But it is an economy where decision-making and policy implementation are heavily influenced by and skewed in favor of profit-maximizing godzilla corporations and foreign businessmen as well as domestic predatory oligarchs who own the land, capital and other sources of wealth. [Paul D. Hutchcroft, "Oligarchs and Cronies in the Philippine State: The Politics of Patrimonial Plunder," World Politics, Vol. 43, No. 3, April 1991, pp. 415-450]

It is also a destination market and trans-shipment point for methamphetamines and a significant producer and exporter of marijuana, according to the 1999 International Narcotics Control Strategy Report of the State Department of the United States. [Maritess N. Reyes, "The Philippines: A Narco-State?" Intersect, Vol. 16, No. 9, October 2001, pp. 5-7]

It is the Philippines, a "gloriously beautiful archipelago that is one of the most strategically important landmasses on earth." [Arthur Zich. "Hope and Danger in the Philippines," National Geographic, July 1986, p. 84]

Before the Philippines was injected into the "enduring mercantile empires" of the Iberian kingdoms, it already had commercial relations with Chinese, Japanese, Malay and Arab merchants. Unlike the neighboring Asians who carried Buddhism and introduced Islam to the archipelago, the first European mercantilists commanded by the Portuguese venture-man Ferdinand Magellan claimed the islands for the King of Spain. "Spanish governors and armies established a regime that endured until 1898" as it "fought off pirates and competitors." [Vol. 2: 1500-The Present, New Jersey, 2000, p. 713]

Spices and gold, and later sugar and coffee, were commodities extracted and grown by Filipino forced labor. These exploited Filipinos were the original and majority residents of the Islands, and by 1898, their nationalist army won their war of liberation "from their Spanish overlord."

Sadly, their hard-won independence was ruined by a new empire from the West. The United States had "acquired sovereignty" over the Philippines, and of course, the Filipinos "turned to guerrilla warfare" to defend their country. Many American public figures were "opposed to such foreign ventures." And what did they feel about such venture? Dismay. Deep dismay. (p. 714)

The invaded felt more than "dismay" and the invaders had to pay. "The United States spent more money, and sacrificed more lives in suppressing the revolt than it had in the Spanish-American War – a measure of Filipino determination."

This Filipino determination is barely acknowledged in Western schoolbooks and US reviewers. Newman and Schmalbach’s "United States History: Preparing for the Advanced Placement Examination" contains the following passage in the portion of "Controversy over the Treaty of Peace: The Philippine Question."

"The people of the Philippines were outraged that their hopes for national independence from Spain were now being denied by the United States. Filipino nationalist leader Emilio Aguinaldo had fought alongside US troops during the Spanish-American War. Now he led bands of guerrilla fighters in a war against U.S. control. It took US troops three years and cost thousands of lives on both sides before the insurrection finally ended in 1902." (pp. 406-407)

This book is designed, of course, for American students who are reviewing for the US history exam for entry into US universities. Are students in America adequately familiarized with the Filipino view that the conflict in 1899 was a War of Self-Defense that cost more Filipino souls than "thousands" and lasted longer than 1902?

We have a third American reference that discusses the "Philippine war" in the following manner:

"The conflict in the Philippines is the least remembered of all American wars. It was also one of the longest and one of the most vicious…The American occupiers faced guerrilla tactics in the Philippines very similar to those the Spanish occupiers had faced prior to 1898 in Cuba. And they soon found themselves drawn into the same pattern of brutality that had outraged so many Americans when Weyler had used them in the Caribbean." (p. 552)

The source is Alan Brinkley’s "The Unfinished Nation: A Concise History of the American People."

US colonial rule had run nearly 50 years when the Philippines was invaded once more and the Filipinos’ war fighting talents came to the fore again, this time against the fascist Japanese. The "flame of armed resistance" had "burned brightly," and in the face of the dreaded Kempeitai, "Manila was a hotbed of spies." [William B. Breuer. "Unexplained Mysteries of World War II." NY: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.,1997, p. 74]