the philippines is a complex archipelago
nation in the northeast of southeast
asia made up of over 7 000 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
7641 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 the country's population
luzon is also home to what's known as
metro manila a mega city of 13 million
made up of a collection of different
smaller 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 second third and sixth 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 deep water ports and
accounts for nearly two-thirds of the
country's gdp as a region luzon is also
associated with the islands of mindoro
and palawan together the memeropa region
to the southwest as well as the bicol
region to the southeast
second are the bisayas comprised
primarily of bohol cebu leite negros
panai and samar though palawan can also
sometimes be included in this list
the peoples of 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 percent of the national economy
largely supported by agriculture fishing
and forestry
but before we can learn more about what
this country is like and what challenges
it has to deal with nowadays first we
have to no no this is not an ad break
this video isn't sponsored okay what i
was going to say was we must first ask
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 8 900. however the
philippine cultures also developed their
own writing system from the 14th through
16th centuries in abugida known as
baibain
i very briefly mentioned it in my video
on why india and also southeast asia
have so many writing systems but babiyin
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
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 mae 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 the region from sultans and islamized
areas to rajas where there have been
extensive contact with malaysia and
indonesia to lacans among the tagalogs
interestingly barangays are still a
thing in the modern philippines as well
though these centuries they form the
smallest administrative divisions in the
country just below municipalities
themselves just below the wait hang on
all right i want you all to guess this
right now does the philippines have
states or provinces vote now on your
phones
provinces the answer is provinces
as if to show just how diverse they have
always been the philippines can be
divided into 134 ethnolinguistic groups
with 135 languages native to the country
the 135th being the national language
filipino an official 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 united groups
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 over 30 000
native speakers and around 90 million
speakers in total the philippines is one
of the very few countries in asia to
have christianity as its major religion
i probably don't need to tell you this
because colonialism before they were
taken over by the spanish though the
philippines were largely islamic and
hindu before that and early folk
believes before that and part of pangaea
before that back in the 14th century an
explorer named mahdum kareem left his
province of melaka bringing islam to the
philippines he converted the hindu king
raja bhaginda of the sultanate of sulu
to islam no star trek fans that is not a
coincidence and then marrying his
daughter just for good measure 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 country
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 in maktan three further
expeditions were sent all ending in
disaster with miguel lopez de la gaspi
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 to 85 percent successful
with of course the notable exception of
the muslim sultanates of mindanao and
zulu then to very briefly summarize
things there were a series of revolts
throughout the 19th century which were
all brutally suppressed until the rebels
started to gain the upper hand at which
point the us also fighting a war with
spain basically said hey guys you 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 get between the islands
the rose and nantes aside from many
cheap cebu pacific flights there also
exists a series of privately and
publicly run fairies many of these
ferries might also serve the philippine
nautical highway system also called the
road roll-on roll-off terminal or
railroad 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 2018 just so we
don't have to account for covet
lockdowns manila was ranked the second
most congested city in the world scoring
71 percent
meaning a trip from point a to point b
took on average 71 percent 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 however 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
[Music]
you