About this Blog

The Filipino people (Filipino: Mamamayang Pilipino) or Filipinos are an ethnic group native to the islands of the Philippines. According to the 2010 Census, there were 92,337,852 in the Philippines and about 10-12 million living outside the Philippines.

There are around 180 languages spoken in the Philippines, most of them belonging to the Austronesian language family, with Tagalog and Cebuano having the greatest number of native speakers. The official languages of the Philippines are Filipino and English and most Filipinos are bilingual or trilingual.

The Philippines was a Spanish colony for over 300 years, leaving what can now be called Filipino culture and people semi-Hispanicized. Under Spanish rule, most of the Filipino populace embraced Roman Catholicism, yet revolted many times to its hierarchy. Due to a colonial program, almost all inhabitants adopted Spanish surnames from the Catálogo alfabético de apellidos published in 1849 by the Spanish colonial government. As neither past governments nor the modern National Statistics Office account for the racial background of an individual, the exact percentage of Filipinos with Spanish ancestry is unknown.

This blog is about what makes a common pinoy.