During the initial stage of the Spanish colonization of the Philippines which were around the 1600s, about 16,500 soldiers levied from Peru and Mexico were sent together with 600 Spanish officers to fight wars, settle, colonize and build cities and presidios in the Philippines. These 16,500 Peruvians and Mexicans supplemented the Native Malay Population which then reached 667,612 people. This initial group of Latin American soldier-settler founders had spread their genes among the sparsely populated Philippines. This resulted into a spread of Latin American admixture among Filipinos as evidenced by a large number of Filipinos possessing Native American ancestry. A Y-DNA compilation organized by the Genetic Company "Applied Biosystems" found that 13.33% of the Filipino Male Population sampled from across the country had Y-DNA of Latin American and Spanish origins.