Origin of the Filipino People

The best explanations we have about our distant past come from three (3) main sources:
(1) The story of Gods creation in the Bible
(2) The story of evolution made by human scientist
(3) Legends and fairytales made up by imaginative people
A. The Biblical Story

All men and women originated from the first man (Adam) and the first woman (Eve).
From these the maritime peoples spread out into their territory by their clans within
their nations, each with its own language.

Fr. Francisco Colin a Jesuit historian, wrote that the first settler of our country was
Tharsis together with his brothers and their descendants.

The Theory of Evolution

It is a belief that man came from apelike creatures that lived thousands of years ago in
caves and have very crude tools.

Waves of Migration
They believed that the early Filipinos came from waves of migration Negritos,
Indonesians, and Malays who peopled these, island thousands years ago.
a. The Negritos
- The first people came to the Philippines.
- They were also called Atis or Aetas.
- They came across land bridges from mainland Asia about 25,000 years ago.
- They were very small people and less than five feet tall.
- They have black skin, short kinky hair, thick lips and black noses.
- They wandered in the forest and lived by hunting, fishing, and gathering wild plants
and fruits.
- They used bow and arrow for hunting.
b. . The Indonesians
- The first immigrants to come by the sea to the Philippines.
- They came about 5,000 years ago and sailed in boats from South Asia.
- They were drove into the mountains and lived in the lowlands.
- Indonesians were more advanced than the Negritos.
- They lived in permanent homes and used fire to cook their food.
- They lived by hunting, fishing, and small farming.
- They painted their bodies with colorful figures.
Today the Indonesian minority tribes are found in some interior parts of our
country. They are the: Apayaos, Kalingas, Manobos, Tirurays, Gaddangs,
Tagbanuas, Mandyas, Sabanuns, Ibanags, Bagobos, Bukidnon.
c. The Malays
- They came after the Indonesians about 2,000 years ago.
- They also arrived in boats from Southeast Asia.
- They were medium in height, brown-skinned with dark eyes, flat nose and straight
black hair.
- They drove Indonesians to the forest and lived in the lowlands.
- They are more civilized than the Indonesians.

- They lived in larger villages, had government, writing, music, arts, and sciences.
- They lived by agriculture, fishing, mining, and trading.
Core Population
A theory which believes that the early Filipinos came from the settlers within the islands,
not from outside and in fact our ancestors migrated outside to the other nearby islands to
spread our own culture to other lands.
Tabon Man
First man in the Philippines lived in caves at Tabon, Palawan about 25,000 years ago.
They belonged to the Stone Age culture because of using stone tools and weapons.
They were short with bushy eyebrows and a low forehead.
3 Lessons from the past that we can learn:
(1)The early Filipinos had a culture of their own. They built the magnificent rice terraces in
Northern Luzon. They charted the seas and sailed thousands of miles to other islands in
the Pacific. They had a society of law and order. They appreciated beautiful things like
jewelry and pottery. They buried the dead with respect. Thus, the early Filipinos had
their own inventions and spread cultures to other places. They did not just borrow or
receive the culture of other peoples.
(2)We must respect and protect our tribal minorities in the Philippines because they are
part of our ancestry. There are about 100 tribal groups in the Philippines. Each has its
own customs, beliefs, arts, and crafts. They are very much a part of our colorful past.
(3)We must take the Gospel and train ourselves how to be Christian missionaries among
these minority tribes in our country is good practice for our evangelist and missionaries,
because the other non-Christian nations in Asia, Africa and Latin America also have
many rival groups.