PhilippinesPilipinas

Austronesian seafarers settled the islands thousands of years ago. By the 15th century people lived in barangays, communities named after the boats that had carried their ancestors, led by datus and linked by trade with China, Borneo and the Malay world. The Ifugao of northern Luzon built rice terraces up mountainsides, and Islam reached Sulu and Mindanao, where sultanates took shape.

Ferdinand Magellan, sailing for Spain, reached Cebu in 1521, planted a cross and baptised its ruler, then was killed on Mactan by the chief Lapulapu. Miguel López de Legazpi returned in 1565, founded Cebu as a Spanish settlement and moved to Manila in 1571. The islands were named after Philip II.

For 250 years the Manila galleon carried Chinese silk and porcelain to Acapulco in exchange for Mexican silver, making Manila a hinge of the first global trade. The colony was governed from New Spain until 1821. Spanish friars converted the lowlands to Catholicism and built stone churches, some now World Heritage sites, while the Muslim south resisted for three centuries.

In the 19th century a Filipino educated class, the ilustrados, pushed for reform. José Rizal's novels exposed friar abuses; he was executed in Manila in 1896, the year the Katipunan secret society launched a revolution. Emilio Aguinaldo declared independence on 12 June 1898.

Spain sold the islands to the United States in 1898. The Philippine–American War that followed killed hundreds of thousands of Filipinos before the US established control. American rule brought public schools in English, an elected legislature and a promise of independence, set for 1946 by the 1934 Tydings–McDuffie Act.

Japan invaded in December 1941. The Bataan Death March and the occupation were brutal, and the 1945 Battle of Manila destroyed most of the old city, killing about 100,000 civilians. Independence came on 4 July 1946.

Ferdinand Marcos, elected in 1965, declared martial law in 1972 and ruled by decree. The assassination of opposition leader Benigno Aquino Jr. at Manila airport in 1983 turned the middle class against him; in February 1986 millions gathered on EDSA avenue in the peaceful People Power revolution, and Corazon Aquino became president.

Democracy since then has been noisy and dynastic. Rodrigo Duterte's 2016–22 drug war killed thousands and led to an International Criminal Court case; in 2025 he was arrested and sent to The Hague. Ferdinand Marcos Jr., the dictator's son, was elected president in 2022, and tension with China over the South China Sea is a daily news story.

The Philippines has about 115 million people and more than 180 languages. Tagalog, Cebuano, Ilocano and Hiligaynon are the largest language groups; indigenous peoples such as the Ifugao, Kalinga and Lumad live in the uplands, and Moro Muslims in Mindanao.

Family is the organising unit of life. Extended families share homes, pool incomes and expect loyalty; values such as utang na loob (debt of gratitude), hiya (shame) and pakikisama (getting along) shape how people ask for things and refuse them.

About 10 million Filipinos live or work abroad as nurses, seafarers, domestic workers and engineers. Their remittances are close to a tenth of the economy, and balikbayan boxes of goods from abroad arrive before every Christmas.

Pop culture runs deep: basketball, boxing (Manny Pacquiao), beauty pageants, teleseryes and karaoke. The Philippines is one of the most active social media populations on earth.

About 80 per cent of Filipinos are Catholic, and the Church is present in daily life: Sunday Mass in packed malls, rosaries on jeepney mirrors and the Black Nazarene procession in Manila each January, drawing millions.

Every town has a fiesta for its patron saint, with processions, food and street dances. Sinulog in Cebu honours the Santo Niño, the child Jesus image said to be Magellan's gift in 1521. Holy Week brings passion plays, and in Pampanga some penitents are voluntarily nailed to crosses.

Islam is the faith of about 6 per cent, concentrated in Mindanao and Sulu, where the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region was created in 2019 after decades of conflict. Iglesia ni Cristo, a Filipino church, and evangelical groups are large and politically influential.

Older beliefs survive in folk Catholicism: healers (albularyo), spirits of the forest (diwata) and Siquijor's reputation for mystical healing.

The Baroque Churches of the Philippines, a UNESCO site since 1993, show 'earthquake baroque': massive walls and buttresses built to survive tremors, as at Paoay and San Agustin.

Vigan preserves a Spanish colonial town of stone houses with wooden upper floors and capiz-shell windows, the bahay na bato style that mixed Filipino, Chinese and Spanish building.

Weaving traditions include T'nalak from the T'boli of Mindanao, piña cloth from pineapple fibre in Aklan and Ifugao ikat. The jeepney, a reworked US Army jeep painted and chromed, is folk art on wheels, although modernisation rules are replacing old jeepneys.

Filipino painters such as Juan Luna, whose Spoliarium hangs in the National Museum, and Fernando Amorsolo, painter of rural light, anchor the national collection.

Filipino food starts with rice and a sour note. Vinegar, calamansi and tamarind preserve and flavour; adobo and sinigang are the dishes every family argues about.

Spanish rule brought paella, leche flan, chorizo and the idea of the fiesta table; Chinese traders brought noodles (pancit), spring rolls (lumpia) and soy; America added spaghetti with sweet sauce, hot dogs and fried chicken.

Lechon, whole roast pig, is the centre of every celebration; Cebu claims the best. Merienda, the afternoon snack, is sacred: bibingka, puto, turon and halo-halo.

Jollibee, the national fast-food chain, outsells McDonald's at home and follows the diaspora abroad.