Are Filipinos Asians or Pacific Islanders? Is the Philippines part of Southeast Asia, Oceania or the Pacific Islands?

Officially, of course, Filipinos are categorized as Asians and the Philippines as part of Southeast Asia. But describing Filipinos as Pacific Islanders isn’t necessarily wrong either. In fact, for a long time, Filipinos were known as Pacific Islanders.

The Philippines used to be called the Philippine Islands of the Pacific, and when the Americans first arrived more than a century ago, they described the Philippine Islands as ‘orphans of the Pacific.’

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Southeast Asia is defined as a purely geographical concept in the Philippines and Filipinos often don’t appreciate nor understand the cultural and religious practices of their neighbours. They’re also unaware of Indochina politics.

The Philippines was used as a launch pad by the United States during the Vietnam War. But while panic swept the rest of the region when Cambodia and Thailand almost went to war over a border dispute, the Philippines didn’t express any sense of alarm over the situation.

To Filipinos, their place in Southeast Asia is just an accident of geography. This is unfortunate, because the Philippines’ detachment from mainland Southeast Asia could have been maximized to exert political leadership in the region. By not being involved with the numerous squabbles in Indochina, the Philippines could have played the role of objective arbiter in the various regional conflicts and disagreements.

(CNN)President Joe Biden on Friday condemned rising hate crimes against Asian Americans in the wake of the mass shooting in the Atlanta area that left eight people dead, including six women of Asian descent.

Biden said hate crimes against Asian Americans have been "skyrocketing" since the coronavirus pandemic began more than a year ago and that the country cannot be silent in the face of the hate and violence.

"Our silence is complicity. We cannot be complicit. We have to speak out. We have to act," Biden said, speaking from Emory University in Atlanta.

He said Asian Americans have been "attacked, blamed, scapegoated and harassed. They've been verbally assaulted, physically assaulted, killed."

Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris traveled to Atlanta on Friday to meet with Asian American leaders in the wake of the deadly shooting. They had originally planned to travel to Atlanta to tout the benefits of the $1.9 trillion Covid-19 economic relief package that Biden recently signed into law, but the White House scrapped plans for a rally after the shooting.

"The conversation we had today with the (Asian American and Pacific Islander) leaders, and that we're hearing all across the country, is that hate and violence often hide in plain sight. It's often met with silence," Biden said. "That's been true throughout our history, but that has to change because our silence is complicity."

Biden urged Congress to pass the Covid-19 Hate Crimes Act, which he has said would expedite the federal government's response to hate crimes that have risen during the pandemic, support state and local governments to improve hate crimes reporting and make information on hate crimes more accessible to Asian American communities.

Biden and Harris did not explicitly state that they considered the shootings earlier this week a hate crime. But they noted that whatever the motivation of the shooter, the killings come amid rising hate crimes against Asian Americans in the United States.

"Racism is real in America and it has always been. Xenophobia is real in America and always has been -- sexism too," Harris said.

The vice president said: "For the last year, we've had people in positions of incredible power scapegoating Asian Americans -- people with the biggest pulpits spreading this kind of hate. Ultimately this is about who we are as a nation. This is about how we treat people with dignity and respect."