Filipino nurses have been disproportionately affected by the coronavirus in the US. And that's because they make up an outsize portion of the nursing workforce. About one-third of all foreign-born nurses in the US are Filipino; it's been a growing phenomenon for the past 50 years.
Ferdinand Marcos was elected President in 1965. The U.S. war in Indochina was just getting under way, and U.S. military presence in the Philippines was greatly expanded, as the military bases at Subic Bay and Clark Airfield became launching pads for countless air-strikes. This activity contributed to a Maoist insurgency within the country, provoking a declaration of Martial Law in 1972, which lasted until 1981.
Flor Ramos Contemplacion was a Filipina domestic worker executed in Singapore for murder. Her execution severely strained relations between Singapore and the Philippines, and caused many Filipinos to vent their frustrations over the plight of Overseas Filipino Workers towards both states' governments.
Before the Cojuangco family acquired Hacienda Luisita in the 1950s, it belonged to the Spanish-owned Compaña General de Tabacos de Filipinas (Tabacalera). Tabacalera acquired the land in 1882 from the Spanish crown, which had a self-appointed claim on the lands as the Philippines' colonial master. Luisita was named after Luisa, the wife of the top official of Tabacalera.
ROTC training in the country dates back to our colonial past. During the British invasion of the Philippines in 1762, some 200 students from the University of Santo Tomas were organized to aid the Spanish forces in defending Manila. Later on, the native contingent was professionalized and the cadets were given access to military training.
In late August 1619, an English pirate ship named the White Lion sailed into the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay and anchored at Point Comfort. It deposited, according to handwritten records, "20 and odd" Africans seized from a Portuguese slave ship headed to what is now Mexico.