Asian Descent > Philippines Archives

Gabriela Silang

María Josefa Gabriela Cariño de Silang was a Filipino military leader remembered for her leadership in the Ilocano independence movement against Spanish colonial rule.

Feminist, lawyer, social reformer and human rights activist Concepción Felix Roque founded one of the Philippines’s first women’s organisations, Asociación Feminista Filipina, and one of the first humanitarian organisations, La Gota de Leche, focused on the well-being of mothers and their children.

Corazon Aquino

Corazon “Cory” Aquino went from a shy law school student, to the first female president of the Philippines. Supported by the People Power Revolution, Aquino successfully ran a peaceful movement that eventually led her to become TIME Magazine’s Person of the Year in 1986. The only other woman that received that honor at the time was Queen Elizabeth II in 1952.

Narcisa de León

Narcisa Buencamino-De León was a Filipino businesswoman and film producer who navigated her family-owned LVN Pictures (which she co-founded in the 1930s) into a major force in post-World War II Philippine cinema, operating until 2005.

Teresa Magbanua

Teresa Magbanua was a Filipino schoolteacher and military leader at the turn of the 20th century. When the 1896 Philippine Revolution against Spain broke out, she joined the Panay-based Visayan branch of the Katipunan, the initially secret revolutionary society headed by Andrés Bonifacio.
Despite opposition from her husband, Magbanua took up arms against the Spaniards, leading troops into combat and winning several battles under the command of General Martin Delgado. She is credited as the only woman to lead troops in the Visayan area during the Revolution. Afterward, Magbanua shifted to fighting American colonial forces during the Philippine–American War.
She is one of the few Filipinos to have participated in all three resistance movements against Spain (in the Philippine Revolution), the United States (in the Philippine-American War), and Japan (in World War II). While not an active fighter during World War II, Magbanua did what she could to resist Japanese forces during their occupation of the Philippines. She sold her personal belongings to purchase food and supplies, which she would then give to the local guerrillas, and sold her property in Iloilo to help finance the fighters.