Talk:Spanish Filipinos

Colonial Caste System needs polishing

It is important to note that the caste system posted in this wiki is not official or legal. These terms are very loosely used to categorize people. It is also not true that the Blancos or pure Spaniards only stayed within the walls of Intramuros although this was true in the first 50 years of colonization.

1.Most Peninsulares (Spaniards from Spain) who stay within Intramuros are Spaniards whose families came directly from Spain and are working in the colonial government. But the other pure Spaniards (such as the americanos/filipinos) are scattered around the country. 2.Insulares are pure Spaniards born in the Philippines (Filipinos), but it also applies to Castizos or Mestizos that are White-passing. Again, the terms are loosely used so a mestizo can be an insular or a mestizo depending on the people he is talking to. 3. The term Indio is an umbrella term applicable to all classes used during that time, Indios (natives) are practically scattered in privileges in the "colonial caste system"

  A. Principalias - are upper class Indios  that held the same privileges as Filipinos/Americanos/Spanish mestizos and even have higher privileges than Sangleys or mestizo de Sangley
  B. Indios Naturales - are christianized and hispanized Indios, majority of the people in Spanish Philippines belong to this group.
  C. Indios Salvajes - are natives who are living in largely uncolonized areas, were not Christianized nor hispanized and still follows the same lifestyle without the spanish influence (like the people from the cordilleras or the moros).
  D. Indios Chinos - where the derogatory term "inchic" came from are the north asians (Chinese/Japanese) people that were not christianized and are totally still foreign to the Christianized, hispanized majority.

C & D belongs to the lowest class in the colonial system since they are considered uncivilized. A belongs to the upper class and held the same privilege as the Spanish mestizos and Filipinos/Americanos. They held this privilege because they were the families of the nobility class during the pre-colonial period. They also held the privilege to keep their pre-colonial last names. As they belong to the same upper class group with the colonizers, many of them intermingle with the Spanish mestizos/Filipinos/Americanos and produce mestizo children. B are the majority of the Filipinos---- hispanized, catholics and held Spanish last names. — Preceding unsigned comment added by HistoryBuff669 (talk • contribs) 03:39, 14 December 2022 (UTC)

Wrong move

I've just deleted the merged-from tag: from 22:02, 22 August 2007‎, to 01:40, 20 March 2016 (more than 8 years) this page was just a redirect. From that last date, User:Arius1988 added a lot of content, while he turned the former main page into a redirect to this one, in practice changing the name of the page in a wrong way, instead of using the move command. I assume that is just a problem of inexperience; however the said user refuses to answer to comments in his talk page. In addition, that user hasn't bothered to discuss the name change or any other change, he has acted unilaterally. Unless we get reasons against it, I'll revert to the former, more neutral name of the page, and I'll try to do a real merging of the contents. --Jotamar (talk) 15:46, 13 May 2016 (UTC)

@Jotamar: See Special:Diff/720100675. Looks like the user retracted their merge intention. — Andy W. (talk · ctb) 15:16, 14 May 2016 (UTC)

Ok, then what we need now is some kind of explanation about why there should be two separate pages. --Jotamar (talk) 16:52, 15 May 2016 (UTC)

Needs a complete revamp. Supposed to be about Spaniards in Spain with Filipino ancestry?

This article is similar to Filipino people of Spanish ancestry, which based on article history used to be called Filipino Spanish until it was renamed. I thought this Spanish Filipino article used to be about Filipinos living in Spain or full/part direct Spaniards living in the Philippines. Might need revamping. Some info could be transferred to the other article. Masterpeace3 (talk) 08:30, 4 September 2016 (UTC)

I've decided to scrap the list entirely since having one would be like a directory. Instead included a link to the Filipino people of Spanish ancestry article. The information I removed here will be placed there so nothing will be lost.Masterpeace3 (talk) 09:27, 4 September 2016 (UTC)

Here, I've made some changes to the article; you might want to take a look at those. Merging info from here into the Filipino people of Spanish ancestry article and making this article title a redirect to that article seems like a good idea to me. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 23:36, 4 September 2016 (UTC)

Yes, I don't think we need two similar articles. By the way creating a new List of Spanish Filipinos article was unnecessary. Would've rather just used the Filipino people of Spanish ancestry instead, move its core paragraphs into this article and then turn that into the list itself. It's misleading/confusing to call them 'Spanish-Filipino' if neither their parents were born in Spain or were full Spaniards. They're actually mestizos so its better to describe them as "Filipino people of Spanish ancestry". Masterpeace3 (talk) 13:29, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

I have this article watchlisted but have not been following it with any particular interest. This discussion happened to catch my eye, and I think a comment might be useful. Similar situations to what is being discussed here (Filipinos and/or persons of Filipino ancestry living in country X vs. persons from country X or with that ancestry living in the Philippines) exist with countries other than Spain. Some of these situations are described in Wikipedia articles. Examples include

• Koreans in the Philippines
• Filipinos in South Korea
• Filipino Americans

Further examples may exist, I have not searched for them.

The Overseas Filipinos article currently asserts that as of 2013 there were only about 43,000 Filipinos living in Spain, which suggests to me that an article on Filipinos or persons of Filipino ancestry living in Spain might not meet WP:GNG. However, it might be useful for the Wikipedia:Tambayan Philippines project to have some sort of policy consensus relating to naming and organization of articles like these. As far as I'm aware, no such project level policy exists. I'm not interested enough in this to bring it up at Wikipedia talk:Tambayan Philippines, but I mention it here in case someone involved in this discussion might be. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 18:20, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

Demographics section

this edit caught my eye, which led me to look at the Fedor cite and the Demographics section where it is cited. That quickly led to this edit, where I pointed up the 1918 date of the Fedor study and added a {{Original research inline}} tag.

Looking further down in the section, I see a couple of tables. The first table begins:

Flag	Arms	Name	Area (km²)	Population	Population density (per km²)	Capital	Name in Spanish
		Argentina	2,780,400	43,024,374	14.4	Buenos Aires	Argentina

The information given there for the Argentina is approximately in line with info in the WP article about that country. I presume that the same is true of the other countries in the table. I am left wondering what this information has to do with this article's topic. Is this intended as an invitation to readers to use this information to do some original research of their own based on Fodor's estimate that roughly 1/3 of the inhabitants of Luzon in 1918 to make some estimate from this information about these countries which is relevant to this article's topic?

The countries table is followed by a table of what is said to be the ten largest metropolitan areas in the Hispanic world, giving similar information. I have the same concern and question about that table which I have about the countries table.

As far as I can see, these two tables have no relevance here, and ought to be removed. I propose that these tables be removed and the assertion preceding the tag concerning WP:OR which I have added be removed or rewritten.

Or have I misunderstood something here? Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 01:49, 17 September 2016 (UTC)

Of course the tables are irrelevant here. All the article smells of ideological slant, trying to depict the Philippines as another one of the Hispanic countries, something very difficult to sustain, given that the Spanish language has virtually disappeared from the country. --Jotamar (talk) 16:42, 19 September 2016 (UTC)

I have removed the material at issue from the article. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 03:33, 22 September 2016 (UTC)

Only 3.6 Filipinos have ANY European Ancestry

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1235276/?tool=pubmed

I would like you POV-pushers to stop trying to make Filipinos partially "white" by claiming they have at least 1/3 European Ancestry. Your source is from a 17th century man whose claim has been debunked by science. PUNk Limited (talk) 04:02, 5 December 2016 (UTC)

@PUNk Limited: Wikipedia is the encyclopedia that anyone can edit, That includes you. But you obviously would rather criticize than contribute. Sundayclose (talk) 18:11, 18 December 2016 (UTC)

Venganza histórica

Los panfletos mendaces de Rizal, que nada "libros", han sido contestados por la historia reciente de Filipinas ¡pobre y querido país! en manos de los predadores yankis desde 1898. Además del millón (y contando) de muertos en la Guerra Filipino-Norteamericana, la tremenda ocupación japonesa y la devastadora acción de la Marina norteamericana sobre Manila (sobre el barrio español, por supuesto...) pese a no haber allí tropa ninguna japonesa, son tremendos jalones de la lección histórica brindada por el Cielo a los filipinos. Como dijera Emilio Aguinaldo:

Sí. Estoy arrepentido en buena parte por haberme levantado contra España y, es por eso, que cuando se celebraron los funerales en Manila del Rey Alfonso de España, yo me presenté en la catedral para sorpresa de los españoles. Y me preguntaron por qué había venido a los funerales del Rey de España en contra del cual me alcé en rebelión… Y, les dije que sigue siendo mi Rey porque bajo España siempre fuimos súbditos, o ciudadanos, españoles pero que ahora, bajo los Estados Unidos, somos tan solo un Mercado de consumidores de sus exportaciones, cuando no parias, porque nunca nos han hecho ciudadanos de ningún estado de Estados Unidos… Y los españoles me abrieron paso y me trataron como su hermano en aquel día tan significativo…

Y escribo desde un lejano país y en castellano para mis compatriotas, puesto que este ha sido nuestro idioma por 400 años. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 181.12.232.175 (talk) 22:32, 13 September 2019 (UTC)

'Spanish speaking'

This edit, with an edit summary of (Oh but it is a Spanish colony and was Spanish speaking), caught my eye, begging the question, "What is Spanish speaking?" FWICT from some quick googling, Spanish was never widely spoken in the Philippines. The general consensus of what I found was similar to the observation here saying, "Almost the only Filipinos who speak Spanish are those who have been in the service of Europeans." Is there a supportable definition of the term, Spanish speaking country? and a supporting source placing the Philippines in that category? Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill)

(added) I apparently screwed up both the link to the mentioned edit above and the sig on my comment (it isn't timestamped). However, there appears to be an edit war about this going on, with editors exchanging unsupported edits and arguing their editorial opinions in edit summaries. This should be seeing discussion here rather than exchanges of article edits. It seems to me as if the point of contention is which of the two English language phrases best characterizes the Philippines:

• The Philippines no longer promotes the Spanish language in the country.
• The Philippines is no longer a Spanish-speaking country,

No source is cited in specific support of either of these alternatives. This source is cited, butt it does not mention the Spanish language. It does say,

• (8) Provision shall be made for the establishment and maintenance of an adequate system of public schools, primarily conducted in the English language.

The first alternative strikes me as vague but, if clarified with some dated specifics, is probably supportable.

Re the second, the question of what defining characteristic distinguishes a "Spanish-speaking country" remains unanswered. Is it a country in which the majority of the population speaks Spanish with some (undefined) level of fluency? Is it a country where the majority of elites speak Spanish? Is it a country where internal governmental affairs at the national level are conducted in Spanish? Is it a country where most internal governmental affairs are conducted in the Spanish language? What is it? And, with WP:V in mind, what supports this? Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 16:18, 1 August 2023 (UTC)

Hello, I have an MA in Philippine Studies, so am likely the person that should rewrite this entire Wikipedia article.

But anyways, the Philippines is not a Spanish-speaking country in any sense of the word. There was never any significant Spanish-speaking population during the colonial period outside of educated elites. The highly respected historian Vicente Rafael places the number of fluent Spanish speakers at the turn of the century at around 1% of the total population in 1900. During American colonialism, the language was further deemphasized in favor of English and it is now essentially a dead language. The only thing close is Chabacano with around 500,000 speakers, but that is a creole language, not actual Spanish.

There were no shady politics behind delisting Spanish as an official language in the constitution in 1987. It was delisted because the language is irrelevant and has been for 100+ years.

I can also say as a scholar of the Philippines who got my advanced degrees at the literal national university of the Philippines, the University of the Philippines, that Spanish is not spoken by the educated class. In fact, Tagalog is the dominant language of discourse in the social sciences and humanities among students, and English is used a lot in the sense of reading international research. Spanish has no place and I don’t personally know ANY Spanish speakers among my former professors or classmates. At other good schools like De La Salle University and Ateneo de Manila University, English is the language of instruction. Again, no Spanish.

In fact, Spanish is so irrelevant to the modern Philippines that most laypeople do not even know which words in Tagalog are borrowed from Spanish (around 15-20% of modern, everyday Tagalog has Spanish loans). They are unaware of any influence.

I also want to leave this piece I wrote for Rappler, one of the leading news organizations in the country, while I was still a grad student. It’s about the term “mestizo” and how modern Filipinos misuse it. The reality is that basically ALL “mestizos” were Chinese-Filipinos or even mislabeled indios, and there was only ever around 4-5 thousand Spanish and Spanish-Filipinos (called blancos) even at the peak of the colonial period. There was never a full caste system in place like in Latin America and for the most part, the Spaniards segregated themselves because they never actually migrated to the islands in significant numbers to begin with. Spanish surnames come from the Claveria Decree and religious conversion, not intermarriage. In fact, modern genetic studies have affirmed this, showing only 1% of Filipinos have ANY EUROPEAN HERITAGE AT ALL. That includes even tiny percentages in people. The reality is that Filipinos are not at all mixed-race (aside from Chinese migrants), nor was Spanish language particularly important to Filipinos. The language was deemphasized by the Spanish friars themselves in fact in order to maintain a power dynamic.

https://www.rappler.com/voices/imho/opinion-myth-mestizo/ 73.169.168.176 (talk) 02:37, 7 September 2024 (UTC)

Possible copyvio issue with lead image

This edit restoring lots of previous content caught my eye. The lead image caption is at the top of the restored content there, and I wondered how well the details asserted in the caption were supported; I looked at the image page, thinking that I might cite support from the source of an image from a citeable outside source from which the image was taken. Doing that led me to wonder about possible copyright problems with the image itself -- it appears to be a copy-paste with minimal editing of this image which I found in this outside article. I don't know how much of a change from an image taken as inspiration is needed to distinguish an original artistic impression from an image copyvio, but this looks like a very close copy to me. I'm no copyright maven, but I thought I would raise a concern here. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 14:13, 4 August 2023 (UTC)

If you clicked the this image link above, you will have found that it does not navigate to an image. The image I tried to link is one of the images in the slideshow at the bottom of that article. Sorry about the confusion. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 07:24, 7 September 2024 (UTC)