Thousand years back, people who are considered the first settlers crossed shallow seas and land bridges in order to arrive in this group of islands from Asia mainland. These people are called Negritos or Aets. You can find descendants of these people in Zambles which is a province to the North of Manila. After thousands of year, Austronesian settlers who travelled the same route over sea in their Barangay boats. After settling in the island, further they travelled far and settled the island Indonesia, Malaysia and the whole Pacific.

After that, the early Austronesians of the Philippines began trading with each other and with Japenese, Okinawans, Indians, Thais, Arabs, Chinese, Malaysia and Indonesia. In the islands, a different and new culture has been developed. The traders from India, Sumara and Java introduces Hinduism and Buddhism. Arab, Malay and Japenese traders tried to make natives convert Islam. When the explorer Ferdinand Magellan reached Philippines in 1521, dominants religions were Hinduism and Buddhism. Islam was only in the southern part of the country. Basically Magellan was Portuguese but his did this expedition for Spain which eventually led to make Philippines a Spainsh colony. The Crown Philip II of Spain named the colony Philippines after his name. Majority of people converted to Catholicism. At that time, Muslims who were living in the south and various mountain tribes resisted against Spanish conquest and Catholic conversion.

The Spain ruled Philippines for over 300 years until it was ceded by Spain to the U.S which followed the Spanish-American War in 1899. American remained there until World War II when Japan invaded and conquered Philippines. The Japenese remained there till 1945 when Gen. Douglas McArthur liberated the country from the Japanese rule according to his promise. The U.S granted complete independence to The Philipines in 1946. But at that time U.S maintained military presence in the country and at last this was handed over to Philippines in the early 1990's. Today, the Philippines are in the course of development in South East Asian countries and now it's moving in the right direction for the betterment of it's people.