Archaeological evidence shows the existence of trade between the Indian subcontinent and the Philippine Islands at least since the ninth and tenth centuries B.C.
[5]: 177 [6][7] 20,000 were Chinese migrant traders,[8] at different times: around 15,600 individuals were Latino soldier-colonists who were cumulatively sent from Peru and Mexico and they were shipped to the Philippines annually,[9][10] 3,000 were Japanese residents,[11] and 600 were pure Spaniards from Europe.
[4] India had greatly influenced the many different cultures of the Philippines through the Indianized kingdom of the Hindu Majapahit and the Buddhist Srivijaya.
Indian presence in the Philippines has been ongoing since ancient times along with the Japanese people and the Han Chinese and Arab and Persian traders, predating even the coming of the Europeans by at least two millennium.
[16] The semi-legendary first Rajah and founder of Cebu, Sri Rajahmura Lumaya, whose existence is only confirmed through oral tradition in the Cebuano epic Aginid, Bayok sa atong Tawarik, was said to be of Tamil and Malay ancestry from Sumatra.
[17] By the 17th century, Gujarati merchants with the aid of Khoja and Bohri ship-owners had developed an international transoceanic empire which had a network of agents stationed at the great port cities across the Indian Ocean.
Sikhs are involved largely in finance, money lending (locally called Five – six[23]), sales and marketing.
[29] 3 percent equates to nearly 3,300,000[30] Filipinos living in Philippines having full or partial Indian descent as of June 2020.
[2] The integration of Southeast Asia into Indian Ocean trading networks around 2,000 years ago also shows some impact, with South Asian genetic signals present within some Filipino ethnic groups like the Sama-Bajau communities.
[14] A recent genetic study found 10-20% of Cebuano ancestry is attributable to South Asian (Indian) descent,[32] dated to a time when Precolonial Cebu practiced Hinduism.