RICA
DESIGNS
Philippines
Pearl of the Orient Seas
Timeline:
10th Century Filipinos trade with China
12th Century Filipinos trade with the Arabs
1521 Magellan reaches the Philippines and claims them for Spain
1565 Miguel Lopez de Legazpi leads an expedition to The Philippines and builds a fort there
1571 The Spaniards land in Luzona and found Manila. The Spanish set up a feudal system. Spanish friars convert the indigenous people to Christianity.
1762-62 The British occupy Manila
1872 A rebellion takes place in Cavite but it is soon crushed
1892 Jose Rizal founds Liga Filipina
1896 Another rebellion breaks out but the Spanish crush it
1898 The Philippines declare independence. However the USA plans to take over from Spain after winning a war with that country.
1899-1902 The USA fights Filipino patriots
1935 The Philippines are made semi-independent
1942 Japan occupies the Philippines
1945 The Americans recapture Manila
1946 The Philippines become independent
1965 Ferdinand Marcos becomes president of The Philippines
1972 Marcos declares martial law
1980 Benigno Aquino goes into exile
1983 Aquino returns to the Philippines but he is shot
1986 Marcos is forced to flee and Cory Aquino replaces him
1992 Fidel Ramos becomes president
1993 The Americans leave Subic Bay
2000 Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo becomes president of The Philippines
The name of the Philippines (Filipino/Tagalog: Pilipinas [pɪlɪˈpinɐs], Spanish: Filipinas) is a truncated form of The Philippine Islands, derived from the King Philip II of Spain in the 16th century. During the expedition of Ruy López de Villalobos to the Islands, Spanish sailor Bernardo de la Torre used the name Las Islas Filipinas in honour of the then Prince of Asturias, originally referring to the islands of Leyte and Samar.Despite the presence of other names, the name Filipinas (Philippines) was eventually adopted as the name of the entirearchipelago.
The official name of the Philippines, however, has changed throughout the course of its history. During thePhilippine Revolution, the state officially called itself República Filipina, now referred to as the First Philippine Republic. From the period of the Spanish–American War and the Philippine–American War until theCommonwealth, United States colonial authorities referred to the Philippines as the Philippine Islands, a direct translation of the original Spanish. It was during the American Period that the name "Philippines" began to appear, a name that was officially adopted.
Today the Philippines is an archipelago of 7,000 islands. However it is believed that during the last ice age they were joined to mainland Asia by a land bridge, enabling human beings to walk from there.
The first people in the Philippines were hunter-gatherers. However between 3,000 BC and 2,000 BC people learned to farm. They grew rice and domesticated animals. From the 10th AD century Filipinos traded with China and by the 12th Century AD Arab merchants reached the Philippines and they introduced Islam.
Then in 1521 Ferdinand Magellan sailed across the Pacific. He landed in the Philippines and claimed them for Spain. Magellan baptized a chief called Humabon and hoped to make him a puppet ruler on behalf of the Spanish crown. Magellan demanded that other chiefs submit to Humabon but one chief named Lapu Lapu refused. Magellan led a force to crush him. However the Spanish soldiers were scattered and Magellan was killed.
The Spaniards did not gain a foothold in the Philippines until 1565 when Miguel Lopez de Legazpi led an expedition, which built a fort in Cebu. Later, in 1571 the Spaniards landed in Luzon. Here they built the city of Intramuros (later called Manila), which became the capital of the Philippines. Spanish conquistadors marched inland and conquered Luzon. They created a feudal system. Spaniards owned vast estates worked by Filipinos.
Along with conquistadors went friars who converted the Filipinos to Catholicism. The friars also built schools and universities.
The Spanish colony in the Philippines brought prosperity - for the upper class anyway! Each year the Chinese exported goods such as silk, porcelain and lacquer to the Philippines. From there they were re-exported to Mexico.
The years passed uneventfully in the Philippines until in 1762 the British captured Manila. They held it for two years but they handed it back in 1764 under the terms of the Treaty of Paris, signed in 1763.
The Philippines in the 19th Century
In 1872 there was a rebellion in Cavite but it was quickly crushed. However nationalist feeling continued to grow helped by a writer named Jose Rizal (1861-1896). He wrote two novels Noli Me Tangere (Touch me Not) and El Filibusterismo (The Filibusterer) which stoked the fires of nationalism.
In 1892 Jose Rizal founded a movement called Liga Filipina, which called for reform rather than revolution. As a result Rizal was arrested and exiled to Dapitan on Mindanao.
Meanwhile Andres Bonifacio formed a more extreme organisation called the Katipunan. In August 1896 they began a revolution. Jose Rizal was accused of supporting the revolution, although he did not and he was executed on 30 December 1896. Yet his execution merely inflamed Filipino opinion and the revolution grew.
Then in 1898 came war between the USA and Spain. On 30 April 1898 the Americans defeated the Spanish fleet in Manila Bay. Meanwhile Filipino revolutionaries had surrounded Manila. Their leader, Emilio Aguinaldo declared the Philippines independent on 12 June. However as part of the peace treaty Spain ceded the Philippines to the USA. The Americans planned to take over.
War between American forces in Manila and the Filipinos began on 4 February 1899. The Filipino-American War lasted until 1902 when Aguinaldo was captured.
The Philippines in the 20th Century
American rule in the Philippines was paternalistic. They called their policy 'Benevolent Assimilation'. They wanted to 'Americanize' the Filipinos but they never quite succeeded. However they did do some good. Many American teachers were sent to the Philippines in a ship called the Thomas and they did increase literacy.
In 1935 the Philippines were made a commonwealth and were semi-independent. Manuel Quezon became president. The USA promised that the Philippines would become completely independent in 1945.
However in December 1941 Japan attacked the US fleet at Pearl Harbor. On 10 December 1941 Japanese troops invaded the Philippines. They captured Manila on 2 January 1941. By 6 May 1942 all of the Philippines were in Japanese hands.
However American troops returned to the Philippines in October 1944. They recaptured Manila in February 1945.
The Philippines became independent on 4 July 1946. Manuel Roxas was the first president of the newly independent nation.
Ferdinand Marcos (1917-1989) was elected president in 1965. He was re-elected in 1969. However the Philippines was dogged by poverty and inequality. In the 1960s a land reform program began. However many peasants were frustrated by its slow progress and a Communist insurgency began in the countryside.
The Philippines consist of a large number of indigenous ethnic groups living in the country. They are the descendants of the original inhabitants of thePhilippines. They were not absorbed by centuries of Spanish and United States colonization of the Philippines archipelago, and in the process have retained their customs and traditions.
Demographics
In the 1990s, there were more than 100 highland tribal groups constituting approximately 3% of the population. The upland tribal groups were a blend in ethnic origin, like those in lowland areas of the country, although the upland tribal groups do not interact nor intermingle with the later.
Culture and Arts
They displayed a variety of social organization, cultural expression and artistic skills. They showed a high degree of creativity, usually employed to embellish utilitarian objects, such as bowls, baskets, clothing, weapons and spoons. The tribal groups of the Philippines are known for their carved wooden figures, baskets, weaving, pottery and weapons.
Ethnic Groups
Northern Philippines
These groups ranged from various Igorot tribes, a group that includes the Bontoc, Ibaloi, Ifugao, Isnag, Kalinga, Kankana-ey and Tinguian, who built theRice Terraces. They also covered a wide spectrum in terms of their integration and acculturation with lowland Christian and Muslim Filipinos. Native groups such as the Bukidnon in Mindanao, had intermarried with lowlanders for almost a century. Other groups such as the Kalinga in Luzon have remained isolated from lowland influence.
There were several indigenous groups living in the Cordillera Central of Luzon in 1990. At one time it was employed by lowland Filipinos in a pejorative sense, but in recent years it came to be used with pride by native groups in the mountain region as a positive expression of their ethnic identity. The Ifugaos of Ifugao province, the Bontocs, Kalinga, Tinguian, the Kankana-ey and Ibaloi were all farmers who constructed the rice terraces for many centuries.
Other mountain peoples of Luzon are the Isnags of the province of Apayao, the Gaddangs of the border between Kalinga, and Isabela provinces and theIlongots of Nueva Vizcaya province and Caraballo Mountains all developed hunting and gathering, farming cultivation and headhunting. Other indigenous people such as the Negritos formerly dominated the highlands throughout the islands for thousands of years, but have been reduced to a small population, living in widely scattered locations, primarily along the eastern ranges of the mountains.
Southern Philippines
In the southern Philippines, upland and lowland tribal groups were concentrated on Mindanao and western Visayas, although there are several indigenous groups such as the Mangyan living in Mindoro. Among the most important groups found on Mindanao are collectively called the Lumad, and includes theManobo, Bukidnon of Bukidnon province, Bagobo, Mandaya, Mansaka, Tagakaulo in who inhabited the mountains bordering the Davao Gulf; the Kalaganlives particularly in lowland area and seashore of Davao Del Sur, the Subanon of upland areas in Zamboanga; the Mamanua in the Agusan-Surigao border region; the B"laan, Teduray and Tboli in the region of the Cotabato province, and the Samal. Samal is synonymous with Luwa'an. Yakan is the indigenous tribe in the hinterlands of Basilan Province. In the lowland lives the Sama Banguingui tribe while in coastal areas there leave the nomadic Luwa'an. Sulu lowland areas are also home of the Sama Banguingui. The Sama or the Sinama and the Jama Mapun are the indigenous tribes in the province of Tawi-Tawi.
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