WOMEN | Native Beauty

Native women in paintings by Manuel Panares

For years, Filipinos have been conditioned to perceive the native as ugly and the mestiza beautiful. There developed a disdain for the Indio, the Spanish term for the natives who inhabited the Philippine isles. This is nowhere more evident in beauty contests. Contest organizers often prefer mestiza contestants over morenas or brown beauties. In the few instances when a morena gets to represent the country abroad, they usually return with an award. But that's only for those rare occasions they get to represent the country.

Foreigners today see things differently. Whites see the native as beautiful. It's getting to be a common sight at Philippine airports - a native woman with a Caucasian partner. White men find the dusky, morena Cebuana an exotic beauty.

Sadly, native beauties have been the victims of cyber crimes and exploitation in dating sites. Impoverished native women, including those already married, find quick cash from chatting and getting intimate online with foreigners.

This is their land. The native woman is beautiful. They need not end up exploited.