Chinese Filipinos

The organization Kaisa para sa Kaunlaran (Unity for Progress) omits the hyphen for the term Chinese Filipino, as the term is a noun. The Chicago Manual of Style and the APA, among others, also omits the hyphen. When used as an adjective as a whole, it may take on a hyphenated form or may remain unchanged. There are various universally accepted terms used in the Philippines to refer to Chinese Filipinos: • Chinese (Filipino/; Philippine Hokkien , Mandarin )—generalized term referring to any and all Chinese people in or outside the Philippines in general regardless of nationality or place of birth. • Chinese Filipino, Filipino Chinese or Philippine Chinese (Philippine Chinoy; Filipino/; Philippine Hokkien , Mandarin )—refers to people with some level of Han Chinese ethnicity with Philippine nationality and to people of Han Chinese ethnicity with Chinese nationality (either PRC or ROC) or whichever nationality but were born or mainly raised in the Philippines and usually have permanent residency. This also includes Chinese Filipinos who now live and/or were born overseas, but still have close ties to the community in the Philippines. • Hokkienese / Fukienese / Fujianese / Fookienese (Philippine Hokkien , Mandarin )—terms referring to Chinese Filipinos whose predominant ancestry is from Fujian Province in China, especially the Hokkien-speaking region in Southern Fujian. Chinese Filipinos of this background typically have Philippine Hokkien as a heritage language, though just as any Chinese Filipino may also normally speak Philippine English, Filipino/Tagalog or other Philippine languages (such as Visayan languages) and may also code-switch any and all of these languages, such as Taglish, Bislish, Hokaglish, etc. • Cantonese (Philippine Hokkien , Mandarin )—terms referring to Chinese Filipinos whose ancestry is from Guangdong Province in China, especially the Taishanese or Cantonese-speaking regions. • Chinese mestizo (Philippine ; Filipino/; Philippine Hokkien , Mandarin )—refers to people who are of mixed Han Chinese and indigenous Filipino ancestry, a common and historical phenomenon in the Philippines especially families tracing from the Spanish colonial times. Those with 75% Han Chinese ancestry or more are typically not considered to be characteristically mestizo. Many Chinese mestizos are still Chinese Filipinos, though some with more indigenous Filipino ancestry or family or have just had a very long family history of living and assimilating to life in the Philippines may no longer identify as Chinese Filipino. Those with less than half of their ancestry or those with only one Chinese grandparent are generally not considered mixed as they identify more as Filipino only. • Mainland Chinese, Mainlander (Filipino/; Philippine Hokkien , Mandarin )—refers to any PRC citizens from China (PRC), especially those of Han Chinese ethnicity with Chinese nationality that were raised in China (PRC). • Taiwanese (Filipino/; Philippine Hokkien , Taiwanese Mandarin )—refers to ROC citizens from Taiwan (ROC), especially those of Han Chinese ethnicity with Republic of China (Taiwan) nationality that were raised in Taiwan (ROC). • Hongkonger (Filipino/; Philippine Hokkien , Mandarin , Cantonese )—refers to people from Hong Kong, especially those of Han Chinese ethnicity with Hong Kong (SAR) residency or Hong Kong British National (Overseas) status that were born or raised in Hong Kong (SAR) or British Hong Kong. • Macanese (Filipino/; Philippine Hokkien , Mandarin , Cantonese )—refers to people from Macau, especially those of Han Chinese ethnicity with Macau permanent residency that were born or raised in Macau (SAR) or Portuguese Macau. • tornatrás or torna atrás—obsolete Spanish term referring to people who are of varying mixtures of Han Chinese, Spanish and indigenous Filipino during the Spanish Colonial Period of the Philippines. • Sangley—obsolete term referring to people of unmixed Chinese ancestry, especially fresh first generation Chinese migrants, during the Spanish Colonial Period of the Philippines. The mixed equivalents were likewise the above terms, mestizo de Sangley and tornatrás. Other terms being used with reference to China include: • 華人 – Hoâ-jîn or Huárén—a generic term for referring to Chinese people, without implication as to nationality • 華僑 – Hoâ-kiâo or Huáqiáo—Overseas Chinese, usually China-born Chinese who have emigrated elsewhere • 華裔 – Hoâ-è or Huáyì—People of Chinese ancestry who were born in, residents of and citizens of another country "Indigenous Filipino" or simply "Filipino", is used in this article to refer to the Austronesian inhabitants prior to the Spanish Conquest of the islands. During the Spanish Colonial Period, the term indio was used. However, intermarriages occurred mostly during the Spanish colonial period because Chinese immigrants to the Philippines up to the 19th century were predominantly male. It was only in the 20th century that Chinese women and children came in comparable numbers. Today, Chinese Filipino male and female populations are practically equal in numbers. Chinese mestizos, as a result from intermarriages during the Spanish colonial period, then often opted to marry other Chinese or Chinese mestizos. Generally, Chinese mestizos is a term referring to people with one Chinese parent. By this definition, the ethnically Chinese Filipino comprise 1.8% (1.35 million) of the population. This figure however does not include the Chinese mestizos who since Spanish times have formed a part of the middle class in Philippine society nor does it include Chinese immigrants from the People's Republic of China since 1949. ==History==

Early interactions Ethnic Han Chinese (a term which refers to a collection of distinct ethnic groups in central and east China) sailed around the Philippines from the 9th century onward and frequently interacted with the local Austronesian people. The "Han Chinese" that sailed to the Philippines mostly come from the Hokkien ethnic group. Chinese and Austronesian interactions initially commenced as bartering and items. File:Ming1.jpg|Chinese (Sangley) Couple Migrants in the Philippines, c. 1590 File:Ming2.jpg|Chinese (Sangley) Couple Migrants in the Philippines, c. 1590 File:畲客 Xaque Couple in the Philippines - Boxer Codex (1590).jpg|She couple from Ming Dynasty China File:Chinese General in Philippines.jpg|Ming dynasty Chinese General with Attendant, c. 1590 File:文官 Mandarín Letrado - Mandarin Official from China - Boxer Codex (1590).jpg|Mandarin Bureaucrat with Wife from Ming dynasty, c. 1590 File:太子 Príncipe - Prince and Princess from China - Boxer Codex (1590).jpg|Chinese nobility from Ming Dynasty China, c. 1590 In the year 972 AD, the Song dynasty annals briefly mentioned "麻逸" (Ma-i, or in Hokkien ) which is generally accepted to be located in Mindoro island, southwest of Manila. A year earlier, the annals recorded traders from Ma-i coming to Canton, and then in 982 AD. In the 11th century, the states—or chief settlements—recorded by the local Bureau of Maritime Trade are Butuan, written in records as "蒲端" (Hokkien ) and Sanmalan recorded as "三麻蘭" (Hokkien ), whose traders presented themselves as tribute-paying envoys to China. They continued trade with the Song court in the years 1004, 1007 and 1011 and brought home Chinese ceramics. A century later, in addition to Ma-i, the bureau then recorded another states from the Philippines Baipuer (Babuyan Islands) and the group of islands collectively known as "Sandao" or "Sanyu" which were Jamayan (now Calamian, recorded as "加麻延"(Hokkien )), Balaoyu (Palawan, recorded as "巴姥酉"(Hokkien )), and Pulihuan (approximate location is Manila, or areas near it, recorded as "蒲裏喚"(Hokkien )). These native traders mostly belonged to the elite. In a Song dynasty record, a man from Sandao was treated with respect after he returned home from Quanzhou for a unique tradition seemed to have stemmed from the native's village that a man who had been to China was revered. In 1007 AD, a local chief from Butuan sent an envoy to China, requesting an equal status with Champa, however, this was rejected for the Song court appear to have favored Champa. If indeed there was interaction in the Visayas archipelago, it was sporadic. While there is evidence that the Chinese had interactions with the island of Luzon and Mindanao, historians William Henry Scott and Isabelo de los Reyes are skeptical on the Chinese activity in the 16th century or earlier. Both authors assert the claim that the Chinese only began to arrive in the early colonial period, and the latter claimed that by the administration of Lakan Dula, Luzon (or sometimes referring to Manila) monopolized the articles distributed by the Chinese and sometimes by the Japanese. In the Philippine Islands by Blair and Robertson, Chao Ju-Kua from the 13th century mentioned "San-hsii", which they believed to be the Visayas islands, however no other historian has affirmed nor investigated this claim, and written evidence is also absent . Spanish colonization of the Philippines (16th century–1898) '' (1734) Chinese-Filipino Mestizos), c. 1841 Tipos del País Watercolor by Justiniano Asuncion|alt= When the Spaniards arrived in the Philippines, there was already a significant population of migrants from China all of whom were male due to the relationship between the barangays (city-states) of the island of Luzon and the Ming dynasty. "Sangley" was the term used during the Spanish colonial period in the Philippines to refer to any ethnic Chinese person, regardless of specific ancestral origin in China. In the case of the Philippines, majority came from the province of Fujian in China, mostly the Southern Min people in Southern Fujian, specifically the Hokkien people, who speak southern Fujian's Hokkien language (referred also in the Philippines as Fukien or Fookien). The Hokkien people have their own unique culture, language, and religious belief systems, different from other ethnic groups in China. In the late 18th century, Fr. Joaquín Martínez de Zúñiga conducted a census of the Archdiocese of Manila, which held most of Luzon under its spiritual care, and he reported that the tributes represented an average family of 5 to 7 per tribute; in which case there were 90,243 native Filipino tributes; The province of Laguna had 2,000 Chinese-Filipino farmers/families. Biñan on the other hand had 256 Chinese-Filipino tributes. Sin Lok together with the progenitors of the Lacson, Sayson, Ditching, Layson, Ganzon, Sanson and other families who fled Southern China during the reign of the despotic Qing dynasty (1644–1912) in the 18th century and arrived in Maynilad; finally, decided to sail farther south and landed at the port of Batiano river to settle permanently in "Parian" near La Villa Rica de Arevalo in Iloilo. American colonial era (1898–1946) During the American colonial period, the Chinese Exclusion Act in the United States was also put into effect in the Philippines. Nevertheless, the Chinese were able to settle in the Philippines with the help of other Chinese Filipinos, despite strict American law enforcement, usually through "adopting" relatives from Mainland or by assuming entirely new identities with new names. , Manila (1949) The privileged position of the Chinese as middlemen of the economy under Spanish colonial rule quickly fell, as the Americans favored the principalía (educated elite) formed by Chinese mestizos and Spanish mestizos. As American rule in the Philippines started, events in Mainland China starting from the Taiping Rebellion, Chinese Civil War and Boxer Rebellion led to the fall of the Qing dynasty, which led thousands of Chinese from Fujian in China to migrate en masse to the Philippines to avoid poverty, worsening famine and political persecution. This group eventually formed the bulk of the current population of unmixed Chinese Filipinos. Chinese as aliens under the Marcos regime (1975–1986) Under the administration of Ferdinand Marcos, Chinese Filipinos called "lao cao" (Philippine Hokkien , meaning "old people" or literally, "old monkey" (a comedic reference to the Monkey King (Sun Wukong) from the old famous Chinese classical novel, Journey to the West)), i.e., Chinese in the Philippines who acquired citizenship, referred only to those who arrived in the country before World War II. Those who arrived after the war were called the "jiu qiao" (Mandarin ). They were residents who came from China (also usually southern Fujian) via British Hong Kong, such as through North Point, Causeway Bay, or Kowloon Bay, between the 1950s to 1980s. Chinese schools in the Philippines, which were governed by the Ministry of Education of the Republic of China (Taiwan), were transferred under the jurisdiction of the Philippine government's Department of Education. Virtually all Chinese schools were ordered closed or else to limit the time allotted for Chinese language, history and culture subjects from four hours to two hours and instead devote them to the study of Filipino languages and culture. Marcos' policies eventually led to the formal assimilation of the Chinese Filipinos into mainstream Filipino society, the majority were granted citizenship, under the administration of Corazon Aquino and Fidel Ramos. Return of democracy (1986–2000) , of Sangley Chinese mestizo ancestry of Tarlac, is the third Philippine president to have ethnic Chinese ancestry through the Cojuangco family. Despite getting better protections, crimes against Chinese Filipinos were still present, the same way as crimes against other ethnic groups in the Philippines, as the country was still battling the lingering economic effects of the Marcos regime. All these led to the formation of the first Chinese Filipino organization, Kaisa Para Sa Kaunlaran, Inc. (Unity for Progress) by Teresita Ang See which called for mutual understanding between the ethnic Chinese and the native Filipinos. Aquino encouraged free press and cultural harmony, a process which led to the burgeoning of the Chinese-language media During this time, the third wave of Chinese migrants came. They are known as the "xin qiao" (Mandarin ), tourists or temporary visitors with fake papers, fake permanent residencies or fake Philippine passports that started coming starting the 1990s during the administration of Fidel Ramos and Joseph Estrada. "Xin qiao" Chinese migration from mainland China into the Philippines intensified from 2016 up to the present, The Chinese Filipino community have expressed concerns over the ongoing disputes between China and the Philippines, which majority preferring peaceful approaches to the dispute to safeguard their own private businesses. The community has also expressed concerns over the increased anti-Chinese sentiment from other Filipinos resulting from issues surrounding the POGO businesses and investigations on the background of former Bamban mayor Alice Guo, who was accused by the authorities of having connections with a POGO business in the said municipality. ==Origins==

Most Chinese Filipinos in the Philippines are Hokkien people, historically speaking Hokkien. Many Chinese Filipinos are either fourth-, third-, or second-generation; in general natural-born Philippine citizens who can still recognize their Chinese roots and have Chinese relatives in China, as well as in other Southeast Asian, Australasian or North American countries. According to a study of around 30,000 gravestones in the Manila Chinese Cemetery of Metro Manila with marked birthplaces or ancestral places of the interred, 89.26% were from within the Hokkien-speaking Southern Min region in Southern Fujian, while 9.86% were from Cantonese regions in Guangdong (Canton) province. More specifically on those of the Southern Min region, 65.01% hailed from Jinjiang () [from coastal Quanzhou], 17.25% from Nan'an () [from coastal Quanzhou], 7.94% from Xiamen () (Xiamen city proper), 2.90% from Hui'an () [from coastal Quanzhou], 1.52% from Longxi () [within Longhai, coastal Zhangzhou], 1.21% from Siming () [southern district of Xiamen or Xiamen itself], 1.14% from Quanzhou () (Quanzhou city proper), 1.10% from Tong'an () [from coastal Xiamen], 0.83% from Shishi () [from coastal Quanzhou], 0.57% from Yongchun () [from inland Quanzhou], and 0.53% from Anxi () [from inland Quanzhou]. According to a study in March 27 to 29, 2005 by two scholars, Gyo Miyabara and Ito Jimenez, in Metro Cebu, they inspected 1,436 gravestones of Chinese Filipinos in five cemeteries of Cebu, namely Cebu Memorial Park, Queen City Memorial Park, Manila Memorial Park Cebu (Liloan), Cebu Chinese Cemetery (宿務華僑義山), and Ludo Memorial Park. The gravestones inspected with marked birthplaces or ancestral places from China of those interred were as follows, 669 graves (46.6%) hailed from Jinjiang () [from coastal Quanzhou], 362 graves (25.2%) from Nan'an () [from coastal Quanzhou], 147 graves (10.2%) from Huli district (, former ) [from northern Xiamen], 80 graves (5.6%) from Siming district () [from southern Xiamen], 46 graves (3.2%) from Kinmen (), 31 graves (2.2%) from Guangdong (), 11 graves (0.8%) from Shishi () [from coastal Quanzhou], and 45 graves (3.1%) from other parts of China or left unlabeled. Hokkien (Fujianese / Hokkienese / Fukienese / Fookienese / Hoklo) people Chinese Filipinos who have roots as Hokkien people (福建人/閩南人) predominantly have ancestors who came from Southern Fujian and usually speak or at least have Philippine Hokkien as heritage language. They form the bulk of Chinese settlers in the Philippines during or after the Spanish Colonial Period, and settled or spread primarily from Metro Manila and key cities in Luzon such as Angeles City, Baguio, Dagupan, Ilagan, Laoag, Lucena, Tarlac and Vigan, as well as in major Visayan and Mindanao cities such as Bacolod, Cagayan de Oro, Cotabato, Metro Cebu, Metro Davao, Dumaguete, General Santos, Iligan, Metro Iloilo, Ormoc, Tacloban, Tagbilaran and Zamboanga. Hokkien peoples, also known in Fukienese / Hokkienese / Fookienese / Fujianese or in Philippine Hokkien or in Mandarin , form 98.7% of all unmixed ethnic Chinese in the Philippines. Of the Hokkien peoples, about 75% are from Quanzhou Prefecture (especially around Jinjiang City), 23% are from Zhangzhou Prefecture and 2% are from Xiamen City. The Hokkien-descended Chinese Filipinos currently dominate the light and heavy industries, as well as the entrepreneurial and real estate sectors of the Philippine economy. Many younger Hokkien-descended Chinese Filipinos are also entering the fields of banking, computer science, engineering, finance and medicine. To date, most emigrants and permanent residents from Mainland China, as well as the vast majority of Taiwanese people in the Philippines are also of Hokkien background. Teochews Linguistically related to the Hokkien people are the Teochew (Philippine Hokkien or in Mandarin ). They migrated in large numbers to the Philippines during the Spanish Period to the main Luzon island of the Philippines, such as the famed smuggler, Limahong (林阿鳳), and his followers who were originally from Raoping, Chaozhou, but later on were eventually assimilated by intermarriage with the mainstream Hokkien. The Teochews are often mistaken for being Hokkien. Cantonese people Chinese Filipinos who have roots as Cantonese people (Cantonese ) have ancestors who came from Guangdong Province and speak or at least have Cantonese or Taishanese as heritage language. They settled down in Metro Manila, as well as in major cities of Luzon such as Baguio City, Angeles City, Naga and Olongapo. Many also settled in the provinces of Northern Luzon (e.g., Benguet, Cagayan, Ifugao, Ilocos Norte) especially around Baguio. Examples of those of Cantonese descent are people like Ma Mon Luk, the Tecson and Ticzon families descended from the three "Tek Sun" brothers from Guangzhou (Canton), Guangdong. The Cantonese people (Philippine Hokkien , Mandarin ) form roughly 1.2% of the unmixed ethnic Chinese population of the Philippines, with large numbers of descendants originally from either Taishan, Kaiping, or nearby areas transiting from either Macau, Guangzhou (Canton). The Chinese mestizo descendants of Han Chinese men and Moro Muslim Tausug and Sama women are integrating and dissolving into the Tausug and Sama population as they lose practice of Chinese culture except celebrating some festivals and their Chinese names. ==Demographics==

• The figure above denotes first-generation Chinese mestizos – namely, those with one Chinese and one Filipino parent. This figure does not include those who have less than 50% Chinese ancestry, who are mostly classified as "Filipino". The exact number of Filipinos with Chinese ancestry is unknown, as the Philippine Statistics Authority does not conduct official surveys on ethnicity. Various estimates have been given from the start of the Spanish colonial period up to the present, ranging from 10% to as high as 18–27%. According to a research report by historian Austin Craig who was commissioned by the United States in 1915 to ascertain the total number of the various races of the Philippines, the pure Chinese, referred to as Sangley, number around 20,000 (as of 1918), and that around one-third of the population of Luzon have partial Chinese ancestry. This comes with a footnote about the widespread concealing and de-emphasising of the exact number of Chinese in the Philippines. Another source dating from the Spanish Colonial Period shows the growth of the Chinese and the Chinese mestizo population to nearly 10% of the Philippine population by 1894. ==Language==

The vast majority (74.5%) of Chinese Filipinos, especially those in Metro Manila and surrounding regions, speak Filipino (Tagalog) and/or Philippine English as their native language. Most Chinese Filipinos (77%) still retain the ability to understand and speak Hokkien as a second or third language. and, in most regions of the Philippines, other regional languages. Recent arrivals from Mainland China or Taiwan, despite coming mostly from traditionally Hokkien-speaking areas, typically use Mandarin among themselves. Unlike other overseas Chinese communities in Southeast Asia, which feature an assortment of dialect groups, Chinese Filipinos descend overwhelmingly from Hokkien-speaking regions in Southern Fujian. Hence, Hokkien remains the main heritage language among Chinese Filipinos. Mandarin, however, is perceived as the most prestigious Chinese language, so it is taught in Chinese Filipino schools and used in all official and formal functions within the Chinese Filipino community despite the fact that very few Chinese Filipinos are conversant in Mandarin or have it as a heritage language. contrary to the modern 21st century Philippine Hokkien that now resembles the Quanzhou dialect more. Mandarin Mandarin is currently the subject and medium of instruction for teaching Standard Chinese (Mandarin) class subjects in Chinese Filipino schools in the Philippines. However, since the language is rarely used outside of the classroom besides jobs and interactions related to Mainland China and Taiwan, most Chinese Filipinos would be hard-pressed to converse in Mandarin. As a result of longstanding influence from the ROC Ministry of Education of the Overseas Chinese Affairs Council of the Republic of China (Taiwan) since the early 1900s up to 2000, the Mandarin variant (known in many schools in Hokkien ) taught and spoken in many older Chinese Filipino schools in the Philippines closely mirrors that of Taiwanese Mandarin, using Traditional Chinese characters and the Zhuyin phonetic system (known in many schools in Hokkien ) being taught, though in recent decades Simplified Chinese characters and the Pinyin phonetic system were also introduced from China and Singapore. Some Chinese Filipino schools now also teach Mandarin in Simplified characters with the Pinyin system, modeled after those in China and Singapore. Some schools teach both or either of the systems. Spanish Dominican Catholic missionaries like Francisco Varo who visited 17th century Fujian (late Ming and early Qing) learned both local Min Chinese and the official Ming dynasty Mandarin Chinese (guanhua) and they explicitly noted that Mandarin was regarded as an elegant, "elevated" language by the local Fujianese Chinese while their own local Min speech were regarded as "coarse speech". They noted Mandarin Guanhua was solemn and used by the educated Fujianese literati and officials while it was the rural villagers and women who only spoke the local Min patois (xiangtan) since they didn't speak Mandarin. Jesuits in Ming dynasty China like Matteo Ricci generally focused on studying the official and prestigious Mandarin while Dominicans studied vernacular Hokkien dialects in Fujian. Cantonese and Taishanese Currently, there are still a few minority Cantonese Chinese Filipino families that still privately speak Cantonese or Taishanese at home or in their circles, ==Religion==

Chinese Filipinos are unique in Southeast Asia in being overwhelmingly Christian (83%). , Manila Roman Catholicism The majority (70%) of Christian Chinese Filipinos are Catholic. Protestantism in Manila in 1923, an Anglican church and school for Chinese Filipinos Approximately 13% of all Christian Chinese Filipinos are Protestants. Many Chinese Filipino schools are founded by Protestant missionaries and churches. Chinese Filipinos comprise a large percentage of membership in some of the largest evangelical churches in the Philippines, many of which are also founded by Chinese Filipinos, such as the Christian Gospel Center, Christ's Commission Fellowship, United Evangelical Church of the Philippines and the Youth Gospel Center. In contrast to Roman Catholicism, Protestantism forbids traditional Chinese practices such as ancestor veneration, but allows the use of meaning or context substitution for some practices that are not directly contradicted in the Bible (e.g., celebrating the Mid-Autumn Festival with moon cakes denoting the moon as God's creation and the unity of families, rather than the traditional Chinese belief in Chang'e). Many also had ancestors already practicing Protestantism while still in China. Unlike native and mestizo Filipino-dominated Protestant churches in the Philippines which have very close ties with North American organizations, most Protestant Chinese Filipino churches instead sought alliance and membership with the Chinese Congress on World Evangelization, an organization of Overseas Chinese Christian churches throughout Asia. Chinese traditional religions and practices A small number of Chinese Filipinos (2%) continue to practise traditional Chinese religions solely. Mahayana Buddhism, specifically, Chinese Pure Land Buddhism, Taoism and ancestral worship (including Confucianism) are the traditional Chinese beliefs that continue to have adherents among the Chinese Filipino. Buddhist and Taoist temples can be found where the Chinese live, especially in urban areas like Manila. Veneration of the Guanyin (觀音), known locally as Kuan-im either in its pure form or seen a representation of the Virgin Mary is practised by many Chinese Filipinos. The Chinese Filipino community also established indigenous religious denominations like Bell Church (钟教), which is a syncretic religion with ecumenical and interfaith in orientation. There are several prominent Chinese temples like Seng Guan Temple (Buddhist) in Manila, Cebu Taoist Temple in Cebu City and Lon Wa Buddhist Temple in Davao City. Around half (40%) of all Chinese Filipinos regardless of religion still claim to practise ancestral worship. Others There are very few Chinese Filipino Muslims, most of whom live in either Mindanao or the Sulu Archipelago and have intermarried or assimilated with their Moro neighbors. Many of them have attained prominent positions as political leaders. They include Datu Piang, Abdusakur Tan and Michael Mastura, among such others. Others are also members of the Iglesia ni Cristo, Jehovah's Witnesses or the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Some younger generations of Chinese Filipinos also profess to be atheists. ==Education==

There are 150 Chinese schools that exist throughout the Philippines, slightly more than half of which operate in Metro Manila. Chinese Filipino schools typically include the teaching of Standard Chinese (Mandarin), among other school class subjects, and have an international reputation for producing award-winning students in the fields of science and mathematics, most of whom reap international awards in mathematics, computer programming, and robotics Olympiads. History The first school founded specifically for the Chinese in the Philippines, the Anglo-Chinese School (now known as Tiong Se Academy) was opened in 1899 on the Qing Dynasty Chinese Embassy grounds. The first curriculum called for rote memorization of the four major Confucian texts (the Four Books and Five Classics) along with Western science and technology. This was followed suit in the establishment of other Chinese schools, such as Hua Siong College of Iloilo, established in Iloilo in 1912, the Chinese Patriotic School, established in Manila in 1912 (the first school for the Cantonese Chinese), Saint Stephen's High School, established in Manila in 1915 (the first sectarian school for the Chinese), and the Chinese National School, established in Cebu in 1915. Such a situation continued until 1973, when amendments made during the Marcos Era to the Philippine Constitution effectively transferred all Chinese schools to the authority of the Republic of the Philippines' Department of Education (DepEd). ==Name format==

Many Chinese who lived during the Spanish naming edict of 1849 eventually adopted Spanish name formats, along with a Spanish given name (e.g., Florentino Cu y Chua). Some adopted their entire Chinese name romanized as a surname for the entire clan (e.g., Jose Antonio Chuidian (); Alberto Cojuangco ()). Chinese mestizos, as well as some Chinese who chose to completely assimilate into the local Filipino or Spanish culture during Spanish colonial times also adopted Spanish surnames, just as any other Filipino, either as per christening of a new Christian name under Catholic Christian baptismal under the Spanish friars or through the 1849 decree of Gov-Gen. Narciso Claveria that distributed surnames from the Catálogo alfabético de apellidos, most of which listed there were Spanish surnames. Newer Chinese migrants who came during the American Colonial Period use a combination of an adopted Spanish (or rarely, English) name together with their Chinese name (e.g., Carlos Palanca Tan Quin Lay or Vicente Go Tam Co). This trend was to continue up to the late 1970s. As both exposure to North American media as well as the number of Chinese Filipinos educated in English increased, the use of English names among Chinese Filipinos, both common and unusual, started to increase as well. Popular names among the second generation Chinese community included English names ending in "-son" or other Chinese-sounding suffixes, such as Anderson, Emerson, Jackson, Jameson, Jasson, Patrickson, Washington, among such others. For parents who are already third and fourth generation Chinese Filipinos, English names reflecting American popular trends are given, such as Ethan, Austin and Aidan. It is thus not unusual to find a young Chinese Filipino, for example, named "Chase Tan", whose father's name is "Emerson Tan" and whose grandfather's name is "Elpidio Tan Keng Kui", reflecting the depth of immersion into the English language as well as into the Philippine society as a whole. Surnames Filipino-Chinese whose ancestors came to the Philippines from 1885 onward usually have monosyllabic Chinese surnames. On the other hand, most Chinese ancestors came to the Philippines prior to 1885 usually have multisyllabic surnames such as Gokongwei, Ongpin, Cuyegkeng, Pempengco, Yuchengco, Tansipek, Teehankee, CuUnjieng and Yaptinchay among such others. These were originally full Chinese names which were transliterated in Spanish orthography and adopted as surnames. Common single-syllable Chinese Filipino surnames are Tan (), Lim (), Chua (), Uy () and Ong (). Most such surnames are spelled according to their Hokkien pronunciation. On the other hand, most Chinese Filipinos whose ancestors came to the Philippines prior to 1885 use a Hispanicized surname (see below). Many Filipinos who have Hispanicized Chinese surnames are no longer pure Chinese, but are Chinese mestizos. Hispanized surnames Chinese Filipinos and Chinese mestizos usually have multisyllabic surnames such as Angseeco (from ang/see/co/kho) Aliangan (from liang/gan), Angkeko, Apego (from ang/ke/co/go/kho), Asico (from au/oh/see/si/co/ko), Chuacuco, Chuatoco, Chuateco, Ciacho (from Sia), Cinco (from Go), Cojuangco, Coquilay, Corong, Cuyegkeng, CuUnjieng, Dioquino, Dybuncio, Dytoc, Dy-Cok, Dysangco, Dytioco, Gueco, Gokongwei, Gotamco, Gundayao, Kiamco/Quiamco, Kimpo/Quimpo, King/Quing, Landicho, Lanting, Lim-An, Limcuando, Limgemco, Ongpin, Pempengco, Quebengco, Siopongco, Sycip, Tambengco, Tambunting, Tanbonliong, Tansipek, Tantoco, Tinsay, Tiolengco, Yuchengco, Tanciangco, Yuipco, Yupangco, Licauco, Limcaco, Ongpauco, Tancangco, Tanchanco, Teehankee, Uytengsu and Yaptinchay among such others. These were originally full Hokkien Chinese names which were transliterated in Latin letters with Spanish orthography and adopted as Hispanicized surnames. Tiongson/Tiongzon (Eldest Grandchild, 長孫, Tióng-sun)/(Second/Middle Grandchild, 仲孫, Tiōng-sun), Many also took on Spanish or native Filipino surnames (e.g. Alonzo, Alcaraz, Bautista, De la Cruz, De la Rosa, De los Santos, Garcia, Gatchalian, Mercado, Palanca, Robredo, Sanchez, Tagle, Torres, etc.) upon naturalization. Today, it can be difficult to identify who are Chinese Filipino based on surnames alone. A phenomenon common among Chinese migrants in the Philippines dating from the 1900s would be to purchase their surname, particularly during the American Colonial Period, when the Chinese Exclusion Act was applied to the Philippines. Such law led new Chinese migrants to purchase the Hispanic or native surnames of native and mestizo Filipinos and thus pass off as long-time Filipino residents of Chinese descent or as native or mestizo Filipinos. Many also purchased the Alien Landing Certificates of other Chinese who have gone back to China and assumed his surname and/or identity. Sometimes, younger Chinese migrants would circumvent the Act through adoption – wherein a Chinese with Philippine nationality adopts a relative or a stranger as his own children, thereby giving the adoptee automatic Filipino citizenship – and a new surname. ==Food==

(Hokkien: 潤餅), a spring roll of Chinese origin. Traditional Tsinoy cuisine, as Chinese Filipino home-based dishes are locally known, make use of recipes that are traditionally found in China's Fujian Province and fuse them with locally available ingredients and recipes. These include unique foods such as hokkien chha-peng (Fujianese-style fried rice), si-nit mi-soa (birthday noodles), pansit canton (Fujianese-style e-fu noodles), hong ma or humba (braised pork belly), sibut (four-herb chicken soup), hototay (Fujianese egg drop soup), kiampeng (Fujianese beef fried rice), machang (glutinous rice with adobo) and taho (a dessert made of soft tofu, arnibal syrup and pearl sago). However, most Chinese restaurants in the Philippines, as in other places, feature Cantonese, Shanghainese and Northern Chinese cuisines, rather than traditional Fujianese fare. ==Politics==

With the increasing number of Chinese with Philippine nationality, the number of political candidates of Chinese-Filipino descent also started to increase. The most significant change within Chinese Filipino political life would be the citizenship decree promulgated by former President Ferdinand Marcos which opened the gates for thousands of Chinese Filipinos to formally adopt Philippine citizenship. Chinese Filipino political participation largely began with the People Power Revolution of 1986 which toppled the Marcos dictatorship and ushered in the Aquino presidency. The Chinese have been known to vote in blocs in favor of political candidates who are favorable to the Chinese community. Important Philippine political leaders with Chinese ancestry include the current president Bongbong Marcos, and former presidents Rodrigo Duterte, Emilio Aguinaldo, Benigno Aquino III, Cory Aquino, Sergio Osmeña, Manuel Quezon and Ferdinand Marcos, former senators Nikki Coseteng, Alfredo Lim, Raul Roco, Panfilo Lacson, Vicente Yap Sotto, Vicente Sotto III and Roseller Lim, as well as several governors, congressmen and mayors throughout the Philippines. Many ambassadors and recent appointees to the presidential cabinet are also Chinese Filipinos like Arthur Yap, Jesse Robredo, Jose Yulo, Manuel Yan, Alberto Lim, Danilo Lim, Karl Chua and Bong Go. The former Archbishop of Manila, Cardinals Jaime Sin, Rufino Santos and Luis Antonio Tagle also have Chinese ancestry. ==Society and culture==

in Davao City is the biggest Chinatown in the Philippines and the only one in Mindanao. Society The Chinese Filipino are mostly business owners and their life centers mostly in the family business. These mostly small or medium enterprises play a significant role in the Philippine economy. A handful of these entrepreneurs run large companies and are respected as some of the most prominent business tycoons in the Philippines. Chinese Filipinos attribute their success in business to frugality and hard work, Confucian values and their traditional Chinese customs and traditions. They are very business-minded and entrepreneurship is highly valued and encouraged among the young. Most Chinese Filipinos are urban dwellers. An estimated 50% of the Chinese Filipino live within Metro Manila, with the rest in the other major cities of the Philippines. In contrast with the Chinese mestizos, few Chinese are plantation owners. This is partly because until recently when the Chinese Filipino became Filipino citizens, the law prohibited the non-citizens, which most Chinese were, from owning land. Culture As with other Southeast Asian nations, the Chinese community in the Philippines has become a repository of traditional Chinese culture common to unassimilated ethnic minorities throughout the world. Whereas in mainland China many cultural traditions and customs were suppressed or destroyed during the Cultural Revolution or simply regarded as old-fashioned nowadays, these traditions have remained largely preserved in the Philippines. Many new cultural twists have evolved within the Chinese community in the Philippines, distinguishing it from other overseas Chinese communities in Southeast Asia. These cultural variations are highly evident during festivals such as Chinese New Year and Mid-Autumn Festival. The Chinese Filipino have developed unique customs pertaining to weddings, birthdays and funerary rituals. Weddings Wedding traditions of Chinese Filipinos, regardless of religious persuasion, usually involve identification of the dates of supplication or pamamanhikan (kiu-hun), engagement (ting-hun) and wedding (kan-chhiu) adopted from Filipino customs. In addition, feng shui based on the birthdates of the couple, as well as of their parents and grandparents may also be considered. Certain customs found among Chinese Filipinos include during supplication (kiu-hun) also include a solemn tea ceremony within the house of the bridegroom ensues where the couple will be served tea, egg noodles (misua) and given red packets or envelopes containing money, commonly referred to as an ang-pao. During the supplication ceremony, pregnant women and recently engaged couples are forbidden from attending the ceremony. Engagement (ting-hun) quickly follows, where the bride enters the ceremonial room walking backward and turned three times before being allowed to see the groom. A welcome drink consisting of red-colored juice is given to the couple, quickly followed by the exchange of gifts for both families and the wedding tea ceremony, where the bride serves the groom's family and vice versa. The engagement reception consists of sweet tea soup and misua, both of which symbolizes long-lasting relationship. Before the wedding, the groom is expected to provide the matrimonial bed in the future couple's new home. A baby born under the Chinese sign of the Dragon may be placed in the bed to ensure fertility. He is also tasked to deliver the wedding gown to his bride on the day prior to the wedding to the sister of the bride, as it is considered ill fortune for the groom to see the bride on that day. For the bride, she prepares an initial batch of personal belongings (ke-chheng) to the new home, all wrapped and labeled with the Chinese characters for sang-hi. On the wedding date, the bride wears a red robe emblazoned with the emblem of a dragon prior to wearing the bridal gown, to which a pair of sang-hi (English: marital happiness) coin is sewn. Before leaving her home, the bride then throws a fan bearing the Chinese characters for sang-hi toward her mother to preserve harmony within the bride's family upon her departure. Most of the wedding ceremony then follows Catholic or Protestant traditions. Post-wedding rituals include the two single brothers or relatives of the bride giving the couple a wa-hoe set, which is a bouquet of flowers with umbrella and sewing kit, for which the bride gives an ang-pao in return. After three days, the couple then visits the bride's family, upon which a pair of sugar cane branch is given, which is a symbol of good luck and vitality among Hokkien people. Births and birthdays Birthday traditions of Chinese Filipinos involve large banquet receptions, always featuring noodles and round-shaped desserts. All the relatives of the birthday celebrant are expected to wear red clothing which symbolize respect for the celebrant. Wearing clothes with a darker hue is forbidden and considered bad luck. During the reception, relatives offer ang paos (red packets containing money) to the birthday celebrant, especially if he is still unmarried. For older celebrants, boxes of egg noodles (misua) and eggs on which red paper is placed are given. Births of babies are not celebrated and they are usually given pet names, which he keeps until he reaches first year of age. The Philippine custom of circumcision is widely practiced within the Chinese Filipino community regardless of religion, albeit at a lesser rate as compared to native Filipinos. First birthdays are celebrated with much pomp and pageantry, and grand receptions are hosted by the child's paternal grandparents. Funerals and burials Funerary traditions of Chinese Filipinos mirror those found in Southern Fujian. A unique tradition of many Chinese Filipino families is the hiring of professional mourners which is alleged to hasten the ascent of a dead relative's soul into Heaven. This belief particularly mirrors the merger of traditional Chinese beliefs with the Catholic religion. Subcultures Most of the Chinese mestizos, especially the landed gentry trace their ancestry to the Spanish era. They are the "First Chinese" or Sangley whose descendants nowadays are mostly integrated into Philippine society. Most are from Zhangzhou, Fujian province in China, with a minority coming from Guangdong. They have embraced a Hispanized Filipino culture since the 17th century. After the end of Spanish rule, their descendants, the Chinese mestizos, managed to invent a cosmopolitan mestizo culture coupled with an extravagant Mestizo de Sangley lifestyle, intermarrying either with native Filipinos or with Spanish mestizos. The largest group of Chinese in the Philippines are the "Second Chinese", who are descendants of migrants in the first half of the 20th century, between the anti-Qing 1911 Revolution in China and the Chinese Civil War. This group accounts for most of the "full-blooded" Chinese. They are almost entirely from Fujian Province. The "Third Chinese" are the second largest group of Chinese, the recent immigrants from mainland China, after the reform and opening up of the 1980s. Generally, the "Third Chinese" are the most entrepreneurial and have not totally lost their Chinese identity in its purest form and seen by some "Second Chinese" as a business threat. Meanwhile, continuing immigration from mainland China further enlarge this group Civic organizations at De La Salle University. Aside from their family businesses, Chinese Filipinos are active in Chinese-oriented civic organizations related to education, health care, public safety, social welfare and public charity. As most Chinese Filipinos are reluctant to participate in politics and government, they have instead turned to civic organizations as their primary means of contributing to the general welfare of the Chinese community. Beyond the traditional family and clan associations, Chinese Filipinos tend to be active members of numerous alumni associations holding annual reunions for the benefit of their Chinese-Filipino secondary schools. Outside of secondary schools catering to Chinese Filipinos, some Chinese Filipinos businessmen have established charitable foundations that aim to help others and at the same time minimize tax liabilities. Notable ones include the Gokongwei Brothers Foundation, Metrobank Foundation, Tan Yan Kee Foundation, Angelo King Foundation, Jollibee Foundation, Alfonso Yuchengco Foundation, Cityland Foundation, etc. Some Chinese-Filipino benefactors have also contributed to the creation of several centers of scholarship in prestigious Philippine Universities, including the John Gokongwei School of Management at Ateneo de Manila, the Yuchengco Center at De La Salle University, and the Ricardo Leong Center of Chinese Studies at Ateneo de Manila. Coincidentally, both Ateneo and La Salle enroll a large number of Chinese-Filipino students. In health care, Chinese Filipinos were instrumental in establishing and building medical centers that cater for the Chinese community such as the Chinese General Hospital and Medical Center, the Metropolitan Medical Center, Chong Hua Hospital and the St. Luke's Medical Center, Inc., one of Asia's leading health care institutions. In public safety, Teresita Ang See's Kaisa, a Chinese-Filipino civil rights group, organized the Citizens Action Against Crime and the Movement for the Restoration of Peace and Order at the height of a wave of anti-Chinese kidnapping incidents in the early 1990s. In addition to fighting crime against Chinese, Chinese Filipinos have organized volunteer fire brigades all over the country, reportedly the best in the nation. that cater to the Chinese community. In the arts and culture, the Bahay Tsinoy and the Yuchengco Museum were established by Chinese Filipinos to showcase the arts, culture and history of the Chinese. Ethnic Chinese Filipinos' perceptions of non-Chinese Filipinos Non-Chinese Filipinos were initially referred to as huan-á (番仔) by ethnic Chinese Filipinos in the Philippines. It is also used in other Southeast Asian countries such as Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia by Hokkien-speaking ethnic Chinese to refer to peoples of Malay ancestry. In Taiwan, it was also used but it has become a taboo term with negative stigma since it was used to refer to indigenous Taiwanese aboriginals and the Japanese during the Japanese occupation of Taiwan. The term itself in mainland China originally just meant "foreigner" but at times may also have been considered derogatory When speaking Hokkien, most older Chinese Filipinos still use the term, while younger Chinese Filipinos may sometimes instead use the term Hui-li̍p-pin lâng (菲律賓儂), which directly means, "Philippine person" or simply "Filipino". This itself brings complications though as Chinese Filipinos themselves are Filipinos too, born and raised in the Philippines often with families of multiple generations carrying Filipino citizenship. Some Chinese Filipinos perceive the government and authorities to be unsympathetic to the plight of the ethnic Chinese, especially in terms of frequent kidnapping for ransom during the late 1990s. Currently, most of the third or fourth generation Chinese Filipinos generally view the non-Chinese Filipino people and government positively, and have largely forgotten about the historical oppression of the ethnic Chinese. They are also most likely to consider themselves as just being "Filipino" and focus on the Philippines, rather than on just being "Chinese" and being associated with China (PRC) or Taiwan (ROC). Some Chinese Filipinos believe racism still exists toward their community among a minority of non-Chinese Filipinos, who the Chinese Filipinos refer to as "pâi-huâ" (排華) in Philippine Hokkien. Organizations belonging to this category include the Laspip Movement, headed by Adolfo Abadeza, as well as the Kadugong Liping Pilipino, founded by Armando "Jun" Ducat Jr. that stirred tensions around the late 1990s. Also due in part to racial or chauvinistic views from Mainland Chinese towards native Filipinos or Filipinos in general in the 1980s after Filipinos became in demand in the international work force, some racial tendencies of mainland Chinese brought about by Han chauvinism against native Filipinos have intensified in the 21st century, where many Mainland Chinese from mainland China have branded the Philippines as a "gullible nation of maids and banana sellers", amidst disputes in the South China Sea. Due to such racist remarks against native Filipinos, racism against mainland Chinese in mainland China and by extension, ethnic-Chinese in general such as Chinese Filipinos, later developed among certain native or mestizo Filipino communities as a form of backlash. During the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, some Chinese Filipinos have also voiced concerns about Sinophobic sentiments that some non-Chinese Filipinos may carry against any ethnic Chinese, especially those from mainland China due to being the site of the first coronavirus outbreak, that may sometimes extend and generalize on Chinese Filipinos. Chinese Filipino organizations have discouraged the mainstream Filipino public from being discriminatory, particularly against Chinese nationals amid the global spread of COVID-19. ==Intermarriage==

Chinese mestizos are persons of mixed Chinese and either Spanish or indigenous Filipino ancestry. Mestizos are thought to make up as much as 25% of the country's total population. A number of Chinese mestizos have surnames that reflect their heritage, mostly two or three syllables that have Chinese roots (e.g., the full name of a Chinese ancestor) with a Hispanized phonetic spelling. During the Spanish colonial period, the Spanish authorities encouraged the Chinese male immigrants to convert to Catholicism. Those who converted got baptized and their names Hispanized, and were allowed to intermarry with indigenous Filipino women. The couple and their mestizo offspring became colonial subjects of the Spanish crown, and as such were granted several privileges and afforded numerous opportunities that were denied to the unconverted and non-citizen Chinese. Starting out as traders, many Chinese mestizo businesspeople branched out into land leasing, money-lending, and later, landholding. Chinese mestizo men and women were encouraged to marry Spanish and indigenous women and men, by means of dowries, as part of a colonial policy to mix the different ethno-racial groups of the Philippines so as it would be impossible to expel the Spanish. Today, "blood purity" is still of prime concern in most traditional Chinese Filipino families, especially pure-blooded Han ones. Many Chinese Filipinos who maintain traditional perspectives on marriage continue to uphold the belief that a Chinese Filipino can only be married to another fellow Chinese Filipino since marriages to a non-Han Chinese Filipino or any non-Han Chinese outsider was considered taboo and undesirable. The prospects and implications of the sustained trend of ongoing intermarriage between Chinese to native, mestizo Filipinos, and other outsiders, still continues to be shrouded in ambiguity, raising controversy, casting doubt, and posing uncertainty for all parties involved, even to this day. As the Chinese Filipino family structure is traditionally patriarchal hence, it is the male that carries the last name of the family which also entails the pedigree and legacy of the family name itself. Marriages between Chinese Filipino men and native Filipinas or mestizas, or any outsider, was deemed more socially permissible than the other way around. In the case of the Chinese Filipina female marrying a native or mestizo Filipino or any outsider, it may incur several unwanted racial issues and tensions, especially on the side of the Chinese family. In some instances, a member of a traditional Chinese Filipino family may be denied of his or her inheritance and likely to be disowned by his or her family for marrying an outsider without their consent. However, there are narrow exceptions in which intermarriage to a non-Chinese Filipino or any outsider would considered socially permissible provided that their family's socioeconomic background is well-off or influential. On the other hand, modern Chinese Filipino families who exhibit more liberal cosmopolitan views and beliefs are generally more receptive to interracial marriage by allowing their children to marry native or mestizo Filipino or any non-Han Chinese outsider. Even with these changes in attitude and shifting perspectives towards miscegenation, many contemporary Chinese Filipino families would still by and large prefer that the Filipino or any non-Han Chinese outsider would have some or little Han Chinese ancestry, such as the descendants of Chinese mestizos dating back to the Spanish colonial period. ==Trade and industry==

is now pullulated with thousands of prospering Chinese-owned Filipino stock brokerage houses and publicly traded companies. Like much of Southeast Asia, Filipinos of Chinese ancestry dominate the Filipino economy and commerce at every level of society. Chinese Filipinos collectively wield and uniformly demonstrate a disproportionatly high level of economic achievement and clout relative to their small population size over their indigenous Filipino majority counterparts while also playing a critical role in maintaining the country's economic vitality and prosperity. With their powerful economic prominence, the Chinese virtually make up the country's entire wealthy elite. Chinese Filipinos, in the aggregate, represent a disproportionate wealthy, market-dominant minority not only form a distinct ethnic community, they also form, by and large, an economic class: the commercial middle and upper class in contrast to their poorer indigenous Filipino majority working and underclass counterparts around them. The Chinese have had a significant presence in Filipino business and industry, having been at the forefront of controlling the economy of the Philippines for many centuries long before the Spanish and American colonial eras. Long before the Spanish conquest of the Philippines, Chinese merchants carried on trading activities with native communities along the coast of modern mainland China. By the time the Spanish arrived, the Chinese controlled all the commercial trading activities across the Philippines, serving as retailers, artisans, and food providers for various Spanish settlements. Total resources of banking capital held by the Chinese was US$27 million in 1937 to a high of US$100 million in the estimated aggregate, making them second to the Americans in terms of total foreign capital investment held. Mainly attracted and lured by the promise of bountiful economic opportunities brought upon by the auspices of American colonial influence during the first four decades of the 20th century actuated the Chinese to vigorously assert and ultimately secure their domains of economic power fostered amongst their entrepreneurial activities and investment pursuits. The implementation of a free trade policy between the Philippines and the United States allowed the Chinese to capitalize on the growth of a burgeoning Filipino consumer market. As a result, Filipino entrepreneurs and investors of Chinese ancestry were able to capture a significant market share across the country by expanding their commercial business activities in which they were the key players who ventured into then newly emerging industries such as industrial manufacturing and financial services. The American and Spanish colonizers who saw the indispensable benefit of the enterprising Chinese, harnessed their commercial expertise, contacts, capital, and presence to serve and protect their colonial economic interests. Chinese-owned sari-sari stores that cropped up all over the Philippines were utilized to distribute and supply American and cheap Chinese-made Filipino goods and raw materials with the finished products purposed for the eventual export to the American and other foreign markets overseas. The conspicuous presence of the Chinese that permeated throughout the textual fabric of daily Filipino economic life incurred the volatile emotions and hostility of the indigenous Filipino masses manifested in the form of animosity, bitterness, envy, grievance, insecurity, and resentment. Up until the 1970s, many of the Philippines's biggest corporations and commercial economic activities had long been under the control of the Americans and Spaniards. Since the 1970s, a significant shift has occurred in the commercial economic sector of the Philippines, whereby numerous Filipino enterprises previously owned by Americans and Spaniards came under the control of the Chinese, who have collectively emerged and established themselves as the country's most dominant economic force. Although the modern Chinese community in the Philippines amounts to 1 percent of the country's entire population, they are estimated to effectively control 60 to 70 percent of the modern Filipino economy. The enterprising Chinese minority, comprising 1 percent of the total population of the Philippines, control the country's largest and most lucrative department stores, supermarkets, hotels, shopping malls, airlines, and fast-food restaurants in addition to all of its major financial services providers, banks and stock brokerage houses, as well as dominating the nation's wholesale distribution networks, shipping lines, banks, construction, textiles, real estate, personal computer, semiconductors, pharmaceutical, mass media, and industrial manufacturing industries. Filipinos of Chinese ancestry also control 40 percent of the Philippine's national corporate equity. Filipinos of Chinese ancestry are also involved in the processing and distribution of pharmaceutical products. More than 1000 companies are involved in this industry, with most being small and medium-sized businesses amounting to an aggregate capitalization of ₱1.2 billion. Filipinos of Chinese ancestry are also prominent players in the Filipino mass media sector, as the Chinese control six out of the ten English-language newspapers in Manila, including the one with the largest daily circulation. The Chinese also dominate the Filipino telecommunications industry, where one of the current significant players in the Filipino telecom sector was the business taipan John Gokongwei, whose conglomerate JG Summit Holdings controlled 28 wholly owned subsidiaries with interests ranging from food and agro-industrial products, hotels, insurance agencies, financial services providers, electronic components, textiles and garment manufacturing, real estate, petrochemicals, power generation, printing, newspaper publishing, packaging materials, detergents, and cement mixing. Gokongwei's family firm is one of the six largest and most well-known Filipino conglomerates that has been under the hands of an owner of Chinese lineage. Gokongwei began his business career by starting out in food processing during the 1950s, venturing into textile manufacturing in the early 1970s, and then cornered the Filipino real estate development and hotel management industries by the end of the decade. In 1976, Gokongwei established Manila Midtown Hotels and has since then assumed the controlling interest of two other hotel chains, Cebu Midtown and Manila Galleria Suites respectively. Gokongwei's eldest daughter became publisher of the newspaper in December 1988 at the age of 28, at which during the same time her father acquired the paper from the Roceses, a Spanish Mestizo family. Of the 66 percent remaining part of the economy in the Philippines held by either Chinese or indigenous Filipinos, the Chinese control 35 percent of all total sales. Filipinos of Chinese ancestry control an estimated 50 to 60 percent of non-land share capital in the Philippines, and as much as 35 percent of total sales are attributed to the largest public and private firms owned by the Chinese. Many prominent Filipino companies that are Chinese-owned focus on diverse industry sectors such as semiconductors, chemicals, real estate, engineering, construction, fibre-optics, textiles, financial services, consumer electronics, food, and personal computers. A third of the top 500 companies publicly listed on the Philippines Stock Exchange are owned by Filipinos of Chinese ancestry. Of the top 1000 firms, Filipinos of Chinese ancestry control 36 percent of them and among the top 100 companies, 43 percent. Between 1978 and 1988, 146 of the country's 494 top companies were under Chinese ownership. In 1990, the Chinese controlled 25 percent of the top 100 businesses in the Philippines and by 2014, the share of top 100 firms owned by them grew to 41 percent. In addition, Chinese-owned Filipino companies account for 66 percent of the sixty largest commercial entities. In 2008, among the top ten wealthiest Filipinos, 6 to 7 were of Chinese ancestry with Henry Sy Sr. having topped the list with an estimated net worth US$14.4 billion. In 2015, the top 4 wealthiest people in the Philippines (with 9 being pure-blooded Han Chinese in addition to 10 out of the top 15) were of Chinese ancestry. Filipinos of Chinese ancestry exert a considerable influential foothold across the Filipino industrial manufacturing sector. With respect to delineating the parameters by industry distribution, Chinese-owned manufacturing establishments account for a third of the entirety of the Filipino industrial manufacturing sector. In the secondary industry, 75 percent of the country's 2500 rice mills were Chinese-owned. Chinese Filipino entrepreneurs were also dominant in wood processing, and accounted for over 10 percent of the capital invested in the lumber industry and controlled 85 percent of it as well as accounting for 40 percent of the industry's annual output propagated through their extensive control of nearly all the sawmills throughout the country. Emerging import-substituting light industries induced the active participation and ownership of Chinese entrepreneurs being involved in various several salt works in addition to a large number of small and medium-sized producers engaged in food processing as well as the production of leather and tobacco goods. The Chinese also hold enormous sway over the Filipino food processing industry with approximately 200 outlets being involved in this sector alone predominating the eventual export of their finished products to Hong Kong, Singapore, and Taiwan. More than 200 Chinese-owned companies are also involved in the production of paper, paper products, fertilizers, cosmetics, rubber products, and plastics. In 1965, the Chinese controlled 32 percent of the country's top industrial manufacturing outlets. Of the 259 industrial manufacturing establishments belonging to the top 1000 that operated throughout the entire country, the Chinese owned 33.6 percent of the top manufacturing companies as well as 43.2 percent of the top commercial manufacturing outlets in 1980. By 1986, the Chinese controlled 45 percent of the country's top 120 domestic manufacturing companies. These manufacturing establishments are mainly involved in the production of tobacco and cigarettes, soap and cosmetics, textiles and rubber footwear. The outlet today continues to remain as one of the country's most famous and beloved fast food franchises. Jollibee's popularity around the country has since then led to the expansion of its corporate presence throughout the world by establishing subsidiaries in the Middle East, Hong Kong, Guam, and other Southeast Asian countries such as Brunei and Indonesia. The chain has since evolved into the Jollibee Foods Corporation with the company having expanded gradually its corporate operating presence throughout mainland China as evidenced by its foreign acquisition of the Chinese fast food chain Dim Sum in 2008. In the beverage sector, San Miguel Corporation is among the Philippines's most prominent beverage providers. The company was founded in 1851 by Enrique María Barretto de Ycaza y Esteban and is responsible for supplying the country's entire beverage needs. Two Chinese-owned Filipino beverage companies, namely Lucio Tan's Asia Brewery and John Gokongwei's Universal Robina, along with several lesser-known beverage companies are also now competing with each other to capture the largest share in the Filipino beverage market. In 1940, Filipinos of Chinese ancestry were estimated to control 70 percent of the country's entire retail trade and 75 percent of the nation's rice mills. By 1948, the economic standing of the Chinese community began to elevate even further allowing them to wield considerable influence by expanding their commercial business presence across the Filipino retail industry. As the Chinese community exercised a considerable percentage of the total commercial investment, including the command of 55 percent of the Filipino retail trade and 85 percent of the country's lumber industry at this time. After the end of the Second Sino-Japanese war, Chinese Filipinos controlled 85 percent of the nation's retail trade. The Chinese also presided over 40 percent of the retailing imports coupled with substantial controlling interests in banking, oil refining, sugar milling, cement, tobacco, flour milling, glass, dairy farming, automobile manufacturing, and consumer electronics. Although the Filipino Hacienderos owned an extensive array of businesses, Filipinos of Chinese ancestry greatly augmented their economic power coinciding with the pro-market reforms of the late 1980s and 1990s initiated by the Marcos administration. As a result, the Chinese gradually increased their commanding role in the domestic Filipino commercial retail sector over time by acting as an intermediary in connecting Chinese-owned Filipino retailers to the masses of indigenous Filipino consumers through the exchange of various goods and services. The Chinese Filipino business community accomplished such commercial feats as a tight-knit group in an enclosed system via vertical integration by setting up their own supply chains, distribution networks, locating key competitors, making use of geographical coverage, attributes and characteristics, business strategies, staff recruitment, store proliferation, and establishing their own independent trade organizations. Every small, medium, and large enterprise in the Filipino retail sector is now completely under Chinese hands as they have been at the forefront at pioneering the modern and contemporary development of the Philippines's retail sector. From the 1970s onward, Filipino entrepreneurs of Chinese ancestry have re-established themselves as the dominant players in the Filipino retail industry with the community having achieved a collective corporate feat of presiding an estimated 8500 Chinese-owned retail and wholesale outlets that predominate across various metropolitan areas the country. Filipino entrepreneurs of Chinese ancestry control 35 percent to upwards to two-thirds of the domestic sales among the country's 67 largest commercial retail outlets. By the 1980s, Filipino entrepreneurs of Chinese ancestry began to expand their business activities by venturing into large-scale retailing. Chinese-owned Filipino retail outlet's today are among the single largest owners of department store chains in the Philippines with one prominent example being Rustan's, which is one of the country's most prestigious department store brands. Other prime retailers such as Shoe Mart owned by Henry Sy and John Gokongwei's Robinson's percolated rapidly throughout major cities around the country, with the products that they retailed having made their way into the shopping malls situated across various parts of the Manila Metropolitan area. Aside from taking over the Philippines's tobacco distribution networks, Tan has since parlayed his business interests into a corporate conglomerate behemoth of his own LT Group Inc.. His corporate empire presides over a portfolio of diversified business interests including chemicals, sports, education, brewing, financial services, real estate, hotels (Century Park Hotel), in addition to his company having purchased a majority controlling interest in PAL, one of the Philippines's largest airlines. In terms of industry distribution, small and medium size Chinese-owned retailers account for half of the Philippines retail trade, with 49.45 percent of the retail sector alone being controlled by Henry Sy's Shoemart, and the remaining share of the retail trade being dominated by a few larger Chinese-owned Filipino umbrella retail outlets that include thousands of smaller retail subsidiaries. From small trade cooperatives clustered by hometown pawnbrokers, Filipinos of Chinese ancestry would go on to establish and incorporate the largest financial services institutions in the country. Filipinos of Chinese ancestry have been the chief pioneering influence in the Filipino financial sector as they dominated the country's financial services domain and have had a presence in the country's banking industry since the early part of the 20th century. The two earliest Chinese-founded Filipino banks were China Bank and the Mercantile Bank of China, established in 1920 and 1924 respectively. Dee C. Chuan, one of the most high-profile Filipino businessmen of Chinese ancestry at the time, played a key role in initiating the establishment of Chinabank, as he remained adamant in establishing a financial services institution that was specifically tailored to serve the needs of the Chinese Filipino business community. Following the country's rapid parallel economic shift at the time towards the burgeoning industrial manufacturing sector prompted the Chinese business community to concurrently venture into the nascent banking and financial services sector. In 1956, there were four Chinese-owned Filipino banks, nine by 1971, sixteen in 1974, with the Chinese holding majority stakes in 10 of the 26 private commercial Filipino banks by the early 1990s. Of these six banks, the Chinese collectively control 63 percent of the aggregate assets among the top ten banks in the country. With Sy having assumed majority ownership of Banco de Oro, a commercial bank as well as acquiring a 14 percent stake in the China Banking Corporation, he also took a controlling interest in the Philippine National Bank, and 7 percent of the Far East Bank. By 1970, among the Philippines's five largest banks holding almost 50 percent of all assets in the industry, namely China Banking Corporation, Citibank, the Bank of the Philippine Islands, Equitable PCI Bank, in addition to the formerly government-owned Philippine National Bank came under the control of Chinese shareholders. In 1993, Chinese-owned Filipino banks controlled 38.43 percent of the total assets in the private Filipino commercial banking sector. By 1995, banks owned by Filipinos of Chinese ancestry had captured an even greater market share of the Philippines's financial services sector after the formerly government-owned Philippine National Bank was partially privatized, along with four of the top five banks that were substantially controlled by Chinese shareholders claiming 48 percent of all bank assets and over 60 percent of all those held by private domestic commercial banks. Tan has since then solidified a commanding presence in the Filipino banking sector towards the beginning of the new millennium when he continued his corporate onslaught through the buyout, absorption, and subsequent merger of Philippine National Bank with his own bank, Allied Bank. There are also 23 Filipino insurance agencies that are Chinese-owned, with some branches operating overseas and in Hong Kong. Initially, the Chinese were not allowed to own land until formally acquiring Filipino citizenship in the 1970s, which eventually permitted them to be granted with the same economic rights, freedoms, and privileges as their indigenous Filipino counterparts. In the aftermath of such a historically significant legal change that occurred throughout the Filipino geopolitical landscape at this time, its reverberating ramifications afterwards soon led to an upsurge of massive land purchases throughout the country predominated by Filipino investors of Chinese ancestry which started by the next decade following the country's political transition from a dictatorship to a democracy. Since the 1980s, Filipino businessmen and investors of Chinese ancestry have cornered much of the Philippines's real estate investment markets, land, and property development sectors, when much of the industry's grasp had long been held by the Spaniards. Chinese-owned Filipino real estate companies have devoured large swathes of prime commercial and residential real estate across Metro Manila and other urban Filipino cities utilized for the exploitative purposes of profit through commercial property development and investment. Presently, many of the biggest real estate development operators in the Philippines are owned by Filipino businessmen and investors of Chinese ancestry following the exodus of the Spanish Filipino Mestizo landowning elites such as the Araneta's, Ayala's, Lopez's, and Ortiga's. Of the 500 real estate companies operating in the Philippines, 120 are owned by Filipinos of Chinese ancestry with the firms mostly specializing in real estate investment, land, and property development, in addition to construction having much of their commercial presence mainly being concentrated in the Manila Metropolitan area. Well-known real estate companies controlled by some of the Philippines's most high-profile businessmen and investors include SMDC owned by the Sy's, Robinsons Land by the Gokongwei's, Megaworld Properties & Holdings Inc. which is controlled by Andrew Tan, Filinvest that is commanded by the Gotianun's, and DoubleDragon Properties, presided by businessman Edgar Sia II of Mang Inasal fame. Besides being responsible for spearheading the pioneering development and growth of the Philippines's modern real estate industry, both Sy and Tan have been generous patrons of the mainland Chinese on top of the local Chinese Filipino community, ardently extending their philanthropic hospitality by actively investing in the economic development and revitalization of their ancestral hometowns back in China. With Sy constructing supermalls in Chengdu, Chongqing, and Suzhou and Tan developing a 30-story banking center in Xiamen. Besides sharing a common ancestry, cultural, linguistic, and familial ties, many Filipino entrepreneurs and investors of Chinese ancestry are particular strong adherents of the Confucian paradigm of interpersonal relationships when doing business with each other, as the Chinese believed that the underlying source for entrepreneurial and investment success relied on the nurturing of personal relationships. With the spectacular growth of varying success stories witnessed by a number of individual Chinese Filipino business tycoons and investors have allowed them to expand their traditional corporate activities beyond the Philippines to forge international partnerships with increasing numbers of expatriate Mainland and Overseas Chinese investors on a global scale. Instead of quixotically diverting excess profits elsewhere, many Filipino businesspeople of Chinese ancestry are known for their penurious and parsimonious ways by eschewing improvident lavish extravagances and frivolous conspicuous consumption but instead adhere to the Chinese paradigm of being frugal by pragmatically, productively, and methodically reinvesting substantial surpluses of their business profits devoted for the purpose of commercial business expansion and performing the acquisition of cash flow producing and income-generating assets. A sizable percentage of the conglomerates managed by capable Filipino entrepreneurs and investors of Chinese ancestry that are armed with the necessary managerial capabilities, enterprising disposition, commercial expertise, entrepreneurial acumen, investment savvy, and visionary foresight were able to germinate from small budding enterprises to making headway into gargantuan corporate leviathans garnering widespread economic influence across the Philippines, Southeast Asia, and the global financial markets. Underlying resentment and bitterness from the impoverished Filipino majority has been accumulating as there has been no existence of indigenous Filipino having any substantial business equity in the Philippines. The rise of economic nationalism among the impoverished indigenous Filipino majority prompted by the Filipino government resulted in the passing of the Retail Trade Nationalization Law of 1954, where ethnic Chinese were barred and pressured to move out of the retail sector restricting engagement to Filipino citizens only. These policies ultimately backfired on the government as the laws had an overall negative impact on the government tax revenue which dropped significantly because the country's biggest source of taxpayers were Chinese, who eventually took their capital out of the country to invest elsewhere. Anti-Chinese sentiment among the indigenous Filipino majority is deeply rooted in poverty but also feelings of resentment and exploitation are also exhibited among native and mestizo Filipinos blaming their socioeconomic failures on the Chinese. ==Future trends==

Most of the younger generations of pure Chinese Filipinos are descendants of Chinese who migrated during the 1800s onward – this group retains much of Chinese culture, customs, and work ethic (though not necessarily language), whereas almost all Chinese mestizos are descendants of Chinese who migrated even before the Spanish colonial period and have been integrated and assimilated into the general Philippine society as a whole. There are four trends that the Chinese Filipino would probably undertake within a generation or so: • assimilation and integration, as in the case of Chinese Thais who eventually lost their genuine Chinese heritage and adopted Thai culture and language as their own • separation, where the Chinese Filipino community can be clearly distinguished from the other ethnic groups in the Philippines; reminiscent of most Chinese Malaysians • returning to the ancestral land, which is the current phenomenon of overseas Chinese returning to China • emigration to North America and Australasia, as in the case of some Chinese Malaysians and many Chinese Vietnamese (Hoa people) During the 1970s, Fr. Charles McCarthy, an expert in Philippine-Chinese relations, observed that "the peculiarly Chinese content of the Philippine-Chinese subculture is further diluted in succeeding generations" and he made a prediction that "the time will probably come and it may not be far off, when, in this sense, there will no more 'Chinese' in the Philippines". This view is still controversial however, with the constant adoption of new cultures by Filipinos contradicting this thought. Integration and assimilation Assimilation is defined as the adoption of the cultural norms of the dominant or host culture, while integration is defined as the adoption of the cultural norms of the dominant or host culture while maintaining their culture of origin. As of the present day, due to the effects of globalization in the Philippines, there has been a marked tendency to assimilate to Filipino lifestyles influenced by the US, among ethnic Chinese. This is especially true for younger Chinese Filipino living in Metro Manila who are gradually shifting to English as their preferred language, thus identifying more with Western culture, at the same time speaking Chinese among themselves. Similarly, as the cultural divide between Chinese Filipino and other Filipinos erode, there is a steady increase of intermarriages with native and mestizo Filipinos, with their children completely identifying with the Filipino culture and way of life. Assimilation is gradually taking place in the Philippines, albeit at a slower rate as compared to Thailand. On the other hand, the largest Chinese Filipino organization, the Kaisa Para Sa Kaunlaran openly espouses eventual integration but not assimilation of the Chinese Filipino with the rest of Philippine society and clamors for maintaining Chinese language education and traditions. Meanwhile, the general Philippine public is largely neutral regarding the role of the Chinese Filipino in the Philippines, and many have embraced Chinese Filipino as fellow Filipino citizens and even encouraged them to assimilate and participate in the formation of the Philippines' destiny. Separation Separation is defined as the rejection of the dominant or host culture in favor of preserving their culture of origin, often characterized by the presence of ethnic enclaves. The recent rapid economic growth of both China and Taiwan as well as the successful business acumen of Overseas Chinese have fueled among many Chinese Filipino a sense of pride through immersion and regaining interest in Chinese culture, customs, values and language while remaining in the Philippines. Despite the community's inherent ethnocentrism – there are no active proponents for political separation, such as autonomy or even independence, from the Philippines, partly due to the small size of the community relative to the general Philippine population, and the scattered distribution of the community throughout the archipelago, with only half residing in Metro Manila. Returning to the ancestral land Many Chinese-Filipino entrepreneurs and professionals have flocked to their ancestral homeland to partake of business and employment opportunities opened up by China's emergence as a global economic superpower. As above, the fast economic growth of China and the increasing popularity of Chinese culture has also helped fan pro-China patriotism among a majority of Chinese Filipino who espouse 愛國愛鄉 (ài guó ài xiāng) sentiments (love of ancestral country and hometown). Some Chinese Filipino, especially those belonging to the older generation, still demonstrate ài guó ài xiāng by donating money to fund clan halls, school buildings, Buddhist temples and parks in their hometowns in China. Emigration to North America and Australasia During the 1990s to the early 2000s, Philippine economic difficulties and more liberal immigration policies in destination countries have led to well-to-do Chinese Filipino families to acquire North American or Australasian passports and send their children abroad to attend prestigious North America or Australasian universities. Many of these children are opting to remain after graduation to start professional careers in North America or Australasia, like their Chinese brethren from other parts of Asia. Many Philippine-educated Chinese Filipino from middle-class families are also migrating to North America and Australasia for economic advantages. Those who have family businesses regularly commute between North America (or Australasia) and the Philippines. In this way, they follow the well-known pattern of other Chinese immigrants to North America who lead "astronaut" lifestyles: family in North America, business in Asia. ==Notable people==