Sep 4, 2011

Some Interesting Facts About Filipinos And The Philippines

- Founded in 1595 by the Spaniards, the University of San Carlos (USC) in Cebu City, Philippines is older than Harvard and is the oldest university in Asia.

- The University of Santo Tomas, a Jesuit university in Manila, was established in 1611, and is Asia's second oldest university.

- The Philippines/Filipinos were introduced to the English language in 1762 by British invaders, not by Americans.

- Next to the UK and the USA and their respective territories/commonwealths, the Philippines holds the distinction of being "the nation in the world where English is most widely spoken".

- After the USA bought the Philippines, Puerto Rico and Guam from Spain in 1898, the Filipino-American Independence War (or Philippine insurrection) from 1898 to 1902 ensued which killed 4,234 Americans. Among the Filipino casualties were 16,000 killed in action and 200,000, who died from famine and pestilence. The Philippines was a US colony/commonwealth until the USA granted the Philippines independence in 1946.

- Los Angeles, California was co-founded in 1781 by a Filipino named Antonio Miranda Rodriguez and 43 Latinos from Mexico sent by the Spanish government.

- The antibiotic Ilosone (generic name: erythromycin) was co-discovered by a Filipino doctor, Abelardo Aguilar.

- The one-chip video camera was first made by Marc Loinaz, a Filipino inventor in New Jersey.

- The first Asian international Chess Grandmaster, Eugenio Torre, is a Filipino, who also won at the Chess Olympiad in Nice, France in 1974.

- Kiwi Danao Camara, the child of two Filipinos physicians, scored over 700 on the verbal portion of the Standardized Achievement Test (SAT) which Camara took before age 13 at Punahou School in Honolulu, Hawaii.

- Edward Sanchez, a Mensa Society member, won the grand prize in the first Philippine Search for Product Excellence in Information Technology.

- Joyce Monteverde, a Filipino-American from California, scored a perfect 1600 on the SAT?

- While Thomas Edison invented the incandescent light bulb and Nikola Tesla originally thought of fluorescent lighting, today's fluorescent lamp was actually invented by a Filipino scientist, Agapito Flores (a.k.a.: Benigno Flores of Bantayan Island, Cebu, according to the Philippine Daily Inquirer).

- The Philippines has Asia's highest number of inventors and international beauty pageant winners; Gloria Diaz and Margie Moran respectively won the 1969 and 1973 Miss Universe title.

- Part- or full-blooded Filipino artists in U.S. show business include Von Flores, Tia Carere, Paolo Montalban, Lea Salonga, Ernie Reyes Jr., Nia Peeples, Julio Iglesias Jr., Lou Diamond Phillips, Phoebe Cates, and Rob Schneider.

- Filipinos who have made top hit on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart include the first Filipino group known as Rocky Fellers of Manila (in 1960), Sugar Pie de Santo (whose father is Filipino), the artist formerly known as Prince (according to the October 1984 article "Prince in Exile" by Scott Isler in the magazine, Musician), Foxy Brown, and Enrique Iglesias.

- Full-blooded Filipinos who have been listed in the minor charts include Jocelyn Enriquez [a.k.a.: the Oriental Madonna], Buffry, Pinay, and Ella May Saison.

- Josephine Roberto [a.k.a.: Banig] defeated Christina Aguilera, the popular Latin-American singer, during the International Star Search many years ago. In a mid-1999 MTV chat, Aguilera claimed that competing against someone of Banig's age was "not fair".

- Anne Gayle, Manila's international super model, has been featured in fashion magazines as well as a model in the 1970s for all the major designers including: Calvin Klein, Chanel, Christian Lacroix, Donna Karan, Gianni Versace, and Yves Saint Laurent.

- Eleanor Concepcion ["Connie"] Mariano, a full-blooded Filipino and the youngest captain in the US Navy, was US President Bill Clinton's personal physician.

- The first Filipino-American to be elected to the US Congress is Congressman Robert Cortez-Scott of Virginia, a Harvard alumnus.

- In a 1903 article, the distinguished British travel writer, A. Henry Savage Landor, wrote: "Mt. Mayon is the most beautiful mountain..., the world-renowned Fujiyama (Mt. Fuji) of Japan sinks into perfect insignificance by comparison. Mayon has the world's most perfect cone."

- Filipinos had their first taste of Mexican chili and corn during the Manila-Acapulco galleon trade (1564-1815). In return, Mexicans had their first taste of tamarind, Manila mango and a Filipino banana variety called racatan or lakatan.

- The first female Philippine president is Corazon Cojuangco Aquino; sworn into office in 1986. Her maiden name, Cojuangco, is partly Chinese.

- On a March 31, 1997 article in The New York Times, it was reported that the CIA manipulated the 1953 Philippine elections: "CIA operative Col. Edward Lansdale essentially ran the successful presidential campaign of former Defense Minister Ramon Magsaysay in the Philippines in 1953."

- In 1941, Carlos P. Romulo, a journalist for The Philippine Herald, is the first Asian and first Filipino to win the Pulitzer Prize; Romulo is also the first Asian to become UN President. Two other Filipino-American journalists also won the Pulitzer Prize 56 years after Romulo, namely: Byron Acohido (a Filipino-Korean) and Alex Tizon of The Seattle Times.

- Jose Rizal, the Philippine national hero, read and wrote at age 2, and learned to speak more than 20 languages including Latin, Greek, German, French and Chinese. He was a novelist, a physician [opthalmologist], a poet, a scientist, and a social activist. His last words during his execution by a Spanish firing squad in 1898 were: "Consummatum est!" (Latin for : "It is done!").

-During a visit to Manila in 1998, John Griffin, a Filipino-American journalist in Honolulu wrote: "What's still impressive to me about the Philippines is the friendliness of the people, their sense of humor. Although, I've lived in America longer years than my birth place Bohol, I still have plenty of bagoong [a native Filipino salted fish sauce] left in my body that can energize and catapult me all the way from Maribojoc, Bohol, Philippines ."

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