This excellent piece was written by GIBeregovoy in one of the previous threads. I took the liberty of copying the text to this forum. Thanks Tommy!

GIBeregovoy (GI stands for Gennady Iosefovich) is my nom de guerre on the 'net. You can also find me at TankNet (www.tank-net.org) where I post there more often.
And yes, I'm a Filipino.

Ok, some 'factoids' for the "furriners" (warning extremely long post!):

Filipino because originally the name of the country was Las Islas Filipinas, Filipinas being named after King Philip who was IIRC the reigning monarch at the time in Spain. When the Americans came, the country's name was 'americanized' to Philippine Islands. Then when we became totally independent (1946), the name was changed to Philippines since Philippine Islands was too 'colonial.'

Spanish is still spoken here, in a different sort of way. It's called Chabacano and it is mainly spoken in some parts of Cavite and Zamboanga IIRC. Cavite is a province in Luzon (and where my clan's roots are) while Zamboanga is a province in Mindanao, which island is down south, and a bit north of Jolo where the .45-calibre pistol was said to have been invented (or the source of its inspiration) since the .38 was unable to stop effectively a Moro's charge when the Americans were fighting in that area in the early 1900s. The .45 stopped them cold.

For sometime (late 40s to 70s), we had the most powerful military in the region. It is said that pilots of the Philippine Air Force (now sadly labelled as Philippine Air Farce ) used to land their planes anywhere in the region as they pleased. We sent a Combat Team (BCT I think was the term - countrymen, you can see the name of the unit at the back of the P500 bill since Ninoy was a war correspondent at the time) in Korea and probably (not sure) a medical team in Vietnam.

Back to language: there are plenty of dialects in the country, the major ones being Tagalog (spoken mostly in the southern parts of Luzon), Cebuano (spoken mainly in the southern part of the Philippines IIRC) and Ilonggo (spoken in the middle areas of the country). There's also Ilocano (spoken in the northern Luzon) and others (comrades, correct me if I'm wrong).

The national language is Filipino (or Pilipino - there's still a debate among the linguists on which is the proper term), which is really mostly Tagalog (and thus many Cebuano speaking people find this annoying).

Official religion (not State sanctioned ) is Roman Catholicism, with the second main religion being Islam - which makes the Philippines a unique place in terms of religion in the region which is predominantly Islamic (Malaysia, Indonesia) and Buddhist (Indochina).

The capital is Manila, although during the Marcos Regime it was moved to Quezon City. Manila is part of Metro Manila, a recent creation (thanks to Imelda Marcos, wife of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos) in the late 70s or early 80s IIRC. Metro Manila is really a conglomeration of several cities and municipalities. Think urban sprawl gone mad. Population of the country is 70 million last count, among which there are 7 to 10 million in Metro Manila.

Form of government is a republican presidential system, patterned after the US government (sans federalism), although a "parliamentary" form was "experimented" during the latter years of the Marcos Regime.

People have often asked me on other fora (forums) why the Philippines as a nation has failed. The simplest answer is politics. (If anyone is interested, shoot me an email, and I'll answer)

BTW, the term "Filipino" or "Philipino" does [red][underline]NOT[/underline][/red] mean "domestic worker." There was a ruckus on this when a dictionary (I dunno which one - Webster, Oxford, I can't remember) defined the said word(s) as such.

And yes, we do not have tails, nor look like monkeys, and we do have heads (not like what that Hollywood teen actress said after filming her movie here several years ago ).

It's Filipino, dude....Kinda like my future honey will be.

Hands off the reserved lasses Dave! Lots of variety here though. We'll find you a Filipina girlfriend so don't worry. Just don't break her heart

Your girlfriend's a Filipina?

SSSSHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!! We don't want the black helicopters coming down to get my little a** now, do we? I have my rights! I want my privacy back! LOL

SS/Dave, why don't we swap: we look for a pretty Filipina for you, and you look for a pretty Chinese-mestiza for me. :-) I just luvvvvvvvvvvvv Chinese mestizas! :-)

Hehehehe!

Dapat may forum din para sa pag-ibig! ^_^

heheheh...

Good Luck sa mga love life nyo!

Gawa ka ng topic lonewolf! #:-)

As for you GI, I found out that you are really an alien Grey masquerading as a modeler (aren't we all?) #:-)

sorry guys pero i edited my profile ... i think you now what i mean....tinamaan ako dito sa topic...so then again.. i am a true blooded PINOY...

Don't start... might make me more depressed... resisting pills... #:-)




Grey? P'chok! Q'rteR Verta'rtchka oRvKsak! I'm really a diminutive Klingon dressed up in a 180lb fat suit, breeding my little rabid ticks for world domination! BWUHAHAHA!

Yah, pls don't start the love forum. OUCH it hurts soo much!

Bwahahahahahahaha!

Heheheheh...."LOVE TOPIC" eh?

I'm making one right now...^_^

Hahahahahaha!

*I AM CRUEL..

[/quote]
Grey? P'chok! Q'rteR Verta'rtchka oRvKsak! I'm really a diminutive Klingon dressed up in a 180lb fat suit, breeding my little rabid ticks for world domination! BWUHAHAHA! [/quote]

Alien? World Domination? Hmmm....

Wait! That laugh...

Or perhaps....could you be Dr. Evil?

You can say that kasi may chicks ka na! Wala pa kami eh!

Chics?! Sino sa kanila?! ...errr...ack...I mean, saan? Wala nmn a?

:-)