OF KILLING THE SPANISH

Now before we delve into this blog too far, I guess it would be good to talk a little about the country where Metro Manila is a capital of. This isn't just for the foreigners. Many denizens of MM don't even know how many cities there are in it, much less what's going on in the over 7100 island archipelago that composes the Philippines. Historically, we've been around over 40,000 years. Before the Spanish arrived here, we have been trading with the Chinese, the Indians (the ones from India, not the ones from Wyoming), and the Malays(what is now Indonesia and surprise, MALAYsia). We had our own caste system care of the Muslims and we had our own tribal kingdoms before we were colonized and our original culture nearly erased by Christianity. Though your Catholic teacher would vehemently deny this, but yeah, they also deny the evils that happened with the Crusades and the Inquisition. But that's already history right? Deus Vult.

The Spanish were actually surprised that when they arrived, er, the second time that they arrived that is, that we had cannons and we had spearmen cavalry. You see the first time they came here, care of the great Magellan in 1521, who was the first westerner to cross the Pacific, they didn't last. Magellan wanted to make an example of Lapu Lapu, a local chieftain who didn't like the idea of bowing down to the Bible thumpers just 'coz they said so. He went forth to show them the power of his "boom stick" and got his ass handed to him on an arnis stick.

It wasn’t until after fifty years later, after four more failed expeditions, under the expedition of Miguel Lopez de Legazpi, that was Manila finally taken. After a six year campaign that involved the burning of Manila by its denizens to prevent its being sacked.

But for the next 300 years, we were a colony of Spain. We were able to win our independence in 1898, but were colonized by the Americans afterwards in 1901, and they were around well until 1991, when the last of the American Bases finally was shut down. That in itself was only partly political in success, because the final blow was Mount Pinatubo erupting, the largest eruption in recorded history, which everyone thought was a mountain for 600 years, and not a volcano. Then surprise...
The Japanese occupied us during the World War II for three years also, and since 1991, we've been pretty much on our own. Though, being very worldly global village kind of people, we have continuing friendships with a lot of countries. Plus our women are just freaking hot, and the guys ain't half bad, plus almost all of us know how to speak understandable english, and thus we have thousands of expats.

But as I said before, we've always been a center for commerce between the Northern Territories and the Southern Seas, so that ain't new either. I guess what I'm trying to say is that, the Philippines is as West as you can get when you go to the East.