23AndMe

The story in my genome, more than just Filipino
A history of people's belief is what I seek, so
Let me spit in this vial, extract nucleic acids
Illumina microarray unraveling the past with
A double helix repeated ATCG sequence
Meaning of a people's experience revealed in
Inherited melanocytes to express the melanin
Ancestors of the Atayal Taiwanese residents
Then wayfinding spread through all of Oceania
Traced by maternal haplogroups and mitochondria
SNPs exons introns tell the story of the tropical
Aeta indigenous animistic followers
Black curly haired Australo-melanesians
Beliefs in the spirits and one supreme being
Historians perceive them as if they were heathens
But they maintained peace with a different set of beliefs and
the rice terraces north of the port town in Manila
The home of the ancestral lineage of the Kalinga
The tribes of cordillera region and Sierra Madre
Original set claiming, Ifugao Banaue
Head-hunting vengeful, until a pact was written up
The oceanic version of gangbanging crips and bloods
In the south,the land of promise island of Mindanao
Hindus and animists but Muslims stayed in power
Sultanates on the coast with the Lumad inland
Isolated in the mountain regions with their kinsman
Meanwhile Manila had the trade with China
Hawking wares such gold, silk, copper and iron
Chieftains from Borneo, Datus and Rajahs
My brown forefathers worshiping the god Bathala
Taga ilog the River People spoke Tagalog
How did a culture so rich not last for tomorrow
Enter the conquistador, colonizer armadas
Took over the tropical, Archipelago for España
Part of the Manila Galleon, Acapulco to Philippines
That's how I got Native American in my genes
Not to mention Iberia, touch of Italian too
A kalinga queen probably raped by a Spanish dude
But that gave me a lighter complexion and tall stature
My pointed nose and long lashes, eyes not slanted
A rapists actions led to disdain for my accent
How a culture and language to this day can remain absent
How diversity devolves into a blank canvas
How a people can vanish into the past tense
Don't even have a surname, nope, that never lasted
Monikers picked out of catalogs for the purpose of taxes
You don't look like a Rivera, no I don't speak spanish
No bloodline or race nor do I know my own language
Went from Baybayin and Sanskrit to taglish
Went from diwatas and dwendes to burning plastic
Gabriella and Rizal tried their best to defend me
But the outcome was Marcos, GMA and Duterte
Further diluted proof and truth with Americana
An amalgam of Westernized culture and Espana
And I'm sorry that I appropriate black culture but
Colonizers gave me a complex that took my mother tongue
Brownness is a sin, Eskinol whiten skin
Take away your people's kindred spirit, your life within
Colorism taught me avoid the sun, but Apo-laki
Was the god of the sun, god of Eskrima Kali
Mayari, moon goddess, Tala star goddess
A matriarchal society that somehow was forgotten
And even my own people don't know what to call me
Whatever happened to the color kayumanggi
23AndMe traced back to all these lost genes
Whatever happened to the color kayumanggi
23andMe doesn't even know what to call me
Whatever happened to the color kayumanggi