The Philippine Islands Background

This video from Education 2000's Dive Travel shows you the Philippine islands background.

The Philippine Islands Background The Philippine Islands are an archipelago of over 7,100 islands laying about 500 miles or 805 kilometers off the Southeast coast of Asia. The overall land area is comparable to that of Arizona. Only about 7% of the islands are larger than one square mile and only 1/3 have names. The islands are a volcanic origin with a larger one’s crossed by mountain ranges. The highest peak is Mount Apo, 9,690 feet or 2,950 meters located on Mindanao. The Philippines is a picturesque patchwork of coral Fringe Islands scattered in the turquoise sea. Life both to terrestrial and marine is so diverse and abundant that the entire country is identified as one of the global hot spots of bio diversity. Mountain ranges rise to more than 2,000 meters in places, their slopes drape in luxurious force. Its white sand beaches our listed as the some of the best in the world and the people are recognized the world over for their fund loving warm nature. The Philippines average in heavens arrived from the Asian Mainland around 25,000 BC. They were followed by waves of Indonesian and Malayan settlers from 3,000 BC onward. By the 14th century AD, extensive trade was being conducted with India, Indonesia, China and Japan. Ferdinand Magellan, the Portuguese navigator in the service of Spain explored the Philippines in 1521. Twenty-one years later a Spanish exploration party named the group of islands in honor of Prince Philip who was later to become Philip II of Spain. Spain retained possession of the islands for the next 350 years. The Philippines were seeded at the US in 1899 by the Treaty of Paris after the Spanish- American war. Meanwhile, the Filipinos led by Emilio Aguinaldo had declared their independence. They initiated guerilla warfare against the US troops that persisted until Aguinaldo’s capture in 1901. The first US civilian Governor Civilian Governor General was William Howard Taft. The Jones law 1916 established the Philippines legislature composed of an elective senate and House of Representatives. The Tydings–McDuffie Act in 1934 provided for a transitional period until 1946. At which time, the Philippines would become completely independent which came to be under a constitution approved by the people of the Philippines in 1935. On December 8, 1941, the islands were invaded by Japanese troops following the Fall of General Douglas MacArthur’s forces at Bataan and Corregidor. Case on instituted the government and exile that he headed until his death in 1944. He was succeeded by Vice President Sergio Osmena. US forces under MacArthur reinvaded the Philippines in October 1944 and after the liberation of Manila in February 1945, Osmena reestablish the government. Today in Manila, the spacious, American Military Cemetery list the names, state by state, an enclosed walls and honors each one of the over 7,000 American soldiers who died here fighting during the war. This Cemetery is visited daily by people from around the world.