Sections Women's How Filipino Brides Are Changing the DNA of Several Nationalities and Also the Filipino
| How Filipino Brides Are Changing the DNA of Several Nationalities and Also the Filipino |
My online friend, Frosty (as he wanted to be identified, as he refused to give his full name), sent to me the following data about Filipino brides several years back. He posted the data also in the then HispanoFilipino e-forum. For this article, this writer tried to contact Frosty (the Filipino-American ‘Snowman’?) to no avail. But here are Frosty’s earlier data that we can all discuss, update and prove or disprove.
1. Filipino-Japanese Mestizos: In an interview with PHILIPPINES TODAY (March 2002 issue), Philippine Ambassador to Japan Domingo Siazon, Jr., noted that there are as many as 5,000 to 7,000 Filipino-Japanese marriages per year. If these couples bear an average of 3 offspring, that would be 21,000 nikkeijins or Japanese-Filipino children entering the local population, he said.
Since this trend has been going on for more than two decades, there are potentially 500,000 Japanese of Filipino descent amongst the natives - and counting. One Japanese Catholic priest predicts that in 50 years, half of all Japanese will have Filipino relatives, while a bulk of Filipinos back home will also have Japanese kin here.
This forecast is very realistic, especially considering the statistics. According to the Tokyo Immigration Bureau, of the 120,707 entertainers that entered Japan in 2001, roughly 60 percent or 72,230 are Filipinos. The remaining 40 percent is divided among 10 or more countries. If even only half of these attractive, talented and malambing ladies find Japanese husbands, that would be around 30,000 mixed marriages in the next few years. And as the good ambassador surmised, three offspring per couple would mean 210,000 cute Japanese-Filipino children joining the gene pool as quickly as we can say "kampai!" Source: PHILIPPINES TODAY (March 2002 issue),
2. Filipino-Finnish Mestizos: Of the total of 500 Filipinos in Finland over 400 are women and only 97 men. When we add to these figures the Filipinos who have already gained Finnish citizenship, the total number is approximately 750, including children. A majority of the "men" in these figures are in fact male children of Filipino women living in Finland. Most of the Filipinas in Finland are spouses of Finns. Source: Speech delivered during a Forum organized by Kakammpi and the Finnish-Philippine Society on 23 February 2000.
3. In 1994, 19,000 Filipinas left to join husbands and fiancees in other nations, mostly in the U.S.
4. Filipino-German Mestizos: There is also a significant number married to German nationals. In the past years, an annual average of 1,000 women applied at the Philippine Embassy for a Certificate of Legal Capacity to Contract Marriage. An estimated 1,500 Filipinos are added each year to the current migrant population of Germany through marriage.
5. Filipino-American Mestizos: Based on an article by Marc Lerner published in the US, the Manila Standard reported: "The US Embassy estimates, according to the Times, that nearly 100,000 private US citizens live permanently in the Philippines, 90 percent of whom are naturalized US citizens of Filipino descent... The Time correspondent goes on to explain that many Americans decided to remain in the Philippines because they are "attracted" by the leisurely lifestyle and by romance. About 250 Americans marry Filipino brides per month.
6. In 1989 alone, over 700,000 Filipinas were married and became fiancées to Australians, Germans, Taiwanese and British nationals. In Australia, a total of 20,000 Filipino women is married to Australian men, some 90% of whom came through the system of serial sponsorship; In 1995-96 hundreds of Filipino women were married in a mass ceremony to the members of a religious organization called the "Moonies", majority of which are South Korean men; and in the US, some 50,000 Filipinas married through mail-order (sic) practice. Source: http://www.ncrfw.gov.ph
Any ethical, moral or social points related to Filipinas marrying foreigners is another whole issue. What I am showing through the above excerpts is a small sample of what I mean that the Filipino today is more tisoy or more mixed blood than a century ago. Tisoy to me is from the word mestizo or mexclado, which in English means mixed as in mixed blood. As to the percentages of foreign blood, I am not going to split hairs on that. For more complete statistical data, go to the Department of Health (DOH) which has the average heights of Filipinos today (Its about 5'5" to 5'7" for males) whereas at the turn of the 19th century most foreign visitors in their old books would say Filipinos were about 5 feet or slightly over 5 feet (average height).
The increasing height is a combination of better nutrition (e.g. vitamins) and more and more intermarriage. Height is a combination of environment and heredity. One genetic principle that you can read in any genetics textbook is hybrid superiority which means that the offspring of 2 different parents may be bigger or taller than either parent. This principle applies to plants and animals. As to whether this applies to humans that is for everyone and anyone to decide for themselves. This I learned when I took genetics in university.
For a complete statistical data on intermarriages from Filipinas going abroad, the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) has this information while data on the thousands of foreign retirees who have migrated to the Philippines and married Filipinas can be requested from the Philippine Retirement Authority (PRA).
Another illustration. In the 1960s till the 1970s, the average Filipino basketball guard was around 5'8" and the center was around 6'2". Into the 1980s, 6-foot guards and 6'5" centers became more common and now in the 1990s and 2000s, 6'8 centers are now commonplace what with the influx of Filipino-American players. In fact, the average height of the Filipino basketball team at the current Busan games is 6'4.5".
Another effect of good nutrition and intermarriage is the taller average height of Filipino-Americans kids. All my cousins who were born in the U.S. are taller than their parents and so are all their Filipino-American friends who are also taller than their parents. # # #
We wanted to feature a Filipino woman community advocate in Japan who has been protecting and continues to protect the Philippine patrimonies in Japan. Like when the Cory Aquino administration (and even the Arroyo Dispensation) wanted to sell the properties in Tokyo and Yokohama owned by the Philippines, she led the lobbying in the land of the Rising Sun against the proposed sale. Now, this lady works also to help the Filipino woman hostesses (AKA "Japayukis") even when they are banned because of the new Immigration Law of Japan. But this Filipino lady, who is married to a Japanese, wants no publicity for herself. She just wants to be a silent worker . . . publicity shy but quite effective.
Presently, she is busy coordinating with Japanese authorities regarding the "problematic" kids of Japanese-Filipino marriages. Presently, there are about 45 of these children in juvenile prison (in Tokyo alone) for crimes ranging from rape, robbery to murder and attempted murder. She has volunteered to be a parole officer.
The www.mabuhayradio.com has promised to send next year a reporter from the United States or from the Philippines to conduct a personal interview with this Filipino "angel of mercy" in Tokyo and do an investigative report on the Filipino-Japanese children who run afoul of Japanese law. Perhaps by then, she would agree to be interviewed and be recognized as perhaps a modest Filipino version of Mother Theresa in Japan. Arigato, Dear Filipino Lady in Tokyo, for all your dedicated work for the Overseas Filipinos and their scions in Japan. May God bless her all the time and for all eternity.
There are also male prostitutes, but they are not crucified like their female counterparts because they are men.
Eddie AAA Calderon
Minneapolis, MN
By Teresa Cerojano
Associated Press
First Posted 06:23pm (Mla time) 03/28/2008
MANILA, Philippines -- Three children abandoned by their Japanese fathers left Friday for Japan in what a nonprofit group said is the first case where their Filipino mothers are being allowed to go along to live and work there.
The three -- between the ages of 6 and 12 -- left with their mothers for Nagoya en route to central Shizuoka Prefecture to reclaim their Japanese heritage -- and probably meet their fathers.
An estimated 50,000 Japanese-Filipino children -- known as "Japinos" -- live here, often abandoned or orphaned by their fathers after liaisons with Filipino women, who in most cases worked as entertainers in Japan, said Akira Oka, head of the Shin-Nikkeijin Network or SNN. Some groups put the number as high as 100,000.
SNN is a private group that helps such children -- many living in poverty -- to reunite with their fathers, get financial support, or start new lives in their fathers' homeland.
Oka said SNN earlier helped send more than a dozen older children to Japan, where they now work, but their mothers have not been allowed to accompany them.
The Japanese government has agreed to issue 90-day visas for the three children's mothers, with long-term visas to follow for humanitarian reasons, he added.
The children, who have been issued Japanese passports, will attend school for free. Housing and jobs at a factory await their mothers.
"I am happy because he can finally reach his second country," Pamela Tapia Masuda, 38, told reporters before she and her son, Takayoshi, flew to Japan.
Masuda, a former entertainer separated from her Japanese husband, said her small business in central Cebu does not provide enough for son's education. In Japan, she hopes he can get an education and learn Japanese culture.
Oka said some 600 Japanese-Filipino children have sought help from his group, but that half may not qualify to go to Japan because they do not have the required documents.
Some 70,000 Filipinos live in Japan, most working as entertainers.
Japanese-Filipino kids await fate
Top court to rule on nationality law tied to paternal recognition
By MARIKO YASUMOTO
Kyodo News
NAGOYA (Kyodo) The dream of Masami, 10, is to one day become a police officer to protect the people. But a major obstacle lies in her way — she doesn't hold Japanese citizenship, one of the requirements for the job.
News photo
In limbo: Rossana Tapiru and her two daughters, Naomi Sato (left) and Masami Tapiru, pose for a photo in Nagoya last month. The mother is awaiting a Supreme Court ruling set for Wednesday on her demand that Masami be given Japanese nationality. KYODO PHOTO
Masami Tapiru's father is Japanese and her mother is Filipino. She has spent all her life in Japan, speaks only Japanese and knows little Tagalog.
But she is not Japanese — simply because her parents are unmarried and because her father only recognized her as his child after birth.
Bizarrely, her 6-year-old sister, Naomi Sato, has Japanese nationality because their father recognized her as his while she was in her mother's womb. Despite being an illegitimate child, she acquired her father's family name. "I want my sister to be the same," Naomi said.
Their mother, Rossana Tapiru, 43, could not accept the situation, and in April 2005 filed a lawsuit against the government along with eight other Filipino mothers, claiming the Nationality Law, which took effect in 1950, violates the Constitution's guarantee of equality.
Judgment day will finally come Wednesday, when the grand bench of the Supreme Court is to rule on the case, along with a similar one filed by another Japanese-Filipino child.
"I want to help her dream come true," Tapiru said. "We should confront the fact that we are in a new era and society is becoming multicultural."
By law, bloodline determines nationality under certain situations. A child born to a foreign woman and Japanese man is granted Japanese nationality only if the parents are legally married.
A child born outside of wedlock cannot get Japanese nationality unless the father admits paternity while the child is in the womb. Recognizing the child after birth is too late.
"I feel like I am Japanese just like other friends, but I'm not, am I, mom?" Masami said.
"One major problem these kids are facing is an identity crisis," said Rieko ito, general secretary of the Citizens' Network for Japanese-Filipino Children.
Such children can receive education and welfare benefits as long as they have residential status, but as adults they won't have the right to vote.
"Without suffrage, we are afraid they will feel alienated and face discrimination in job hunting activities," Ito said.
The Tokyo-based nonprofit organization was formed in 1994 to respond to surging inquiries from Filipino women who were searching for their children's fathers or seeking paternal recognition and child support.
The increase in such children reflects the social and economic situations that have prevailed in both countries since the 1980s.
According to Masaaki Satake, a professor specializing in the Philippine economy and culture at Nagoya Gakuin University, Japanese bar owners and brokers began bringing Filipino women to Japan in the mid-1980s to meet demand for hostesses, which was soaring along with Japan's rapid economic growth.
Many were trained dancers and singers who arrived on entertainment visas in the hope of earning money to send back to their less fortunate families in the Philippines.
In most cases, however, what awaited them was a job in Japan's seedy nighttime entertainment business.
"I was forced to sit next to Japanese businessmen at a nightclub and serve them drinks," Tapiru said. "It was not what I had expected, but I couldn't go back to the Philippines, as few jobs there could provide enough pay for us to live a decent life."
Satake explained that growth in the Philippine economy has been hovering at around 5 percent to 6 percent in recent years and is largely dependent on money repatriated by workers overseas.
"The Philippine government had sent them under the name of 'overseas performing artists' to earn foreign currencies, turning a blind eye to the fact that the women were forced to engage in the nighttime entertainment business," he said.
A number of the women who remained in Japan had babies out of wedlock with Japanese men. Some men already had Japanese wives and children, while others were just unwilling to commit themselves, according to Ito.
Among the 848 cases the JFC network has dealt with, nearly 60 percent involve unmarried parents. And of those who did manage to tie the knot had marriages that were nearly always on the rocks, she said.
None of the nine plaintiffs in the lawsuit obtained parental recognition from the fathers but did so through court proceedings instead, and none are now in contact with these men, Ito said.
Tapiru refused to talk about the father of her children, but she did say she can't marry or live with him for many reasons. "I don't want to hurt my kids and will not talk about him," she said.
She decided to fight for her daughter and joined the mass suit led by JFC. Masami was 7 at the time.
In Masami's case, in March 2006 the Tokyo District Court ruled unconstitutional a Nationality Law article requiring parents to be married for nationality to be granted to their child, but the decision was overruled by the Tokyo High Court in February 2007.
Legal experts say, however, there is reason to hope the Supreme Court will grant the mothers' demands because the case was transferred from a petty bench and that the grand bench held hearings.
"It is highly likely that their demands will be accepted, although we cannot be too optimistic," said Shuhei Ninomiya, a law professor at Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto. "If it decides the article is unconstitutional, the government should immediately move to amend the article from the point of view that children should be treated equally."
In 2005, the government restricted the issuance of entertainment visas in an effort to prevent Filipino women from falling victim to human-trafficking or being forced to work in the sex industry.
The number of Filipino women on entertainment visas subsequently plummeted to 8,606 in 2006, about one-tenth of the peak number of 82,741 two years before.
But the situation facing Japanese-Filipino children will remain serious unless the law changes, Satake said, as the number of apparently sham marriages with Japanese men is on an uptrend, while divorces among Japanese-Filipino couples are also increasing.
"Whatever decision the top court makes, it will affect any child whose mother is of foreign nationality," Ito said.
Tapiru, who works for a nongovernment organization to support Filipino residents in Japan, is resolved to fight on and win Japanese nationality for Masami.
"Every time we go to an immigration office to renew Masami's visa, we are reminded that she is not Japanese," Tapiru said. "I won't give up. If we lose, I will lodge another lawsuit against the government."
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