ANYBODY who claims to be or is looking for a “pure Filipino” is either stupid or an idiot or worst, probably both…a stupid idiot.
In terms of genome and anthropological studies and research the “pure Filipino” does not exist. In other words there is no “pure Filipino.”
The name Filipino was derived from the term “las Islas Filipinas” (“the Philippine Islands”), the name given to the archipelago in 1543 by the Spanish explorer and Dominican priest Ruy López de Villalobos, in honor of Philip II of Spain (Spanish: Felipe II).
The use of the term “Filipino” in the Philippines started during the Spanish colonial period. The original meaning was “a person of Spanish descent born in the Philippines.”
Anyway, this column is a response to the comments and posts on social media thrown against the current players of the Philippine men’s football team, a.k.a. the Azkals.
As most of us know, the Azkals have just started their campaign for the 2018 Suzuki Cup Finals, winning their first two games in their group matches to qualify for the semifinals and the finals.
In the social media account of the Azkals and other football-related accounts there were several comments that one can’t really just ignore as they smack of racism and bigotry of the worst kind.
What makes it rather sad is the fact that these comments are coming from Filipinos bashing the players of the national football team in the same manner that Vice President Leni Robredo is bashing the country and the President.
The most prevalent theme of the comments are, “the Azkals are not purebreds but half-breeds”; “we want a team of pure Filipinos”; and “they are not purebred Filipinos.”
What makes these comments pathetic is that they show stupidity and worst, stupid racism.
Here are excerpts from an article written by Dr. Michael D. Purugganan, the Dean for Science at New York University, the Dorothy Schiff Professor of Genomics, and co-director of the Center for Genomics and Systems Biology at NYU Abu Dhabi:
We are proud of our heritage at the rim of East Asia, the meeting point of the many Asian groups, as well as Europeans from Spain. Our culture even 100 years ago was already a mix — of Malay, Chinese, Hindu, Arab, Polynesian, and Spanish, with maybe some English, Japanese, and African thrown in. And it shows up in our genes.
We are all mixes, and I think every Filipino who is genetically tested will show up as a mix.
We are products of what we evolutionary genomicists call genetic admixture, the result of several thousand years of mixing in our island archipelago at the edge of the Pacific. We were always getting genes from everyone who came to our shores. We are, in a genetic sense, a truly global people.
Simply put, there is no purebred Filipino; we are all “bastards.” Like the name of our national football team we are all askals. The asong kalye is a mixture of all types of dog breeds and that abused dog is the perfect national symbol as we are a mixture of a lot of breeds.
There is no purebred Filipino dog as there is no purebred Filipino.
In case you still don’t get it, here it is in more technical terms from a research on the internet:
The majority of Filipinos are Austronesians, a linguistic and genetic group whose historical spot lies in maritime Southeast Asia, but through ancient migrations can be found as indigenous peoples stretching as far east as the Pacific islands and as far west as Madagascar off the coast of Africa. The current predominant theory on Austronesian expansion holds that Austronesians settled the Philippine islands through successive southward and eastward seaborne migrations from the Neolithic Austronesian populations of Taiwan.
According to the Y-DNA study of 105 Filipino males from the bank of the company, Applied Biosystems, most Philippine Y-DNA haplogroups were found to be O1 (O1a) and O2 (O1b1), both of which are common in populations from Southeast Asia as far north as the Yangtze Delta. However, around 13 percent of the population is confirmed to have the Y-DNA haplogroup R1b, which has spread to the Philippines from Spain and Latin America, and another 13 percent belong to haplogroup O3 (O2-M122), which is especially common in populations of China.
Let’s put it this way: Neil Etheridge, the current No. 1 goalkeeper of the Azkals, is born of a Filipino mother and English father. He was born and grew up in England, plays for Cardiff City FC in the English Premier League.
He had an opportunity to play for the English national team yet he chose to play for the Philippines. He is most probably more Filipino than Leni Robredo and Antonio Trillanes. (brotherlouie16@gmail.com/PN)
