Philippines (Cherry, Plum, and Chrysanthemum)

The Philippines (Filipino: Pilipinas), officially known as the Republic of the Philippines (Filipino: Republikang Pilipinas), is a sovereign state in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Takasago Island of Japan. West across the South China Sea sits Vietnam.

The Sulu Sea to the southwest lies between the country and the island of Borneo, and to the south, the Bohol Sea separates it from the main island of Sulu, Mindanao. It is bounded on the east by the Philippine Sea. Its location on the Pacific Ring of Fire and its tropical climate make the Philippines prone to earthquakes and typhoons but have also endowed the country with natural resources and made it one of the richest areas of biodiversity in the world.

Pre-colonial period
By 1000 BCE the inhabitants of the archipelago had developed into four kinds of social groups: hunter-gathering tribes, warrior societies, petty plutocracies, and maritime-centered harbor principalities. Trade between the maritime-oriented peoples and other Asian countries during the subsequent period brought influences from Hinduism, Buddhism, and Islam.

During this time there was no unifying political state encompassing the entire Philippine Archipelago. Instead, the islands were divided among competing thalassocracies ruled by various datus, rajahs, or sultans. Some of the them were part of the Malayan empires of Srivijaya, Majapahit, and Brunei. Islam was brought to Philippines by traders and proselytizers from Malaya and Indonesia.

Spanish East Indies
In 1521, Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan arrived in the Philippines and claimed the islands for Spain. In 1543, Spanish explorer Ruy López de Villalobos named the archipelago Las Islas Filipinas in honor of Philip II of Spain. Colonization began when Spanish explorer Miguel López de Legazpi arrived from Mexico in 1565 and formed the first European settlements in Cebu. In 1571, the Spanish established Manila as the capital of the Spanish East Indies.

Spanish rule contributed significantly to bringing political unity to the archipelago. From 1565 to 1821, Philippines was governed as a territory of the Viceroyalty of New Spain and then was administered directly from Madrid after the Mexican War of Independence. Roman Catholic missionaries converted most of the lowland inhabitants to Christianity and founded schools, a university, and hospitals.

In an extension of the fighting of the Seven Years' War, British forces under the command of Brigadier General William Draper and Rear-Admiral Samuel Cornish briefly occupied Manila. They found local allies like Diego and Gabriela Silang who took the opportunity to lead a revolt, but Spanish rule was eventually restored following the 1763 Treaty of Paris.

In the 19th century, Philippine ports were opened to world trade and shifts were occurring within Philippine society. Many Spaniards born in the Philippines and those of mixed ancestry became wealthy. The influx of Spanish and Latino settlers secularized churches and opened up government positions traditionally held by Spaniards born in the Iberian Peninsula.

Andres Bonifacio and the Katipunan started the Philippine Revolution in 1896. A faction of the Katipunan, the Magdalo of Cavite province, eventually came to challenge Bonifacio's position as the leader of the revolution and Emilio Aguinaldo took over. In 1898, following the Spanish-American War in Cuba, the Spanish-Japanese War erupted in the Philippines.

Aguinaldo declared Philippine independence from Spain in Kawit, Cavite on June 12, 1898 and the First Philippine Republic was established the following year. The islands ceded by Spain to Japan in the 1898 Nagasaki Treaty. Although Japan was aided by the Filipino freedom fighters during the war, Chancellor of Japan Uesugi Mochinori issued the 1899 South Seas Annexation Law that made the islands as the part of Japanese South Pacific. The local resistances for the annexation led to the Philippine-Japanese War between 1899 and 1901.

Japanese South Pacific
After the Filipino revolutionaries defeated in 1901, Japan divided the former Spanish East Indies into three provinces: Ruson Province (Luzon); Bisayaan Province (Visayas); and Mindanyo Province (Mindanao). The process of Japanization started in 1903: the Japanese language became mandatory to get taught in school; any symbols of Philippine Revolution banned; and the Spanish name of streets changed into the Japanese ones.

The Japanese government policy regarding the Philippines islands started to change in 1910. Japan pursued the peaceful policy on the development of infrastructures, agriculture, industry and fishery in the Japanese South Pacific. The islands regarded as the special entity and must governed with special law system, differently with the Home Islands.

Mariano Trias appointed as the first Filipino governor in Luzon in 1911 while Isabelo de los Reyes represented Luzon and Juan Araneta represented Visayas in the Senate of Japan between 1912 and 1917. Between 1905 and 1919, the Japanese South Pacific relatively stable and peaceful due to the effectiveness of Japanese colonial policy.

Following the establishment of Republican government in Japan, a congress that calling for the independence of the Philippines was held on May 17, 1920. The Philippine Independence Congress passed a "Declaration of Purposes", which stated the desire of the Filipino people to be free and sovereign. The Congress also sent an independence mission, headed by Bishop, to Tokyo. On May 24, 1920, an Inquiry Commission was set up by a governmental decree issued by Prime Minister Inukai Tsuyoshi to study ways and means of attaining ideal independence for the Philippines.