Imperialism in the Philippines: A Disaster of the Centuries

Imperialism in the Philippines: A Disaster of the Centuries

On December 17, 2006, police estimated up to 50,000 people attended a peaceful gathering to protest President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo's administration (Reuters). The Philippines have been full of political turmoil in the past century, beginning with American Imperialism in December 1899. Before America took over in the Spanish American war the Philippines only had contact with the Spanish. Because of the tyranny of both Spain and the United States the Filipinos pushed back against their oppressors. In the Philippines, a country that was a victim of American Imperialism, economic, political, and religious issues contributed to the devastating effects of White Imperialism.

The economy wasn't fair to the Filipinos and only profited the Americans because they were extracting natural resources and were selling their finished goods to the natives and at the same time using them as cheap labor. The Philippines began trading with the rest of the world in 1834. The Spanish American war meant that the Philippines would be taken over by the United States and they would become an American colony. The Philippines status as a colony altered in 1935 and changed to self-governance. The new Commonwealth of the Philippines lasted until the occupied Japanese left and the Americans said that the Filipiones could have their own government. Their economy is still unstable due to the many times the country's government has been taken over.

Politics weren't fair to the Filipinos because the Americans used direct rule to stamp out native resistance and used puppet rulers to keep the Filipinos in line because the Philippines were strategically located for their military. Revolutionaries such as, JosÐ"© Rizal, AndrÐ"©s Bonifacio, and Emilio Aguinaldo tried to take over the Philippines in reaction to Spanish rule.When the Americans took over, they planned on letting the Philippines have their own independence, but after World War l, they were afraid that the Philippines would become communist. When Japan took over they were very frightened, because they knew that the Philippines were a strategic location in World War II.

American Christian Missionaries attempted to westernize the Filipinos and took away many of their native customs. Nearly ninety percent of Filipinos are Christian and the other ten percent are Muslim, Buddhist,