Located in the Pacific Ocean, the Philippine Archipelago is made up of 7,641 islands in which about 2,000 were are inhabited. That leaves more than 5,000 islands of the archipelago are yet to be issued official names.
Historically, Philippines was not the original name of the country. Speculation suggests that the region of islands was called Ophir and had been mentioned several times in the Bible. Ophir was famous for its wealth (1 Chronicles 29:4, 1 Kings 9:28, 1 Kings 10:11, 1 Kings 22:48, 2 Chronicles 8:18, 2 Chronicles 9:10).
Accounts mention that King Solomon received a cargo from Ophir every three years which consisted of gold, silver, sandalwood, pearls, ivory, apes, and peacocks (1 Kings 10:22 KJV).
Gold and products from Ophir was said to be highly valued as mentioned in Isaiah 13:12, Job 28:16, Psalms 45:9
In the book Zhu Fa Zi by Zhao Rugua, a supervisor of the maritime trade in Quanzhou, there was a group of islands found in south of South China Sea called Ma-i. On the other hand, historians claimed that Ma-i was not a group of islands, but all the south of South Sea islands groups and Manila itself, which was known to be an overseas Chinese settlement which was in constant contact with the Chinese mainland as early as the 9th century AD.
In 13th century an explorer named Ibn Battuta reached an ancient kingdom in South East Asia called Tawalisi. He was said to have reached the kingdom when he left Sumatra and headed towards China. According to the historical accounts of the explorer, he met Urduja, a legendary warrior princess from Pangasinan.
In 1521, when Ferdinand Magelland reached the islands of Homonhon in Samar, he called the islands as Las Islas de San Lazaro (St. Lazaru’s Islands). The region was also called Val Seu Parigne (Valley Without Peril) as the natives showed hospitaly and brotherly love to the explorers. Meanhile in Spain, the archipelago was referred to as Islas del Poniente (Islands of the West) because it was reached through the westerly route from Spain. Incidentally the Portuguese called the archipelago as Ilhas do Oriente (Islands to the East) when they reached the islands from Portugal in the late 1540.
It was years after Magellan’s death in 1521 when the archipelago was referred to as Archipelago de Magajaes (Archipelago of Magellan) when it was discovered that the region consists of many islands. The archipelago was later named Las Islas Felipinas or (The Felipinas Islands) by Roy Lopez de Villalobos in 1543 in honor of King Charles’ son, Prince Phillip, who later became the king as Phillip II of Spain. As time passed the islands was referred to as Las Islas Filipinas. The country was under the Spanish rule for 333 years from 1565 to 1898 when during Spanish colonization began with the arrival of Miguel Lopez de Legazpi in 1565.
Contrary to the notion that the natives were uncivilized and uneducated, the natives already had a social heirarchy consisting of Datu (ruling class), Maginoo (nobles), Maharlika or Timawa in Visayas (warrior class, freemen, commoner), and Alipin (serfs, servants, slaves). And already have their own writing system called “baybayin” (from the Tagalog root word baybay meaning “to spell”).
The country was later named Filipinas when the United States of America ceded the country from under the rule of the Spain for $20 million through the Treaty of Paris in 1898. The country was under the colonial rule of the United States of America for 44 years from 1898 to 1942. The country was abandoned in 1942 during the second world war when the United States of America by the order of President Roosevelt pulled out all their military personnel and retreated to Australia. The remaining American forces were ordered to surrender to the Japanese unconditionally. Thus the country was under the Japanese control for 3 years from 1942 to 1945 until the second world war ended.
On 4 February 1942, the submarine Trout arrived at Corregidor to transfer Philippine Treasury gold to a safe place and evacuate Lieutenant Colonel Warren J. Clear, an intelligence officer. MacArthur was deeply shocked to learn that he and his command had effectively been abandoned to the Japanese by President Roosevelt. President Quezon was enraged by the news, and sent a cable to Roosevelt requesting immediate independence for the Philippines so that his government could negotiate a state of neutrality with the Japanese. Roosevelt was appalled by the proposal and rejected immediate independence. With the intention of shaming the Philippine president, Roosevelt indicated willingness to allow Quezon to surrender the Filipino troops if they had no stomach to continue fighting and leave the Americans to fight the Japanese alone. As expected, Quezon was shamed by the offer and declared his willingness to fight beside the American troops to the end.
On 11 March 1942, MacArthur departed for Australia under cover of night with his wife, his son, his son’s nanny, and a large contingent of his closest and most trusted staff officers. Although ordered by General Marshall to take only one senior staff officer with him to Australia, MacArthur disobeyed the order and left the Philippines with fourteen staff officers, including his Chief of Staff, Major General Richard Sutherland. These staff officers were notorious for their sycophancy and lack of combat experience, and became known in Australia as the “Bataan Gang”.
MacArthur left behind his starving troops, female army nurses, and many civilians to face the fury of a Japanese Army frustrated and angered by the stubborn resistance of the American and Filipino troops. With MacArthur’s departure, Major General Jonathan M. Wainwright assumed command of American Army Forces in the Philippines with the temporary rank of Lieutenant General and the certain knowledge that he and his command were doomed to death or capture.
From the safety of Australia, MacArthur orders his troops to fight to the end and sent the following callous message to General Wainwright:
“I am utterly opposed under any circumstances or conditions to the ultimate capitulation of this command (i.e. the Philippines). If food fails, you will prepare and execute an attack upon the enemy”.
Speaking of MacArthur’s order to his sick and starving troops to fight to the end, and MacArthur’s infamous lie that reinforcements were on the way from the United States, one of the abandoned Americans on Bataan, Brigadier General William E. Brougher, probably expressed the views of most of them when he described the order and lie as:
“A foul trick of deception played on a large group of Americans by a commander-in-chief and his small staff who are now eating steak and eggs in Australia”.
Eventually, on 9 April 1942, with his forces crippled by starvation and disease, U.S. General Edward King Jr. surrendered with approximately 75,000 Filipino and American troops at Bataan. The surrenderees were rounded up by the Japanese and forced to march some 65 miles from Mariveles, on the southern end of the Bataan Peninsula, to San Fernando prison camps. The men were divided into groups of approximately 100, and the march typically took each group around five days to complete. The marchers made the trek in intense heat and were subjected to harsh treatment by Japanese guards. It is believed that thousands of surrenderees died because of the brutality of their captors, who starved and beat the marchers, and bayoneted those too weak to walk in what became known as the Bataan Death March.
It was on 1945 when Philippines was officially recognized by the United States of America as an independent nation through the Treaty of Manila.