Chapter 2 - The Present in Perspective

Pre-Spanish Period | Spain Creates a Nation
A Change of Masters-The Amercian Period | Independent - at Last?

Filipinos are proud of their country. Whether your are a short-term visitor or traveling on a long-term assignment you will enjoy your time in the Philippines and appreciate its culture more readily by delving a little into a rich history which has produced a unique synthesis between the East and the West.

Fortunately there are many excellent books available, in English, and at reasonable prices on every conceivable subject from Filipino food, through national heroes and martyrs to contemporary Filipino architecture. Many make for excellent reading.

The recorded history of the Philippines may be divided broadly into four distinct phases: the pre-Spanish period (before 1521); the Spanish period (1521-1898); the American period (1898-1946); and the post Independence period (1946-present).

Pre-Spanish Period

The earliest human inhabitants of the islands that subsequently became known as the Philippines are believed to be the Negritos (also known as the Aeta) who arrived some 30,000 years ago having crossed via a land bridge from the Asian mainland. They clashed with other immigrant waves from Borneo and Sumatra, who also made their way across then-existing land bridges. Subsequently, people of Malay stock came from the south in successive waves, the earliest by land bridges and later in boats called balangays. The Malays dominated the lowlands where they settled in scattered communities or kinship, which became known as barangays and which were ruled by local chieftains known as datus.

The people of the mountains retained a more primitive lifestyle based on shifting agriculture. The exception to this was in northern Luzon when in the early years of the Christian era the peoples occupying the land around Banaue lived in a defined territory and developed an agriculture based on large scale and elaborate rice terraces that have survived until the present day. This area is one of the favored destinations of foreign visitors to this country.

Chinese merchants and traders arrived and settled from the ninth century A.D, their influence becoming most noticeable in the Northern Luzon area although their influence extended as far as Mindanao. In the 14th century, Arab influenced Makdum people arrived, introducing Islam in the south and extending some influence even into Luzon. The Malays, however, remained the dominant and controlling group until the Spanish arrived in the 16th century.

Prior to the arrival of the Spanish, the people of the Philippines retained a lifestyle based on the barangay. This was the largest organized political unit. There was no central government or elite national culture. Indeed the Philippines, like Papua New Guinea, became a western colony before it had developed a national identity of its own. In many respects the Philippines today - within its present borders - is a product of that western imperialistic phase.

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