Margielyn Didal of the Philippines will compete in the new street skateboarding event.
Credit: © Cheng Min, Xinhua/Alamy Images

Skateboarding is making its Olympic debut at the Tokyo 2020 Summer Olympic Games. A star skateboarder representing the Philippines is Margielyn Didal. Didal has become the first Filipino to participate in several international skateboarding tournaments. She qualified for the women’s street skateboarding event, which took place on Sunday, July 25, 2021. Didal placed seventh overall.

Didal is a Philippine professional street skateboarder. Street skateboarding is a type of skateboarding performed in urban settings, using stairs, rails, and ramps for tricks. Critics have noted her energetic and controlled style. She has become one of the top skateboarders in the world.

Margielyn Arda Didal was born April 19, 1999, in Cebu City, Philippines. She began skateboarding with friends when she was 12 years old. She began her professional career under the coaching of Daniel Bautista, a Philippine freelance photographer and skateboarder. Bautista loaned Didal skateboards and coached her through local tournaments starting in 2012. Didal competed in tournaments in part to win prize money to support her family. In 2014, she injured her arm and ankle while skateboarding, limiting her ability to compete.

In 2018, Didal became the first Filipino to participate in Street League Skateboarding, an international street skateboarding competition, finishing eighth overall. Didal competed in the 2018 X Games in Minneapolis, Minnesota, becoming the first Filipino to do so. She won the gold medal at the 2018 Asian Games in the women’s street skateboarding event.

In 2019, Didal won gold in the women’s street event at the first Philippine National Skateboarding Championship. She also won two gold medals in the 2019 Southeast Asian Games.

January 13, 2020

Earth has been a particularly dangerous place in recent weeks. Airplane crashes, military clashes, terror attacks, and political unrest have taken a toll on human life and happiness lately, but it is a series of natural disasters that has caused the most trouble. A typhoon ravaged the Philippines, deadly flash floods hit Indonesia, bushfires continued to rage in Australia, a measles epidemic continued to kill in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and a series of earthquakes rattled Puerto Rico.

Firefighters confront a bushfire near the Blue Mountains town of Bilpin, New South Wales, on Dec. 19, 2019. Credit: © 1234rf/Shutterstock

On Christmas Eve and Christmas Day Typhoon Phanfone (also called Ursula) struck the Philippines, producing high winds and flooding that killed 105 people in the Visayan Island provinces of Biliran, Capiz, Iloilo, and Leyte. Phanfone was a Category 2 storm (moderate strength) with sustained winds of more than 90 miles (150 kilometers) per hour. Storm surges and deadly flash floods hit communities just as families were gathering to celebrate the Christmas holiday. Thousands of homes were damaged or destroyed.

On New Year’s Day in Indonesia, abnormally heavy monsoon rains caused flash floods that killed 66 people and displaced hundreds of thousands of others in Jakarta, the capital. Some 14.5 inches (37 centimeters) of rain fell on New Year’s Eve, causing the Ciliwung and Cisadane rivers to overflow. Floodwaters submerged more than 150 neighborhoods and caused landslides in the Bogor and Depok districts on the outskirts of Jakarta. Flood water levels in some areas peaked at more than 13 feet (4 meters). Electric power was cut off, and closed schools and government buildings were converted into emergency shelters.

On January 7, the World Health Organization announced the 6,000th death from measles in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) since an epidemic began there in 2019. More than 300,000 suspected measles cases have been reported in the DRC—a nation also troubled by recent terror attacks. The epidemic has continued and grown because of low vaccination coverage, malnutrition, weak public health systems, outbreaks of other epidemic-prone diseases (such as Ebola), and the difficulty of getting health care to people in remote areas.

In Puerto Rico, after several smaller earthquakes, a 6.4-magnitude temblor struck the southwestern part of the island on January 7. The earthquake, the strongest to hit Puerto Rico in more than 100 years, killed one person, toppled hundreds of structures, and forced a state of emergency. Many people lost their homes, the island briefly lost electric power, and schools and public offices were closed. In the 10 days before the 6.4-magnitude earthquake, the United States Geological Survey recorded hundreds of temblors in Puerto Rico—including 10 of 4-magnitude or greater.

A number of major bushfires have lately devastated southeastern Australia. Since September, the wild fires—mostly in New South Wales, Queensland, and Victoria—have burned more than 25.5 million acres (10.3 million hectares), an area the size of South Korea. The bushfires have destroyed more than 2,100 homes and killed 27 people and hundreds of millions of animals. On January 8, the Australian government ordered the mass slaughter of thousands of wild camels and horses that have invaded rural towns looking for water. Many people are without electric power and telecommunications in Australia’s southeast, and some were without drinking water and other supplies. Smoke has obscured the city skies of Canberra, Melbourne, and Sydney. The bushfires followed a three-year drought that experts link to climate change.

December 30, 2019

Today, December 30, is José Rizal Day in the Philippines. The holiday celebrates the life of Rizal, a doctor and novelist who became a national hero of the Philippines. Rizal was an early leader of the Filipino movement for political and social freedom from Spain. December 30 marks the day in 1896 when the Spaniards, who ruled the Philippines at the time, executed Rizal for his activities.

The physician and writer José Rizal is a national hero of the Philippines. His life is celebrated on December 30. Credit: Public Domain

A national public holiday, Rizal Day has been celebrated in the Philippines since 1898. Commemorations include the lowering of the Philippine flag to half-mast and wreath laying-ceremonies at the Rizal Monument and execution site in Manila, the Rizal Monument in Baguio City, and the Rizal Shrines in Calamba (a reproduction of his birth house) and Dapitan (his place of exile on Mindanao).

The flag of the Philippines dates back to the Philippine struggle for independence in the 1890’s. Credit: © Loveshop/Shutterstock

José Mercado y Alonso Rizal was born on June 19, 1861, in Calamba on the main Filipino island of Luzon. He studied medicine at the University of Santo Tomas in Manila. After obtaining his qualifications in medicine in Madrid, Spain, Rizal traveled to Germany, England, and France, where he continued to study medicine. He wrote for La Solidaridad (The Solidarity) a magazine published in Barcelona that campaigned for reforms in the Philippines.

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Philippines
Credit: WORLD BOOK map

Rizal gained worldwide attention with two novels that exposed the ills of the Spanish colonial government and Filipino society: Noli Me Tangere (1887, Latin for Touch Me Not) and El Filibusterismo (1891, The Subversive). While conducting research at the British Museum in London, Rizal came across a history of the Philippines written by Antonio de Morga, a Spanish historian and colonial official, in 1609. Morga’s book described an attractive civilization in the Philippines before Spanish colonization. In 1890, Rizal printed a new edition of the history with his own notes added to the text.

In 1892, Rizal returned to Manila, where he founded La Liga Filipina (The Philippine League) on July 3. The League was a partly secret association devoted to promoting unity and reforming the colony. On July 6, Rizal was arrested and exiled to the Philippine island of Mindanao. During his exile, Rizal practiced medicine and taught students. In 1896, Spanish authorities permitted him to go to Cuba, at that time a Spanish colony, to treat patients infected during a yellow fever outbreak.

That same year, the Katipunan, a secret Filipino revolutionary society, tried to overthrow the Spanish government. Rizal was on his way to Cuba when the revolution broke out. Though he had no connection with the Katipunan or the uprising, a Spanish military court found him guilty of promoting the rebellion. On the morning of Dec. 30, 1896, Rizal was executed by firing squad in Manila.

May 15, 2019

Last month, on April 10, scientists announced that fossils discovered in the Philippines were evidence of a new and previously unknown variety of human that inhabited the islands some 67,000 years ago. The fossils were found at Callao Cave in northern Luzon, the main island of the Philippines. The scientists determined that the fossils represent a new species of human beings called Homo luzonensis.

Scientists found the bones of Homo luzonensis at Callao Cave on the Philippine island of Luzon. Credit: Callao Cave Archaeology Project

The fossil remains of Homo luzonensis were discovered during excavations that took place at Callao Cave from 2007 through 2015. The remains of three individuals included isolated teeth, a foot bone, two toe bones, two finger bones, and an incomplete thigh bone. Scientists observed an odd mix of anatomical features in these few remains. Some of the features are seen in modern humans alive today. Other features, such as highly curved toe bones, are seen in primitive human ancestors called Australopithecines.

These teeth of Homo luzonensis were found in Callao Cave. Credit: © Callao Cave Archaeology Project

The fossils from Luzon add to the growing list of physically distinct varieties of prehistoric humans known across the world—a list that has complicated the view of human evolution. Scientists understand from fossil evidence that physically modern human beings, Homo sapiens, first appeared in the fossil record of Africa around 200,000 years ago. Scientists believe those people eventually spread to inhabit nearly every corner of the globe. However, many regions of Africa, Asia, and Europe were already occupied by prehistoric humans when Homo sapiens arrived.

This foot bone of Homo luzonensis shows unusual curvature. Credit: © Callao Cave Archaeology Project

The Neandertals, a well known group of prehistoric humans, inhabited much of Europe and Central Asia at least 250,000 years ago. Another group, known informally as the Denisovans, is identified by genetic material recovered from a few bones discovered in Siberia (and recently, Tibet) that date to more than 50,000 years ago. Scientist do not know what the Denisovans looked like because fossil remains are so scarce, but their DNA shows they were distinct from both Neandertals and modern humans. These early people are also different from Homo naledi, a mysterious early human species first discovered at Rising Star Cave in South Africa in 2015. Even more peculiar is Homo floresiensis, a diminutive (very small) variety of prehistoric humans known from fossils discovered on the Indonesian island of Flores in 2004.

Scientist now understand that early Homo sapiens shared their world with several other physically distinct varieties of human beings. These ancient people were more like cousins than ancestors to modern humans. Today, only physically modern people remain. The discovery of yet another previously unknown human species demonstrates that prehistoric people came in many shapes and sizes.

October 1, 2018

Two weeks ago, early on the morning of Sept. 15, 2018 (September 14 in the United States), Typhoon Mangkhut struck the main Philippine island of Luzon. In a country accustomed to seasonal tempests, the Philippine Atmospheric Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (PAGASA) gives its own names to storms: there, Mangkhut (the named bestowed on the storm by the World Meteorological Organization) was known as Ompong. The typhoon raged regardless of name, causing deadly flooding and landslides that killed 95 people in Luzon. Mangkhut then killed one person on Taiwan and six others in China. On September 20, days after the storm dissipated, waterlogged soil on the central Philippine island of Cebu caused a landslide that killed another 85 people.

Members of the Filipino Bureau of Fire Protection carry a victim of a landslide in Luzon’s Benguet province on Sept. 18, 2018. Credit: © Basilio Sepe, Getty Images

Typhoon Mangkhut formed as a tropical depression over the Marshall Islands in the North Pacific Ocean on September 7. The storm grew into a tropical storm near Bikini Atoll and escalated to a Category 5 (the strongest level) typhoon in the Northern Marianas. Mangkhut roared westward across the Pacific and on September 12 the storm entered the Philippine Area of Responsibility (PAR), the zone in the northwestern Pacific where PAGASA tracks dangerous weather.

Typhoon Mangkhut (Ompong) hit the northern Philippines and then crossed the South China Sea to Hong Kong and China’s Guangdong Province. Credit: WORLD BOOK map

In preparation for the massive storm, schools and public offices were closed in northern Luzon and people were evacuated from many coastal areas. Across the South China Sea in Hong Kong, officials issued a rare “No. 10” typhoon warning signal, the highest level of storm threat, and briefly shut down public services. Parts of China’s Guangdong Province also issued red alerts and closed schools and public offices.

Mangkhut reached the shores of Cagayán Valley, Luzon’s most northern administrative region, on September 15. The storm lashed Cagayán and the nearby Cordillera and Ilocos regions, where winds as fierce as 125 miles (205 kilometers) per hour ripped up trees and houses and torrential rains caused flash flooding and mudslides. Mangkhut then leapt to China, where deadly winds knocked down thousands of trees and shattered windows in swaying high-rise buildings. Floodwaters blocked roads and railways and inundated coastal communities. On nearby Taiwan, the lone death occurred when strong ocean currents related to the storm swept a beachgoer out to sea.

June 12, 2018

Today, June 12, is Independence Day in the Philippines. On June 12, 1898, 120 years ago today, Filipino leaders declared independence from Spain, which had ruled the Pacific Island nation since the 1500′s. Philippines Independence Day is celebrated throughout the Philippine Islands as well in Filipino communities around the world. For several years, the celebration was held on July 4—the day the Republic of the Philippines actually gained independence in 1946. In 1962, however, the Philippines government recognized the date of the 1898 declaration as Independence Day, and changed July 4 to Republic Day.

The flag of the Philippines dates back to the nation’s struggle for independence in the 1890’s. Credit: © Loveshop/Shutterstock

In the Philippines, government offices and many businesses are closed for Independence Day, and people enjoy the holiday by gathering with family and friends and attending concerts, fireworks shows, and parades. The Philippines flag is prominently displayed throughout the nation, and in Manila and other cities there are official readings of the 1898 document declaring Philippine independence. Readings are given both in the document’s original Spanish and in Tagalog, the primary language of the Philippines.

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In Tagalog, the primary language of the Philippines, Independence Day is known as Araw ng Kalayaan, or Day of Freedom. Credit: Republic of the Philippines

In the United States and Canada, countries that are home to millions of people of Filipino heritage, Philippines Independence Day is marked by celebrations and parades in such cities as Boston, Chicago, New York, San Francisco, Toronto, and Vancouver.

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Philippines
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The story of Philippine independence is a complicated one. The 1898 declaration came at a chaotic period in Filipino history, a time when foreign powers—Spain and the United States—were fighting for control of the Philippine Islands. Philippines independence was not won in 1898, as the United States, which gained control of the islands from Spain, refused to recognize it.

Filipino rebels fought against U.S. rule in the Philippine-American War from 1899 to 1902, but American influence remained in the Philippines for many years. In 1935, the Philippines became an American commonwealth with its own elected government and constitution. The United States retained authority in such areas as foreign affairs and defense. After Filipinos and U.S. soldiers fought together against the Japanese during World War II (1939-1945), the Philippines at last gained complete independence on July 4, 1946—a date chosen to coincide with Independence Day in the United States.

May 9, 2018

May is Asian Pacific American Heritage Month (APAHM) in the United States. To celebrate, World Book examines the life of Florence Ebersole Smith Finch (1915-2016), a Filipino-American heroine of World War II (1939-1945). During most of the war, Finch struggled against the Japanese occupation of the Philippines. At that time, the Philippines was a U.S. commonwealth. The Philippines—particularly the main island of Luzon—was the scene of heavy fighting during the war. Finch later served in the U.S. Coast Guard.

Florence Finch helped many American and Filipino prisoners of war survive World War II. Credit: United States Coast Guard

Finch was born Loring May Ebersole on Oct. 11, 1915, in the Luzon city of Santiago. She was the daughter of an American veteran of the Spanish-American War (1898) and a Filipino mother. After high school, Finch worked as a stenographer at the U.S. Army Intelligence headquarters in Manila, the capital of the Philippines. (A stenographer is a person who writes down words as they are spoken in a form called shorthand. Later the shorthand is written—usually typewritten—in a more easily read long form.) She married U.S. Navy Chief Electrician’s Mate Charles E. Smith in August 1941. The Japanese invaded Luzon in December, and took control of Manila in January 1942. Charles Smith was killed in action in February. Filipino and U.S. forces in the Philippines surrendered to the Japanese in May. To avoid internment in a prison camp, Finch disguised her American heritage and took a job with the occupying Japanese forces.

Finch secretly corresponded with U.S. and Filipino servicemen captured by the Japanese, and she helped get food and supplies to the starving prisoners. She also guided fuel and other supplies to Filipino resistance groups and assisted in acts of sabotage against the Japanese. In October 1944, the Japanese discovered her activities and she was arrested, tortured, starved, and imprisoned at a women’s camp in Mandaluyong near Manila. Finch survived the ordeal, and American forces freed her in February 1945. The Japanese officially surrendered on September 2, ending World War II.

In May 1945, Finch moved to live with family in Buffalo, New York. She served in the U.S. Coast Guard Women’s Reserve from July 1945 until May 1946. She then attended secretarial school and married Army veteran Robert Finch. In November 1947, the U.S. government awarded Florence Finch the Medal of Freedom (now called the Presidential Medal of Freedom), the nation’s highest civilian award. Finch and her husband lived in Ithaca, New York, where she worked as a secretary at Cornell University. Finch died in Ithaca on Dec. 8, 2016.

APAHM celebrates the culture, traditions, and history of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in the United States. It began as a two-week celebration in 1978 and expanded to the full month of May in 1990. May was chosen to commemorate the arrival of the first Japanese immigrants in the United States—noted as May 7, 1843—and for the May 10, 1869, completion of the American transcontinental railroad. The railroad companies laying the tracks relied heavily on Chinese immigrant workers.

October 24, 2017

Yesterday, October 23, the Philippine military announced the end of a bloody five-month campaign to oust Abu Sayyaf and Maute Islamic rebels from Marawi City on the southern Philippine island of Mindanao. Filipino soldiers had been clearing the last rebels from the battered city since President Rodrigo Duterte declared Marawi “liberated from terrorist influence” on October 17. Duterte’s declaration came the day after the killing of the rebels’ main leaders, Isnilon Hapilon and Omarkhayam Maute. The Abu Sayyaf and Maute groups both have close ties to the Islamic State terror organization.

Filipino soldiers walk through the ruins of Marawi City on Oct. 17, 2017, the day President Rodrigo Duterte declared the city liberated from Islamic militant rebels. Credit: © Ted Aljibe, AFP/Getty Images

Marawi is the capital and only city in the province of Lanao del Sur on Mindanao. The city, officially known as the Islamic City of Marawi, and surrounding province have long been home to a significant Muslim community (most Filipinos are Roman Catholic). Marawi’s religious roots go back some 500 years, when the area was part of a sultanate linked to Islamic areas in nearby Indonesia and Malaysia.

Marawi, a city of 200,000 people, and Lanao del Sur are part of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, the nation’s only self-governing region. However, Abu Sayyaf, meaning father of the swordsman in Arabic, has been in conflict with the national government since 1991 when it was part of an armed movement vying for complete independence. Abu Sayyaf has fought pitched battles against Philippine soldiers, and the group is notorious for bombings, kidnappings, and high-profile executions.

In late May 2017, Philippine security forces tried to capture Hapilon, the Abu Sayyaf leader, in Marawi, and a protracted gun battle erupted with Hapilon’s followers. Allying with the Maute group, a newer Islamic armed faction fed by extremists from Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore, Abu Sayyaf seized control of government buildings and other key points in Marawi. President Duterte responded by ordering a full-scale military campaign to reclaim Marawi from the Islamic rebels. He later declared martial law in all Mindanao.

Fighting began immediately as Philippine troops arrived to retake the city, which was emptied of its civilian population by mass evacuations. Street fighting slowly went the government’s way as air strikes pulverized rebel positions—along with much of the city. Block by block, rebels were rooted out and killed or captured. As rebel control shrank to a few isolated buildings, government troops finally cornered Hapilon, along with Maute, and killed them both in a gunfight on October 16. A week later, the military announced the end of 154 days of fighting that killed more than 900 rebels and some 300 troops and civilians.

The rebel hold on Marawi has ended, but much of the city is in ruins, and both the Abu Sayyaf and Maute groups maintain a strong following in much of Lanao del Sur. The long fight against Islamic rebels in Mindanao may be long from over.

May 12, 2017

Last month, scientists in the Philippines found the first living specimens of giant, bizarre, and slimy shipworms. Until then, only fossilized remains of shipworms had been found. These remains usually consisted of a long, white, calcium carbonate shell left behind after the animal had bored deeply into wood (especially wood on piers or ships, hence the name) and eventually died. These rare and reclusive creatures, which feed on the wood, had never been found alive, but scientists knew they were out there somewhere.

A sleek, slimy giant shipworm waits patiently for examination in a laboratory on the south Philippine island of Mindanao in April 2017. Credit: © Marvin Altamia, Marine Science Institute

Shipworms are not worms, but rather bivalve (hinge-shelled) mollusks related to clams and mussels. In fact, young shipworms look like tiny clams and move about freely. As they develop, however, they begin their curious adulthood by attaching themselves to wood (usually) and beginning to bore a tunnel. They dig deeper as they grow older, and line the tunnels with a calcium carbonate shell. Fully grown shipworms are, on average, about the size of a baseball bat, but some of these critters can reach 6 feet (1.8 meters) in length. Shipworms do not do much else. They sustain themselves by drawing in water with tubelike organs called siphons. The water is drawn in through one siphon, pushed through the shipworms’s gills, and finally expelled out the other.

These first-ever live shipworm specimens were not found in wood, where their shell remains are so often found, but rather in a shallow, murky lagoon in the Philippines. Apparently, these unusual marine creatures will screw themselves into dense mud—areas of rich marine sediment—as well as wooden piers and ships.

The live shipworms surprised scientists with their choice of lodging, but there was still more to learn. The color of the animal (without its shell) is not what the scientists expected. Instead of being grayish, tan, pink, brown, or light beige (like most other bivalve mollusks), the shipworm is gunmetal black. The giant shipworm is also much more muscular than any other bivalve the scientists have studied. But one of the most unique new things learned about the giant shipworm is its diet. Rather than relying on decaying wood for food, these lagoon shipworms use bacteria in their gills to create energy from an extremely poisonous gas called hydrogen sulfide that is in the seawater. This energy is then used to turn carbon dioxide into nutrients for the shipworm. This rare ability to form energy from chemical reactions rather than from light (as in photosynthesis) is called chemosynthesis. It allows shipworms to survive in such harsh environments as muddy lagoon bottoms or hydrothermal vents on the ocean floor.

To Dan Distel of Northeastern University’s marine science center, the shipworm discovery is akin to finding a living dinosaur, because previous shipworms had only been known by their fossils. Distel co-wrote a study on the newly found shipworms published recently in the journal PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Science). To British biologist Simon Watt, president of the semiserious Ugly Animal Preservation Society, the giant shipworm “might well be monstrous, but that does not mean that it isn’t marvelous.”