Chinese in The Philippines: Tai Diok Ka Genuine Intsik
Chinese in The Philippines: Tai Diok Ka Genuine Intsik
Chinese in The Philippines: Tai Diok Ka Genuine Intsik
BSBA MM-1137
Many studies in various fields were established on the Chinese community in the Philippines: from a historical angle
with Amyot (1972a and 1972b) and Wickberg (1998a and 1998b), from a sociological and anthropological
perspective with See (1988) and Ang See (1997, 2000, 2004 and 2005). Those productions together with general
studies on the overseas Chinese communities in South East Asia, on Philippine economy and the urban environment
allow us to tackle the context of our topic.
These new migrants from Mainland China can actually be defined by comparison with the Chinese populations that
have been settled in the Philippine archipelago for a long time. Due to their short stay, those migrants don’t have any
mental, family or spatial landmarks in the Philippines. There’s another striking difference with the previous migration
waves of the 1930s: migrants no longer leave their homeland alone but are generally accompanied with their
relatives.
The close family circle is present, yet the forebears stayed behind in their home province. For most of them, settling
down for good in the archipelago is out of question, but they nonetheless try to thrive within a short period of time.
Philippine cities seem to be an Eldorado for those migrants (an estimated 60,000 individuals). The analysis of those
migrant’s profiles also takes into account that of the local Chinese community: the mostly used statistical data
estimate the Sino-Philippine community at about 800,000 people, among whom, according to the figures extracted
from the National Statistics Office only around 60,000 speak Chinese.
From the Presidency of Joseph Estrada (1998-2001) on, new waves of Chinese migrants reached the Philippines.
The Filipinos called them TDK: tai diok ka or GI: Genuine Intsik (pejorative word for Chinese from Mainland China in
hokkien or “intsik” in tagalog). From then on, they competed with local businessmen with their “dirt cheap
merchandises”. Since 2003, the flexible visa procedure to travel to the Philippines was spread to Chinese citizens
from Continental China. The Chinese passport holders can, like any other traveller, get a three-week-tourist visa,
which can be extended, for a few thousands of pesos. The access of the Asia Region to the “Continental Chinese
tourists” raises many questions, notably for the countries concerned, as regards these eased travel facilities, but
above all the residence of those new migrants’ populations.
The cities are the main places for those migrants to settle down. Thus we may wonder what the spatial integration
opportunities are for those migrants and what social links emerge from the latter. Without any doubt, the presence of
a long established Chinese local community has been assisting them in their integration process, even for a short
stay of a couple of months. However some migrants have been living in the Philippines since the early 1990s and a
more diversified professional integration has now broken the tradition of the Chinese community specialized in trade.
A city is a key place to observe and understand the social link structures, which permit and continue today’s Chinese
migrations towards the Philippines. Nevertheless many differences can be noted in the professional profiles of those
migrants, their being visible or not within the city, as well as for the human or cultural impacts on the local Chinese
community.
https://journals.openedition.org/remi/6147