Philippines (Cherry, Plum, and Chrysanthemum)

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

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 the Philippines by traders and proselytizers from Malaysia 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.

During its rule, the Spanish fought off various indigenous revolts and several external colonial challenges from Chinese pirates, the Dutch, and the Portuguese. 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.

The propaganda movement in Spain, organized by Marcelo H. del Pilar, José Rizal, and Mariano Ponce, lobbying for political reforms in Philippines. Rizal was eventually executed on December 30, 1896, on charges of rebellion. As attempts at reform were meeting with resistance, Andrés Bonifacio in 1892 established the secret society called the Katipunan, a society which sought independence from Spain through armed revolt.

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 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: Ruzon Province (Luzon); Bisayan Province (Visayan); and Mindano Province (Mindanao). The process of Japanization started in 1903: the Japanese language taught in school following the mandate from the Japanese Senate; any symbols of Philippine Revolution banned; and the Spanish name of places changed into a Japanese one.

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.

Marcos Sumulo appointed as the first Filipino governor in Luzon in 1911 while Alfordo Vicente represented Luzon and Iglesias Rocas del Panchero represented Visayan in the Imperial 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.

After the defeat of Central Powers in the World War I, Japan ceded South Pacific to Britain in 1919. The Filipino units of Japanese Blue Navy established in 1922 aimed for the re-annexation of Japanese South Pacific. In 1927, the Japanese Blue Navy defeated the British naval forces in the Battle of Santo Domingo and South Pacific islands returned under the control of Japanese Revolutionary Government.

In 1929, the Treaty of Equality Between Japan and South Pacific Islands signed by Nagayama Yoshida, the Chairman of Japanese Revolutionary Government; Andreas Ferdinand Quezon, the representatives of Philippine Congress; and Tuan Muhammad Ja'mil Anak Kamanangan, the representatives of Sulu Sultanate.

The Treaty divided the Japanese South Pacific into three different entities: the Nan'yo islands; the Philippines islands; and the Sultanate of Sulu. The islands of Nan'yo would regarded as the part of Japanese Home Islands due to its historical background. The Philippines islands would became the associated state of Japan, modeled after British system of Dominion. The Sultanate of Sulu would became the protectorate of Japan with a greater freedom regarding the local custom and the traditional Islamic monarchy.

Dominion of Philippines and Independence
The ban on Filipino national symbols lifted in November 1930. The National Assembly of Philippines convened in Manila on February 29, 1931. Andreas Quezon became the provisional Chief of Executive of Philippines in March 7, 1931. In March 12, 1932, the National Congress of Japan enacted the Philippine Dominion Law which made the Philippines as the associated state of Japan.

Juan Santos Macabatuan elected as the first Prime Minister of Dominion Government. With his political machine, Philippines National Party (Filipino: Pahakamaan ng Kabansaan Pilipinas) or simply known as the Kabapilin, Macabatuan pursued an agressive economic policy similarly with Japan's Great Economic Plan. The industrial complexes and state farms developed throughout the islands while the method of forced labor implemented by the government.

In September 13, 1949, the Philippine Dominion Law repealed by the National Congress of Japan and the Philippines declared as an independent state. The newly declared independent Philippines faced several communist insurgencies between 1950 and 1957.

Philippines enjoying sustained economic growth during the first decade of the 21st century, as of 2010, the country's economy is one the largest together with its Southeast Asian neighbors Indonesia, Malaya, and Singapore in terms of GDP and GDP per capita (nominal).