Portal:Philippines
The Philippines, officially the Republic of the Philippines, is an archipelagic country in Southeast Asia. In the western Pacific Ocean, it consists of 7,641 islands, with a total area of 300,000 square kilometers, which are broadly categorized in three main geographical divisions from north to south: Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao. The Philippines is bounded by the South China Sea to the west, the Philippine Sea to the east, and the Celebes Sea to the south. It shares maritime borders with Taiwan to the north, Japan to the northeast, Palau to the east and southeast, Indonesia to the south, Malaysia to the southwest, Vietnam to the west, and China to the northwest. It is the world's twelfth-most-populous country, with diverse ethnicities and cultures. Manila is the country's capital, and its most populated city is Quezon City. Both are within Metro Manila. Negritos, the archipelago's earliest inhabitants, were followed by waves of Austronesian peoples. The adoption of Animism, Hinduism with Buddhist influence, and Islam established island-kingdoms ruled by datus, rajas, and sultans. Extensive overseas trade with neighbors such as the late Tang or Song empire brought Chinese people to the archipelago as well, which would also gradually settle in and intermix over the centuries. The arrival of Ferdinand Magellan, a Portuguese explorer leading a fleet for Castile, marked the beginning of Spanish colonization. In 1543, Spanish explorer Ruy López de Villalobos named the archipelago Las Islas Filipinas in honor of King Philip II of Castile. Spanish colonization via New Spain, beginning in 1565, led to the Philippines becoming ruled by the Crown of Castile, as part of the Spanish Empire, for more than 300 years. Catholic Christianity became the dominant religion, and Manila became the western hub of trans-Pacific trade. Hispanic immigrants from Latin America and Iberia would also selectively colonize. The Philippine Revolution began in 1896, and became entwined with the 1898 Spanish–American War. Spain ceded the territory to the United States, and Filipino revolutionaries declared the First Philippine Republic. The ensuing Philippine–American War ended with the United States controlling the territory until the Japanese invasion of the islands during World War II. After the United States retook the Philippines from the Japanese, the Philippines became independent in 1946. The country has had a tumultuous experience with democracy, which included the overthrow of a decades-long dictatorship in a nonviolent revolution. The Philippines is an emerging market and a newly industrialized country, whose economy is transitioning from being agricultural to service- and manufacturing-centered. It is a founding member of the United Nations, the World Trade Organization, ASEAN, the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, and the East Asia Summit; it is a member of the Non-Aligned Movement and a major non-NATO ally of the United States. Its location as an island country on the Pacific Ring of Fire and close to the equator makes it prone to earthquakes and typhoons. The Philippines has a variety of natural resources and a globally-significant level of biodiversity. (Full article...) Selected article -Typhoon Ketsana, known in the Philippines as Tropical Storm Ondoy, was the second-most devastating tropical cyclone of the 2009 Pacific typhoon season, causing $1.15 billion in damages and 665 fatalities, only behind Morakot earlier in the season, which caused 956 deaths and damages worth $6.2 billion. Ketsana was the sixteenth tropical storm, and the eighth typhoon of the season. It was the most devastating tropical cyclone to hit Manila, surpassing Typhoon Patsy (Yoling) in 1970. Ketsana formed early about 860 km (530 mi) to the northwest of Palau on September 23, 2009. The depression remained weak and was downgraded to a low pressure area later that day by the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) but after drifting through extremely favorable conditions, it intensified the next day and was categorized as Tropical Depression by the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (PAGASA) and was given the name Ondoy after entering the Philippine Area of Responsibility. The Joint Typhoon Warning Center (JTWC) issued a Tropical Cyclone Formation Alert on the depression. It was then upgraded to a tropical depression by the JMA later that morning before the JTWC followed suit early on September 25, designating the depression as 17W. Soon, Ketsana was upgraded to a tropical storm before passing over the Philippines. As it moved into the South China Sea the storm intensified while moving toward the west, and was categorized as a Severe Tropical Storm by the JMA. (Full article...)Did you know (auto-generated) -
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Selected biography -Juan Valentin Furagganan Ponce Enrile Sr., CLH (born Juan Valentin Furagganan; February 14, 1924), also referred to by his initials JPE, is a Filipino politician and lawyer known for his role in the administration of Philippine president Ferdinand Marcos; his role in the failed coup that helped hasten the 1986 People Power Revolution and the ouster of Marcos; and his tenure in the Philippine legislature in the years after the revolution. Enrile has served four terms in the Senate, in a total of twenty-two years, he holds the third longest-tenure in the history of the upper chamber. In 2022, at the age of 98, he returned to government office as the Chief Presidential Legal Counsel in the administration of President Bongbong Marcos. Enrile was a protégé of President Ferdinand Marcos who served as Justice Secretary and Defense Minister during the Marcos administration. Enrile played a key role in the planning and documentary legwork for Martial Law, and was in charge of the Philippine Military during its implementation. Other roles in this period included Presidency of the Philippine Coconut Authority through which he gained control of the copra industry together with Danding Cojuangco, and being the general put in charge of logging in the Philippines under martial law - a period during which lumber exports were so extensive that the forest cover of the Philippines shrank until only 8% remained. By the 1980s, however, rising factionalism in the Marcos administration led to a reduction in Enrile's influence within the administration. (Full article...)General imagesThe following are images from various Philippines-related articles on Wikipedia.
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