THE PHILIPPINES BEFORE AND AFTER THE PHILIPPINES

In 1899, a new nation proclaimed at Malolos went to war with the United States. Its history since then has been one of conquest and resistance, occupation and liberation, democracy and dictatorship, debt and restructuring, migration and renewal.
Volume II of The Philippines Before and After the Philippines follows that story from the Philippine-American War to the present. It examines the war's true cost, the separate American policies toward the Muslim south and the Cordillera, the schools, land laws, and free trade that reshaped the colony, and the elite democracy that grew under American rule. It follows the Japanese occupation across Manila, Luzon, the Visayas, and Mindanao, the independence of 1946 and the economic and military agreements that constrained it, the Huk rebellion, and the transformation of Mindanao through settlement.
It then traces a connected sequence that is usually told in pieces: martial law and the Marcos-era debt, the collapse of 1983, the People Power uprising of 1986, the Washington Consensus, and the privatization of power, water, telecommunications, and more. Each is examined with documented figures, exact dates, and competing interpretations presented fairly, and privatization is assessed sector by sector rather than with a single verdict.
The final chapters look at decentralization and political dynasties, corruption and populism, the long road from the Moro rebellions to the first Bangsamoro parliament, the millions of Filipinos working abroad, the South China Sea dispute and the 2016 arbitral award, and the country's place between great powers. The closing chapter asks what the long history of the archipelago means for the Philippines today, and why the modern state is best understood as one layer over a much older human landscape.
Written in clear, accessible English, this history is for everyone who wants to understand how the modern Philippines was made, and what it inherited from the many peoples and powers that shaped it.