The Philippines
By Matt Radford and Valerie Turner
Current Population: 100,998,376 (as of July 2015)
Basic Facts:
Capital: Manila
Official languages: Filipino and English
Currency: Philippine peso
GDP: $456.4 billion ($4,682 per capita)
Geography: The Philippine archipelago is composed of
7,107 islands
Pre-Spanish Era
● The Philippines were settled at least 30,000 years ago
● Not unlike the Greek city-states, the country was split into numerous barangays
○ Within the barangay existed a variety of social divisions consisting of
nobles, freemen, and dependent and landless agricultural workers and
slaves.
● Islam was introduced by traders and proselytizers from the Indonesian islands
○ The religion reached Manila in 1565
Spanish Era
Ferdinand Magellan arrives in the Philippines in 1521
Claimed the land for the King of Spain (King Charles I), but Magellan was killed by a
local chief shortly afterwards
Cebu: the first Spanish settlement (est. 1565)
Manila established in 1571
The colony renamed after King Philip II
The Roman Catholic Church (official religious institution of Spain) was responsible for
Christianizing the colony
Today, over 86% of the Philippines is still Roman Catholic
The Treaty of Paris gave the Philippines to the United States (Dec. 10th, 1898) after the
Spanish-American War.
American Era
The Philippines were granted limited self government at the local level in
1901.
In 1902 Philippine Organic Act was passed, coinciding with the official end
of the Philippine-American War.
This introduced a national government to the Philippines
The Japanese invasion in 1941 and the start of WWII delayed the granting
of independence.
Independent Era (part 1)
• Independence granted on July 4th 1946 - Manuel Roxas was the 1st
president
• Manuel Roxas: member of the Liberal party; one of the politicians who
collaborated with the Japanese during WWII
• March 1947: Treaty signed with the US granting the Philippines military aid,
training, etc.
• Ramon Magsaysay: elected president in 1953 - exacerbated tensions
between Christians in the north and Muslims in the south
• Ferdinand Marcos: elected president in 1965
• first term: focused in public works
• 1967: Philippines helped founded ASEAN
• second term: 1969 - economic growth in the Philippines slowed
• 1968-1969: communist insurgencies and muslim insurgencies
• 1972-1981: Marcos implemented martial law
Independent Era (part 2)
Benigno Aquino Jr.: Marcos’ political rival and Liberal Party Leader
assassinated (allegedly) by men working for Marcos in 1983
Marcos’ support dropped - attempted to regain favor in 1986 election
Marcos proclaimed the winner, but key military leaders supported Aquino’s widow, Corazon
Aquino, instead
Ramos: elected 1992
Estrada (Ramos’ VP): elected 1998
forced out of office in 2001 after gambling accusations
Current President
Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III - son of Benigno Aquino Jr. and Corazon Aquino (elected 2010)
Ambassadors:
United States Ambassador to
the Philippines: Philip Goldberg
Filipino Ambassador to the
United States: Jose L. Cuisia
(left to right: Philip Goldberg,
John Kerry, Jose L. Cuisia)
Structure of Government
● The Philippines is a democratic republic with a presidential acting
as both the head of the state and head of the national
government.
● Similar to the US, there are three separate branches of
government.
○ Legislative
○ Judicial
○ Executive
● Elections are held every three years as of 1992.
Structure of Government
The constitution requires local autonomy to local governments
Local governments are produced by and for the provinces, cities, municipalities
and barangays.
Not all have political power and exist only for administrative roles.
Although local governments have a lot of autonomy, however much of their
funding comes from the national government
This makes the true level of their autonomy questionable.
Local governments are dependent on the national government unless they have
an alternate source of income such as property taxes.
Works Cited
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/rp.html
http://travel.state.gov/content/passports/en/country/philippines.html
http://c.tadst.com/gfx/600x400/philippines-flag.jpg?1
http://www.heritage.org/index/country/philippines
http://asiasociety.org/religion-philippines
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jose_L._Cuisia,_Jr.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Goldberg
http://media1.joyfuldev.org/2013/09/Rice-terasses.jpg
http://www.state.gov/img/13/56593/goldberg_545_1.jpg
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/65/Taft_Addressing_First_Philippine_Assembly_1907.jpg