Pre-Colonial and Colonial Philippines (Politics)

Pre-colonial Philippines did not have a single government, instead it composed of different tribes with their own sovereignty. There have even been written accounts of the different sovereignties being recognized internationally. The countries that traded with the pre-colonial Filipinos like China were the ones that recognized the individual sovereignties that existed then. But the arrival of the Spanish brought about a change of how the Philippines was. The Spaniards, this being the time when a country's strength is somehow measured by the number of colonies they possessed, arrived in the Philippines looking for treasures of the new world (spices, gold, and etc.), but also they were looking to colonize the archipelago. In order to facilitate in the colonization the Spaniards organized the different sovereignties they have taken control over into one centralized political system, of course this being under Spanish control. The Spanish colonizers primarily thought of their own well-being and this often lead to the neglect of the welfare of the native people of the archipelago, because of this the Filipino people often suffered through many abuses and situations like when the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.