Philippines

The Philippines, officially the Republic of the Philippines (Filipino: Repúblika ng Pilipinas), is an island country in Southeastern Eurasia situated in the western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Taiwan; west across the South China Sea sits Vietnam; southwest is the island of Borneo across the Sulu Sea, and to the south the Celebes Sea separates it from other islands of Indonesia.

D

 * The persecution of birds of prey is a major problem in the Philippines. Philippine Eagles and other birds of prey are blamed when chickens or piglets disappear from yards. Almost every year, an eagle is found killed by gunshot hail—a huge impact for a species that raises young only once every two years and of which there are so few left. As we watch the bird through the telescope, it begins to squeal, “Kiuu, Kiuu, Kiuu!” Almost immediately an answer is heard from the right, and to our great surprise, a second eagle with a light blue beak appears: an adult specimen. “This is the mother,” the guide says. “The father was shot dead a few months ago.” His words hit us like a bomb. What madman would dare to point a gun at such an awesome animal and pull the trigger?
 * Arjan Dwarshuis, The (Big) Year That Flew By (2023), ISBN 978-1-64502-191-9, p. 45

L

 * Most Americans can't find the Philippines on a map, so why bother to be offended?
 * Mike Lopresti, "Outrage to Floyd Mayweather Jr.'s racist rant still missing" (9 September 2010), USA Today.

M

 * I said, to the people of the Philippines whence I came, I shall return. Tonight, I repeat those words: I shall return!
 * Douglas MacArthur, After his arrival in Australia from the Philippines (30 March 1942)


 * I have returned. By the grace of Almighty God, our forces stand again on Philippine soil.
 * Douglas MacArthur, On landing in Leyte, Philippines (20 October 1944)


 * In the Philippines, America has evolved a model for this new free world of Asia. In the Philippines, America has demonstrated that peoples of the East and peoples of the West may walk side by side in mutual respect and with mutual benefit. The history of our sovereignty there has now the full confidence of the East.
 * Douglas MacArthur, radio address (2 September 1945).
 * Of our former ward, the Philippines, we can look forward in confidence that the existing unrest will be corrected and a strong and healthy nation will grow in the longer aftermath of war's terrible destructiveness. We must be patient and understanding and never fail them -- as in our hour of need, they did not fail us. A Christian nation, the Philippines stand as a mighty bulwark of Christianity in the Far East, and its capacity for high moral leadership in Asia is unlimited.
 * Douglas MacArthur, 1951 Farewell Address to Congress


 * This is absolutely not unique to Singapore. If there's one country that will definitely succeed with meritocracy, pragmatism and honesty, that's the Philippines. I say this because Filipinos are among the most talented people in the world today.
 * Former Ambassador to the United Nations of Singapore, Kishore Mahbubani, quoted on Rappler, "#SG50: 'Philippines can succeed like Singapore'",

N

 * Extreme poverty, the increasing availability of high-speed internet and the existence of a vast and comparatively wealthy overseas customer base has led to organised crime groups exploiting children for financial gain.
 * The National Crime Agency, quoted on BBC News, "Philippines web abuse ring smashed in UK-led operation", January 15, 2014.

R

 * Let me tell you why the rest of the world needs to pay attention to what happens in the Philippines: 2021 was the sixth year in a row that Filipinos – out of all global citizens – spent the most time on the internet and on social media. Despite slow internet speeds, Filipinos uploaded and downloaded the largest number of videos on YouTube in 2013. Four years later, 97% of our country’s citizens were on Facebook. When I told that statistic to Mark Zuckerberg in 2017, he was quiet for a beat. “Wait, Maria,” he finally responded, looking directly at me, “where are the other three percent?” At the time, I laughed at his glib quip. I’m not laughing anymore. As these numbers show and as Facebook admits, the Philippines is ground zero for the terrible effects that social media can have on a nation’s institutions, its culture, and the minds of its populace.
 * Maria Ressa How to Stand Up to a Dictator (2022)

S

 * There is currently no food, water or electricity. We can only imagine how much worse the situation will be for families living in towns and remote villages.
 * DEC chairman Salah Saeed, quoted on BBC News, "Typhoon Haiyan: UK aid work under way in Philippines", November 13, 2013.


 * We have been a colonized country. We have passed through all the trials and tribulations of a colonized people. It took us centuries and centuries to fight, to struggle, and to win our fight for the recognition of our independence.
 * Lorenzo Sumulong, as quoted in Official Records, 15th Session of the UN General Assembly

T

 * Life here is routinely visited by cataclysm. Killer typhoons that strike several times a year. Bandit insurgencies that never end. Somnolent mountains that one day decide to wake up. The Philippines isn’t like China or Brazil, whose mass might absorb the trauma. This is a nation of scattered rocks in the sea. When disaster hits, the place goes under for a while. Then it resurfaces and life proceeds.
 * Alex Tizon, "My Family’s Slave" (May 2017), The Atlantic

W

 * The only country in the early twentieth century where the United States could impose its model of development through colonization was the Philippines. Like Cuba, the Philippines had been taken over after the Spanish–American War, but unlike the island in the Caribbean, the Southeast Asian islands were kept under direct American control as a dependency. The possession of the Philippines gave the United States an opportunity to experiment with the transposition of American ideals to a culture regarded as alien. In spite of the initially fierce resistance by the Philippinos to the American colonial project, by the mid-1930s many Americans were convinced that enough progress had been made for the colony to gain its independence within a decade. An alliance in Washington between trade protectionists, New Deal reformers, and fiscal conservatives secured a timetable for decolonization, on the clear understanding that the United States would keep its military bases and most of its political influence intact. The Philippines was seen as a triumph for American reform: it had brought a ‘‘new day of freedom’’ to an Asian people who earlier could have entertained no hopes for such a future.
 * Odd Arne Westad, The Global Cold War: Third World Intervention and the Making of Our Times (2012), p. 23