The Philippines is a complex archipelago nation
in the northeast of Southeast Asia, made up of 7,641 islands across an area that’s…
probably larger than you think it is. This area is well known for having plenty of Spanish
influences, but what were these islands like before the Spanish came? Furthermore, why
was and is the archipelago so important? And how does the modern country integrate all
7,000 of its islands? First, let’s understand Philippine geography
for context. The modern Philippines can be easily divided into three island groups; Luzon,
the Visayas, and Mindanao. Luzon as a region holds around 62 million
people, while the island of Luzon by itself has a population of 53 million, alone making
up more than half of the country’s population. Luzon is also home to what’s known as Metro
Manila, a megacity of 13 million made up of a collection of different cities, including
the capital Manila and the largest individual city Quezon City. The city of ​​Manila
is the densest city in the world, with more than 43,000 people per square kilometer. That’s
like 0.04 people per square meter! For context, Macau, the most densely populated territory
in the world, holds around 21,000 per square kilometer. In fact, the 2nd, 3rd, and 6th
densest cities in the world are also located within Metro Manila. Luzon as a whole is highly
urbanized, with some of the country’s biggest and most important deepwater ports, and accounts
for nearly â…” of the country's GDP. As a region, Luzon is also associated with islands
such as Mindoro and Palawan (together the Mimaropa Region) to the southwest, as well
as the Bicol Region to the southeast. Second are the Visayas, comprised primarily
of Bohol, Cebu, Leyte, Negros, Panay, and Samar, though Palawan can sometimes also be
included in this list. These islands speak several different yet closely related Visayan
(or Bisayan) dialects, and are also where Ferdinand Magellan first landed, and was later
killed. Lastly, Mindanao is the southernmost cluster
of islands, and its western portion remains predominantly Muslim to this day. Mindanao
itself is the second largest island after Luzon and is home to 26 million people, many
of whom live in the largest city, Davao. Mindanao however is also one of the poorer areas of
the country, making up only 17% of the national economy, largely supported by agriculture,
fishing, and forestry. But before we learn more about what this country
is like and what challenges it has to deal with nowadays… no no no, this is not an
ad break, this video isn’t sponsored. What I was going to ask was, what was it like in
the past? More specifically, what was it like before the Spanish arrived? These islands and these regions are essentially
only one country because of, well, Spanish colonialism. Before the Spanish first arrived
however, the map was a lot more fractured. The first credible written record in the Philippines–
written in a mixture of Old Javanese, Old Malay, and Sanskrit– dates back to around
AD 900. However the Philippine cultures also developed their own writing system from the
14th-16th centuries, an abugida known as Baybayin. I very briefly mentioned it in my video on
why India (and also Southeast Asia) has so many writing systems, but Baybayin is part
of the Brahmic family of writing systems, a descendant of Kawi, which itself descended
from Brahmi, which may or may not (it’s still very disputed) descend from Aramaic,
itself sharing a common ancestor with scripts including the likes of Latin, Cyrillic, and
Arabic: Phoenician. Back in those days, the islands were home
to a whole host of different polities. While certain areas were often controlled by outside
powers like the Brunei Sultanate, it was also home to small polities like Ma-i and Tondo.
These states often adopted a form of government known as Barangay, as small polities anywhere
in size from small communities to city-states. Rulers took one of many different titles depending
on their region, from Sultans in Islamized areas, to Rajahs where there had been extensive
contact with Malaysia and Indonesia, to Lakans among the Tagalogs. Interestingly, Barangays
are a thing in the modern Philippines as well, though these centuries they’re the smallest
administrative division in the country, just below municipalities, themselves just below
the provincial level. As if to show just how diverse they have always
been, the Philippines is divided into 134 ethno-linguistic groups, with 135 languages
native to the country, the 135th being the national language Filipino, a variety of the
Tagalog language, co-official in government alongside English. I guess it’s a little
like how Indonesia’s national language, also to unite a group speaking hundreds of
native languages across a diverse archipelago nation, is a Malay-based dialect called Indonesian.
With English being an official language alongside Filipino– and thus being a mandatory subject
in school, while Spanish has no longer been required for decades now– the Philippines
technically has the fourth largest population of English speakers in the world, with 30,000…
native speakers, and around 90 million speakers in total. The Philippines is one of the few countries
in Asia to have Christianity as its major religion– I probably don't need to tell
you this is– because colonialism. Before they were taken over by the Spanish though,
the Philippines were largely Islamic, and Hindu before that, and early folk beliefs
before that, and part of Pangea before that. Back in the 14th century an explorer named
Makhdum Karim left his province of Malacca, bringing Islam to the Philippines. He converted
the Hindu King Rajah Baguinda of the Sultanate of Sulu to Islam (no, Star Trek fans, that
is not a coincidence), then marrying his daughter. Islam became increasingly popular after this
conversion, following an inflow of Muslim traders from the Middle East, Malaysia and
India. Today the oldest mosque in the county is named after him, but just 140 years later
another influential guy would show up in the Philippines. His name was Ferdinand Magellan.
When it comes to colonialism, the Philippines is sort of like a reverse Thailand. When Magellan
came to the islands in 1521 he claimed the archipelago for the Spanish crown, naming
it after his friend Phil. Then he was shot by an arrow and fatally killed on the island
of Mactan. Three further expeditions were sent, all ending in disaster, with Miguel
LĂłpez de Legazpi establishing the first Spanish settlement on the islands in Cebu in 1565,
and Manila six years later. Alongside the soldiers however also came missionaries with
the aim of converting the local population to Roman Catholicism, a mission which nowadays
seems to have been about 82.9-85% successful, with the notable exception of the Muslim sultanates
of Mindanao and Sulu. Then, to very briefly summarize things, there
was a series of revolts throughout the 19th century, which were brutally suppressed, until
the rebels started to gain the upper hand, at which point the US went in and basically
said, “hey, y’all want some help fighting the Spanish (in exchange for another 50 years
of foreign rule)?” Traveling between the islands, both historically
and in modern times is primarily done by… well you’re looking at the map, how do you
think they go between islands? The Rocinante? Aside from $20 Cebu Pacific flights, there
also exist a series of privately and publicly-run ferries. Many of these ferries might serve
the Philippine Nautical Highway System, also called the Road Roll-on/Roll-Off Terminal
(or RoRo) System, a series of three different integrated highway and ferry routes forming
the backbone of the national transport system. Navigating within islands can also be difficult
though, as these tropical, volcanic islands are incredibly mountainous and extremely forested.
Now you remember how I talked about how dense Metro Manila can be? Turns out that also applies
to cars, as Manila is infamous for its traffic (who’d have thought the densest city in
the world wouldn’t be a good place for the least density-friendly form of urban transport
imaginable?). According to the TomTom Traffic Index (as of 2019, just so we don’t have
to account for COVID lockdowns), Manila was ranked 2nd most congested city in the world,
scoring 71%, meaning a trip from point A to point B took on average 71% longer than it
would have without congestion. It also doesn’t help how little the city’s public transport
truly serves the demand it receives, with long waits for the MRT or LRT not unheard
of. Thus it is clear that Manila needs help with its mass transit woes (not you, Elon). In addition, with them literally lying on
their own tectonic plate, the Philippines is often subject to intense earthquakes and
volcanic eruptions (I swear I’m not the only one noticing parallels between the Philippines
and Indonesia, am I?). The 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo in particular required more
than 20,000 be evacuated. Combine this with the increasingly frequent and violent typhoons
due to man-made climate change, and the struggle of keeping up well functioning infrastructure
becomes more and more apparent. Even with all these geographical challenges
to contend with though, the Philippines is still one of the most important countries
in the Asia/Pacific region, even if they’re routinely forgotten about through what I like
to call the New Zealand Effect.
Seeing this makes me wonder if Leni could use "Strength in Diversity" to oppose the "Unity" call of Marcos Jr...sow some doubt in unity with forced assimilation (altogether for Marcos Jr. it's probably pro-Marcos vs. anti-Marcos) and tell the beauty of the different social backgrounds of the Filipinos IMO.