Culture wise I would agree that we have more things in common with Latin Americans that our Asian neighbors, but race is different Filipinos are mostly Asians with Spanish and Native American ancestry while an Argentine for example are mostly Europeans but not necessarily Spanish with Native American ancestry.(National Geographic Genome Project)

Upon reading some of the answer, I would understand why it would upset some Filipinos if they were told to build their own culture, We tried that by promoting Tagalog as our national language, it’s not successful because it’s not the mother tounge of majority of Filipinos, others refuse to use it they would rather speak English like the Cebuanos.

What are we going to do with our names? Pre-colonial Filipinos doesn’t have Last names, we could copy our neighbors but im guessing they won’t like it.

What are we going to eat? 80% of our food are of Spanish and Latin America origin. If someone is willing to go to the extreme we could follow what the Indonesians did to the Dutch, which means purge everything Dutch including the people(mixed race Indonesians). Are they successful in keeping their “original” culture? I believe so, but at what cost? Spanish influence is too strong,

In order to create a “true” Filipino culture you have to tear everything down and start from scratch. In my own opinion, It’s better to leave it the way it is, accept and embrace it. Spain united the Philippine Islands without them Philippines wouldn’t exist. Mindanao could have been part of Malaysia, Luzon could have been part of China,Japan etc. or Visayas could have been an entirely a different country.