Philippine Culture

Between the South China Sea and the Philippine Sea lies the Southeastern Asia archipelago up of 7,107 islands with known as the Philippines. Tropical maritime climate and mountainous islands with narrow extensive coastal low lands, the Philippines has had an extensive history of colonization’s throughout these areas. Discovered by Spanish conquistador Ferdinand Magellan is 1521 the Spaniards would later arrive renaming the islands as Las Islas Filipinas after King Philip II of Spain and conquered the archipelago setting up a Spanish capital called Manila. Not only would the Spanish culture influence the Filipino culture and countries development, the Philippines would have more legacies placed from the United States of America. Historically,

Education is the United States of Americas best achievement in the Philippines, as they transformed and reformed the Philippines education system. Education Act of 1901 laid the foundation of the Philippine Public school system. This introduced public schools and university systems, enabling communities of people to gain education, receive western teachings and gained western ideologies. Before World War I, the adult population in the Philippines had a literacy rates between 35-45 percent. Due to rapid expansion the education system during the early 20th century, by 1950 adult literacy rate rose to 60-75%. (UNESCO) For Filipino women Sobritchea states, “countless poor families gained the opportunity to break away from traditional gender-related roles.” (Sobritchea) Not only did this legacy of education have improvements to the literacy rates but the United States used this opportunity to teach Filipinos the English language. Making English a major part of the curriculum and having American teachers. English can be seen as a legacy on its own as instead of Spanish and Tagalog being the most common languages in the Philippines. English and Tagalog are the official languages of the Philippines. Overall, the legacy of education became a positive thing for the Philippines as the people became more literate, reformed education system with high schools and Universities

In the book, Legacies of World War II in South and East Asia. Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, David Koh explains the legacy of government left when legislation was passed by the U.S. Congress in 1934 providing a 10-year period of transition to independence for the Philippines. The country’s first constitution was framed in 1934 and approved by 1935. Due to World War II the Philippines suffered from inflation and food shortages. Independence from the United States came on July 4, 1946, but the economy remained highly dependent on U.S. markets. While independent the United states still controlled military installations throughout the islands. A bilateral treaty was signed in March 1947 by which the United States continued to provide military aid, training, and support. The United States left a legacy of government and economic reliance after their independence. While a negative is seen by how much the United States benefited greatly from this economic growth, the Philippines became too reliant on the United States. On the positive side the Philippines was a democracy and gained one of the strongest allies in the world for