Philippine History

A statue in Metro Manila's

Makati district to Sultan Kudarat

celebrate the 17th-century Islamic

leader who resisted the Spanish

invasion of southern Mindanao.

Today, one of Mindanao's 

province is named after him.

There was a time when many accounts of the Philippine history began in 1521, the year in which the spanish first arrived under the command of Portuguese adventurer Ferdinand Magellan, Needles to say, however the indigenous Filipino people had been living here for quire some time before the Europeans showed up in the years since independence there has been a steady piecing together of what life was like in the pre-hispanic centuries.

Although the earlier records of human settlement go back about 50,000 years to remain found in caves in southern Palawan, in the main influx of people into the island of the Philippines occurred about 5,000 years ago, when Austronesians migrated form southern China and Taiwan.

Below: Remnants of the pre-Hispanic tradition of living in scattered rural communities, or barangay, rather than towns can still be ween in the mountains of Northern Luzonn.

Below:  The Magellan Cross, set against a frescoed ceiling, marks the spot in Cebu City where Ferdinand Magellan planted the original cross in 1521, starting the Christianization of the Philippines.

For many centuries the Philippines island existed with no single central authority, much of the population living in scattered autonomous communities, or barangay. Major trade centres grew up on the coasts, linked to one o other of the successive Indianized empires that came and went along the coasts of Southeast Asia.

Chines records show that the most important of these trade centres became Cebu, Butuan and Tondo, that last of very close tot the site of modern Manila's prot, while the other two remains as important cities. Chines ships which dominated the seas of Southeast Asia at this time began trading with these ports at least as early as the 9th century.

From the 13th century onwards, Muslin missionaries began arriving in the southermost Philippine island. Islam Steadily spread northwards, the first Philippines Islamic sultanate being stablishe in southern Mindanao in the 15th century.

Ferdinand Magellan arrived in Cebu with Three Ships in April 1521, having crossed the pacific in search of an east west route to the Spice Island, in Today's Indonesia. He quickly set about converting the local cheir, Huabon, his wife and his followers to Christianity but came unstuck when he ran up against Lapu-Lapu, cheif of nearby Mactan Island. In the ensuing battle, Magellan was killed, and the rest of his crew were lucky to escape with their lives. Today Lapu-Lapu is hailed as the Philippines' first national hero.

Above: A statue in Cebu City of Miguel Lopez de Legazpi,
Founder of the first permanent Spanish settlement in the
Phlippnes

For several decades the Spanish made  little serious attempt to control the Philippines, but all that changed when Miguel de Lopez arrived in 1565. He took over Cebu and built for San Pedro - still seen today - before moving his base to more easily defended site at today's Iloilo, on the island of Panay, he then captured both Tondo and nearby Maynilad, the two together forming the nucleus for Manila , centered on the mouht of the Pasig River.
Spanish control  of the Philippines lasted for 350 years, until the end of the 19th century when mounting resistance, led by such national heroes as Jose Rizal and Emilio Aguinaldo, led to spanish departure. Unfortunately, it was replace by a new colonial power, the United States, By the 1930s, however, plans were in place to grant independence, though this suffered a blow with the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in Hawaii in 1941, followed quickly by their invasion of the Philippines. By the end of 1944, however, The americans were back, with General Douglas MacArthur at the head of a massive military force.
The Philippines finally gained independence in 1946, since wich the country has been a democratic republic run by a US-Style Congress headed by a powerful president. There has been one major hiatus in this period - that of the dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos.. Elected in 1965, by 1972 he had declared martial law, holding onto power until 1986 when he was finally forced to flee by a mass uprising, the People Power Revolution. Since then, successive governments have struggled to  rebuild the shattered economy, and though quite successful, they have been dogged by endemic corruption. Periodic communist and Islamic insurgencies, mostly in the far south, took their toll too. especially in the 1980s when unrest became almost nationwide. Improving economic conditions, coupled with a series of treaties, including the creation of a Muslim  autonomous region in Mindanao, had greatly reduce the feeling of national discontent by the late 1990s. In recent years, however, there has been a modest resurgence, mainly form Islamist and the Communist New Peoples Army in remote areas of the far south. despite this, the great majority of the country is essentially peaceful and economically has managed to ride out the global recession reasonably well.

Top: The internal compound of Port San Pedro, in Cebu City the first permanent spanish building in the Philippines, built in 1565


Above left: Miagao Church near IloIlo is now a World Heritage Site Due to its spectacular facade.


Above right: The entrance into one of the heavily fortified bastions in the old walls surroundings Intramuros, the Original Spanish capital in Manila.


Right: The Rizal Monument, in Manila's Rizal Park, Memorializes Jose Rizal,  father of the Philippine nation, executed near here in 1896.