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Philippines: Southeast Asia
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According to Hong Kong's Political and Economic Risk Consultancy (PERC), the Philippines is the only Southeast Asian nation besides Singapore with a labor force with the potential to move beyond a manufacturing focus to a higher value-added level. PERC ranks the Philippines as 4th in Asia on quality of labor force (trailing only Japan, Taiwan, and Singapore).
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American interest in the Philippines was largely the result of a desire to expand the nation's economic influence into the Pacific and Asia. When the closing of the frontier seemed imminent by the 1890s, many Americans looked to Asia and the Pacific as golden opportunities to expand American trade and avoid future economic depressions like those of the past twenty-five years. American ambitions for trade, investment opportunities, and territory in East Asia, particularly China, were threatened by competition among the other great powers—England, France, Russia, Germany, and Japan. The Philippines were attractive because they could provide a military and commercial base from which the United States could protect its interests in China. As American relations with Spain deteriorated over the crisis in Cuba, the McKinley Administration saw an opportunity to deal with the situations in Asia and the Caribbean simultaneously.
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Television and video in the Philippines use the NTSC format, which is the same as the USA and Canada. Televisions sets and VCRs made for Japan (though the same video format) will skip certain channels. Region Coded DVDs are Region 3 (SE Asia), though virtually all Tagalog movies are region free.
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Filipinos of Chinese descent, who had been settling in the Philippines since pre-colonization, currently forms the largest non-Austronesian ethnic group, claiming about 2% of the population. Other significant minorities, ranked according to population, include Spanish, British, Americans, Japanese, Asian Indians, Koreans, Arabs and Indonesians.
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Arabs and Indians ... traveled and traded in the Philippines in the first and early second millennium. As a result of intermarriage, many Filipinos have some Asian mainland, Spanish, American, Arab, or Indian ancestry. After the mainland Asians, Americans and Spaniards constitute the next largest minorities in the country.
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As with the rest of Southeast Asia, rice is the staple food of the Philippines. Some areas in the south prefer corn but elsewhere Filipinos would generally have rice for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Uncooked rice usually comes in 50kg sacks but can be bought by the kilogram at the wet market or at neighborhood rice dealers. Single servings of rice are readily available at fastfood restaurants or eateries.
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