speckTATOR

The Philippines sometimes feels like a country where several centuries of world history accidentally ended up on the same street. You can hear an Austronesian language, meet people with Spanish surnames, pass a Catholic church, order food with Chinese influences and then encounter American English before you've finished your coffee. For a Dutchman, this is particularly interesting because we were almost part of that historical mixture too. Long before Europeans arrived, the islands already had sophisticated trading societies connected to China, Southeast Asia and the wider Asian world. Then Magellan arrived for Spain in 1521, and permanent Spanish colonisation followed later in the century. Mexico became an important part of the story too, because for more than two centuries the Manila galleons connected Manila with Acapulco, carrying American silver west and Asian goods east across the Pacific. And then, inevitably, the Dutch appeared. During the 17th century the VOC repeatedly fought the Spanish around the Philippines and tried to challenge their position there. We were already building an enormous Asian trading network from Batavia, and apparently couldn't see an important trade route without sailing over to investigate it. The Philippines, however, never became another Dutch possession. Spain held on. Spanish rule lasted for more than three centuries, followed by American rule after 1898, Japanese occupation during WWII and finally independence in 1946. What I like most about the Philippines is how all those different worlds eventually became part of one distinctly Filipino culture. Austronesian roots, centuries of Asian trade, Spanish and Mexican connections and later American influence all left something behind. Yet the Philippines didn't become Spanish, Mexican, American or Dutch. It absorbed pieces of all of them and remained unmistakably Filipino. That's what makes its history so interesting to me.