time and money, and the same teaching system and methods, now employed in the teaching of English were instead dedicated to the teaching of Spanish, the latter would have been propagated in a much larger proportion in which English has been propagated.) (14) ALL FILIPINOS BECAME SPANISH CITIZENS While the White Anglo-Saxon and Protestant Americans never admitted the Filipinos as American citizens nor admitted the Philippines as an American State, by the 1812 Cdiz Constitution of Spain, Filipinos became Citizens of Spain or Spanish citizens. The Philippines, from a colony, became a full-fledge Oversea Province of Spain (Provincia de Ultramar; Provincia sa Ibayong Dagat). We repeat: American citizenship is a status the U.S. WASPs never gave nor granted Filipinos during their rule since 1900 to the present time. Today, Filipinos who are economically dislocated in their own country have to undergo a long and expensive process to enter the USA as ordinary immigrants. Many go to the US as tourists and usually overstay as TNTs or as illegal aliens even if "Americanized" with the English twang. With an anti-Terrorist hysteria now in place, Filipinos going to the USA, particularly those who are Islamic or Moro, are treated as dangerous foreigners.

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