The 7,107 islands of the Philippines cover a combined area of 115,830 square miles (300,000 square kilo­meters), about the size of Arizona, but the islands are spread over a much larger territory. Most of the population lives on 11 main islands, of which Luzon and Mindanao are the largest. Many islands are mountainous, and there is potential for vol­canic and earthquake activity throughout the country.

The climate is generally tropical and humid. The Luzon highlands, near Baguio, have a mild climate with low humid­ity. More than one-fourth of the country's fertile soil is under cultivation. About 25 percent of the land is covered with for­ests (down from 40 percent a decade ago). The rainy season extends from June to October. Typhoons are likely from June to November, but they may occur during any season because the Philippines is in the typhoon belt.

History

Negritos and Indons were already living on other islands when Malay peoples migrated from Borneo to Panay Island in the 13th century. Malay fiefdoms spread throughout the islands, including Luzon, and were often at war with one another. Muslim missionaries gained a presence in the 14th and 15th centuries among Malays who had spread south to the island of Mindanao.
Magellan, the islands' first Western contact, encountered in 1521 the warring fiefdoms ofthe north and the Islamic society of the south. He claimed the entire area for Spain. China, Japan, and other countries tried to conquer the Philippines, but Spain maintained control for nearly four hundred years. Jose Rizal, writer and patriot, helped inspire a revolt against Spain in 1896. Spain lost a war to the United States and turned the Philippines (not a part of the original conflict) over to U.S. control in 1899. Preferring self-rule, the Filipinos, led by Emilio Aguinaldo, tried to repulse U.S. troops. Internal strife continued until 1901, when U.S. control formally began. Japan invaded the Philippines in 1941 and remained until U.S. forces returned near the end of World War II.

On 4 July 1946, the Philippines became an independent republic, but the United States maintained a military presence until 1992. Through the 1960s, unrest over inequality between landowners and tenant farmers threatened government stabil­ity and inspired revolutionary movements that remained active well into the 1990s. In 1972, President Ferdinand Marcos declared martial law and ruled by decree, effectively control­ling all opposition until 1986. During the Marcos regime, cor­ruption increased and the standard of living for the poor did not improve.

The peaceful People's Power Revolution drove Marcos from power in 1986. His elected rival, Corazon Aquino, took office and tried to reform the government and economy. Unable to reach many of her goals, she did not run for reelec­tion in 1992, but elections were peaceful and democratic. Aquino's successor, Fidel V. Ramos, inherited a weak and inefficient system during a time when the country was plagued by natural disasters. However, his success at meeting these challenges allowed candidates loyal to him to win majorities in both houses of Congress in 1995. Ramos negotiated a 1996 peace agreement with the Muslim separatist Mora National Liberation Front (MNLF), ending 26 years of conflict; how­ever, fighting with other splinter separatist groups continues.

Elections in 1998 brought Joseph Estrada to the presidency, but charges of corruption forced him to relinquish his position to the vice president, Gloria Arroyo, in January 2001. Arroyo was reelected in May 2004 and withstood the opposition's attempt to impeach her on charges of corruption and electoral fraud in 2005. Other challenges that have faced her adminis­tration include a lackluster economy, hostage crises, natural disasters, and separatist and religious violence.

Health

The high annual population growth rate of over 2% adds to the cost of poverty reduction. The government lacks a strategic approach to population, largely due to the influence of the Catholic Church, the religion of over 80% of the population. Reproductive health services are available to only 50% of families and maternal mortality remains extremely high by regional standards, having reduced only to 162 per 100,000 births from 209 in 1993. The 2015 MDG target of 52 appears out of reach.

Anxiety that these shortcomings in government sexual health program might result in an explosion of HIV/AIDS has not been fulfilled. HIV prevalence is currently low in the Philippines and the government can afford to finance a program to achieve universal access to treatment and care by 2009. However, one third of infections have been traced to returning migrant workers, a potential source which is notoriously difficult to control.

Health programs in the Philippines have also succeeded in reducing the occurrence of many other diseases, including malaria, and MDG targets for infant and child mortality rates are likely to be achieved. However, there are two structural problems within the country which undermine progress. Firstly, the poor standard of nutrition amongst about half of the population, confirmed by the slow rate of progress towards the MDG targets for dietary intake and child weight. Secondly, the lack of health facilities and staff in rural areas - about 12% of qualified doctors left the country in 2006. Good health services are concentrated within cities where those employed by government and business are members of the National Health Insurance scheme. Just under 50% of the workforce is confined to informal employment and likely to be excluded from social services and welfare safety nets.

Human Rights

A fourth insurgent group, the military wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines, known as the New People's Army (NPA), has been denied the benefit of negotiations since the government declared "all-out war" in 2006. The consequence was a wave of extra-judicial assassinations of left-wing activists, allied with apparent deficiencies of the judicial system to investigate these and other human rights violations. Protests that the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) were acting with impunity led to an internal Commission of Inquiry led by Justice José Melo and eventually to a report by the UN Special Rapporteur, Philip Alston. Professor Alston concluded that at least 100 people had been murdered since 2005 and that "the AFP remains in a state of almost total denial" with not one conviction.

In other respects the country's human rights record has been improving in recent years. The independent Philippine Commission on Human Rights has been established and aspects of human rights are entering domestic law. In July 2006 the death penalty in the Philippines was abolished. At that time there were around 1,200 people on death row in the country. However, the new Human Security Act introduced in 2007 as a counter-terrorism measure has raised concerns that its vague definition of terrorism could enable the provisions to be invoked for political activity.

Press freedom is permitted by the constitution and the extensive Filipino press is known for its freedom to comment and speculate in many areas. However, investigative reporting into major crime and corruption is often criticized. It has led to the arrests of editors and the killing of 25 journalists since 2004.

Internal Conflict

The diversity and disparities of the archipelago have prompted post independence communist and separatist movements to engage in internal armed conflict since the late 1960s, especially in the predominantly Muslim region of Mindanao. These groups have been responsible for 1700 deaths since 2000 and possibly 200,000 internal displacements each year. There have been alternating phases of government peace talks and all-out military campaigns against them. The secessionist group, the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), reached a peace agreement in 1996 which awarded control over the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM). Renewed fighting in 2007 has led to demands for an extension to the ARMM for which negotiations are under way.

Another Mindanao group keen to establish a Muslim homeland, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), faced a heavy military campaign by government troops under President Estrada. Successive fighting and peace talks have continued under President Arroyo, with Malaysia heading an international monitoring group with a presence on the island. The government claims that its own fighting is targeted solely at the small but extremist organisation of Abu Sayyaf which is believed to have links to Al-Qaeda and the regional extremist group Jemmaah Islamiah. The objective is to stop members of Abu Sayyaf using the island of Jolo as a base for recruiting and training militants. There are inevitable misundertandings over identity and territory between these three groups, often disrupting a peace process. Long term prospects of disarming and reintegrating such long-established fighters are at best uncertain.

The Philippine military has been assisted by US equipment and personnel in combating this group which has continued even though relations with the US cooled following the withdrawal of Philippine troops from Iraq in 2004.

Economy

The Philippine economy follows the prescription of liberal open markets, privatization of most industries and services, and membership of the World Trade Organization. By traditional measures of growth, the economy has been reasonably successful, especially in recent years. Unemployment is officially reported as less than 8%, although underemployment accounts for a further 20%. However, free trade rules may have undermined domestic food production to the extent that the Philippines are now the world's biggest importer of rice. As the crisis of sharply rising food prices takes hold, the government was unable to buy its required supplies of rice during the first quarter of 2008, the consequences of which remain uncertain.

As many as 8 million Filipinos are believed to be working abroad, one million having left in 2006 alone. Painful and often damaging family dislocation is the price paid for overseas remittances that are the largest source of foreign currency for the Philippine economy, contributing an estimated US$ 12.8 billion in 2006, almost 10% of GDP.

Climate Change

None of the poverty reduction or health improvement programs in the Philippines takes any account of the impact of climate change. Yet at the 2007 Bali UN Climate Change Conference, the Philippines were the highest placed country in a new Global Climate Risk Index. This recognized that during 2006 extreme weather events accounted for 3,000 deaths and widespread destruction by mudslides and typhoons. The country has always been prone to natural disasters and the prospect of increased frequency and intensity spurred Greenpeace to publish a special report on the impact of climate change in the Philippines. Apart from extreme weather, there is concern that increasing temperature will affect agricultural yields and food security, whilst rising sea levels threaten over 40 million people who live in coastal regions.

The government has responded by establishing the President's Task Force on Climate Change which will consider mitigation as well as adaptation. For example, fatal landslides such as that in Leyte in early 2006 have been blamed on widespread deforestation, prompting the authorities to take rapid action against illegal loggers and to instigate massive tree replanting schemes.