General Information

Overview

Name: Republika ng Pilipinas (English: Republic of the Philippines)
Motto: Maka-Diyos, Maka-tao, Makakalikasan at Makabansa (English: For God, People, Nature and Country)
National Anthem: Lupang Hinirang, which was composed in 1898 by Julian Felipe, with lyrics in Spanish adapted from the poem Filipinas, written by José Palma in 1899.
Capital: Manila (14°35′N 121°0′E), occupying a total land area of 38.3 square kilometers, is the second most populous city in the Philippines, with more than 1.6 million inhabitants.
Currency: Peso (Filipino: piso ) (PHP)
Time zone: PST (UTC+8)
Internet: TLD .ph
Calling code: +63

Area

• Total: 300,000 km² / 115,831 sq mi
• Water: (%) 0.61%

Languages

Official languages: Filipino and English
Recognised regional languages: Tagalog, Bikol, Cebuano, Ilocano, Hiligaynon, Kapampangan, Pangasinan and Waray-Waray.

Ethnic groups

• Aeta, (pronounced as “eye-ta,”), Agta or Ayta are an indigenous people who live in scattered, isolated mountainous parts of Luzon.
• Ati, is a Negrito ethnic group in Panay, which is located in the Visayas (Islands of Panay, Negros and Guimaras).
• Bajau, although native to the southern Philippines, due to escalated conflicts in the Sulu Archipelago in the southern part of the country, most of the Bajau had migrated to neighboring Malaysia over the course of 50 years, where currently they are the second largest ethnic group in the state of Sabah, making up 13.4% of the total population.
• Bicolanos live in the southeastern peninsula of Luzon, now containing the provinces of Albay, Camarines Sur, Camarines Norte, Catanduanes, Masbate, and Sorsogon. Many Bicolanos also live in the province of Quezon.
• Ibanag, numbering a little more than half a million people, who inhabit the provinces of Cagayan, Isabela and Nueva Vizcaya.
• Igorot are the people of the Cordillera region, in the island of Luzon. The Igorot form two subgroups: the larger group lives in the south, central and western areas, and is very adept at rice-terrace farming; the smaller group lives in the east and north.
• Ilocano, originally indigenous to the narrow coastal strip of northwestern Luzon, the migration of Ilocanos has been great. To this day, the Ilocanos are the dominant ethnic group in Northern Luzon, and their language, the lingua franca of the region.
• Ivatan are predominant in the Batanes Islands of the Philippines. The origins of the Ivatans remained untraced among scholars, although evidences suggest that they are Christians who lived in the islands between northern Luzon and Taiwan. Ivatans was long free before they were colonized by the Spaniards.
• Kapampangan or Capampañgans (Spanish: Pampangos or Pampangueños) are the seventh largest Filipino ethnolinguistic group, numbering at about 2,890,000. The original Kapampangans may have descended from Austronesian-speaking immigrants to Luzon during the Iron Age.
• Lumad is a group of indigenous peoples of the southern Philippines. It is a Cebuano term meaning "native" or "indigenous". The term is short for katawhang lumad (literally "indigenous peoples"), the autonym officially adopted by the delegates of the Lumad Mindanaw Peoples Federation (LMPF) founding assembly in June 26, 1986 at the Guadalupe Formation Center, Balindog, Kidapawan, Cotabato, Philippines. It is the self-ascription and collective identity of the non-Islamized indigenous peoples of Mindanao.
• Mangyan is the generic name for the eight indigenous groups found in Mindoro island, each with its own tribal name, language, and customs. The total population may be around 100,000, but no official statistics are available because of the difficulties of counting remote and reclusive tribal groups, many of which have no contact with the outside world.
• Moro are a multilingual ethnic group and the largest mainly non-Christian[1] ethnic group in the Philippines, comprising about 5.25% of the total Philippine population as of 2005,[2] making them the sixth largest ethnic group in the country. Their name originated from the Spanish word Moor, and they mostly live in a region dubbed as Bangsamoro in the southern Philippines. Due to migration, Moro communities have also begun to appear in major cities like Manila, Cebu and Baguio.
• Palawan tribes are several indigenous ethnolinguistic groups namely, the Tagbanua, Palawano, Tau't Bato, and the Batak tribes.[1] They live in remote villages in the mountains and coastal areas. In 1962, a team of anthropologists from the National Museum led by Dr. Robert Fox unearthed fossils at Lipuun Point (now known as the Tabon Cave Complex) in Quezon town that were classified as those of homo sapiens and believed to be 22,000 to 24,000 years old. The recovery of the Tabon Man and other significant findings in the area earned for Palawan the title, "the Cradle of Philippine Civilization."
• Pangasinan are the residents or indigenous peoples of the Province of Pangasinan, one of the provinces of the Republic of the Philippines, located on the west central area in the island of Luzon along Lingayen Gulf. The term Pangasinan can also refer to the indigenous speakers of the Pangasinan language, or people of Pangasinan heritage.
• Sambal are the original Austronesian inhabitants of the province of Zambales and the city of Olongapo and the Pangasinense municipalities of Bolinao and Anda. The Sambalic languages are most closely related to Kapampangan and to an archaic form of Tagalog still spoken in Tanay in the province of Rizal. This has been interpreted to mean that the Sambal originated from that area, later being displaced by migrating Tagalogs from Marinduque around 600 BC, pushing the original inhabitants northward to what is now the province of Zambales[1], in turn, displacing the Aetas.
• Tagalog comes from the native term taga-ilog, meaning 'people living along the river'. The prefix taga- means "coming from" or "native of", while the word ilog means 'river'. Transliterated, taga-ilog means 'coming from the river' or 'native of the river', with 'the' being implied. The Tagalogs are the most widespread in the Philippines. They form a majority in the provinces of Aurora, Bataan, Batangas, Cavite, Bulacan, Laguna, Metro Manila, Nueva Ecija, Occidental Mindoro, Oriental Mindoro, Quezon, Marinduque, and Rizal. Other provinces with significant Tagalog populations include the provinces of Palawan, Tarlac, and in Zambales.
• Visayans primarily live in the Visayas and northeastern Mindanao but others have migrated elsewhere in the Philippines, including Manila; conversely, permanent migrants to the Visayas are also referred to as Visayans. Several sub-ethnolinguistic groupings in the Philippines comprise the Visayans: The largest of these groups are the speakers of Cebuano, Hiligaynon and Waray-Waray. These languages, commonly mistakenly referred to as dialects, are all classified as Austronesian. More than 40% of Filipinos have Visayan ancestry or identify as Visayan.
• Tsinoy (simplified Chinese: 华菲; traditional Chinese: 華菲; pinyin: Huáfēi; Hokkien: Huâ-hui; Cantonese: Wàhfèi; Tagalog/Filipino: "Tsinoy" (pronounced [tʃɪnɔj]) derived from two words: "Tsino" (meaning "Chinese") and "Pinoy" (the slang word for "Filipino") is a person of Chinese ancestry but raised in the Philippines. Tsinoys have always been one of largest ethnic Filipino groups in the country with Chinese immigrants comprising the largest group of immigrant settlers in the Philippines. The rate of intermarriage between Chinese immigrants and indigenous Filipinos is among the highest in Southeast Asia, exceeded only by Thailand. However, intermarriages occurred mostly during the Spanish colonial period because Chinese immigrants to the Philippines up to the 19th century were predominantly male. It was only in the 20th century that Chinese women and children came in comparable numbers.
• Spanish mestizos. Spanish settlement in the Philippines first took place in the late 16th century, during the Spanish colonial period of the islands. The conquistador Miguel López de Legazpi founded the first Spanish settlement in Cebu in 1565, and later established Manila as the capital of the Philippine province in 1571. The Philippines is named after King Philip II of Spain, and it became a territory of the Viceroyalty of New Spain which was governed from Mexico City until the early 19th century, when Mexico obtained independence. From the 1820's, the archipelago was ruled directly from Madrid, Spain.The exact percentage of Filipinos with Spanish ancestry is still unknown. However only those Filipinos who possess a clear mixed-race appearance are considered by most as actual mestizos, although even a native looking Filipino, including those with fairer skin, could also have some Spanish ancestry. In the same way, mestizos who are less Spanish looking and possess darker-complexioned skin could be considered more as an "native Filipino" than as an actual mestizo.
• Mestizo is a term used to denote Filipinos of mixed indigenous Filipino (Austronesian) and foreign ancestry. The word mestizo is itself of Spanish origin stemming from the Spanish colonial period. It was employed to denote people of mixed European (most often Spanish) and Amerindian peoples in the American colonies.In the Philippines, the term "mestizo" originally bore the connotation of mixed Spaniard and indigenous Filipino. In the 1980's, the “Diccionario de Filipinismos” of Wenceslao Retana, defined the term “mestizo” as individuals who are descendants of Chinese Christians and their indigenous Filipino wives. Today, it refers to all people of mixed Filipino and foreign ancestry.
• Chabacano/Zamboangueño are a collective group of people who are natives and residents of Zamboanga City, the Philippines. Anybody born in the city is called a Zamboangueño. It also refers to those from other ethnic groups who migrated and settled in the city to become residents and those Spanish mestizos from the inter-marriages of Spaniards and locals during the Spanish period. The natives are the indigenous tribes of the Lutaos of the plains, the highlander Subanons, the boat-dwellers and sea-gypsies - the Bajaus and Samals, the Yakans from Basilan, and the muslim warrior tribe from Sulu - the Tausugs. These were the people who had occupied most of the city and the whole of Zamboanga Peninsula before the Spaniards came. In fact, the early Spaniards called the city, El pueblo de Lutao - the place of Lutaos.

Government

Unitary presidential constitutional republic

• President: Benigno Simeon C. Aquino III
• Vice President: Jejomar C. Binay

Independence

From countries:

•  Spain
• United States

Established: 1565
Declared: June 12, 1898
Self-government: March 24, 1934
Independence recognized: July 4, 1946
Current constitution: February 2, 1987

Text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License. Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia