I had an idea for a Pinoy pride campaign using the slogan “Maganda ang Kayumanggi,” with proceeds to be donated to a few NGO’s here, but I only have two months left. If you’d like to see this happen, stop by our blog (freeisaverb.org) and let me know! It’ll take mga kasama to make it happen. Thanks.

and for the commenter who urged another to go back and do research, PLEASE cite some of your sources that proves that “far more than 2% of the Filipino population do in fact have mixed blood.” everyone is making claims about being spanish or chinese or go back and do your research and yet no one is able to produce tangible proof of their ancestry or academic literature that asserts their argument.

you can claim you’re european or chinese as much as you want but to the rest of the world, you’re still filipino. stop it. you’re giving the rest of us a bad name.

P.S.
we don`t look white, nor do we have to promote our white heritage( if we have any) so don`t say any of that it`s embarrassing, its like you enjoy being subdued by a foreign power…

I may be out of topic but I have to comment about this. We do not descend from Pacific Islanders but look up “Austronesian peoples” and we have a lot in common. Most notably with our languages.

Btw @ bisayangueen, nice blog. This type of mentality is very damaging mentally, emotionally, and physically (skin whitening dangers)

The “Malay blood” that some people like to speak proudly of — as if it makes them more authentically Filipino than others — is an import. Unless you belong to one of the few indigenous tribes like the Aetas, you almost certainly have some mix of Malay, Arab, European or Chinese ancestry, and guess what? THEY ALL CAME FROM SOMEWHERE ELSE.

Rather than just embrace our dark-skinned heritage, we should recognize and celebrate our uniquely multi-racial ethnicity, and strive to eliminate the racist thinking that continues to cripple our social and economic advancement.

A disturbingly large number of Filipinos, for example, both in the Philippines and overseas were suspicious of U.S. Presidential candidate Barack Obama, deriding him openly for being “Bumbay”.

Ignorance extends to supposedly well-educated Filipino-Americans who, in filling out those many U.S. government forms that ask us to identify our ethnicity, tick the box for “Pacific Islander.” Yes, the Philippines are a set of islands in the Pacific but that does NOT mean we are descended from native Hawaiians, Guamanians or Samoans or have anything in common with them other than a warm, sunny climate.

I suspect that the true reason for selecting the “Pacific Islander” box is our subconscious (or conscious) resistance to being lumped in the same category as those other Asians to whom we feel naturally superior — the Chinese (note how derogatorily we tend to say the word Intsik) and Indian (again, how distastefully we pronounce the word Bumbay) — or the Japanese, for whom we still harbor a deep fear and hatred, notwithstanding the amount of time that has passed since World War II, notwithstanding the war repatriations, notwithstanding the fact that most of the Hirohito generation is either dead or bedridden, notwithstanding that modern Japan is an entirely different nation.

It is puzzling how, on the one hand, Filipinos can cling stubbornly to such ancient and irrelevant fears and prejudices, and on the other hand, seem to have forgotten the much more recent atrocities committed by our very own Marcos family, who continue to command great wealth, political power and respect.

But I digress…

65 years of independence should be long enough for us to stop blaming colonial masters for instilling a “white is better” mentality in our people, and start looking to our own modern failings as a nation and a people. We are no longer subservient, uneducated indios; with our unique blend of racial and cultural traits, we should be taking leadership roles among Asians in international forums. The more positive stereotypes of Filipinos serve us well as leaders and peace-makers: we tend to be (for the most part) well-educated, adaptable, we assimilate well, we understand the points of view of others, we are easy-going, we are problem-solvers not confrontational warmongers.

One final point: the superiority of white skin in modern-day Asia is not simply a product of Western European and American colonial mentality. The Chinese, Singaporeans, Malaysians all prize “white skin”: the pale skin of the northern Chinese races, NOT the pastiness of Caucasians. Look at the rigid caste system in India, which some scholars argue originated centuries ago when the lighter-skinned Aryans drove the darker-skinned Dravidians out of northern India and enslaved the ones who remained. Asian history is not simply the story of the struggle of “native” peoples against The White Man. The greatest power struggles, the most horrible massacres, the greatest injustices have often been perpetrated by one tribe against its neighbor.

So, until Filipinos discard our outdated racial prejudices, until Cebuanos, Ilocanos, Pampanguenos et al put aside their petty and divisive regional animosities, until Filipino-Americans unite with their Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Vietnamese brothers, we will never have a meaningful political voice, we will never be able to influence the direction of local or international politics, or reshape our societies into more equitable, more progressive communities.