Philippines

The Philippines is an island country in Southeast Asia in the Pacific Ocean. It has 7,641 islands. The capital city of the Philippines is Manila.

Spain (15211898) and the United States (1898–1946) colonized (controlled) the country and Palau, which is on the eastern side of the Philippine Sea. The Philippines and East Timor are the only countries in East Asia in which most of the people are Christians. The Philippines got independence when the United States left in 1946.

Regions and states

Local Government. The parts of Philippines are “local government units” (LGUs). The province is the top unit. There are 82 provinces in the country (2022). In the provinces there are cities and municipalities (towns). In these municipalities there are smaller barangays (villages). The barangay is the smallest local government unit.

All provinces are in 17 regions for administration (organisation). Most government offices have regional offices for the provinces. The regions do not have a separate local government, except for the Muslim Mindanao and Cordillera regions, which have their own power (autonomous government).

Regions

¹ Names are capitalized because they are acronyms, containing the names of the constituent provinces or cities.

Geography

The Philippines has 7,641 islands. Together there are about 300,000 square kilometers of land. The islands are in three groups: Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao. Luzon is the largest island and Mindanao is the second largest. The Visayas are the group of islands in the central part of the Philippines. The busy port of Manila, on Luzon, is the country’s capital and it is the second-largest city after Quezon City. Cebu City and Davao City are the largest cities in Visayas and Mindanao, respectively.

The climate is hot, humid (there is a lot of water in the air), and tropical. The average temperature all year is around 26.5 °Celsius. Filipinos usually say there are three seasons: Tag-init or Tag-araw (the hot season or summer from March to May), Tag-ulan (the rainy season from June to November), and Tag-lamig (the cold season from December to February).

The Philippines is in the Pacific Ring of Fire (zone of frequent earthquakes and volcanic eruptions). Most of the mountainous islands had a lot of tropical rainforests a long time ago. They started as volcanoes. The highest place is Mount Apo on Mindanao at 2,954 m. Many volcanoes in the country, for example Mount Mayon, are active. The country also has about 19 typhoons per year.

Taal Volcano is an island in Taal Lake. It is in an ancient caldera in Batangas Province. It is about 2 hours by bus going south from Manila. The jump-off point in Talisay is suitable for day trips and overnighters.

History

Human beings came to the Philippines 30.000 years ago. They came from Asia. Scientists think they came on a land bridge during the ice age. The sea level was very low then. By the 900s c.e. there were villages in the Philippines. Chinese sailors from China and Muslim sailors from Borneo came to trade with the villagers.

In 1521, Ferdinand Magellan claimed the Philippines for Spain. That means he said they belonged to Spain, but the Filipinos did not agree or sign a treaty. Because the king of Spain at the time was King Philip II, the islands are called the Philippines. The Spanish built farms in the Philippines, but many Filipinos did not want Spain to rule them. For example, Jose Rizal wrote about why he did not like Spanish rule. The Spanish government killed him.

Rebels began to fight the Spanish government and were still fighting when the Spanish-American War began in 1898. During the Spanish-American War, American Commodore George Dewey started to capture Manila on 5 May, but he did not finish right away. Because messages were slow in 1898, Dewey captured Manila one day after the truce began. The United States paid Spain US $20 million and took the Philippines.

In 1899, the Philippine–American War began. They started fighting on 4 February 1899, two days before the treaty between the United States and Spain. The Americans and Filipinos fought each other. President Emilio Aguinaldo led the Filipinos. There were cruel acts. For example, American soldiers would kill Filipinos even if they were not fighting. About 20,000 Filipino fighters and about 200,000 Filipino non-fighters died. Only about 4.200 Americans died. In 1902, the United States won. There were more fightings later.

The United States government decided that the Philippines should be an independent country but not right away. In 1907, the Philippines had elections for its first assembly. In 1916, the United States promised in the Jones Act to make the Philippines an independent country. In 1935, the Philippines became a United States commonwealth. This meant the Filipinos had more control over the Philippines than before but they were not an independent country.

During World War II, the Imperial Japanese Navy came to the Philippines. The United States Army was not ready to stop the Japanese and so it left. The Japanese Empire captured the country. The Japanese soldiers took away the food of the Filipinos, who people starved. The Filipinos used guerrilla warfare to fight the Japanese. Later in the war, the Americans came back. The Americans and Filipinos fought the Japanese together and led by American general Douglas MacArthur .

After World War II, the United States and the Philippines agreed that the Philippines should be an independent country. The Philippines became independent in 1946. It became the Republic of the Philippines.

The United States military did not leave all of the Philippines. The United States and Philippines signed a treaty in 1947. That treaty said the United States could build a military base in the Philippines. Subic Bay and Clark Air Force Base were the largest American military bases outside the United States. They were important during the Cold War. Many Filipinos did not like the bases.

During the Cold War the United States did not like Communism. It would support almost any government that was not Communist, even if it was very bad in other ways. The Marcos family became leaders of the Philippines for many years. The Filipinos elected Ferdinand Marcos in 1965. Later, he declared martial law and dismissed the assembly. That meant that the Filipinos had almost no freedom and could not vote for new leaders. Communist groups and Muslim groups tried to take control, but the United States helped Marcos stop them.

In 1986, the Filipinos stopped Marcos. They wrote a new constitution for the country. In the early 1990s, Subic Bay and Clark Air Force Bases were closed. There was still corruption but not as much as with Marcos.

The return of democracy and government reforms which began in 1986 were hampered by national debt, government corruption, and coup attempts. A communist insurgency and military conflict with Moro separatists persisted; the administration also faced a series of disasters, including the eruption of Mount Pinatubo in June 1991.

Growing public frustration with post-EDSA governance led to the 2016 election of populist Rodrigo Duterte, whose presidency saw an anti-drug campaign that reduced drug proliferation but that has also led to extrajudicial killings. Marcos’s son, Bongbong Marcos, ran with Duterte’s daughter, Sara, and won the 2022 election.

Problems

There are many environmental problems in the Philippines. One of them is overfishing in many areas, which has led to pitiful catches. Another problem is that only 10% of the sewage is treated and cleaned, while the other 90% is dumped back to nature and the ocean, which leads to pollution. Deforestation is a serious problem, and after decades of cutting down forests, illegal logging and forest fires, there is only 3% left of original forest cover. Forest losses have also affected the Philippines with serious soil erosion, which is threatening the Philippines biodiversity.

Economy

The Philippines is a developing country. In 1998 the Philippine economy—a mixture of agriculture, light industry, and support services—deteriorated because of the effects of the Asian financial crisis and poor weather conditions. The economy’s growth fell to 0.6% in 1998 from 5% in 1997, but recovered to about 3% in 1999 and 4% in 2000. As of 2012, it is estimated at 6.6%.

The Government has promised to continue its economic reforms to help the Philippines match the pace of development in the newly industrialized countries of Southeast Asia. The strategies are improving infrastructure, fixing the tax system to help the government income, supporting deregulation (to remove government control) and privatization of the economy, and increasing trade within the region. Future prospects depend heavily on the economic performance of the three major trading partners, China, the United States and Japan.

People

Around 116.8 million people live in the Philippines as of 2025. Most people in the Philippines are of Austronesian stock. The ethnic Chinese, who have helped run businesses since the 9th century, also live in the country. Its now 105 million people there. The Negritos live in the mountains of Luzon and Visayas. Luzon has a lot of mestizo people, a Spanish term for someone of mixed Hispanic and native blood.

The people of the Philippines are known as Filipinos. Filipinos are divided into many groups, the three largest are the Tagalogs, Cebuanos, and the Ilocanos. When the Philippines was a colony, the term “Filipino” used to mean the Spanish and Spanish-mixed minority. But now everyone who is a citizen/national of the Philippines is called “Filipino”. Even then, it is still has the most diverse ethnic groups in Asia, the other being Indonesia. People also call Filipinos “Pinoy” for short.

Languages

Filipino and English are the official languages. Filipino is based largely on Tagalog, a native language spoken in Metro Manila and neighboring provinces. The Filipino language, is a cousin of the Malay language. Other local languages and dialects are Cebuano and Ilocano and many others. English is used in government, schools and business. Other languages are Chinese which is spoken by the ethnic Chinese population and the ChineseFilipinos. Most of the Muslims live deep in southern Mindanao and the smaller islands off of the southern Philippine mainland near Malaysia’s northeastern tip. They also speak Arabic as a second language but to a small extent. Spanish, once the official language of the Philippines in the 1970s is also spoken by a notable minority of Filipinos.

Culture

Before the Spanish arrived, the Filipinos did not think of themselves as one culture. Most of the Philippines were Buddhist, Muslim and Hindu. The Spaniards came in 1565, and brought with them Spanish culture. They soon spread to the islands making forts and schools, preaching Christianity, and converting most of the native people to the Catholic religion. When the United States colonized the islands in 1898, the Americans brought with them their own culture, which has the strongest influence up to now. This makes the Philippines the most Westernized country in eastern Asia. The Spanish culture in the Philippines is not directly from Spain but from Mexico, as the Philippines were ruled by Spain via Mexico. It was governed from Mexico City which explains much of the Spanish influence in the Philippines. Also, the Spanish that was spoken in the Philippines was Mexican Spanish, not European Spanish. A lot of the foods in the Philippines can also be found in Mexico. Filipinos, as a tradition, usually eat with their hands, like that of Malay tradition. And most of Filipino cuisine is also of Malay influence for the most part.

Each year major festivities called barrio fiestas are held. They commemorate the Patron saints of the towns, villages and regional districts. The festivities includes church services, street parades, fireworks displays, feasts, dance/music contests, and cockfights. Circumcision of males is a tradition and a big cultural event called Tuli, nearly 91.7% are circumcised.

Media

Philippine media primarily uses Filipino and English, although broadcasting has shifted to Filipino. Television shows, commercials, and films are regulated by the Movie and Television Review and Classification Board. Most Filipinos obtain news and information from television, the Internet, and social media. The country’s flagship state-owned broadcast-television network is the People’s Television Network (PTV). ABS-CBN, GMA and TV5, both free-to-air, were the dominant TV networks; before the May 2020 Philippine government denial of ABS-CBN’s franchise renewal, it was the country’s largest network. Philippine television dramas, known as teleseryes and mainly produced by ABS-CBN, GMA and TV5, are also seen in several other countries.

Religion

Most of the people in the Philippines are Christians. About 92% of the people are Christians. Most people in the Philippines belong to the Roman Catholic faith (70%). A sizable percentage of the people are Protestants (many diverse Christian denominations) (17%), Iglesia ni Cristo (2%), Muslims (5-10%), Buddhists (2%). There are also some Hindus and some other minor religions with fewer adherents (6.6%).