Philippine Education Essays - Philippine Culture, Filipino People

Philippine Education Philippines, republic in the western Pacific Ocean, made up of the Philippine Islands and forming in physical geography a part of the Malay Archipelago. Situated about 1210 km (about 750 mi.) east of the coast of Vietnam, the Philippines is separated from Taiwan on the north by the Bashi Channel. The republic is bounded on the east by the Philippine Sea, on the south by the Celebes Sea, and on the west by the South China Sea. The country comprises about 7100 islands, of which only about 460 are more than 2.6 sq. km (more than 1 sq. mi.) in area. Eleven islands have an area of more than 2590 sq. km (more than 1000 sq. mi.) each and contain the bulk of the population. These islands are Luzon, Mindanao, Samar, Negros, Palawan, Panay, Mindoro, Leyte, Cebu, Bohol, and Masbate. The total area of the Philippines is about 300,000 sq. km (about 115,830 sq. mi.). Manila is the capital and largest city of the Philippines. This geographical condition of the Philippines made it very accessible and very easy to penetrate by foreign people. THE FILIPINO CHARACTER It may be said that the Filipinos are intelligent, with retentive memory, quick perception, and talents for art and science. They also are gentle, friend] y, and cheerful people, noted for their courtesy and hospitality. Filipinos are famous not only for their warm hospitality, but also for their close family ties. The parents work hard and sacrifice much for their children; in return, the children love and respect them and take good care of them in their old age. Filipinos owing to their beautiful country are passionately romantic. They are ardent in love, as they are fierce in battle. They are born poets, musicians and artists. Filipinos are a liberty-loving and brave people. They valiantly resisted the Spanish, American and Japanese invaders of their native land. They rank among the bravest people of the world. Filipino courage has been proven in the Battle of Mactan (1521), in the Battle of Tirad Pass (1899), in the battle of Bataan, Corregidor, Bessang Pass during World War II, and in many other battlefields. Gratitude is another sterling trait of the Filipinos. They are grateful to those who have granted them favors of who are good to them. Their high sense of gratitude is expressed in the phrase Utang na loob (debt of honor). Filipinos are cooperative. They value the virtue of helping each other and other people. They cherish the ancestral trait of bayanihan, which means cooperation. In rural areas, when a man is building, repairing or transferring a house to another place, the neighbors come to help him. Foreign writers assert that the Filipinos are indolent. In reality they work hard in the face of very adverse conditions. They work on the farms from sunrise to sunset, though not from noon to 3 p.m. due to the scorching heat. They work hard in the sugarcane and pineapple plantations in Hawaii, the fruit orchards of California, the fish canneries of Alaska, and in the oil wells of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and other Arab countries of the Middle East. Finally, the Filipinos are noted for their durability and resiliency. Through the ages they have met all kinds of calamities--revolts, revolutions, wars, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, typhoons and epidemics. Unlike the Polynesians of Oceania and the Indians of North Central and South Americas, they did not vanish by contact with the white race. They can assimilate any civilization and thrive in any climate. Against the adversities of life or nature, they merely bend, but never break. They possess the formidable durability of the narra tree and the resiliency of the bamboo. BODY TEXT FILIPINO HISTORY, CULTURE AND HERITAGE EMERGENCE OF THE FILIPINO PEOPLE: Philippine history has often been described as an amalgam of regional developments and outside influences. Excavations in archeological sites have proven that during prehistoric times, the native Negritos came in contact with Malays and Indonesians who left their ancestral home in Southeast Asia by crossing the seas in their sailboats (balangay), and settled the Philippine archipelago. Inter-racial marriages took place among them and out of these racial mixtures emerged the Filipino people. The early Filipino Malay ancestors brought with them their culture--food and drinks, community life, government and laws, language and literature, religion, customs and traditions and arts and sciences. They left their cultures to their descendants, as the Filipino Malayan inheritance. In the course of the centuries, long before the Spaniards colonized the Philippines in the 16th century; the native Filipinos came in contact (by commerce)