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Welcome to the Filipino culture thread.



This is the thread where you can be informed about Filipino culture and where we can discus all things Filipino, from the delicious food to the martial arts, anything Filipino under the sun.

Just scroll downwards if you wish to learn. Reply back if I caught your attention.


Filipino Martial Arts

Kali-Eskrima
Sikaran & Dumog

Filipino Cuisine

General Overview
Recipies

Filipino Literature

Indianized Pre-Hispanic Philippine Mythology
Philippine Literature under Spanish Colonization
Philippine Literature under the American Occupation

Filipino History & Politics

Contemporary Politics
Filipino History


Ill be posting snippets of the culture in the forthcoming posts.

Family

It should be emphasized that the close familial ties are upheld to the highest extent. The primary social welfare system for the Filipino is the family. Many Filipinos live near their family for most of their lives, even as independent adults. A nuclear family is very common among Filipinos. When it comes to the divorce policy in the Philippines it is illegal. President Arroyo provides insight and believe it is "un-Filipino, immoral, unconstitutional and a danger to the Filipino family." Others point out that in the past that ancestral tribes did practice divorce and that the "reign of the Pope via the Spanish crown" to be the source of such laws.

Courtship amongst the Filipino people is heavily influenced by Spanish and Roman Catholic traditions. Many parents disapprove of girls visiting boys' homes. Usually, the boy comes to the girl's house to formally introduce himself to her parents and family. The Filipino must win the Filipina's parents approval. At home, painful corporal punishment is almost always practiced among the Filipino family as children are often spanked as a form of discipline. Filipinos use their belts, hands and canes to spank their children.

Among great distances of the family, Balikbayan boxes are transferred through vast distances as some are compelled to move to international territories. These overseas Filipinos send huge boxes called the "Balikbayan box" to their families back in the motherland containing goods, gadgets and/or popular trendy items. They also bring "Balikbayan boxes" when they return to their motherland on vacation to visit their family. Sometimes their families at the Philippines return the favor and send exotic food items only found in the Philippines or indigenous property expressing Filipino workmanship. It is another way to express cultural exchange and a way of helping out their families at home.

Superstition

Before the arrival of the Spaniards and the introduction of Roman Catholicism in the 1500's, the indigenous inhabitants of the Philippines were adherents of animism, or the worship of nature. Bathala was the supreme God of the Tagalogs, represented by the araw, or sun, but not all the Tagalogs believed in it. The Ninuno, or the ancient ancestors, were the people who taught Filipinos/Tagalogs who will be in the future; they believed in the supreme God. For the Bikolanos, the supreme God was Gugurang. Other Tagalog Gods and Goddesses include buwan (the moon), tala (the stars), and natural objects (such as trees, shrubs, mountains, or rocks). However, they were not the Western kinds of Gods and Goddesses; they were representations for some Filipinos/Tagalogs; or they were representations as gifts. As the major religions began to sweep the island, most Filipinos became Christians, who only believe in one God; but some Filipinos became Muslims, especially in the southern part of the country (such as Mindanao). Spirits such as the aswang (ghoul), the tikbalang (a creature with the head of a horse and the physique of a man), the kapre (a giant that is seen smoking tobacco), the tiyanak (monster-like, vampire-esque child), the santelmo (fireball), duwende (dwarves and elves), the manananggal (witches that can split their bodies at their torsos and feed on baby's blood), engkanto (minor spirits), and diwata (fairies/nymphs), are believed to pervade the Philippines. Aside from that, voodoo practices were practiced by the pre-colonial inhabitants, such as pangkukulam, or witchcraft. Beliefs such as usog (a child greeted by a stranger will get sick) and lihi (unusual craving for something during pregnancy) are also present. These beliefs were carried on up to the present generation of Filipinos, which has led some foreign authors to (incorrectly) describe them as 'Pagano-Christians.'

Voodoo, Psychic surgeons and medicine men and women are commonly practiced in most indigenous Filipino rituals. These spiritual-ritual practices are mostly located in the rural areas, throughout the islands. In Filipino, the people who casts spells and lays curses are called mangkukulam, the people who curse their enemies by putting insects inside their bodies are called mambabarang, and in contrast to these two, the healers of these curses are called albularyo.

Psychic surgeons are people who are seen using sleight-of-hand operations to remove tumors and diseased tissue. These spiritual healers are seen sticking their hands into the patents body extracting bloody human flesh leaving the patient scar free. While others see this practice of as being fake, others who still accept this alternative healing method as a way to take advantage of its placebo effect. See YouTube video on "Psychic Surgery".

Martial Arts

Filipino martial arts (FMA) are martial arts that originated in the Philippines. They integrate a “system-of-systems” approach to combat readiness. Filipinos have made significant sacrifices to develop their arts. Throughout the ages multi-cultural, multi-national invaders of the Philippines imposed new dynamics for human conflict and combat. FMA, the “system-of-systems” transformed itself as a direct result of an appreciation of their ever changing environment and circumstance. The Filipinos' intrinsic need for self-preservation was the evolutionary genesis of these analogous systems. They learned often out of necessity how to prioritize, allocate and utilize common resources in combative situations. Filipinos have been heavily influenced by the phenomenon of cultural and language mixture. The multitude of languages spoken in the 7,107 islands have not only diverged into dialects, but they have been constantly mixing with one another on all levels: vocabulary, grammar, syntax, and usage (see Languages of the Philippines). As a result, Filipino martial arts and its homogeneous systems comprise a vocabulary of heterogeneous terms. Change is the norm. Some of the specific mechanisms responsible for cultural and martial change extend from phenomena such as war, political systems, social systems, technology and trade. For over three hundred years the Spanish had control over much of the Philippines. The Spanish regime often enforced royal laws and decrees limiting and prohibiting weapons use by the indigenous people. These restrictions of use were partly responsible for secretive and underground nature of FMA. Spaniards often employed Filipino warriors for various battles and wars. The Filipinos' battle-tested tactics proved strategically effective from angle of old world weaponry and hand to hand conflict. Highly skilled Filipino martial artists are often characterized by a state of "flow" that is decisively responsive, deployable, agile, versatile, lethal, survivable, and sustainable. In 1972, the Philippine government included Filipino martial arts into the "Palarong Pambansa" or National Sports arena. The Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports also included it as part of the physical education curriculum for high school and college students. Knowledge of the Filipino martial arts is mandatory in the Philippine military and police. Today, the traditional Filipino martial systems continue to grow, new ones emerge, and new transitional FMA stylists continue to arrive on the martial arts scene.

Cuisine

Filipinos cook a variety of foods influenced by Spanish, and Asian cuisines.

A typical Filipino meal consists of at least one viand (ulam in Tagalog) served with boiled or fried rice (kanin), which is eaten much like Westerners eat potatoes. Filipinos also regularly use spoons together with forks, as opposed to knives and forks in Western culture. They also eat with their hands, especially in informal settings and when eating seafood. Accompanying rice, popular dishes such as adobo (a meat stew made from either pork or chicken), lumpia (meat or vegetable rolls), pancit (noodle dish), and lechón (whole roasted pig) are served on plate.

Other popular cuisines or dish include: afritada, asado, chorizo sausages used in pancit or fried rice, empanadas, mais (corn), mani (roasted peanuts), paksiw (fish or pork, cooked in vinegar and water, some spices like garlic and pepper), pan de sal (salted bread rolls), pescado (fried or grilled fish), torta (omelette). Indigenous Filipino and regional cuisines include: dinuguan, kare-kare (ox-tail stew), kilawen, pinakbet (vegetable stew), pinapaitan, and sinigang (tamarind soup with a vareity of pork, fish or shrimp). Some delicacies eaten by the Filipino people but are reprehensible to some western cultures include balut (boiled egg with a fertilized duckling inside). Another is longenisa a sweet sausage

Popular snacks and deserts indulged are chicharon (deepfried pork or chicken skin), halo-halo (crushed ice with condensed milk, flan, and sliced tropical fruits), puto (little white rice cakes), bibingka (rice cake with butter or magarine and salted eggs), ensaymada (sweet roll with grated cheese on top), polvoron (powder candy), and tsokolate (chocolate) are eaten outside the three main meals. Local liquors such as lambanog, tuba, and basi are served on cup.

Philippine Languages

There are over 170 languages in the Philippines; almost all of them belong to the Austronesian language family. Of all of these languages, only 2 are considered official in the country, at least 10 are considered major and at least 8 are considered co-official.

Spanish was the original official language of the country for more than three centuries, and became the lingua franca of the Philippines in the 19th and early 20th centuries. In 1863 a Spanish decree introduced universal education, creating free public schooling in Spanish [1]. It was also the language of the Philippine Revolution, and the 1899 Malolos Constitution proclaimed it as the official language of the First Philippine Republic. National hero Jose Rizal wrote most of his works in Spanish, which was spoken by a total of 60% of the population in the early 1900's as a first, second or third language. Following the American occupation of the Philippines and the imposition of English, the use of Spanish declined gradually, especially after the 1940's.

Under the U.S. occupation and civil regime, English began to be taught in schools. By 1901, public education was institutionalized, with English serving as the medium of instruction. Around 600 educators (called "Thomasites") who arrived in that year aboard the USS Thomas replaced the soldiers who also functioned as teachers . The 1935 Constitution added English as an official language alongside Spanish. A provision in this constitution also called for Congress to "take steps toward the development and adoption of a common national language based on one of the existing native languages." On November 12, 1937, the First National Assembly created the National Language Institute. President Manuel L. Quezon appointed native Waray-Waray speaker Jaime C. De Veyra to chair a committee of speakers of other regional languages. Their aim was to select a national language among the other regional languages. Ultimately, Tagalog was chosen as the base language December 31, 1937.

Although the teaching of the national language in schools began in 1940, Tagalog was not made an official language until the restoration of independence on July 4, 1946. Starting in 1961, the national language began to be referred to as Filipino rather than Tagalog.

The 1973 Constitution under the Marcos administration retained English and Filipino as official languages, dropping Spanish. There was another provision stating that the National Assembly should "take steps towards the development and formal adoption of a common national language to be known as Filipino."

The present constitution, ratified in 1987, stated that Filipino and English are both the official languages of the country. Filipino also had the distinction of being a national language that was to be "developed and enriched on the basis of existing Philippine and other languages." Although not explicitly stated in the constitution, Filipino is in practice almost completely composed of the Tagalog as spoken in the capital, Manila; however, organizations such as the University of the Philippines began publishing dictionaries such as the UP Diksyonaryong Filipino in which words from various Philippine languages were also included. The constitution also made mention of Spanish and Arabic, both of which are to be promoted on a voluntary and optional basis; in reality, virtually nothing is being done to this end. This is in contrast to Morocco, where Spanish is spoken in the northern part of that country and is becoming a popular language to learn, after French among the country's northern inhabitants. In Francophone Africa, the use of French, despite being a native language of only a minority of people who live in that part of Africa, is actively promoted, even if (as in Algeria, Mauritania, Morocco and Tunisia) it is not an official one.

Filipino is an official language of education, but less important than English. It is the major language of the broadcast media and cinema, but less important than English as a language of publication (except in some domains, like comic books, which are meant to speak directly to the Filipino psyche) and less important for academic-scientific-technological discourse. English and Filipino compete in the domains of business and government.[dubious – discuss] Filipino is used as a lingua franca in all regions of the Philippines as well as within overseas Filipino communities, and is the dominant language of the armed forces (except perhaps for the small part of the commissioned officer corps from wealthy or upper middle class families) and of a large part of the civil service, most of whom are non-Tagalogs.

Nobody questions that there is diglossia in the case of Filipino and the other regional languages. In this case, we can clearly label Filipino as the acrolect and the regional languages the basilect.

The Constitution of the Philippines provides for the use of the vernacular languages as auxiliary languages in provinces where Filipino is not the lingua franca. This is however not implemented as Filipinos at large would be polyglots. In the case where the vernacular language is a regional language, Filipinos would speak in Filipino when speaking in formal situations while the regional languages are spoken in non-formal settings. This is evident in major urban areas outside the National Capital Region like Laoag and Vigan in the Ilocano-speaking area, and Cebu and Davao in the Cebuano-speaking area. Although the case of Ilocano and Cebuano are becoming more of bilingualism than diglossia due to the publication of materials written in these languages.

The diglossia is more evident in the case of other languages such as Pangasinan, Kapampangan, Bikol, Waray, Hiligaynon, Sambal, and Maranao, where the written variant of the language is becoming less and less popular to give way to the use of Filipino. Although Philippine laws consider some of these languages as "major languages" there is little, if any, support coming from the government to preserve these languages. This may be bound to change, however, given current policy trends.[2] Although Philippine linguists would agree that there is still no danger of these languages becoming extinct in the near future, the lack of support from the government makes these languages prone to “bastardation”.

There still exists another type of diglossia, which is between the regional languages and the minority languages. Here, we label the regional languages as acrolects while the minority languages as the basilect. In this case, the minority language is spoken only in very intimate circles, like the family or the tribe one belongs to. Outside this circle, one would speak in the prevalent regional language, while maintaining an adequate command of Filipino for formal situations. Unlike the case of the regional languages these minority languages are always in danger of becoming extinct because of speakers favoring the more prevalent regional language. Moreover, most of the users of these languages are illiterate and as expected, there is a chance that these languages will no longer be revived due to lack of written records.