Filipino

I have been Filipino all my life and I thought I understood what, who and why Filipinos do the things we do and act the way we act. There are already many blogs discussing the ills of Philippine politics and I thought to myself, discussing them...will not solve anything.  The things happening to the country, the diaspora of the people, the political instability...all these I thought can be explained by the very nature of the Filipino.  A nature corrupted by years of colonialism and exploitation by Spain and United States (as well as the British and the Japanese occupations)...simple enough...or not?  So began my on-line research on the origins of the Filipino and to my consternation, the data I find tells me that what was taught when I was in school based on our Filipino history books were not completely accurate and some were eventually revealed as hoaxes!  For example, we were taught that the first Filipinos were the Negritos...well, surprise, surprise...not anymore.  I discover that the original Filipinos are actually Austronesian people specifically Taiwanese aborigines and that this fact is evidenced by a Stanford University study conducted during 2001 that revealed that Haplogroup 03-M122 (labeled as "Haplogroup L" in this study) is the most common Y-chromosome DNA haplogroup found among Filipinos. This particular haplogroup is also predominant among Chinese, Koreans and Vietnamese. Another haplogroup, Haplogroup 01a-M119 (labeled as "Haplogroup H" in this study), is also found among Filipinos. The rates of Haplogroup O1a are highest among the Taiwanese aborigines and Chamic-speaking people.  Overall, the genetic frequencies found among Filipinos point to the Ami tribe of Taiwan as their nearest genetic ancestors. [1] These findings are consistent with the theory that ancestors of the Filipino people have originated on continental East or Southeast Asia before migrating to the Philippines via Taiwan (source: Wikipedia).  And this is just the beginning...