Teresita Ang See | |
|---|---|
| 洪玉華 | |
| Born | (1949-12-25)December 25, 1949 (age 75) |
| Nationality | Filipino |
| Spouse | |
Teresita Ang See (Chinese:洪玉華[1];pinyin:Hong Yuhua[2]) is Filipino civic leader and activist who focuses on issues affecting theChinese Filipino community.
Teresita Ang See or Hong Yuhua was born inManila,Philippines, on December 25, 1949.[2] She had a father who is a Chinese immigrant fromFukien (now Fujian) and a Filipino-citizen mother. She had eleven siblings.[3] Her father Jose Ang moved to Manila as eight year old child to work in a restaurant inDivisoria while her mother Carmen DavenportBarraca is a college-educated Filipino-Americanmestiza. Teresita's parents married during theJapanese occupation of thePhilippines.[2] She spent her early years inMalabon.[3]
Teresita's father died at age 44, when the eldest child was still 16 years old and the wife is still pregnant with the eleventh child. Her mother worked as a cigarette factory worker and as a seamstress while all eleven children also contributed to the family livelihood.[3]
The Ang See family moved toBinondo inManila, which led to Teresita's enrollment to theChiang Kai-shek College. She is already a working student at the time.[3]
For her tertiary education she attended theUniversity of the Philippines amidst theFirst Quarter Storm. Under oldPhilippine nationality law, Ang See was a Chinese citizen by virtue of her father's citizenship preventing her to openly participate in protests due to risked to getting deported to China. She has no close relatives in China. It was only when she reached 18 years old when she elected to be a Filipino citizen which is possible through her maternal parentage.[3]
She pursued graduate studies at theUP Asian Center.[3]
After her graduate studies, Ang See joined the Federation Of Filipino Chinese Chambers Of Commerce & Industry (FFCCCI) as a research assistant.[3]
She joined the Pagkakaisa sa Pag-unlad.[3] Pagkakaisa was founded in 1971, a group which advocated forjus soli citizenship ofethnic Chinese and their integration in mainstream Philippine society. Pagkakaisa was dissolved in 1976 duringMartial law era under president and dictatorFerdinand Marcos after it wastagged as a Communist front.[4]
Revival efforts of the organization started after theassassination ofNinoy Aquino in 1983 which eventually became known as the Kaisa Para sa Kaunlaran.[4] She and her husband Chin Ben See translated material critical to the Marcos administration sourced from the "mosquito press" which they clandestinely distributed.[5] This was done to encourage dissent against the Marcos administration among the Chinese Filipino community which has a reputation to be apolitical.[4]
Ang See supportedCorazon Aquino in the1986 Philippine snap presidential election against the incumbent Marcos.[3] Kaisa was formally re-established in August 1987.[4]
In the early 1990s, kidnapping was a significant issue among the Chinese Filipino community.[4] Kaisa founded the Movement for Restoration of Peace and Order (MPRO) in January 1993, an effort against kidnap for ransom crime in the country.[6] They mobilize a funeral attended by at least one hundred thousand for the teenage victim Charlene Sy.[3] The Citizens Action Against Crime was also organized.[4]
Ang criticized the line of questioning around the Senate inquiry onAlice Guo's citizenship and involvement inPhilippine Offshore Gaming Operator (POGO) which she described as a "zarzuela". She pointed out that Guo's language proficiency or the lack of thereof is not an indicator of her citizenship.[7] She also notedSinophobia against Chinese Filipinos resulting from the buzz.[8]
Ang was critical of deliberation of politicians and reports of the media over the significant amount of Chinese students enrolled in Cagayan in 2024. She says that suggestions that the students are spies is "dangerous and unfortunate" and is a manifestation of Sinophobia and racism.[9]
Chinese nationalDeng Yuanqing was detained by Philippine authorities in January 2025 for allegedly mapping sensitive military sites in Luzon.[10] Ang was skeptical on about the accusation and insist its an "iffy conclusion" that Deng was committing espionage just because he has "road surveying instruments in his car". She dismissed accusations and speculations against Deng as "conspiracy theories" that only serves to stir tensions onPhilippines-China relations.[11] She called for a fair probe with Deng's sister saying he is just a labor contractor for a driving technology company working on a road-testing project in the Philippines.[12]
Ang See was married Chinben See, an ethnic Chinese scholar and anthropologist who is a co-founder of Kaisa. Their marriage lasted from 1975 to 1986 when Chinben died of liver cancer.[3]