VP Sara has NO Jewish Bloodline!

The online blog Politiko, in a recent post, once more displayed the laziness that many journalists and pseudo-journalists in the Philippines today are wont to be. They rehashed an already debunked claim that the former wife of former President Rodrigo Roa Duterte, Elizabeth Abellana Zimmerman, was the child of a Jewish refugee in World War II. Using this "Jewish connection", Politiko and several other columnists have criticized Vice-President Sara Z. Duterte for opposing the request of the American government to temporarily provide shelter to 50,000 Afghans who are former employees of the US government during their occupation of Afghanistan while they fix their papers. The media has reminded VP Sara that her maternal family, the Zimmermans, benefitted from the benevolence of the Philippine government when her Jewish ancestor was one of German Jewish refugees who found refuge in the country during the Holocaust, so why is she opposing giving safe haven to the Afghans? But the question is, were the Zimmermans REALLY Jewish refugees during World War II, to begin with? 

When Vice-President Sara Duterte's father was elected President in 2016, one of the first state visits he made was to Israel. Our relationship with the State of Israel has always been quite special due to the refuge we gave to more than a thousand Jews escaping the Holocaust in Europe. It must be remembered that President Manuel L. Quezon opened our country’s doors to Jewish refugees from Europe during World War II and in so doing saved the lives of more than one thousand and three hundred Jews fleeing the Holocaust. Because of President Quezon’s bold move, known as the Philippines’s Open Door policy, his memory would forever be remembered and known to the Jewish people. He also guaranteed that the world will forever remember that Filipinos have always represented the spirit of compassion, solidarity, and humanity for a very long time, long before the Philippines had official immigration laws or became a State party to the 1951 Refugee Convention, being among the first to voluntarily provide asylum to successive waves of refugees fleeing persecution.

President Manuel L. Quezon with some Jewish refugees in Manila (from The Times of Israel)

So, naturally, their reception for President Duterte and then Mayor Inday Sara was more than just perfunctory; in fact, the Israelis were more than welcoming due to a claim made by PRRD that his former wife, and the mother of his three children, was the daughter of one of the Jewish refugees aaved by President Manuel L. Quezon's Operation Open Doors. The Israelis embraced Duterte and his daughter like one of their own, especially since the Israeli media made such a big deal of the so-called Jewish connection with a Philippine President. 

President Duterte and daughter Sara visiting the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial in 2018 (from The Times of Israel).

But all the hoopla about the Zimmermans being Jewish was nothing but the usual unverified oral history in a Filipino family plus the Philippine media's laziness to conduct a simple fact check of PRRD's claims of his former wife's Jewishness. While President Duterte cannot be blamed for believing in the Zimmerman family's oral history, we can put the blame of the media's refusal or inability to verify facts. Here are the facts: Elizabeth A. Zimmerman, the ex-wife of PRRD, was the daughter of two Filipinos: Godofredo Baldazo Zimmerman and Purisima Abellana. Elizabeth Zimmerman's father was born on November 18, 1916 in Hilongos, Leyte, Philippines, baptized on November 25, and died on June 26, 1993 in Davao City, Davao del Sur, Philippines. He was the son of George John Zimmerman and Cristeta Baldazo. Although he used Zimmerman as a last name all his life, both his birth and baptismal records list him under his mother's last name - Baldazo. His birth register in Hilongos, Leyte, while identifying him as illegitimate, does provide the name of his father: Geo. J. Zimmerman.

George John Zimmerman, the grandfather of Elizabeth, was born on January 17, 1890 in Peoria County, Illinois, USA to German immigrants, Michael August Zimmerman and Maria Augusta Wenzel.  Michael August Zimmermann, son of Andreas Zimmermann and Marie, was born on July 4, 1857 in Bayern, Germany and died on July 27, 1925 in Peoria, Peoria County, Illinois, USA. He married Maria Augusta Wenzel on July 12, 1883 in Peoria, Peoria County, Illinois, USA. Michael Zimmermann arrived in the United States in 1882. Michael Zimmermann was a tavern owner and true to his surname, also a carpenter. 

Michael A. Zimmerman

For most of his life, George John Zimmerman worked for Gordon & Ferguson Co. He prepared in Peoria H. S. and earned his AB in Business in Concordia College at the University of Illinois. He was a Phi Beta Kappa and Delta Kappa Chi. He worked with Hibbard, Spencer, Bartlett & Co. in Chicago; as a Supervising Teacher in Hilongos, Leyte; and was already with Gordon & Fergusan, in St. Paul in 1918. After the birth of his illegitimate child Godofredo in Leyte in 1916, he returned to the United States at the outbreak of World War I. His military registration card describes him as "tall", "slender", with brown hair and brown eyes. By World War II, he was already employed by the Bureau of Internal Revenue in Des Moines, Polk County, Iowa and was already married to Josephine Johnson. He is further described as standing 5'11" in height and weighing 155 lbs. 

Sometime after returning to the United States, George Zimmerman married Josephine Mathilde Johnson and they had 3 daughters: Helen May Zimmerman (married name Allyn), Georgiana Zimmerman (married name Ginn), and Josephine Zimmerman (married name Moseley). Descendants of George's daughters are scattered in Washington, Minnesota, and South Carolina.

The Zimmerman lineage of VP Sara comes from Unterlangau, Bavaria, Germany, and German and Jewish genealogists have written that "Zimmermann" (and its variant Zimmerman) is the German equivalent of the English surname carpenter, as it is derived from the profession. The fact that there ARE German Jews with the name Zimmermann does not make it Jewish in origin. Also, census data from the district of Oberviechtach between 1900 and 1939, of which Unterlangau was a part, shows that the district's population was overwhelmingly Catholic back then, with just a single-digit number of Jews. Furthermore, US census and other records list Michael Zimmerman and his family as congregants of the Lutheran Church.

The Zimmermans as Lutherans

And of course, DNA testing in both the Philippine Zimmermans and their half-relatives in the US have further disproven the Jewish claim. Results from their ancestral breakdown clearly do not show any Jewish heritage. A German-Jewish grandfather (as claimed by Filipino journalists) would have shown up as 25% Ashkenazi Jew, great-grandfather as roughly 12%. But the family's DNA result shows 0%, which means a non-Jewish ethnicity. 

The politics of welcoming the Afghan employees of the US government is not the subject of this article. But journalists and columnists must always make sure that before they use genealogical tidbit to make a political point, they must first do a fact check of the information they simply rehash, otherwise they'd end up looking lazy and stupid. The funny and sad thing is that the "Jewish connection" of the Dutertes came from PRRD's unverified oral history, which the Israeli media simply accepted, and then which became the source of Philippine media, as well. So much for journalistic integrity. 

BOOK REVIEW: Beyond Will & Power: A Biography of President Rodrigo Roa Duterte

As an addendum to my short review of Earl G. Parreño's "Beyond Will & Power: A Biography of President Rodrigo Roa Duterte", I am writing this commentary solely focusing on the genealogical aspects of Parreño's work. As I said in my review, this book is quite unique as it is the first writeup on President Duterte that neither adulates nor criticizes the President. In the author's own words during his interview, he wants the readers to reach their own conclusion. 

Due to the hype in traditional and social media, especially focusing on the alleged "Maranao lineage" of the president, and the revelation that the President's maternal grandfather, Eleno Roa, was actually originallly Eleno Fernandez, I was excited to read the book. And while the book as a whole did not disappoint me, the several genealogical inaccuracies did.

On Eleno Roa

In the first part of the book, the author narrates that Eleno Roa was an illegitimate son of a Eugenio Fernandez and an unknown Roa. Based on the birth record of Soledad Roa (President Duterte's mother), it can be calculated that Eleno was born in 1883. The birth register further states that his birthplace was Cebu City. This contradicts the book's narrative stating that Eugenio was from Talisay, which was separate from Cebu then as now. It is also almost improbable for an illegitimate child in the 1880s to bear his father's last name unless a legal declaration is made by the father in court acknowledging the child as his hijo natural. This was called as the reconocimiento de hijos naturales and the Jakosalem family did it to one of its members while Don Pedro Gotiaoco also did this for his daughter Modesta Singson Gaisano. Unfortunately, I could not find any record from the 1880s that would support this. Further research into Eleno's ancestry is needed, and more documentation should be made before believing the Fernandez connection.

On the Debunked Portuguese Claims of the Velosos

As I have already written several times, President Duterte's male line is actually Veloso, not Duterte. The author has a short discussion on the Velosos but the unfortunate thing is, he focused more on the claim of the Velosos to be of Portuguese extraction. Again, this was already debunked by renowned American historian Michael Cullinane in his 2015 journal article "The Myth of the Portuguese Ancestor: The Veloso Family of Nineteenth-Century Cebu". Through archival documentation, he established that as far as records show, the Velosos were not of Portuguese but rather Chinese mestizo stock. While Parreño briefly states in the end notes of Cullinane's research, the perpetuation of the Portuguese myth is a bit sloppy genealogically speaking. Like any serious historical research, one should not continue to claim something, no matter how famous or widespread, if no documentation or proof exists to support it.

Parreño also missed the opportunity to compare and contrast Duterte's Veloso connections to other presidents clan connections. It is undeniable that the Velosos have spread out all over the Philippines. In fact, many of Duterte's political opponents in the early part of his presidency, like Garin, Petilla, and others who were associated with President Aquino were in fact his cousins. The author could have expounded on the wide network of relatives that Duterte had that did not necessarily contribute to his victory, but also some who did help him out like the Ayalas of Davao, who are also Velosos, who supported Duterte throughout his mayoral years.

On the Almendras Family

I am glad that this book is the first to go into details just how much the Almendras family, originally from Danao as well, assisted in the transfer and success of the Dutertes in Davao. Although they had a falling out much later, it is a historical fact that Senator Alejandro Almendras was instrumental to the Duterte's move and later entry to politics in Davao. These were clearly discussed in Parreño's book.

However, the author once again made a genealogical mistake when he wrote on page 40 that "the Dutertes and the Almendrases were not directly related to each other, neither by blood nor by marriage". This is incorrect. The Almendras family has long known that they are related to the Dutertes through the Gonzales line. Paulo Almendras, who married Elisea Durano and who was the father of Senator Alejandro Almendras, was the son of Juan Almendras and Cecilia Gonzales. Cecilia's first cousin, Zoila, married Facundo Duterte. They were Vicente Duterte's parents, making Vicente and Alejandro second cousins once removed or, in Cebuano, pag-umangkon sa pag-agawan. It is also interesting that while Parreño concluded that there was no blood relation between the Dutertes and Almendrases, he cites a Davao newspaper article in page 102 of the book which clearly stated that Almendras and Duterte were cousins.

Because of this error, he was also unable to connect Prospero "Boy" Nograles to Duterte. For most Dabawenyos, the rivalry between Nograles and Duterte is legendary. Although later becoming allies, the book's discussions on the Nograles-Duterte political fights would have been richer had the author realized that Nograles's wife Rhodora was another pag-umangkon sa pag-agawan of President Duterte. That is also why the children of former Speaker Nograles and President Duterte call each other gaw (cousin).

The Carpio Connection

The author mentioned briefly that Sara Duterte, daughter of President Duterte, married Atty. Manases "Mans" Carpio. It would have been good to remind the readers that two of President Duterte's most vocal critics, former Ombudsman Conchita Claudio Carpio-Morales is in fact Sara's aunt-in-law while Supreme Court Associate Justice Antonio Carpio is a cousin.

The Jewish / Holocaust Connection

I have saved this genealogical boo-boo for last. In page 107, Parreño wrote that Elizabeth Zimmerman's father was "one of the Israeli refugees granted asylum by the Philippine government during the Second World War to escape Nazi Germany's bloody campaign against the Jews".

The Zimmerman surname is in fact a Germanic surname that most definitely has Jewish roots. However, Elizabeth's father was Godofredo B. Zimmerman, born on November 18, 1916 in Hilongos, Leyte. If the author had bothered to check on the birth record of Godofredo, he would have seen his error. Godofredo could not have been a Jewish refugee as he was born in the Philippines!

And although he used Zimmerman as a last name all his life, both Godofredo's birth and baptismal records list him under his mother's last name - Baldazo. His birth register in Hilongos, Leyte, while identifying him as illegitimate, does provide the name of his father: Geo. J. Zimmerman. This clue led us to his American father, George John Zimmerman, a Superintendent of Schools in Leyte who came to the Philippines in the early 1900s. It was George John Zimmerman's father, Michael August Zimmermann, who came to the United States from Bavaria, Germany. Also, while it is possible that the Zimmermann's in Germany had Jewish roots, the grandfather of Elizabeth and the rest of his family in America were all congregants of the Lutheran Church.

These observations are necessary to point out. The author did an amazing job in his research for the rest of the book. Sad that the genealogy he utilized for this book was most likely lifted from online sources that also continue to perpetuate these genealogical falsehoods due to sheer laziness. I hope future revisions to this book would seriously overhaul these genealogical errors.

P.S. I will not address the Maranao issue, which seems to be the focus of so many reporters. It is true that President Duterte has on many instances claimed to have Maranao blood. For those who have known President Duterte for a long time, he has the tendency to exaggerate or be hyperbolic in his statements. While the Marano lineage claim does appear to be false, Duterte comes from a generation that likes to claim to be descendants of great people. For instance, older generations of Bol-anons would always claim to be "descendants of Dagohoy" or kadugo ni Sikatuna. Cebuanos like to claim descent from Lapulapu. While majority of these claims are probably symbolic at best, Duterte, speaking for all Mindanaonons, could probably simply be talking in symbolism. Or if not, who knows why. To paraphrase Winston Churchill, "Rodrigo Duterte is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma". 

And if the reporters only bother to read, they would also come to this conclusion.