Philippines: Historical and Cultural Development, Physical Basis and other Details

The republic of the Philippines is an archi­pelago, containing some 7,100 islands and islets that extend across 1150 miles (1,850 km) between the Philippine Sea to the east, and South China Sea to the west and north. The Northernmost Island is only 65 miles (104 km) from Taiwan, and the southernmost barely 30 miles (48 km) east of the tip of East Malaysia.

Ninety-five percent of the 75 million Filipinos, how­ever, live on only ten of the country’s islands. Luzon, the northernmost and larg­est island, accounts for one-third of the island-chain country’s land area, and forms a sort of northern anchor. Mindanao, sec­ond in size, forms the southern anchor. Between these two lie the seven major but much smaller islands (Bohol, Cebu, Leyte, Mestabe, Negros, Panay and Samar).

Com­parable in area to Italy or Great Britain, 11,500 sq miles (29,800 sq km), the coun­try’s aggregate coastline is as long as that of the U.S.A. Similar to Indonesia in its ar­chipelagic character and in topography, the islands are mostly mountainous, with few discontinuous, narrow coastal plains, and the climate is tropical monsoonal, but relatively uniform.

Despite these obvious similarities, the Philippines are unique among Southeast Asian neighbors: distinctive in its religion, history, and national cohesion. Notable among the differences are an emphasis on education and the prevalence of English, a legacy of the American era; literacy is over 94 percent rivaling that of Singapore and higher than that of most Asian countries (with the obvious exception of Japan).

Be­cause it was under Spanish control for over three centuries, and the United States for five decades, it developed pronounced cul­tural affinities with the West. It is, for example, the fourth most populous coun­try in the world where English is an official language, and the only predomi­nantly Roman Catholic nation in Asia. The Filipinos, however, are sensitive to Asian sentiments.

Historical and Cultural Development:

The Philippines is predominantly Chris­tian. Converted to Catholicism by Spanish missionaries 400 years ago and by Ameri­can missionaries in this century, today 83 percent of the Filipinos are Catholics and 5.5 percent subscribe to the Protestant faiths. The remaining 6 percent are divided between adherents of the Islamic faith (2.5 million) known as Moros and concen­trated almost entirely in western Mindanao, Palawan and Sulu islands in the southern parts of the country; and animist groups.

There are some Buddhists (largely of Chinese extraction). Racially, the Filipi­nos are a blend of Malay stock with some Chinese and Spanish elements. The addi­tion of Arab, Japanese and American elements into the melting pot has created a distinctive Filipino culture. The infusion of Chinese into Philippine society exem­plifies this “melting pot” character of the Filipino culture.

The “pure” Chinese mi­nority numbers less than one percent of the population, for most have intermar­ried, producing a Chinese-Mestizo population which adds up to over 10 per­cent of the total population, thus the number of racially identifiable Chinese re­mains obscure. Many of the leaders in the Philippine administration and business have Chinese blood, although they have been otherwise completely assimilated into the Filipinos.

The “pure” Chinese are ac­tive in retailing trade, and have been the object of much distrust and occasional per­secution by the Filipinos, as in Indonesia or Malaysia. A small number of emigrants from the Indian subcontinent have added to the racial mixture. There are small num­bers of resident U.S. nationals and Spaniards. The aboriginals constitute a very small percentage of the population.

Despite the 70 or so native languages and dialects that are spoken in the coun­try, Tagalog is the most widely used by almost a third of the population, and is the basis of the official national language. Eng­lish is the second official language, and taught in the schools as a subsidiary lan­guage, and remains the chief lingua franca, although an English-Tagalog hybrid “Taglish” is being increasingly used.

The Tagalog group of languages is concentrated chiefly in Manila, southern and central Luzon and in the island of Mindoro. Pam- pango is also used in some parts of Luzon. Several other languages are native to the various islands (Cebu, Bicol, Ilacono, Leyte, Samar).

The Filipino ethnic mix is a product of several historical influences. Although some remote mountain ranges are still inhabited by descendants of earliest human beings to settle in the islands—the negritos, most Filipinos are descended from later waves of migrants, that of the proto Malays, also from the Asian mainland, and a group of Malay settlers, probably from Indonesia. By 300 A.D., the last Malay groups were firmly established in the coastal areas.

The Chinese came later for trade or plunder, but stayed on, initially concentrating in Luzon and later pushing southward to other islands. In the late 15th century Is­lam arrived through seafarers from northern Borneo to the southern islands of Mindanao and Palawan, where it flour­ishes to this day. Before Islam could take a firm hold in the northern islands, the Spanish invasion had started in the 16th century, and for 333 years Spain estab­lished rule over the country and left a lasting imprint on its religion and society.

Most inhabitants were converted to Ca­tholicism. Almost every respectable town in the islands is dominated by a baroque church built during the Spanish period. After 1898, when the islands were ceded to the United States following the Spanish- American War, the United States established its administration, which lasted until the attainment of freedom in 1946. Fifty years of American occupation again produced several changes.

Apart from the adoption of English as a lingua franca in the islands, Americans introduced long over-due land reforms which the Filipinos carried on during the post-independence period. These reforms were designed to eliminate the worst aspects of Spanish co­lonial policies which had created a divided society of landed aristocrats and landless peasants.

Physical Basis:

The typical pattern for most of the thousands of islands that con­stitute the national territory of the Philippines is a mountainous core, the nar­row and interrupted coastal plains, the generally northward trending of the drain­age, and the characteristic irregular configuration.

All the major islands pos­sess great physical variety: they are composed of volcanic, coral, and several other rock formations. In northwest Luzon, the highest point at 9,693 feet (2,954 meters) is reached in the prominent range of Cardillera Central which consists of two or more parallel ranges. To the north of and between the ranges is the fer­tile Cagayan Valley.

In the southwestern part of northern Luzon are the rugged mountains, rimmed by foothills and roll­ing uplands, the seaward margins of which contain narrow coastal lowlands. The pat­tern is somewhat repeated in some of the Visayan group of islands such as Negros, and Panay. The southernmost large island of Mindanao has huge, rugged mountains and volcanic peaks ascending to nearly 9,000 feet (2,743 meters) and elevated pla­teaus and a few marshy lowlands such as the Agusan and Cotabato.

Everywhere, volcanoes are a conspicuous feature of the landscape covering nearly 40 percent of the surface area of the islands. Fifty of the volcanoes are still active. The most distinc­tive volcanic areas are in southern Luzon and on the island of Negros, and Min­danao. The remaining 60 percent of the surface consists of the rolling plateaus, the river valleys and the coastal plains.

The climate of the islands may broadly be called tropical humid monsoonal. The temperatures remain in general, fairly con­stant, averaging between 75° and 85°F (23.8°C-29.4°C) during the year, with few marked seasonal variations. The tempera­ture differences between the north and south are tempered by the seas that engulf the islands. Altitude rather than latitude is the important temperature control.

The major distinguishing feature of climate is the precipitation, which almost every­where is above 60 inches (1,524 mm) annually, and varies seasonally in the dif­ferent parts of the country depending largely on the direction of the monsoon winds, which blow from the southwest from May to October and from the north­east from November to February.

The westernmost areas facing the South China Sea are characterized by a rainy season in summer and falls when the southwest mon­soon is blowing, and a marked dry season in winter and spring. The easternmost ar­eas have no dry season, but experience a maximum rainfall m winter when the northeasterly monsoon winds blow strongly across the islands.

An important climatic phenomenon is the typhoon, which occurs some 20 times a year, most commonly between August and November, and is responsible for one- quarter to one third of the entire precipitation amounts experienced. Ty­phoons are most frequent and distinctive north of latitude of 11°N, and hit the east­ern coast of the central islands and Luzon the hardest. Mindanao is generally free from typhoons.

Abundant rainfall and high tempera­tures have encouraged the growth of forest vegetation, common to most of Southeast Asia, which covers two-thirds of the land surface. Mangrove and nipa palms are com­mon along the coast, and tropical rainforests cover the lower coastal plains and foothills.

Mixed tropical evergreen and deciduous forests cover the higher slopes. In comparatively drier areas and areas of shifting agriculture, forests have been largely replaced by bamboo and tall grasses called cogon, and the grass-covered area as the cogonales exist which cover between 15 to 20 percent of the land surface.

In gen­eral, Philippine soils are not fertile except in the alluvial lowlands, but even these, have been leached of much of their fertil­ity. On the slopes of the mountains soils are generally thin and eroded. However, along the coast of some central and south­ern islands soils formed over uplifted lime­stone reefs, as in Cebu, are mostly fertile.

Resources and Development:

A little over 36 percent of the Filipino work force is engaged in agricultural pursuits, generat­ing only 20 percent of the nation’s domestic production. In contrast, manu­facturing and construction activities account for about 14 percent of the work force and 30 percent of the national prod­uct. Although the nonagricultural sectors of the economy have expanded at a much greater rate since independence, agricul­ture remains the major activity of the Filipinos.

Three crops dominate the Philippine agriculture: rice, corn, and coconuts. Rice is the principal staple crop, grown in all the parts of the country, but especially in central and north-central Luzon, southern Mindanao, western Negros and eastern and central Panay. Since the 1970s follow­ing the introduction of higher yielding strains of the plant, the construction of roads, and irrigation canals, the use of chemical fertilizers and insecticides, rice production has gone up substantially, re­sulting in some years having some surplus for export.

Corn was introduced by the Spanish from Mexico and is another im­portant food crop, and accounts for nearly a third of the area given to food-crops; for many people’s it is a more important cereal than rice, particularly in Cebu and central Visayas islands. Industrial crops, which include coco­nuts, sugar, abaca, and tobacco, are grown primarily for their export earnings. The Philippines is one of the world’s largest producers of coconuts, and a major ex­porter of coconut products. It also produces more than one-third of the world’s copra. Sugar is one of the major exports and valuable earner of foreign ex­change.

Sugarcane is grown extensively in central and north-central Luzon, western Negros, and on Panay. Much of the export goes to the United States. Abaca or Manila hemp is the source of plant fiber, and also an important export. It is grown exten­sively in eastern Mindanao, southeastern Luzon, and on Leyte and Samar.

Tobacco is an important commercial crop, though its value has declined during the last few decades due to the decrease in the con­sumption of cigars in the U.S.A., the country’s major importer. The importance of forestry and forest products, tradition­ally of great value as export items, has significantly declined in recent years. For­est products include high quality timber and veneer, dye woods, rattan, and rubber. Commercial fishing is carried on univer­sally, primarily off Palawan, Panay, Mindanao and Negros, and canned tuna is a major export.

During the Spanish occupation, the al­location of good farmland to loyal citizens of church and state, created a faithful class of plantation holders and landless laborers for the landlords. Most of the country’s wealth was concentrated in a handful of landed aristocrats, while the masses re­mained poor.

Meanwhile, crops such as tobacco and maize were introduced from the Americas. Large landed estates produc­ing such crops as sugarcane and rubber were added to the traditional agriculture. In the later 1960s the Philippines success­fully experimented with the new high- yielding varieties (HYV) of food grains and became a pioneer in the so-called “Green Revolution” and self-sufficient in its food grain production.

During the 1940s and 1950s, economic diversification had started. The manufac­ture of textiles, shoes, and cement began appearing. Mining also grew in impor­tance. The major minerals included copper, bauxite, gold, manganese, zinc, lead, iron ore, and chromite. Some petro­leum is also extracted. Several of these are produced for export, and thus are vulner­able to price fluctuations in world market.

Although much growth has taken place since independence, industrial production has not been expanding for want of capital investment which must come from the lo­cal Chinese, the government, or foreign countries (mostly the U.S.A. and Japan). Major manufactured goods are processed foods, beverages, textiles, petroleum prod­ucts, wearing apparel, and chemicals.

The land reforms introduced during the United States occupation did help the peasantry but economic hostility between the landed aristocracy, which had acquired political power, and the poor masses sur­faced during 1970s and 1980s and led to several uprisings.

Economic discontent was further exac­erbated by a high rate of population growth, as population pressures tended to aggravate the hardships of the poor. The census of 1903 counted 7.1 million Filipinos; by 1960 it had increased to 30 million.

To­day, it stands at 75 million and is growing at a high rate of 2.0 percent a year, and is likely to double in 30 years. Although the Philippines does not as yet face a major population problem, the threshold level to overpopulation is about to be reached, par­ticularly in the crowded, central plains of Luzon and the Visayan group of islands.

As in other Southeast Asian nations, most Filipino political and economic power is concentrated in the capital, Ma­nila. Founded by the Spanish in 1571 on a sheltered harbor, it retains a distinct Span­ish appearance. It is truly a primate city in the country, the hub of Filipino politics, and the nerve center of the country’s econ­omy, religion, and communications.

With a population of over 5.5 million for its metropolitan area that includes Pasay City, Caloogam City, and Quezon City, it is six times larger than the” next city Davao, on the island of Mindanao. Manila is the home of two-fifths of the nation’s indus­tries and international commerce. Most of its industrial establishments are small scale and produce such items as processed food, textiles, and consumer goods.

Manila is in­ternationally known for the manufacture of cigars that utilize the locally cultivated abaca plant. Petroleum products, chemi­cals and beverages are some other manufactured items. However, like most large cities in developing countries, it con­tains many slums.

Prospects:

With the exception of Malay­sia and Brunei and Singapore, the Philippines are the most urbanized nation in Southeast Asia (58 percent of its popula­tion lives in cities). The country possesses many inherent assets: a considerable en­dowment of natural resources; a highly literate population; fairly established democratic institutions; a rising en­trepreneurial class, strategic archipelagic location; and a close commercial and po­litical liaison with the United States.

It is now self-sufficient in its food grain require­ments. It has already shown substantial economic growth, averaging between 5 and 6 percent a year during the last two decades. But occasional political turmoil often obscures the country’s potential for development.

The future depends largely on the restoration of political and eco­nomic stability by closing the gap between the rich and poor (particularly by address­ing rural landlessness and urban poverty), by reducing birthrates, and by strengthen­ing further its democratic political institutions.