More Proof that the Ivatans Are Related to the Ethnic Taiwanese and the Need for a Nationwide DNA Study in RP

A medical study is currently being done in Taiwan, the results of which prove that the people of the Batanes Islands are related to the Aboriginal ethnic Taiwanese. The provisional results of the Taiwanese medical research add more scientific basis to the public knowledge in Northern Luzon that the Ivatans of Batanes have more kinship with the native Taiwanese than to the Ilocanos of Region I and/or the Ibanags of Region II (Cagayan North Valley).

Copper Sturgeon posted in the Botomo@yahoogroups.com what Paul Kekai Manansala of Northern California sent to him. The material was an article from the Taipei Times, excerpts of which are reprinted in this article.

Perhaps the Philippines should conduct a similar study in all the 15 regions of the archipelago. Perhaps a study using “DNA comparison techniques” may be able to show more common denominators among the different ethnic groups in the Philippines, so as to accelerate the formation of a true Filipino nation.

This writer suggested several years back to several e-forums that a nationwide DNA study in the Philippines be conducted. The study would also prove or disprove that the claimed Filipino cofounder of Los Angeles, California, was indeed a native son of the Philippines.

Other benefits of a nationwide DNA study in the Philippines are the expansion of the volunteer pool of blood and bone-marrow donors.

Perhaps this suggested DNA study can merit the support of the more-than 22,000 Filipino-American physicians, the 500,000 Filipino nurses in the United States and the tens of thousands more Filipino medical professionals working in the American healthcare industry. Yes, perhaps the Filipino medical practitioners in the United States can channel their efforts to a more-productive cause like the suggested DNA study than directing their anger at the ABC Network over the “Desperate Housewives” brouhaha.

Published on Taipei Times
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2007/11/21/2003388825

Most Hoklo, Hakka have Aboriginal genes, study finds

By Hu Ching-hui
STAFF REPORTER
Wednesday, Nov 21, 2007, Page 1

Eighty-five percent of Hoklo and Hakka people have Aboriginal ancestry, according to a study on the DNA of non-Aboriginal ethnic Taiwanese conducted by Mackay Memorial Hospital's transfusion medical research director Mari Lin (©).

Those 85 percent have strains from both plains and mountain Aboriginal tribes, as well as from Fujian and Guangdong and minor traces of ancestry from the Philippines, Indonesia and other Southeast Asian islands, the study found.

Only 1.5 percent of Taiwan's population have full Aboriginal ancestry, the study found.

As an example of the nation's ethnic diversity, Lin cited the example of Taiwan independence activist Peng Ming-min, whose patrilineal DNA is part Aboriginal, while his matrilineal DNA has Hakka and North Asian traces.

Lin said Hoklo and Hakka DNA was diverse. She said the tests showed that more than 90 percent of Hoklo and Hakka have at least some Vietnamese ancestry, specifically from China's southeast coast.

Lin said genealogical analyses had shown Vietnamese are genetically more similar to Southeast Asians than northern Han.

Lin said Fujian's mountains made it easier historically for residents to have contact with Taiwan and Southeast Asia than with the rest of China

Official statistics show Taiwan's population consists of approximately 73.5 percent Hoklo, 17.5 percent Hakka, 7.5 percent Mainlanders (who arrived after 1945) and 1.5 percent Aborigines. Lin's study excluded Mainlanders.

Lin said that researchers began by recruiting volunteer blood donors. The first stage of the project consisted of analyzing the DNA of 100 Hoklo and Hakka -- 58 men and 42 women.

Of these, 67 percent were found to have Aboriginal ancestry through DNA comparison techniques. An additional 18 percent were found to have Aboriginal ancestry through HLA chromosome typing, bringing the total to 85 percent.

An analysis of the DNA of "pure" Aborigines as a group compared with the DNA of non-Aboriginal ethnic Taiwanese as a group showed that the Aborigines had a highly homogeneous genetic range because of thousands of years of isolation from other ethnic groups, Lin said. Hoklo and Hakka in Taiwan have developed a highly diverse genetic mix through marriages, she said.

Taiwanese Aborigines have close genetic links to Southeast Asian islanders such as Indonesians and Filipinos, Lin said.

The research could help solve mysteries of human migration.

Studies indicate Taiwanese Aborigines may have migrated from Southeast Asian islands tens of thousands years ago and that there may have been repeated waves of migration to and from Taiwan.

The summary of Lin's research has been submitted to a human genome conference to be held in the Philippines. Lin hopes that the statistical analysis of 200 blood samples will be completed by next year, with a goal of 300 samples after that.

Volunteers for the project can contact the Transfusion Medical Research Laboratory at Mackay Memorial Hospital in Tamshui.

Su I-ning, a physician at National Taiwan University Hospital's Medical Genetics Department, considers the results of the research to be "intriguing and logical."

Su said the research could help solve mysteries of human migration.

DNA studies have been controversial because of alleged cases of collecting Aboriginal blood without informed consent. # # #