nation draft The Philippines
Seven thousand islands, more than a hundred languages and one enormous extended family, shaped by Spain, America and Japan, held together by faith, humour and a diaspora that spans the world.
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Understanding a Filipino in 5 minutes
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Family is everything
For most Filipinos, the family, extended to cousins, godparents and close friends, is the centre of life and the main safety net. Values like utang na loob (a lasting debt of gratitude), hiya (a sense of shame and propriety) and kapwa (a shared self with others) shape how people treat each other. Elders are honoured with the mano gesture and polite "po". Decisions about work, money or migration are often made for the family, not the individual.
- From Colonial to Liberation Psychology: The Philippine Experience — Virgilio G. Enriquez, De La Salle University Press (1992)
- Servants of Globalization: Women, Migration, and Domestic Work — Rhacel Salazar Parreñas, Stanford University Press (2001)
- State and Society in the Philippines — Patricio N. Abinales and Donna J. Amoroso, Rowman & Littlefield (2017)
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Asia's great Catholic nation, and a Muslim south
Spanish friars made the lowland Philippines Catholic, and Filipinos made the faith their own. In the 2020 census 78.8% were Roman Catholic, with Iglesia ni Cristo, evangelical churches and other Christians adding more. Fiestas, Holy Week, the Black Nazarene and the Santo Niño fill the calendar. About 6.4% are Muslim, mostly in Mindanao and Sulu, with their own history of sultanates and resistance that the national story has not always included.
- Religious Affiliation in the Philippines (2020 Census of Population and Housing) — Philippine Statistics Authority (2023)
- Contracting Colonialism: Translation and Christian Conversion in Tagalog Society under Early Spanish Rule — Vicente L. Rafael, Cornell University Press (1988)
- Muslim Rulers and Rebels: Everyday Politics and Armed Separatism in the Southern Philippines — Thomas M. McKenna, University of California Press (1998)
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Three empires, one people
Spain ruled for over three centuries, the United States for nearly half of one, and Japan occupied the islands in the Second World War. Filipinos joke that they spent "three hundred years in a convent and fifty years in Hollywood". The result is a culture that blends Malay roots, Spanish Catholicism and American English and pop culture, and a long debate about what is authentically Filipino.
- State and Society in the Philippines — Patricio N. Abinales and Donna J. Amoroso, Rowman & Littlefield (2017)
- The Philippines: A Past Revisited — Renato Constantino, Tala Publishing (1975)
- In Our Image: America's Empire in the Philippines — Stanley Karnow, Random House (1989)
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A revolution, and heroes who died for it
In 1896 the Philippines launched Asia's first modern anti-colonial revolution against Spain and in 1898 declared independence, only to be taken over by the United States after a brutal war. José Rizal, executed in 1896, and Andrés Bonifacio, founder of the Katipunan, are national heroes. The sense that independence was won, lost and won again runs through Filipino nationalism.
- History of the Filipino People — Teodoro A. Agoncillo, Garotech (1990)
- Pasyon and Revolution: Popular Movements in the Philippines, 1840–1910 — Reynaldo C. Ileto, Ateneo de Manila University Press (1979)
- The Philippine-American War, 1899–1902 — Office of the Historian, U.S. Department of State
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A nation abroad
Around two million Filipinos work overseas at any time, as nurses, seafarers, domestic workers and engineers, and around ten million live abroad in all. Their remittances, about $38 billion in 2024, roughly 8% of GDP, build houses and pay school fees. Overseas workers are called "new heroes", but almost every family also knows the pain of separation.
- Survey on Overseas Filipinos — Philippine Statistics Authority (2024)
- Overseas Filipinos' Remittances — Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (2025)
- Migrants for Export: How the Philippine State Brokers Labor to the World — Robyn Magalit Rodriguez, University of Minnesota Press (2010)
- Servants of Globalization: Women, Migration, and Domestic Work — Rhacel Salazar Parreñas, Stanford University Press (2001)
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Democracy, strongmen and memory
Filipinos overthrew the dictator Ferdinand Marcos peacefully in the 1986 People Power revolution, a source of great pride. Yet strongmen remain popular: Rodrigo Duterte's violent drug war won wide support, and Marcos's son was elected president in 2022. How to remember martial law, and how to balance order against rights, are among the sharpest questions in Filipino life.
- The Anti-Marcos Struggle: Personalistic Rule and Democratic Transition in the Philippines — Mark R. Thompson, Yale University Press (1995)
- Philippines: statement on the anniversary of martial law (ASA 35/9139/2018) — Amnesty International (2018)
- "License to Kill": Philippine Police Killings in Duterte's "War on Drugs" — Human Rights Watch (2017)
- State and Society in the Philippines — Patricio N. Abinales and Donna J. Amoroso, Rowman & Littlefield (2017)
The story
Barangays & sultanates
900 – 1564 Barangays, datus and sultanates: the islands before Spain
Long before there was a "Philippines", the islands are home to seafaring communities led by datus, linked by trade to China, Southeast Asia and the Islamic world, with sultanates rising in the south.
- Barangay: Sixteenth-Century Philippine Culture and Society — William Henry Scott, Ateneo de Manila University Press (1994)
- Raiding, Trading, and Feasting: The Political Economy of Philippine Chiefdoms — Laura Lee Junker, University of Hawai'i Press (1999)
- The Laguna Copper-Plate Inscription: Text and Commentary — Antoon Postma, Philippine Studies 40(2) (1992)
- State and Society in the Philippines — Patricio N. Abinales and Donna J. Amoroso, Rowman & Littlefield (2017)
- History of the Filipino People — Teodoro A. Agoncillo, Garotech (1990)
Read more
- Barangay: Sixteenth-Century Philippine Culture and Society — William Henry Scott, Ateneo de Manila University Press (1994)
- Raiding, Trading, and Feasting: The Political Economy of Philippine Chiefdoms — Laura Lee Junker, University of Hawai'i Press (1999)
- The Laguna Copper-Plate Inscription: Text and Commentary — Antoon Postma, Philippine Studies 40(2) (1992)
- State and Society in the Philippines — Patricio N. Abinales and Donna J. Amoroso, Rowman & Littlefield (2017)
- History of the Filipino People — Teodoro A. Agoncillo, Garotech (1990)
Filipinos still call their smallest unit of government the barangay, after the boats that carried their ancestors, and many look to the pre-colonial past as proof of a civilisation before Spain. For Muslim Filipinos in the south, the sultanates of Sulu and Maguindanao are the root of a separate history that was never fully conquered.
The ancestors of most Filipinos were Austronesian-speaking seafarers who spread through the islands thousands of years ago, joining older Negrito populations. By the time written records appear, people lived in coastal and riverside communities called barangays, a word that also meant the plank-built boats, the balangay, in which they travelled.
Magellan, Cebu and the Battle of Mactan
Ferdinand Magellan's Spanish expedition reaches the islands, baptises the ruler of Cebu, and is defeated at Mactan by the chief Lapulapu, where Magellan is killed.
- The First Voyage Around the World (1519–1522): An Account of Magellan's Expedition — Antonio Pigafetta (ed. Theodore J. Cachey Jr.), University of Toronto Press (2007)
- History of the Filipino People — Teodoro A. Agoncillo, Garotech (1990)
- Barangay: Sixteenth-Century Philippine Culture and Society — William Henry Scott, Ateneo de Manila University Press (1994)
- The Philippines: A Past Revisited — Renato Constantino, Tala Publishing (1975)
Read more
- The First Voyage Around the World (1519–1522): An Account of Magellan's Expedition — Antonio Pigafetta (ed. Theodore J. Cachey Jr.), University of Toronto Press (2007)
- History of the Filipino People — Teodoro A. Agoncillo, Garotech (1990)
- Barangay: Sixteenth-Century Philippine Culture and Society — William Henry Scott, Ateneo de Manila University Press (1994)
- The Philippines: A Past Revisited — Renato Constantino, Tala Publishing (1975)
1521 means two things at once for Filipinos: the arrival of the Christianity that most of them now share, and the first recorded victory against a European invader. The 500th anniversary in 2021 was marked both as "500 Years of Christianity" by the Church and as a celebration of Lapulapu by the state.
In March 1521, after crossing the Pacific, a Spanish fleet commanded by the Portuguese navigator Ferdinand Magellan reached the islands of the Visayas. On 31 March, Easter Sunday, its chaplain said Mass on an island the Philippine government identifies as Limasawa, the first recorded Catholic Mass in the islands.
Lapulapu refused to submit or pay tribute and defeated the Spaniards, making him the first Filipino to resist colonial rule.
1521 is the moment the Christian faith was first planted, with the first Mass on Easter Sunday and the baptism of Cebu's rulers.
Spanish colony
1565 – 1895 Three centuries of Spanish rule and the making of a Catholic nation
From Legazpi's arrival in 1565, Spain unites most of the islands under a colonial government run largely through Catholic friars, turning the lowland population Catholic and creating the Philippines as a single country.
- State and Society in the Philippines — Patricio N. Abinales and Donna J. Amoroso, Rowman & Littlefield (2017)
- History of the Filipino People — Teodoro A. Agoncillo, Garotech (1990)
- The Philippines: A Past Revisited — Renato Constantino, Tala Publishing (1975)
- Contracting Colonialism: Translation and Christian Conversion in Tagalog Society under Early Spanish Rule — Vicente L. Rafael, Cornell University Press (1988)
- Pasyon and Revolution: Popular Movements in the Philippines, 1840–1910 — Reynaldo C. Ileto, Ateneo de Manila University Press (1979)
- The Propaganda Movement, 1880–1895 — John N. Schumacher, Ateneo de Manila University Press (1997)
Read more
- State and Society in the Philippines — Patricio N. Abinales and Donna J. Amoroso, Rowman & Littlefield (2017)
- History of the Filipino People — Teodoro A. Agoncillo, Garotech (1990)
- The Philippines: A Past Revisited — Renato Constantino, Tala Publishing (1975)
- Contracting Colonialism: Translation and Christian Conversion in Tagalog Society under Early Spanish Rule — Vicente L. Rafael, Cornell University Press (1988)
- Pasyon and Revolution: Popular Movements in the Philippines, 1840–1910 — Reynaldo C. Ileto, Ateneo de Manila University Press (1979)
- The Propaganda Movement, 1880–1895 — John N. Schumacher, Ateneo de Manila University Press (1997)
Spanish rule gave the Philippines its name, its majority faith, its town plazas and fiestas, and thousands of Spanish words in Filipino languages. It also left a resentment of the friars that fired the revolution, and a lasting divide with the Muslim south, which Spain never fully conquered.
In 1565 an expedition from Mexico under Miguel López de Legazpi landed in Cebu and began the conquest that Magellan had not. In 1571 Legazpi took the Muslim-ruled port of Manila and made it the capital of the new colony. The islands had already been named Las Islas Filipinas after the future King Philip II of Spain.
Spain brought Christianity, which Filipinos made deeply their own, along with writing in the Latin alphabet, universities and a shared identity across the islands.
Spanish rule was exploitation: forced labour, tribute, land grabbed by friar estates and a church that kept Filipinos subordinate.
José Rizal: the novels and the execution
A brilliant young doctor and writer publishes two novels exposing colonial abuses, is exiled, and is executed by firing squad in Manila, becoming the national hero.
- The First Filipino: A Biography of José Rizal — León Ma. Guerrero, National Heroes Commission (1963)
- The Propaganda Movement, 1880–1895 — John N. Schumacher, Ateneo de Manila University Press (1997)
- Under Three Flags: Anarchism and the Anti-Colonial Imagination — Benedict Anderson, Verso (2005)
- History of the Filipino People — Teodoro A. Agoncillo, Garotech (1990)
Read more
- The First Filipino: A Biography of José Rizal — León Ma. Guerrero, National Heroes Commission (1963)
- The Propaganda Movement, 1880–1895 — John N. Schumacher, Ateneo de Manila University Press (1997)
- Under Three Flags: Anarchism and the Anti-Colonial Imagination — Benedict Anderson, Verso (2005)
- History of the Filipino People — Teodoro A. Agoncillo, Garotech (1990)
Every Filipino student reads Rizal's novels; a 1956 law, passed over fierce objections from the Catholic hierarchy, made them compulsory. His face is on the one-peso coin, 30 December is Rizal Day, and his writings remain the touchstone for arguments about what it means to love one's country.
José Rizal, born in Calamba, Laguna, in 1861 to a prosperous family of Chinese and Filipino descent, studied in Manila, Madrid and Germany, and became a doctor, poet, linguist and sculptor. In Berlin in 1887 he published Noli Me Tángere ("Touch Me Not"), a novel depicting the cruelty and hypocrisy of the friars and colonial officials.
Revolution & first republic
1896 – 1898 The Philippine Revolution and the first republic
The secret society Katipunan launches an armed revolt against Spain; after a bitter internal split and a truce, Emilio Aguinaldo declares independence in 1898 and founds Asia's first constitutional republic, only for the islands to be sold to the United States.
- History of the Filipino People — Teodoro A. Agoncillo, Garotech (1990)
- Pasyon and Revolution: Popular Movements in the Philippines, 1840–1910 — Reynaldo C. Ileto, Ateneo de Manila University Press (1979)
- State and Society in the Philippines — Patricio N. Abinales and Donna J. Amoroso, Rowman & Littlefield (2017)
- Under Three Flags: Anarchism and the Anti-Colonial Imagination — Benedict Anderson, Verso (2005)
- The Philippines: A Past Revisited — Renato Constantino, Tala Publishing (1975)
- The End of the Spanish Empire, 1898–1923 — Sebastian Balfour, Oxford University Press (1997)
Read more
- History of the Filipino People — Teodoro A. Agoncillo, Garotech (1990)
- Pasyon and Revolution: Popular Movements in the Philippines, 1840–1910 — Reynaldo C. Ileto, Ateneo de Manila University Press (1979)
- State and Society in the Philippines — Patricio N. Abinales and Donna J. Amoroso, Rowman & Littlefield (2017)
- Under Three Flags: Anarchism and the Anti-Colonial Imagination — Benedict Anderson, Verso (2005)
- The Philippines: A Past Revisited — Renato Constantino, Tala Publishing (1975)
- The End of the Spanish Empire, 1898–1923 — Sebastian Balfour, Oxford University Press (1997)
Filipinos see the revolution as the birth of the nation, and 12 June, the day independence was declared in 1898, is Independence Day. The fate of Andrés Bonifacio, executed by fellow revolutionaries, still stirs debate about whether the revolution belonged to the masses or to the elite.
On 7 July 1892, the night Rizal's deportation was announced, Andrés Bonifacio and a few comrades founded a secret society in Tondo, Manila: the Kataastaasan, Kagalanggalangang Katipunan ng mga Anak ng Bayan, "the Highest and Most Venerable Association of the Children of the Nation".
Bonifacio, a self-educated warehouse clerk, founded the Katipunan and started the revolution.
The revolution needed unified military leadership, which Aguinaldo provided after his victories in Cavite. Bonifacio refused to accept the Tejeros election and was tried for sedition.
The Disaster of 1898
In a short war with the United States, Spain loses Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Philippines, the last of its overseas empire.
- The End of the Spanish Empire, 1898–1923 — Sebastian Balfour, Oxford University Press (1997)
- Spain: A History — Raymond Carr (ed.), Oxford University Press (2000)
- Catalan Nationalism: Past and Present — Albert Balcells, Macmillan (1996)
Read more
- The End of the Spanish Empire, 1898–1923 — Sebastian Balfour, Oxford University Press (1997)
- Spain: A History — Raymond Carr (ed.), Oxford University Press (2000)
- Catalan Nationalism: Past and Present — Albert Balcells, Macmillan (1996)
For Filipinos 1898 was no "disaster" but the year they declared independence, on 12 June, only to have Spain sell the islands to the United States for $20 million in the Treaty of Paris without a single Filipino at the table. It is the hinge between three centuries of Spanish rule and the American era.
After the US battleship Maine exploded in Havana harbour, the United States went to war with Spain in April 1898. The Spanish fleets were destroyed at Manila Bay and Santiago de Cuba, and in the Treaty of Paris that December Spain gave up Cuba, Puerto Rico, Guam and the Philippines.
The "Spanish–American War" was fought in a country whose own revolutionaries had already all but defeated Spain on land.
American colony & Commonwealth
1899 – 1941 The Philippine–American War
The United States fights the new Philippine Republic to take control of the islands; the war kills over 4,200 American and some 20,000 Filipino soldiers, and as many as 200,000 Filipino civilians die from violence, famine and disease.
- The Philippine-American War, 1899–1902 — Office of the Historian, U.S. Department of State
- The Philippine War, 1899–1902 — Brian McAllister Linn, University Press of Kansas (2000)
- The Blood of Government: Race, Empire, the United States, and the Philippines — Paul A. Kramer, University of North Carolina Press (2006)
- In Our Image: America's Empire in the Philippines — Stanley Karnow, Random House (1989)
- History of the Filipino People — Teodoro A. Agoncillo, Garotech (1990)
- The Philippines: A Past Revisited — Renato Constantino, Tala Publishing (1975)
Read more
- The Philippine-American War, 1899–1902 — Office of the Historian, U.S. Department of State
- The Philippine War, 1899–1902 — Brian McAllister Linn, University Press of Kansas (2000)
- The Blood of Government: Race, Empire, the United States, and the Philippines — Paul A. Kramer, University of North Carolina Press (2006)
- In Our Image: America's Empire in the Philippines — Stanley Karnow, Random House (1989)
- History of the Filipino People — Teodoro A. Agoncillo, Garotech (1990)
- The Philippines: A Past Revisited — Renato Constantino, Tala Publishing (1975)
Many Filipinos learn little about this war, which American textbooks long called the "Philippine Insurrection". Yet it explains a lot: why the friendship with America is real but complicated, why the return of the Bells of Balangiga by the United States in 2018 was a national event, and why some Filipinos insist the US was a conqueror, not a liberator.
On the night of 4 February 1899, an American sentry fired on Filipino soldiers in Manila and fighting broke out along the lines around the city. Two days later the US Senate narrowly ratified the Treaty of Paris annexing the islands. The young republic, which had expected recognition, found itself at war with the United States.
It was a war of conquest against a sovereign republic that had already won its independence from Spain.
President McKinley described US policy as "benevolent assimilation": the Filipinos were not ready for self-government, and the United States would educate and uplift them.
Historians now treat it as a full war of colonial conquest, marked by racialised violence on the American side.
American rule, the Commonwealth and independence in 1946
The United States builds schools, roads and elected assemblies, makes English the language of education and government, and promises independence, which comes on 4 July 1946 after the devastation of war.
- In Our Image: America's Empire in the Philippines — Stanley Karnow, Random House (1989)
- State and Society in the Philippines — Patricio N. Abinales and Donna J. Amoroso, Rowman & Littlefield (2017)
- The Blood of Government: Race, Empire, the United States, and the Philippines — Paul A. Kramer, University of North Carolina Press (2006)
- The Philippines: A Past Revisited — Renato Constantino, Tala Publishing (1975)
- History of the Filipino People — Teodoro A. Agoncillo, Garotech (1990)
Read more
- In Our Image: America's Empire in the Philippines — Stanley Karnow, Random House (1989)
- State and Society in the Philippines — Patricio N. Abinales and Donna J. Amoroso, Rowman & Littlefield (2017)
- The Blood of Government: Race, Empire, the United States, and the Philippines — Paul A. Kramer, University of North Carolina Press (2006)
- The Philippines: A Past Revisited — Renato Constantino, Tala Publishing (1975)
- History of the Filipino People — Teodoro A. Agoncillo, Garotech (1990)
The American era is why most Filipinos speak English, love basketball, and look to the United States as a natural place to study and work. It also left an elite-dominated democracy and economic ties that critics call "neocolonial". Independence Day was moved from 4 July to 12 June in 1962, to honour the revolution rather than the American handover.
The United States governed the islands as its only large colony. In 1901 the transport ship Thomas brought some 500 American teachers, the Thomasites, to staff a public school system taught in English.
For many older Filipinos, American rule meant public schools, the "Thomasite" teachers, health campaigns and a path to self-government.
American schooling produced a "miseducation", in Renato Constantino's phrase, that taught Filipinos to admire America and look down on their own languages and history.
The Pacific War and defeat
Japan attacks Pearl Harbor and sweeps across Southeast Asia, then is driven back island by island; its cities are firebombed and some 3 million Japanese die before the emperor announces surrender.
- A Modern History of Japan: From Tokugawa Times to the Present — Andrew Gordon, Oxford University Press (2003)
- Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II — John W. Dower, W. W. Norton (1999)
- Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan — Herbert P. Bix, HarperCollins (2000)
- Racing the Enemy: Stalin, Truman, and the Surrender of Japan — Tsuyoshi Hasegawa, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press (2005)
Read more
- A Modern History of Japan: From Tokugawa Times to the Present — Andrew Gordon, Oxford University Press (2003)
- Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II — John W. Dower, W. W. Norton (1999)
- Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan — Herbert P. Bix, HarperCollins (2000)
- Racing the Enemy: Stalin, Truman, and the Surrender of Japan — Tsuyoshi Hasegawa, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press (2005)
The Philippines was a major battlefield: Bataan, the occupation and the destruction of Manila in 1945 killed hundreds of thousands of Filipinos. Today relations with Japan are friendly and Japan is a leading aid donor, but surviving "comfort women", the lolas, still seek a full apology.
By 1941 Japan had been at war in China for four years and controlled its coast. When Japanese troops moved into French Indochina, the United States, Britain and the Netherlands froze Japanese assets and cut off oil. Japan's leaders, led by Prime Minister Tōjō Hideki, chose war over withdrawal from China.
Many families remember the war chiefly as their own suffering: sons who never came back, cities burned, hunger and the atomic bombs.
Japan fought for self-preservation against Western encirclement and to free Asia from colonial rule. The Yūshūkan museum at Yasukuni presents a version of this view.
Japan's war was aggression, and focusing on Japanese victimhood obscures the millions it killed across China, Korea and Southeast Asia, from Nanjing to Manila, and the forced labourers and "comfort women" it exploited.
Filipinos remember the war as an invasion they resisted alongside the Americans, from Bataan to the guerrillas, and as a time of atrocity, above all the massacres of the Battle of Manila.
Japanese occupation, Bataan and the destruction of Manila
Japan invades hours after Pearl Harbor; Filipino and American troops surrender at Bataan, guerrillas resist a brutal occupation, and Manila is destroyed in 1945 with some 100,000 civilians killed.
- The Philippines under Japan: Occupation Policy and Reaction — Ikehata Setsuho and Ricardo Trota Jose (eds.), Ateneo de Manila University Press (1999)
- Rampage: MacArthur, Yamashita, and the Battle of Manila — James M. Scott, W. W. Norton (2018)
- State and Society in the Philippines — Patricio N. Abinales and Donna J. Amoroso, Rowman & Littlefield (2017)
- History of the Filipino People — Teodoro A. Agoncillo, Garotech (1990)
- The Huk Rebellion: A Study of Peasant Revolt in the Philippines — Benedict J. Kerkvliet, University of California Press (1977)
- A Modern History of Japan: From Tokugawa Times to the Present — Andrew Gordon, Oxford University Press (2003)
Read more
- The Philippines under Japan: Occupation Policy and Reaction — Ikehata Setsuho and Ricardo Trota Jose (eds.), Ateneo de Manila University Press (1999)
- Rampage: MacArthur, Yamashita, and the Battle of Manila — James M. Scott, W. W. Norton (2018)
- State and Society in the Philippines — Patricio N. Abinales and Donna J. Amoroso, Rowman & Littlefield (2017)
- History of the Filipino People — Teodoro A. Agoncillo, Garotech (1990)
- The Huk Rebellion: A Study of Peasant Revolt in the Philippines — Benedict J. Kerkvliet, University of California Press (1977)
- A Modern History of Japan: From Tokugawa Times to the Present — Andrew Gordon, Oxford University Press (2003)
9 April, the fall of Bataan, is the Day of Valor (Araw ng Kagitingan), a national holiday. The war left Manila one of the most devastated cities of the Second World War and a lasting memory of atrocities, including the women forced into sexual slavery, the "comfort women" or lolas, who are still campaigning for an apology.
On 8 December 1941, hours after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Japanese aircraft destroyed most of the American air force at Clark Field, and Japanese troops landed on Luzon. General Douglas MacArthur's Filipino and American forces withdrew to the Bataan peninsula and the island fortress of Corregidor. Bataan surrendered on 9 April 1942.
The war is remembered as a time of suffering and heroism: the Death March, the guerrillas, and massacres in Manila.
Many of the elite served in the Japanese-sponsored government, which declared a nominally independent republic in 1943 under José P. Laurel.
The early republic
1946 – 1971 Mindanao's wars and the Bangsamoro peace
Muslim Filipinos, the Moro, take up arms for independence or autonomy in a conflict that kills tens of thousands; decades of talks produce the autonomous Bangsamoro region in 2019.
- Muslim Rulers and Rebels: Everyday Politics and Armed Separatism in the Southern Philippines — Thomas M. McKenna, University of California Press (1998)
- State and Society in the Philippines — Patricio N. Abinales and Donna J. Amoroso, Rowman & Littlefield (2017)
- Republic Act No. 11054 (Bangsamoro Organic Law) — Congress of the Philippines, Official Gazette (2018)
- History of the Filipino People — Teodoro A. Agoncillo, Garotech (1990)
Read more
- Muslim Rulers and Rebels: Everyday Politics and Armed Separatism in the Southern Philippines — Thomas M. McKenna, University of California Press (1998)
- State and Society in the Philippines — Patricio N. Abinales and Donna J. Amoroso, Rowman & Littlefield (2017)
- Republic Act No. 11054 (Bangsamoro Organic Law) — Congress of the Philippines, Official Gazette (2018)
- History of the Filipino People — Teodoro A. Agoncillo, Garotech (1990)
Mindanao's conflict shapes how Filipinos think about faith, the nation and the south. Many Muslim Filipinos feel the national story leaves them out, and the success of Bangsamoro autonomy is seen as a test of whether the Philippines can be home to all its peoples.
Muslims, today about 6% of Filipinos, live mainly in western Mindanao and the Sulu archipelago, and belong to more than a dozen ethnolinguistic groups, among them the Maguindanao, Maranao and Tausug. The sultanates there resisted Spain for three centuries.
The Bangsamoro were never conquered by Spain and were incorporated into the Philippines without their consent.
Mindanao is an integral part of the Philippines and home to Christians and Lumad peoples as well as Muslims.
Martial law
1972 – 1985 Marcos and martial law
President Ferdinand Marcos declares martial law, closes Congress and the press, and rules for fourteen years; tens of thousands are jailed and tortured, thousands killed, and the Marcos family amasses billions.
- State and Society in the Philippines — Patricio N. Abinales and Donna J. Amoroso, Rowman & Littlefield (2017)
- The Anti-Marcos Struggle: Personalistic Rule and Democratic Transition in the Philippines — Mark R. Thompson, Yale University Press (1995)
- Waltzing with a Dictator: The Marcoses and the Making of American Policy — Raymond Bonner, Times Books (1987)
- Philippines: statement on the anniversary of martial law (ASA 35/9139/2018) — Amnesty International (2018)
- Final list of eligible claimants under Republic Act No. 10368 — Human Rights Victims' Claims Board (2018)
- History of the Filipino People — Teodoro A. Agoncillo, Garotech (1990)
Read more
- State and Society in the Philippines — Patricio N. Abinales and Donna J. Amoroso, Rowman & Littlefield (2017)
- The Anti-Marcos Struggle: Personalistic Rule and Democratic Transition in the Philippines — Mark R. Thompson, Yale University Press (1995)
- Waltzing with a Dictator: The Marcoses and the Making of American Policy — Raymond Bonner, Times Books (1987)
- Philippines: statement on the anniversary of martial law (ASA 35/9139/2018) — Amnesty International (2018)
- Final list of eligible claimants under Republic Act No. 10368 — Human Rights Victims' Claims Board (2018)
- History of the Filipino People — Teodoro A. Agoncillo, Garotech (1990)
Martial law is the most fiercely contested memory in the Philippines. For survivors and many historians it was a dark dictatorship; for a large number of Filipinos, especially younger ones raised on social media, it is remembered as a "golden age" of order and building. The election of Marcos's son as president in 2022 made the argument personal and political.
Ferdinand Marcos, a brilliant and ambitious lawyer from Ilocos Norte, was elected president in 1965 and, in 1969, became the first president re-elected under the post-war constitution.
Martial law was a dictatorship that tortured, disappeared and killed opponents, plundered the economy and left the country deep in debt.
Marcos restored order in a country beset by communist insurgency, crime and oligarchs, and built roads, hospitals, cultural centres and power plants.
Overseas Filipino Workers and the global diaspora
A labour-export policy begun under Marcos turns the Philippines into one of the world's great sources of migrant workers, from nurses and seafarers to domestic workers, whose remittances keep families and the economy afloat.
- Migrants for Export: How the Philippine State Brokers Labor to the World — Robyn Magalit Rodriguez, University of Minnesota Press (2010)
- Servants of Globalization: Women, Migration, and Domestic Work — Rhacel Salazar Parreñas, Stanford University Press (2001)
- Survey on Overseas Filipinos — Philippine Statistics Authority (2024)
- Overseas Filipinos' Remittances — Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (2025)
- Filipinos in the U.S. Fact Sheet — Pew Research Center (2024)
Read more
- Migrants for Export: How the Philippine State Brokers Labor to the World — Robyn Magalit Rodriguez, University of Minnesota Press (2010)
- Servants of Globalization: Women, Migration, and Domestic Work — Rhacel Salazar Parreñas, Stanford University Press (2001)
- Survey on Overseas Filipinos — Philippine Statistics Authority (2024)
- Overseas Filipinos' Remittances — Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (2025)
- Filipinos in the U.S. Fact Sheet — Pew Research Center (2024)
Almost every Filipino family has someone abroad. OFWs are celebrated as "modern-day heroes" and their remittances pay for houses, school fees and hospital bills, but the long separations, the abuse some workers face and the sense that the country exports its people rather than creating jobs at home are deep sources of pain.
Filipinos had migrated before, to Hawaiian plantations and Californian farms under American rule and, after 1965, to the United States as nurses and doctors. But in 1974 the Marcos government's Labor Code made sending workers abroad a deliberate policy, meant as a temporary fix for unemployment and a source of foreign currency.
Restored democracy
1986 – today People Power: the EDSA Revolution
After a fraud-ridden snap election, military defectors and up to two million unarmed civilians, rallied by the Catholic Church, fill a Manila highway and force Ferdinand Marcos into exile; Corazon Aquino becomes president.
- The Anti-Marcos Struggle: Personalistic Rule and Democratic Transition in the Philippines — Mark R. Thompson, Yale University Press (1995)
- State and Society in the Philippines — Patricio N. Abinales and Donna J. Amoroso, Rowman & Littlefield (2017)
- Waltzing with a Dictator: The Marcoses and the Making of American Policy — Raymond Bonner, Times Books (1987)
- History of the Filipino People — Teodoro A. Agoncillo, Garotech (1990)
Read more
- The Anti-Marcos Struggle: Personalistic Rule and Democratic Transition in the Philippines — Mark R. Thompson, Yale University Press (1995)
- State and Society in the Philippines — Patricio N. Abinales and Donna J. Amoroso, Rowman & Littlefield (2017)
- Waltzing with a Dictator: The Marcoses and the Making of American Policy — Raymond Bonner, Times Books (1987)
- History of the Filipino People — Teodoro A. Agoncillo, Garotech (1990)
EDSA is a source of national pride, a peaceful revolution that inspired movements elsewhere, from Eastern Europe to East Asia. But many Filipinos also feel that "People Power" restored the old elite rather than changing lives, and its anniversary has become a quieter, more contested occasion.
Under American pressure, Marcos called a snap presidential election for 7 February 1986. The opposition united behind Corazon "Cory" Aquino, Ninoy's widow, a self-described "plain housewife". The official count declared Marcos the winner, but citizen volunteers of the poll-watch group NAMFREL reported widespread fraud, and computer technicians at the election commission walked out in protest.
Duterte's war on drugs
President Rodrigo Duterte launches a violent anti-drug campaign in which thousands of suspected users and dealers are killed by police and unidentified gunmen; in 2025 he is arrested and sent to the International Criminal Court.
- "License to Kill": Philippine Police Killings in Duterte's "War on Drugs" — Human Rights Watch (2017)
- Situation in the Philippines: The Prosecutor v. Rodrigo Roa Duterte — International Criminal Court (2025)
- State and Society in the Philippines — Patricio N. Abinales and Donna J. Amoroso, Rowman & Littlefield (2017)
Read more
- "License to Kill": Philippine Police Killings in Duterte's "War on Drugs" — Human Rights Watch (2017)
- Situation in the Philippines: The Prosecutor v. Rodrigo Roa Duterte — International Criminal Court (2025)
- State and Society in the Philippines — Patricio N. Abinales and Donna J. Amoroso, Rowman & Littlefield (2017)
The drug war divides Filipinos sharply. Polls showed many supported it and Duterte remained highly popular, especially in Mindanao and among those who felt neglected by Manila's elite. Families of the dead, the Church and human rights groups see it as mass murder of the poor. His arrest in 2025 split the country again.
Rodrigo Duterte, the long-time mayor of Davao City in Mindanao, won the presidency in 2016 promising to wipe out drugs and crime, sometimes in openly violent language. Once in office, police launched mass operations against suspected drug users and pushers in poor neighbourhoods, while unidentified gunmen killed many more.
Duterte kept his promise to fight drugs and crime that had made neighbourhoods unsafe and that previous elites ignored.
Police and vigilantes killed thousands of poor people without trial, often planting evidence, and few were ever convicted.
Core values & worldview
If you want to understand a Filipino, start with the family. Filipino psychologists, led by Virgilio Enriquez in the 1970s, argued that the core of Filipino values is kapwa, a sense of shared identity with others: the person next to you is not a stranger but a fellow human whose dignity you share.
- From Colonial to Liberation Psychology: The Philippine Experience — Virgilio G. Enriquez, De La Salle University Press (1992)
Utang na loob. A “debt of the inner self”, gratitude that is never fully repaid. Help someone’s family in a crisis and you may be remembered for life. It binds families, communities and, critics say, patronage politics.
- From Colonial to Liberation Psychology: The Philippine Experience — Virgilio G. Enriquez, De La Salle University Press (1992)
- State and Society in the Philippines — Patricio N. Abinales and Donna J. Amoroso, Rowman & Littlefield (2017)
Hiya and pakikisama. Hiya is a sense of propriety and shame; pakikisama, getting along smoothly with others. Many Filipinos avoid open confrontation and saying a flat “no”. A hesitant “maybe” or “I’ll try” can mean no.
- From Colonial to Liberation Psychology: The Philippine Experience — Virgilio G. Enriquez, De La Salle University Press (1992)
Respect for elders. Children greet older relatives with the mano, pressing the elder’s hand to their forehead, and use po and opo as signs of respect. Older people are usually cared for at home, not in institutions.
Faith and hope. Religion is woven into everyday speech and decisions: bahala na, roughly “leave it to God” or “come what may”, expresses both fatalism and courage. Many Filipinos see suffering through the lens of the pasyon, the story of Christ’s passion, which historian Reynaldo Ileto showed also gave ordinary people a language of hope and rebellion.
- Pasyon and Revolution: Popular Movements in the Philippines, 1840–1910 — Reynaldo C. Ileto, Ateneo de Manila University Press (1979)
- Religious Affiliation in the Philippines (2020 Census of Population and Housing) — Philippine Statistics Authority (2023)
Bayanihan. The old image of neighbours carrying a family’s whole house on bamboo poles to a new site stands for the community spirit Filipinos are proud of, and visible in how communities pull together after typhoons.
Daily life & customs
Food is how Filipinos show love. The question Kumain ka na?, “Have you eaten?”, is a greeting, and guests are fed generously whatever the household’s means. Rice is eaten at almost every meal; adobo, sinigang (a sour tamarind soup), pancit and lechon are national favourites, and every region has its own specialities.
Christmas in the Philippines is said to be the world’s longest: carols and lanterns (parol) appear in September with the “ber months”, and many attend Simbang Gabi, nine dawn Masses before Christmas. Town fiestas for patron saints bring processions, feasts and visiting relatives. Holy Week is solemn; in Pampanga a few devotees even have themselves nailed to crosses on Good Friday, a practice the Church discourages.
- Contracting Colonialism: Translation and Christian Conversion in Tagalog Society under Early Spanish Rule — Vicente L. Rafael, Cornell University Press (1988)
- Religious Affiliation in the Philippines (2020 Census of Population and Housing) — Philippine Statistics Authority (2023)
Filipinos are famously sociable and online: they spend some of the most time on social media in the world, and family group chats link relatives from Manila to Dubai to California. Basketball is the most popular sport, karaoke is ubiquitous at parties, and boxer Manny Pacquiao was for years a national hero.
Most Filipinos are at least bilingual. The 1987 constitution makes Filipino, based on Tagalog, the national language, and Filipino and English the official languages.
- The 1987 Constitution of the Republic of the Philippines — Constitutional Commission of 1986, Official Gazette (1987)
- Philippines — Encyclopaedia Britannica
- State and Society in the Philippines — Patricio N. Abinales and Donna J. Amoroso, Rowman & Littlefield (2017)
Wounds & sensitivities
Martial law. For many families, the years 1972–86 mean a father jailed, a son tortured or a cousin who disappeared. Others remember order and prosperity. The Marcoses’ return to power has made this a raw and very personal subject.
- Philippines: statement on the anniversary of martial law (ASA 35/9139/2018) — Amnesty International (2018)
- Final list of eligible claimants under Republic Act No. 10368 — Human Rights Victims' Claims Board (2018)
The drug war. Thousands of poor Filipinos were killed in Duterte’s campaign, and many families never received justice; at the same time, many Filipinos supported it. It is a painful, divisive subject.
- "License to Kill": Philippine Police Killings in Duterte's "War on Drugs" — Human Rights Watch (2017)
- Situation in the Philippines: The Prosecutor v. Rodrigo Roa Duterte — International Criminal Court (2025)
Separation. Long years apart from parents, spouses and children working abroad are a quiet wound in millions of families. Stories of abused domestic workers in the Gulf strike a deep chord.
- Servants of Globalization: Women, Migration, and Domestic Work — Rhacel Salazar Parreñas, Stanford University Press (2001)
- Migrants for Export: How the Philippine State Brokers Labor to the World — Robyn Magalit Rodriguez, University of Minnesota Press (2010)
Being looked down on. Filipinos can be sensitive to being seen only as maids, nurses or cheap labour, or to jokes about Filipino accents. Many also bristle when the Philippines is treated as an American creation, or when its colonial history is described as a gift.
- The Blood of Government: Race, Empire, the United States, and the Philippines — Paul A. Kramer, University of North Carolina Press (2006)
- The Philippines: A Past Revisited — Renato Constantino, Tala Publishing (1975)
War memory and disaster. The destruction of Manila in 1945, the “comfort women”, and the frequent typhoons and earthquakes, like Typhoon Haiyan (Yolanda), which killed more than 6,000 people in 2013, are part of the national memory of suffering endured.
- Rampage: MacArthur, Yamashita, and the Battle of Manila — James M. Scott, W. W. Norton (2018)
- Philippines — Encyclopaedia Britannica
Modern attitudes
Pro-American, wary of China. The Philippines consistently records some of the most favourable views of the United States anywhere in the world, rooted in family ties, migration and shared war memory. Tensions with China over reefs and islands in what Filipinos call the West Philippine Sea run high; in 2016 an international tribunal ruled in favour of the Philippines against China’s sweeping claims, which China rejects.
- The South China Sea Arbitration (The Republic of the Philippines v. The People's Republic of China), Award — Permanent Court of Arbitration (2016)
- In Our Image: America's Empire in the Philippines — Stanley Karnow, Random House (1989)
Socially conservative, with change underway. The Philippines is the only country apart from Vatican City where divorce is not legal for most citizens (Muslims can divorce under their own personal law), and abortion is banned. Yet attitudes are shifting among younger, urban Filipinos, and LGBT visibility in entertainment and daily life is high, even as same-sex marriage is not recognised.
- Philippines — Encyclopaedia Britannica
- State and Society in the Philippines — Patricio N. Abinales and Donna J. Amoroso, Rowman & Littlefield (2017)
Politics of personality. Politics revolves around powerful families and charismatic individuals more than parties, from the Marcoses and Aquinos to the Dutertes. Many voters prize a leader who seems strong and caring, and distrust “elite” politicians from Manila.
- State and Society in the Philippines — Patricio N. Abinales and Donna J. Amoroso, Rowman & Littlefield (2017)
- The Anti-Marcos Struggle: Personalistic Rule and Democratic Transition in the Philippines — Mark R. Thompson, Yale University Press (1995)
Not all Filipinos are the same
Regions and languages. The country divides into three great island groups: Luzon in the north, the Visayas in the centre and Mindanao in the south. People identify strongly with their region and language; a Cebuano may resent the assumption that Tagalog is “the” Filipino language, and Ilocanos, Bicolanos and Warays have their own proud traditions.
- State and Society in the Philippines — Patricio N. Abinales and Donna J. Amoroso, Rowman & Littlefield (2017)
- The 1987 Constitution of the Republic of the Philippines — Constitutional Commission of 1986, Official Gazette (1987)
Muslims and Lumad. The Muslim peoples of Mindanao and Sulu, the Moro, and the Indigenous non-Muslim peoples of Mindanao, the Lumad, and of the northern Cordillera have histories that never fully fitted the Spanish and Catholic story. The Bangsamoro autonomous region, created in 2019, is a recognition of that difference.
- Muslim Rulers and Rebels: Everyday Politics and Armed Separatism in the Southern Philippines — Thomas M. McKenna, University of California Press (1998)
- Republic Act No. 11054 (Bangsamoro Organic Law) — Congress of the Philippines, Official Gazette (2018)
Chinese Filipinos. Chinese merchants have lived in the islands for centuries, and many Filipinos have Chinese ancestry; Rizal and Corazon Aquino among them. Tsinoys, as Chinese Filipinos are often called, are prominent in business.
- State and Society in the Philippines — Patricio N. Abinales and Donna J. Amoroso, Rowman & Littlefield (2017)
Class. The gap between the elite families of the gated “villages” of Makati and the urban poor of Tondo or the provinces is huge. English fluency, schooling and skin tone often mark class, and skin-whitening products are widely sold.
- State and Society in the Philippines — Patricio N. Abinales and Donna J. Amoroso, Rowman & Littlefield (2017)
The diaspora. Some 4.2 million Americans have Filipino ancestry, and large communities live in Canada, the Gulf, Hong Kong, Singapore, Japan, Australia, Britain and Italy. Second-generation Filipino Americans may speak little Tagalog but keep the food, faith and family loyalty.
- Filipinos in the U.S. Fact Sheet — Pew Research Center (2024)
- Survey on Overseas Filipinos — Philippine Statistics Authority (2024)
Meeting someone
Conversation starters
- Food. Ask about their favourite Filipino dish or their family’s adobo. You’ll probably be invited to eat.
- Their province. Ask where their family is from; most urban Filipinos still feel rooted in a home province.
- State and Society in the Philippines — Patricio N. Abinales and Donna J. Amoroso, Rowman & Littlefield (2017)
- Family abroad. Many have relatives in other countries and are happy to talk about them.
- Survey on Overseas Filipinos — Philippine Statistics Authority (2024)
- Basketball, boxing and singing. The PBA, the NBA, Pacquiao, and karaoke are easy, cheerful topics.
Topics to approach carefully
- Marcos, Duterte and politics. Families are split. Let them lead.
- The Anti-Marcos Struggle: Personalistic Rule and Democratic Transition in the Philippines — Mark R. Thompson, Yale University Press (1995)
- "License to Kill": Philippine Police Killings in Duterte's "War on Drugs" — Human Rights Watch (2017)
- Religion. Many Filipinos are devout; avoid mocking the Church or popular devotions, even if they criticise them themselves.
- Religious Affiliation in the Philippines (2020 Census of Population and Housing) — Philippine Statistics Authority (2023)
- Migrant work. Don’t assume someone is a domestic worker or nurse; many Filipinos abroad are engineers, executives and doctors. If they are caregivers, treat it with respect.
- Servants of Globalization: Women, Migration, and Domestic Work — Rhacel Salazar Parreñas, Stanford University Press (2001)
- Mindanao. Avoid equating Muslims or Mindanao with terrorism; most of the region is peaceful and its people resent the stereotype.
- Muslim Rulers and Rebels: Everyday Politics and Armed Separatism in the Southern Philippines — Thomas M. McKenna, University of California Press (1998)
Common misconceptions
- “Filipinos speak Spanish.” Spanish was never widely spoken outside the elite, and few speak it today, though Filipino languages contain thousands of Spanish loanwords. Chavacano, spoken in Zamboanga, is a Spanish-based creole.
- State and Society in the Philippines — Patricio N. Abinales and Donna J. Amoroso, Rowman & Littlefield (2017)
- “The Philippines is basically American.” English, basketball and fast food are American legacies, but the culture is far older and deeper, rooted in Austronesian and Catholic traditions.
- Barangay: Sixteenth-Century Philippine Culture and Society — William Henry Scott, Ateneo de Manila University Press (1994)
- Contracting Colonialism: Translation and Christian Conversion in Tagalog Society under Early Spanish Rule — Vicente L. Rafael, Cornell University Press (1988)
- “It’s one culture.” It is an archipelago of more than 7,000 islands and dozens of ethnolinguistic groups.
- Philippines — Encyclopaedia Britannica
- “Filipinos are always happy.” Warmth and humour are real, but they often coexist with hardship; smiling through difficulty is a form of resilience, not a sign that all is well.
People everyone knows
Lapulapu
A chief on the island of Mactan, off Cebu, who refused to submit to Spain and defeated Ferdinand Magellan's landing party on 27 April 1521, killing Magellan. Almost nothing else is known of his life, and his name is spelled several ways, but he is honoured as the first Filipino hero to resist European colonisation. His statue stands at Mactan, and his face appears on the badge of the Philippine National Police.
- The First Voyage Around the World (1519–1522): An Account of Magellan's Expedition — Antonio Pigafetta (ed. Theodore J. Cachey Jr.), University of Toronto Press (2007)
- History of the Filipino People — Teodoro A. Agoncillo, Garotech (1990)
José Rizal
The national hero. A doctor, poet and polyglot from Calamba, Laguna, he exposed colonial and friar abuses in his novels "Noli Me Tángere" (1887) and "El Filibusterismo" (1891). A reformer rather than a revolutionary, he was exiled to Mindanao and then executed by a Spanish firing squad in Manila on 30 December 1896. His novels are compulsory reading in every Filipino school, and his farewell poem, "Mi último adiós", is learned by heart.
- The First Filipino: A Biography of José Rizal — León Ma. Guerrero, National Heroes Commission (1963)
- The Propaganda Movement, 1880–1895 — John N. Schumacher, Ateneo de Manila University Press (1997)
- Under Three Flags: Anarchism and the Anti-Colonial Imagination — Benedict Anderson, Verso (2005)
Andrés Bonifacio
A self-taught warehouse clerk from Tondo, Manila, who founded the secret revolutionary society Katipunan in 1892 and launched the revolution against Spain in August 1896. Sidelined by Emilio Aguinaldo's faction at the Tejeros Convention, he was tried and executed by fellow revolutionaries in May 1897. Celebrated as the "Great Plebeian" and the father of the revolution, his birthday, 30 November, is a national holiday.
- History of the Filipino People — Teodoro A. Agoncillo, Garotech (1990)
- Pasyon and Revolution: Popular Movements in the Philippines, 1840–1910 — Reynaldo C. Ileto, Ateneo de Manila University Press (1979)
Emilio Aguinaldo
A young town mayor from Kawit, Cavite, who became the revolution's leading general, proclaimed Philippine independence on 12 June 1898 and served as president of the First Philippine Republic. He led the war against the United States until his capture in 1901. His role in Bonifacio's execution and his later cooperation with the Americans, and with the Japanese during the occupation, make him a more complicated hero than Rizal or Bonifacio.
- History of the Filipino People — Teodoro A. Agoncillo, Garotech (1990)
- In Our Image: America's Empire in the Philippines — Stanley Karnow, Random House (1989)
- State and Society in the Philippines — Patricio N. Abinales and Donna J. Amoroso, Rowman & Littlefield (2017)
Ferdinand Marcos
President from 1965 to 1986. A brilliant lawyer and politician from Ilocos Norte, he declared martial law in 1972 and ruled as a dictator with his wife Imelda, presiding over mass arrests, torture and killings, crony capitalism and the plunder of billions. He was driven out by the People Power revolt of 1986 and died in exile in Hawaii. Still revered by many, especially in the north, he remains the most divisive figure in modern Philippine history; his son became president in 2022.
- The Anti-Marcos Struggle: Personalistic Rule and Democratic Transition in the Philippines — Mark R. Thompson, Yale University Press (1995)
- Waltzing with a Dictator: The Marcoses and the Making of American Policy — Raymond Bonner, Times Books (1987)
- State and Society in the Philippines — Patricio N. Abinales and Donna J. Amoroso, Rowman & Littlefield (2017)
- Philippines: statement on the anniversary of martial law (ASA 35/9139/2018) — Amnesty International (2018)
Corazon "Cory" Aquino
The widow of opposition senator Ninoy Aquino, assassinated in 1983, she reluctantly ran against Marcos in the 1986 snap election and became president after the People Power revolution, the first woman to lead the Philippines. Her government restored democracy and a new constitution but survived several coup attempts and disappointed many hoping for land reform. Her yellow became the colour of the democratic opposition.
- The Anti-Marcos Struggle: Personalistic Rule and Democratic Transition in the Philippines — Mark R. Thompson, Yale University Press (1995)
- State and Society in the Philippines — Patricio N. Abinales and Donna J. Amoroso, Rowman & Littlefield (2017)
Try it yourself
The quickest way into a culture: a song, a film, a book and a dish.
“Farewell, beloved Fatherland, treasured region of the sun, Pearl of the Orient Sea, our lost Eden!”
“The Filipino is worth dying for.”
Listen
Watch
- Maynila sa mga Kuko ng Liwanag (Manila in the Claws of Light) Lino Brocka's 1975 film about a young provincial man searching for his love in the brutal city, a landmark of Philippine cinema made under martial law.▶ Watch
- Heneral Luna Jerrold Tarog's 2015 hit about General Antonio Luna, the fiery commander of the war against the Americans, and the infighting that doomed him.▶ Watch
Read
- Noli Me Tángere José Rizal's 1887 novel of a young man returning from Europe to find his town ruled by corrupt friars; compulsory reading in every Filipino high school.Find it
Taste
- Adobo Meat, usually chicken or pork, stewed in vinegar, soy sauce, garlic and bay leaves; every family swears theirs is the right version.Recipe
- Lechon and the fiesta table Whole roast pig with crackling skin, the centrepiece of fiestas, weddings and Christmas, alongside pancit noodles for long life.Recipe
See & do
- The jeepney Brightly painted public minibuses descended from US Army jeeps left after the Second World War; a symbol of everyday Filipino ingenuity.Look it up
- Basketball and karaoke Introduced by Americans, basketball is played on every barangay court; karaoke, or videoke, is the soundtrack of every family party.Look it up
Where
Homeland Diaspora Significant place
Related
Brazil · Catholicism · Spain · United States · Japan · China · Islam
Sources & further reading
- Catalan Nationalism: Past and Present — Albert Balcells, Macmillan, 1996
- Philippines: statement on the anniversary of martial law (ASA 35/9139/2018) — Amnesty International, 2018
- A Modern History of Japan: From Tokugawa Times to the Present — Andrew Gordon, Oxford University Press, 2003
- The First Voyage Around the World (1519–1522): An Account of Magellan's Expedition — Antonio Pigafetta (ed. Theodore J. Cachey Jr.), University of Toronto Press, 2007
- The Laguna Copper-Plate Inscription: Text and Commentary — Antoon Postma, Philippine Studies 40(2), 1992
- Overseas Filipinos' Remittances — Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, 2025
- Under Three Flags: Anarchism and the Anti-Colonial Imagination — Benedict Anderson, Verso, 2005
- The Huk Rebellion: A Study of Peasant Revolt in the Philippines — Benedict J. Kerkvliet, University of California Press, 1977
- Speech before the Asia Society, New York, 4 August 1980 — Benigno S. Aquino Jr., 1980
- The Philippine War, 1899–1902 — Brian McAllister Linn, University Press of Kansas, 2000
- Republic Act No. 11054 (Bangsamoro Organic Law) — Congress of the Philippines, Official Gazette, 2018
- The 1987 Constitution of the Republic of the Philippines — Constitutional Commission of 1986, Official Gazette, 1987
- Philippines — Encyclopaedia Britannica
- War Memory and Social Politics in Japan, 1945–2005 — Franziska Seraphim, Harvard University Asia Center, 2006
- Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan — Herbert P. Bix, HarperCollins, 2000
- Final list of eligible claimants under Republic Act No. 10368 — Human Rights Victims' Claims Board, 2018
- "License to Kill": Philippine Police Killings in Duterte's "War on Drugs" — Human Rights Watch, 2017
- The Philippines under Japan: Occupation Policy and Reaction — Ikehata Setsuho and Ricardo Trota Jose (eds.), Ateneo de Manila University Press, 1999
- Situation in the Philippines: The Prosecutor v. Rodrigo Roa Duterte — International Criminal Court, 2025
- Rampage: MacArthur, Yamashita, and the Battle of Manila — James M. Scott, W. W. Norton, 2018
- The Propaganda Movement, 1880–1895 — John N. Schumacher, Ateneo de Manila University Press, 1997
- Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II — John W. Dower, W. W. Norton, 1999
- Mi último adiós — José Rizal, 1896
- Raiding, Trading, and Feasting: The Political Economy of Philippine Chiefdoms — Laura Lee Junker, University of Hawai'i Press, 1999
- The First Filipino: A Biography of José Rizal — León Ma. Guerrero, National Heroes Commission, 1963
- The Anti-Marcos Struggle: Personalistic Rule and Democratic Transition in the Philippines — Mark R. Thompson, Yale University Press, 1995
- The Philippine-American War, 1899–1902 — Office of the Historian, U.S. Department of State
- State and Society in the Philippines — Patricio N. Abinales and Donna J. Amoroso, Rowman & Littlefield, 2017
- The Blood of Government: Race, Empire, the United States, and the Philippines — Paul A. Kramer, University of North Carolina Press, 2006
- The South China Sea Arbitration (The Republic of the Philippines v. The People's Republic of China), Award — Permanent Court of Arbitration, 2016
- Filipinos in the U.S. Fact Sheet — Pew Research Center, 2024
- Religious Affiliation in the Philippines (2020 Census of Population and Housing) — Philippine Statistics Authority, 2023
- Survey on Overseas Filipinos — Philippine Statistics Authority, 2024
- Forgotten Ally: China's World War II, 1937–1945 — Rana Mitter, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2013
- Waltzing with a Dictator: The Marcoses and the Making of American Policy — Raymond Bonner, Times Books, 1987
- Spain: A History — Raymond Carr (ed.), Oxford University Press, 2000
- The Philippines: A Past Revisited — Renato Constantino, Tala Publishing, 1975
- Pasyon and Revolution: Popular Movements in the Philippines, 1840–1910 — Reynaldo C. Ileto, Ateneo de Manila University Press, 1979
- Servants of Globalization: Women, Migration, and Domestic Work — Rhacel Salazar Parreñas, Stanford University Press, 2001
- Migrants for Export: How the Philippine State Brokers Labor to the World — Robyn Magalit Rodriguez, University of Minnesota Press, 2010
- The End of the Spanish Empire, 1898–1923 — Sebastian Balfour, Oxford University Press, 1997
- In Our Image: America's Empire in the Philippines — Stanley Karnow, Random House, 1989
- History of the Filipino People — Teodoro A. Agoncillo, Garotech, 1990
- Muslim Rulers and Rebels: Everyday Politics and Armed Separatism in the Southern Philippines — Thomas M. McKenna, University of California Press, 1998
- Racing the Enemy: Stalin, Truman, and the Surrender of Japan — Tsuyoshi Hasegawa, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2005
- Contracting Colonialism: Translation and Christian Conversion in Tagalog Society under Early Spanish Rule — Vicente L. Rafael, Cornell University Press, 1988
- From Colonial to Liberation Psychology: The Philippine Experience — Virgilio G. Enriquez, De La Salle University Press, 1992
- Barangay: Sixteenth-Century Philippine Culture and Society — William Henry Scott, Ateneo de Manila University Press, 1994
- Comfort Women: Sexual Slavery in the Japanese Military During World War II — Yoshimi Yoshiaki, Columbia University Press, 2000