you know when we explain culture we don't even say that this is right or wrong we're just saying that this is how it is I'm shiaa I'm a public historian here in the Philippines and the historical consultant of the Filipino story what we going to do now we're going to try to answer your questions from our Instagram in the Filipino story in ask show it's show time # Dana Santos asked how did it happen that so many Filipinos are leaving the Philippines for work for many many years we don't have to leave the Philippines for work ginhawa the good life can come from us we were standing on our own two feet but remember that we had a colonial experience for 300 years when we were colonized and they're telling us that we are barbarians we were Savages they were telling us that they were white people we were brown people and they will always be superior so that is when we had a sense of inferiority complex archipelagic inferiority complex should I say every time that Philippine history was being taught it was always abouts Americans influence japanes and everything good about us like our faith like our democracy came from outside so that is why we always think that when we talk about kaga the good life it will always come from the outside because all the good things about ourselves we always say so that is why a lot of Filipinos would like to go out of the country and they think that they're going to find a good life abroad another way of looking at this is that this is also like like the old bayis from precolonial times the old bayani goes out of the Bayan they fight and when they go back they bring home theal the imported items from that Bayan they bring it back home so it's like the bik Bayan box going back it's the OFW bringing theal to the family a good house good education to the children a life with dignity this is the beauty the complexity and the pain of our migrant experience of the dias okay let's go to gamet lick marker gamet lick marker asks why we fit and don't fit into different societies at the same time this is a common shall we say observation about Filipinos remember that it was the Spaniards who took us as a colony and unlike the British who took Malaya or unlike the Dutch who took Indonesia or the French who took the Vietnamese all these Colonial Powers the British the Dutch the French you know if they colonize peoples they just want to get their labor they just want to exploit them I'm sorry for the term but they did not bother to change their culture and their religion that's why if we're going to look at a lot of these countries they still retain a lot of their systems a lot of their religion a lot of their culture and a lot of their languages but the Philippines was colonized by the Spaniards and the Spaniards were beholden to the pope and the pope and the King had an agreement that every colony of Spain will become Catholic and will be transformed as a Catholic Society so we became more European than most of Asians and so when we go to Europe we fit with Europeans we speak some words from Spanish because a lot of the words in Filipino and other languages are Spanish and then America came and colonized us when the Americans came they reengineered our society so that we could become more American so we had become more European we also had become more American in fact a lot of people were saying that we were the brown Americans of Asia that's why if you look at Asian pop culture and our knowledge of it Filipinos will probably not be familiar with Indonesian pop stars or Malaysian pop stars but ask them if they know Taylor Swift or even Justin Timberlake you ask them if they know stars from the NBA we love basketball here in the Philippines while in the other countries of Asia they know football but in the Philippines we know basketball so we fit on some societies a lot because of our Colonial experience but we also don't fit in some because it was not just part of our experience k. Za 0129 ask who was the first Filipino this is a very very interesting question to answer because it would defend how would you define what is a Filipino who is The First Filipino could it be the austronesian the first tan who set his feet here was the first Filipino well if you're going to say that how about the itas or the ITA or the ate or the negrito they were here longer if we're going to put that definition of the earliest person we know who existed in the Philippines we would put the First Filipino to be the kala man the kala man or the homo lenes existed at about 134,000 years ago probably the first Filipino in some definition now if you're going to look at the legend who is The First Filipino you'll probably have calak and cabai so in many parts of the country you have mits of origin about how we were brought forth from this world and so there's a story that we all came from a weed and from the weed the weed broke and there was calak and cabai so these are the First Filipino Filipina when you talk about mythology but when we talk about the concept of the Filipino some would even say that the First Filipino was actually josal why because when the Spaniards came here in the Philippines there was no concept of the Philippines it's only the Spaniards who made the Filipinos and they integrated that area and they called it Filipinas named after Filipe Segundo of hisa but during results time the term Filipinos were reserved for the Spaniards born in the Philippines so Ral was the first famous person to say that he is a Filipino so as Filipinos he wanted to have a separate identity from Spain and say that we are a nation but the nation is not based on blood according to Johan godfried herder which is read in Germany Johan godfried herder said that the nation is based not on blood not on Race but on a national sentiment when we can identify with each other as one people and how can we identify with each other as one people if we share a common culture or if we share common history so [Music] marieorore asks what was the original name of the Philippines before Mel arrived okay if you are going to believe that there was one unified Kingdom in the Philippines before the Spaniards came well you are mistaken people have been pedling these tales for a long time and this is not true undocumented you look at the Blair and Robert 52 volumes of primary documents that were translated into English the kingdom of mahara mahara as a kingdom not as a person all right okay so what was the original name of the Philippines before the SPID came original name so example the kingdom of sugbu the kingdom of Matan the kingdom of tundo the kingdom of minila for they are but they can also be interdependent or there would be confederacies or alliances and so some would say that we were actually a tasy so that is how it work no there was no single unifying Kingdom that's why we cannot say that there's a name to the Philippines before Mela came muncher 69 asks pre-colonial times what countries did the Philippines trade with well if you're going to look at some of the accounts we traded with Muslims these Muslims came from Indonesia they eventually influenced the southern Philippines to become Islamic and even some parts of lozon and you see this Connection in the Laguna copper plate inscription where they were already having diplomacy with each other from 900 ad so if you're going to look at that 900 ad document the Laguna copper plate inscription people were connected to each other and trading with each other of course it should be mentioned that there was also an Indian influence here and so the Indians traded with us the kingdom of majapahit and Shri Vaya but of course the most active of the foreign Traders were the Chinese so a lot of our kingdoms or bias became Rich orts of the Southeast Asian trade rout to China Adel that assumtion asks why did pre- colonial women wear what would be equivalent to modern day gold teeth grills what the hell is that they were wearing gold because of Aesthetics when you wear gold in your teeth that makes you beautiful but also because our ancestors believe their soul is protected by gold because they believe that the extremities are our fingers and toenails so that is the entry point of the kala so a bad kala may end up to you if you don't have protection so the gold that we wear is actually our protection for Thea it's like our amulet our Anan thing so it's not just the gold teeth man it's like you also have the bracelet the Anket you have necklaces you have earrings you have gold sashes and belts R man R so all this gold it tells you that yes we Filipinos would like to be beautiful but we also aspire to have a beautiful heart our Hano photography asks why were we colonized for so long by so many well boy it's because it was a trend colonization was a trend by those Europeans these white people who thought they rules the worlds and so they explored and we were colonized for so long I will tell you why I will tell you why when you live inside colonialism and you don't know any other life you don't know the life of Freedom you actually think that this is life this is the only thing that you would become you will only know that something's wrong with you if you come out of that box and see what Freedom looks like and so that is why because of the restrictions of movement and the lack of Technology of Transportation a lot of Filipinos didn't know what Freedom looks like but that would change if in the 1800s when the gallion trade stopped and other foreign Traders came here the Dutch the British the French and the Germans they're going to have businesses here they're going to make Filipinos middlemen here and suddenly these Indios would become rich and they start to travel and they start to see Spain and they start to see Europe and they start to see America and they suddenly realize why is life there different from our life here in the Philippines why are they free there why are we not and so that is why it would took 300 years for us to realize and the books that came here because of the opening of the Su Canal books became easier to read and more accessible for Filipinos Andres bonasio was able to read about the French Revolution and the American presidents and suddenly realizes oh look at what they did they were able to free themselves when they revolted we can also do that here and so we would aspire to become our own nation and this nation Have To Be Imagined and they were imagined by the ideas the right writings of our heroes and when we read them we felt one people when we read thean the we felt like one asks why do we as a nation constantly put celebrities in politics celebrities in the Philippines sometimes they take cultural templates of the people that we look up to in our society so for example Manny Pacquiao Manny Pacquiao became a Politico because in many ways he embodied the image or the template of the bayani these celebrities in the imagination of the people embody certain cultural characters that we look up to Filipinos we actually find it easy to identif if with ideas if they have a face we will not fight for democracy or human rights until we put a face on that idea so that's why it was so easy for nyao or corason aino to be identified as symbols of democracy and that's why it was easier because when it becomes a person it becomes more identifiable and that's why we go in that person we go in that person we go with the idea same with for example peace and Order duterte embodied peace and Order in his character then that's why whether correctly or not for good or for bad people went with him and when they embody these things for us we sort of identify with them and we believe with them snowy schans asked I've always been fascinated with World War to history my grandpa was a sergeant and I want to know more well all I can say is that we cannot answer your question in one video that would really you know be so long I hope you would watch Bonnie lono's film on World War II in the Philippines but what I can tell you is this World War II in the Philippines that is when Filipinos win The Americans fought at batan to stop complete Japanese Occupation of the Philippines and they were successful for 3 months and we were the last to fall to the Japanese in Asia that is when the world saw How brave our soldiers were facing the odds even if it looks big and impossible to defeat in Filipino K that is what the Filipinos showed and when you know MacArthur left and the Philippine government in Exile went to the United States for 3 years the Guerilla movement in the Philippines fought and we won against Japan and the Americans helped Liberate the Philippines but it was the Filipinos the Filipino gas who won the war for us we won the war so that is what I can tell you your grand father served well we fought for democracy and human rights in World War II and we won uh someone asked I thought ban came from Bayan well that is what I thought too but I'll show you something if bayanan came from the word Bayan linguistically it cannot be bayanan it could only be Bayan According to some linguists so that is why it can only come from bayani banian can only come from bayani and this is also proven by SE Salasar using the ostan dictionary but it's good it doesn't change the meaning of bayanan it is still working together but not just for the Bayan as it was supposed to you know mean but we working as bayani that when we band together when we cooperate when we unite and solidify with each other to perform a task to help someone we are bayis we doing Bay and I think that's even more beautiful and sweet than what we thought it was so there you go again thank you for your support to the Filipino Story please like share and subscribe to our online social media platforms just leave them in the comment section I cannot promise that I can answer everything and is ask show