Philippines (Cherry, Plum, and Chrysanthemum)

The Philippines (Spanish: Filipinas; Tagalog: Pilipinas), officially known as the Republic of the Philippines (Spanish: República de Filipinas; Tagalog: Repúblika ng 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 Mindanao, the main island of Moroland.

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.

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.

and the 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 took over. The revolution soon was put down violently by the colonial authority. Aguinaldo and several revolutionary leaders later went to self-exile first in Hong Kong and then in Tokyo.

On February 15, 1898, the USS Maine, having been sent to Cuba because of U.S. concerns for the safety of its citizens during an ongoing Cuban rebellion, exploded and sank in Havana harbor, led to the Spanish-American War (1898–1900). At the same time, Japan which alarmed with the growing influences of Spain's ally, Germany, in Asia, also prepared to preemptively invade the Spanish East Indies, resulted to separate Spanish-Japanese War (1898–1901). Japan then invited Aguinaldo to return to the Philippine islands in the hope he would rally more Phillipines against the Spanish colonial government.

After an exhausted three-year fighting, the Spanish and the Japanese finally agreed to make a peace on May 2, 1901 that resulted to the Treaty of Brussels. The treaty formally ended the hostilities between two parties and returned to the status quo ante bellum without any territorial gains for Japan. Unlike many Philippine leaders that were jailed or executed by the Spanish colonial government, Aguinaldo was able to escape and went into exile again to Tokyo. In his exile, Aguinaldo founded the Insular Society (Spanish: Insular Sociedad) in 1904.

Unlike Cuba, the Philippines was never granted a right to send its representatives to the Cortes as well as the same degree of political and cultural autonomy. Instead, it was still being ruled directly from Madrid with a Captaincy-General in Manila as the representation of the Spanish government. Similarly with the other European colonies in Southeast Asia such the Dutch East Indies and British Malaya, the Spanish East Indies was also subjected into the economic exploitation for its sugar, rubbers and other agricultural products.