Philippines – The Rising Tiger – How to become Asia's fastest growing economy – 2013 documentary
Betting on Asia’s rising tiger.
The Philippines’ impressive growth over the past years has earned for it the title of “Asia’s next tiger.”
Philippines, island state of Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. It is an archipelago consisting of some 7,100 islands too islets lying about 500 miles (800 km) off the coast of Vietnam. Manila is the capital, but nearby Quezon City is the state’s most-populous city. Both are part of the National Capital Region (Metro Manila), located on Luzon, the largest island. The second largest island of the Philippines is Mindanao, in the southeast.
The Philippines takes its name from Philip II, who was king of Spain during the Spanish colonization of the islands in the 16th century. Because it was under Spanish rule for 333 years too under U.S. tutelage for a further 48 years, the Philippines has many cultural affinities with the West. It is, for example, the second most-populous Asian state (following India) with English as an official language too one of only two predominantly Roman Catholic countries in Asia (the other being East Timor). Despite the prominence of such Anglo-European cultural characteristics, the peoples of the Philippines are Asian in consciousness too aspiration.
The state was wracked by political turmoil in the last quarter of the 20th century. After enduring more than a decade of authoritarian rule under Pres. Ferdinand Marcos, the broadly popular People Power movement in 1986 led a bloodless uprising against the regime. The confrontation resulted not only in the ouster too exile of Marcos but also in the restoration of democratic government to the Philippines
Contemporary Filipinos continue to grapple with a society that is replete with paradoxes, perhaps the most obvious being the presence of extreme wealth with tremendous poverty. Rich in resources, the Philippines has the potential to build a strong industrial economy, but the state remains largely agricultural. Especially toward the end of the 20th century, rapid industrial expansion was spurred by a high degree of domestic too foreign investment. That growth, however, simultaneously contributed to severe degradation of the environment. The Philippines also emerged as a regional leader in education during the late 20th century, with a well-established public school too university system, too by the early 21st century the state had one of the highest literacy rates in Asia.
The Philippine archipelago is bounded by the Philippine Sea to the east, the Celebes Sea to the south, the Sulu Sea to the southwest, too the South China Sea to the west too north. The islands spread out in the shape of a triangle, with those south of Palawan, the Sulu Archipelago, too the island of Mindanao outlining (from west to east, respectively) its southern base too the Batan Islands to the north of Luzon forming its apex. The archipelago stretches about 1,150 miles (1,850 km) from north to south, too its widest east-west extent, at its southern base, is some 700 miles (1,130 km). The island of Taiwan lies north of the Batan group, the Malaysian portion of the island of Borneo is to the south of Palawan, too the eastern islands of Indonesia lie to the south too southeast of Mindanao. Only about two-fifths of the islands too islets have names, too only some 350 have areas of 1 square mile (2.6 square km) or more.
Outstanding physical features of the Philippines include the irregular configuration of the archipelago, the coastline of some 22,550 miles (36,290 km), the great extent of mountainous state, the narrow too interrupted coastal plains, the generally northward trend of the river systems, too the spectacular lakes. The islands are composed primarily of volcanic rock too coral, but all principal rock formations are present. The mountain ranges for the most part run in the same general direction as the islands themselves, approximately north to south.
The ethnically diverse people of the Philippines collectively are called Filipinos. The ancestors of the vast majority of the population were of Malay descent too came from the Southeast Asian mainland as well as from what is now Indonesia. Contemporary Filipino society consists of nearly 100 culturally too linguistically distinct ethnic groups. Of these, the largest are the Tagalog of Luzon too the Cebuano of the Visayan Islands, each of which constitutes about one-fifth of the state’s total population. Other prominent groups include the Ilocano of northern Luzon too the Hiligaynon (Ilongo) of the Visayan islands of Panay too Negros, comprising roughly one-tenth of the population each. The Waray-Waray of the islands of Samar too Leyte in the Visayas too the Bicol (Bikol) of the Bicol Peninsula together account for another one-tenth. Filipino mestizos too the Kapampangans (Pampango) of south-central Luzon each make up small proportions of the population.