Our History

The School

In 2015, The Filipino School opened its doors to an eager community in San Diego, California. One of the top 10 metropolitan areas by Filipino population in the country. It would be the first of its kind to offer Philippine and Filipino-focused education on language, culture, and the arts.

Its mission is to build and uplift the Filipino nation. Defining the latter as Filipinos wherever they are in the world.

Special events, seminars, and classes were held at the School and it became a significant part of the community. Even a force to reckon with when it comes to issues that matter to Filipino Americans.

In 2016, inspired by the immersion experience for young Jews called Birthright, The School created Filgrimage. A multi-day trip to the Motherland that brought scores of Filipinos from America, across multiple backgrounds, to see the Philippines. It’s a landmark moment for participants, many of whom had visited the Philippines for the first time. They felt it was a turning point where they finally understood their heritage and identity as Filipinos.

In the Spring of 2020, when COVID-19 had become a pandemic that radically altered the way we live, The Filipino School adapted to new realities by using a more accessible and scalable medium: digital storytelling.

In October of that year, in partnership with the Philippines’ largest broadcast network ABS-CBN, Filgrimage: The Digital Series was released and made available on Amazon Prime. The docuseries follows the journey of eight Filipino-Americans as they rediscover their identity through The School‘s immersion experience.

A groundbreaking work of its kind, The Filipino Story: An Animated Series also began production. The six-episode series presents Filipino history and culture from our own prism and is designed to entertain, educate, awaken, and empower a generation to a new sense of self; inspiring them to be who they are as a people.

Now nearing its ten-year milestone, The Filipino School’s mission to build and uplift the Filipino nation is unchanged. And it’s a supreme priority, that in everything it does, the Filipino values of Bayanihan, kapwa, and kabutihang loob is embodied and imparted.