Talk:Filipino people

Why is "Arabic" in the languages section?

Are there any Arabic-speaking Filipinos? Though it is an optional official language in the Philippines, I can't exactly find any presence of the langauge in the Philippines other than its liturgical uses among the Muslims of the southern Philippines. Do the overseas Filipinos in Saudi Arabia even speak Arabic? PacificWarrior101 (talk) 23:29, 20 January 2013 (UTC)PacificWarrior101

I can't understand why users here insist to include Arabic language!! it's not an official for them nor do speak Arabic!!!!!!!!!!!! could we open an open discussion here please?--George the writer (talk) 17:43, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

Both of you seem to be making the mistake that all Filipinos are Christian Filipinos. But there's a sizeable Muslim minority in Mindanao (Tausug, Maranao, Badjao, Sama, Maguindanao, etc.) who do speak, read, and write at least limited Arabic. Though it is admittedly strictly a second/liturgical language used almost exclusively in madaris and Quranic readings, and native languages are used in everday speech.

Granted we do not have numbers as to how many. But the Philippine Department of Education in the past 2 decades have made it a part of Islamic public schools (rather than just religious schools). Arabic was also traditionally taught in non-DoE accredited Philippine madaris long before official government recognition. Please see this site. -- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 18:05, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

It's part of islamic studies and for them able to read Quran but look for pakistan and india they do the same thing they have some schools included an arabic language just to make it easier for them to understand the Quran and when they go to Saudi Arabia to visit Masjid al-Haram.

you will not find Muslim Filipino people speak with each other in Arabic, they will talk in their own local language. Arabic language in some schools in Philippines as you said, is for Quranic studies only, So Arabic should not be included in the article.--George the writer (talk) 19:53, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

Good point. I don't really feel that strongly about it. IIRC Arabic and Spanish were both added simply because both of them were specifically mentioned by Philippine law as languages that are to be promoted among the populace (in addition to the official ones - Filipino and English). If you wish to remove it, I will not reinstate it again. Though other editors may oppose its removal. Don't remove Spanish though. In contrast to Arabic, some Filipinos do speak a pidgin version of it (Chavacano etc., which is paradoxically spoken mostly in majority Muslim areas in Mindanao)-- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 02:29, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

Asking to change the description to make Filipino people as a national and cultural identity.

Filipino is anyone that is born in the Philippines, anyone born outside of the Philippines that has acquired Philippine citizenship, or identifies oneself with Filipino culture. Filipino is a cultural and national identity.

The Philippines contains many different ethnic groups. A Filipino is not necessarily of pure Austronesian descent. There is a significant and increasing amount of Filipinos that have non-Philippine ethnic ancestry, such as Chinese, Spanish and varieties of Americans of African or European descent.

Lazyazian (talk) 07:25, 29 September 2013 (UTC)

The term "Filipino" is still primarily of ethnic identity similar to say Irish people or Japanese people, rather than a national one as in primarily immigrant countries like American people or Australian people. Non-Austronesian Filipinos are still minorities. Thus changing this article to a national identity as is done for Americans would give it improper weight.

It would be better to discuss non-Austronesian Filipinos in separate articles or as a subsection to articles which are more clearly about national identity, like the articles on the Philippines or Demographics of the Philippines. This is the same thing done for American minorities (e.g. Filipino American).

We already have one such article even for one of the largest non-Austronesian Filipino minorities - the Chinese Filipinos. -- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 10:22, 12 October 2013 (UTC)

Arabic language

I can't understand why users here insist to include Arabic language!! it's not an official for them nor do speak Arabic!. Indeed some of them trying to learn for quranic and islamic studies but that does not mean Filipino people speak it. many countries like Pakistan and India learn Arabic for the studies, is it included an official for them? could we open an open discussion here please? --George the writer (talk) 18:01, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

It's obvious and very clear that Filipino do not speak eachother in arabic. I have discussed user Obsidian Soul about it at the top of the page.--George the writer (talk) 08:20, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

Apparently Filipinos in Saudi Arabia do speak Arabic, my cousin's uncle speaks it since he works there as an OFW. But I believe that's confined to the OFW page. PacificWarrior101 (talk) 10:11, 9 January 2014 (UTC)PacificWarrior101

Yes! they do speak. But each other they don't. They speak few Arabic with Saudi, you will see Filipino in Saudi speak in their own language not arabic. Arabic is not an official language in Philippines.--George the writer (talk) 10:54, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

Arabic is mentioned exactly once in the article: "The constitution also provides that Spanish and Arabic shall be promoted on a voluntary and optional basis.", citing the current Philippine constitution as a supporting source. In Article XIV, Sections 7 and 8, the constitution says, "Spanish and Arabic shall be promoted on a voluntary and optional basis." and "This Constitution shall be promulgated in Filipino and English and shall be translated into major regional languages, Arabic, and Spanish." I don't see reason why that information ought to be suppressed in this article.

On the other hand, this article is on the topic of Filipino peoople, and legalities growing out of the country's constitution don't necessarily bear strongly on that topic. if it is true that Arabic and/or Spanish are only spoken by small, culturally isolated parts of the Filipino populace, perhaps that ought to be mentioned. In order to be mentioned, however, that would need to be supportable by verifiable reliable sources. Original research such as the discussion above is not in itself sufficient to support article content.

Some content of other articles (e.g., Arab settlement in the Philippines and Languages of the Philippines) may contain information relevant to this discussion. In any case, care should be taken in editing this article not to introduce contradictions with other articles.

Also, McKenna, Thomas M.; Abdula, Esmael A. (2009), "6. Islamic Education in the Philippines", in Robert W. Hefner (ed.), Making Modern Muslims: The Politics of Islamic Education in Southeast Asia, University of Hawaii Press, pp. 205–235, ISBN 978-0-8248-3280-3 might be of interest. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 00:01, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

definition

There's something strange with how this article works... if I take the population number given here, there is no room for there to be Tagalog people, Moro people, Visayan people, etc. in the Philippines!

I think what's probably going on here is that the article's stats comes from the NSO Philippine census does not actually classify for ethnicity? In any case, it seems to me the Filipinos are not not nearly as unified a group as the article would lead one to believe, since AFAICT that encompass all Austronesian ethnolinguistic groups native to the Philippines, several of which are considered distinct from each others elsewhere in the encyclopedia. I think it is especially telling in that regard that Austronesian peoples separate the people of the Philippines in several groups.

Clearly the definition is not useless: it separate a set of peoples united by common traits that consider themselves related—by opposition to the Melanesian groups (e.g. the Aeta people) and various people of more recent descent. It doesn't help, of course, that "Filipino" is also in practice the general term for the citizenship in addition to ethnic group, as demonstrated by Chinese Filipino. I guess what I'm aiming for is that the idea of the "Filipino as an ethnic group" seems to be a relatively recent construct (in a country that is otherwise clearly not a nation state).

Maybe the article could be renamed to Filipino peoples and the introduction reworked to reflect the situation more closely? Circéus (talk) 01:32, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

"Not a nation state"? How so? An ethnic group is not restricted to the smallest linguistic grouping or by genetic ancestry. Though Filipinos are indeed composed of several smaller ethnolinguistic groups, most are part of the Philippine branch of the Austronesian language family indigenous to the islands. This includes the Negrito groups in the Philippines, whose languages and culture are still Austronesian despite differences in genetic ancestry, and the Moros of southwestern Mindanao who though Muslim, are still closely related culturally and linguistically to the Visayans and the Lumad ethnic groups.

The Philippines is multiethnic, yes, but it is also strongly homogenous in terms of culture. Virtually all traces of the previous cultural distinctions from smaller chiefdoms, etc. were erased during the Spanish colonial rule. It was further diluted by large scale inter-island migrations in the 20th century, leading to the cultural assimilation of most of the remaining non-Hispanized Indigenous peoples of the Philippines. A Visayan and a Tagalog might speak different languages, but everything else is virtually the same. Which is why Filipinos used to think the different languages were merely "dialects". Don't base apparent cultural unity by linguistic classification.

I strongly oppose moving this to "Filipino peoples", for that reason. The distinctions are simply not strong enough to merit that. In contrast to, say, Malaysians, who strongly distinguish between Ethnic Malays and their smaller ethnic groupings. "Filipino" is basically a cultural identity, rather than simply citizenship or an ancestral grouping. It is recent, yes, as the term "Filipino" itelf was used exclusively for full-blooded Spaniards born in the islands prior to Philippine independence from Spain. But that doesn't preclude ethnogenesis. What matters is its current usage, and it is indeed used in the sense of an ethnic group.

Most importantly, just because X people is made up of Y people and Z people, doesn't automatically mean that you have to call it X peoples, cf. American people.

As for population numbers, that's either numbers from different censuses taken at different times, or people with ancestry from multiple groups identifying for several (e.g. a half-Tagalog, half-Ilocano who identifies as both). The Philippine census does not classify for ancestry in the sense that it does not ask you if you have Chinese or Spanish ancestors. But it does ask for your native language which can be used to quantify the approximate number of people belonging to the largest ethnic groups.

That said, I have removed the "Austronesian" part of the original heading, as you do have a point regarding Filipinos who are not of Austronesian ancestry. I have also removed the paragraphs on etymology and orthography to its own section. As well as removed the infamous 3.6% study as it is WP:UNDUE there and per the previous discussion above. The lead still requires a lot of work for it to be a summary of the contents. Its application to citizenship and nationality needs to be discussed in the lead section as well, but it should not be restricted to them per usage.-- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 12:02, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

Revert adding sports figures to the infobox photo

in this revert I was intending to remove just Tim Tebow, as my understanding is that he is not Filipino. I inadvertantly removed several others who are Filipino as well, though. I'll leave it to other editors to restore those photos if that is appropriate. It seems to me as if the addition ought to have gotten consensus here before being done. I haven't followed it, but hasn't there been quite a bit of "churn" in the infobox photos here? Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 08:11, 22 March 2014 (UTC)

What's this Mestizo bias in the infobox?

So it's come to my attention that somebody keeps reverting my edits, and replacing them with every single random Mestizo Filipino they can find. Listen, there are like already four Mestizos in this infobox, and perhaps Sultan Kudarat's legitimacy comes to the fact that he was proclaimed a Philippine national hero by Ferdinand Marcos, probably the ONLY one as a native of Mindanao.

You might as well rename this article "Catholic Mestizos of Southeast Asia" if you are going to fill the infobox with 7/10 Mestizo Catholics. PacificWarrior101 (talk) 05:00, 18 April 2014 (UTC)PacificWarrior101

Here we go again, same idiot reverting my changes in a pathetic attempt to make Filipinos look Hispanic. PacificWarrior101 (talk) 02:49, 4 May 2014 (UTC)PacificWarrior101