Why is the Philippines such a terrible place?

Gareth Wells

Let's compare and contrast two similar island nations: Japan and the Philippines.

The Philippines is geographically similar to Japan with a few notable exceptions.

Both are longitudinal volcanic island chain archipelagoes on the fringe of the East Asian continent. Both maintain similar population sizes of 100+ million people. Philippines has a tropical climate whereas Japan has a temperate climate. Both the Philippines and Japan are subject to a large number of natural forces that create havoc for the human inhabitants, including typhoons, tsunamis, earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. This make agriculture vulnerable to crop disruption and failure.

In terms of natural resources the Philippines has a bounty of natural resources, particularly metals and minerals including gold and copper. Japan lacks any natural resources except the bounty of the sea.

Both Philippines and Japan were inhabited early by Asian based peoples. Japan has successfully evolved and developed, while the Philippines remains stuck in a quagmire of poverty and underdevelopment and achievement. One was never colonised and the other was heavily colonised — arguably retarding development in the Philippines.

The major difference, however, is that Japan benefited from its location close to China and Korea. It adopted and the imported ideas, technology and culture of the powerful Chinese civilization; including Confucianism and governance. This led to a flourishing in Japan and the ability to form strong central rule — albeit with continuous warfare between states and kingdoms, as happened in China.

The Philippines is a remote archipelago which was not well connected to mainland Asia. It's closest Association and cross-cultural interchange was with Borneo and the Brunei Empire. These were quiet pastoral kingdoms and whatever innovation was obtained came largely through contact with Java and other Indonesian islands.

The arrival of the Spanish in the 1564 and the colonization of Cebu, after strong resistance by natives, subjected the Philippines to the same treatment as the natives of South America. Conquest, conversion to Catholicism and enslavement to Spanish economic extraction. The Spanish invested little to nothing in the Philippines to improve the plight of its people, although it did establish a mestizo elite — who continued to dominate the Filipino people long after the Spanish left, even through American colonial times, where a large part of Filipino GDP relied on American military presence.

This established elite set themselves up as feudal landlords and have ruled the Philippines till the present day. Although elections are held, it is the largest elite families that control the entire Filipino economy. They have had little incentive to improve the conditions for working people and have spent centuries exploiting the population to their own ends. Politicians are bought off by the elites to continue the status quo. Some 12-15% of the Filipino population is forced to find employment overseas in order to support their families back home.

The Filipino people are a wonderful, kind and warm people who live a very social lifestyle and endure despite their little means and their poverty. Unfortunately they have been subjected to colonial and local oppression, which has curtailed any real development opportunities the country might have. The recent election of Bongbong Marcos is endemic of the inability of the Philippines to shake the shackles of it past and it's constant serfdom to the local elites.

In some respects it might have served the Philippines better to have undergone a communist revolution, reset the entire community, and emerge today as a more vibrant, cohesive and capable country, such as China, Vietnam and even Cambodia have become.