No, I'm British

No, I'm British, are the words that I have had to say so many times since my first visit to Manila in 1992. Since I started living in the Philippines in 1996 I have needed to say those words even more frequently.
Many Filipinos believe that all Caucasians are Americans or Amerikanos as they know them.

A little history will explain this quirk. In 1898 the Philippine rebel army, the katipuneros forced a declaration of independence by their leader, Emilio Aguinaldo, from the balcony of a house in Kawit, in the province of Cavite. In the same year Spain lost Cuba and Puerto Rico to the USA because of the Spanish-American War. Accordingly the Spanish government sold the Philippines to the US government for $20 million. After a mock battle in Manila Bay a squadron of the US Navy, commanded by Admiral Dewey, defeated a small Spanish fleet and America's rule of the Philippines began.

This rule lasted until 1946, with a few years of interruption by the invading Japanese. More history- Japanese aircraft bombed two airbases in the Philippines(Clarke and Nichols) on the same day as the attack on Pearl Harbour(December 7, 1941). When the Japanese Imperial Army landed in the Philippines Gen. Douglas Mcarthur decided to pull the American and Filipino troops out to the Bataan Peninsula. McArthur and Philippines President Osmeña, together with American and Filipino troops, evacuated to Corregidor and suffered from massive aerial and naval bombardments from the Japanese. President Roosevelt subsequently ordered McArthur to leave Corregidor for Australia to become Supreme Allied Commander, Pacific. On his arrival in Australia he said his famous words, "I shall return". Corregidor and Bataan finally fell to the Japanese and the troops on Bataan were forced to undertake the Death March to a Prisoner of War Camp in San Fernando. On the way, many died of exhaustion and beating and bayonetting by the Japanese soldiers.
On October 20, 1944 Gen McArthur finally kept his promise to return. US troops landed in great force at Leyte. There are bronze statues of McArthur and his group wading ashore at the landing point. He then broadcast a message "People of the Philippines, I have returned"

After the American military presence on Luzon became adequate, in February 1945 McArthur launched an attack on Manila to liberate the city from the Japanese. The Battle for Manila caused massive destruction of a once beautiful city, with street to street and house to house fighting. Civilian casualties were high, partly caused by the cruelty of the defending Japanese soldiers who even resorted to throwing babies in the air and spearing them with their bayonets as they fell. The estimated death toll in the battle was 100,000.
Thus the official language of the Philippines became English. In fact it is American English. The American influence on the Philippines is enormous. You can see it in the architecture, some of the street names, the Constitution, the Presidential style of government, the legal system , education, language and entertainment.
There are fast food places everywhere, many local but many American. MacDonald's, Pizza Hut, Kentucky Fried Chicken franchises are all over the country. Most English language television programmes are American especially the films( alright movies then!). Then there is Disney whose programmes shock me. Disney has taken some of the best works of European literature and turned them into animated movies, I mean films; Kipling, Hugo, Dickens A.A Milne and many others. Winnie the Pooh and his friends have American accents, as do Noddy and Big Ears, Alice in Wonderland and more. Soon I shall be reading Winnie the Pooh in it's original version to my daughter and not from the poorly written books of the same name published in the US.

However the American presence in the Philippines modernised the country after the departure of the Spanish and introduced democracy.
The American and Filipino experience during the war was of death, pain, hunger and starvation, suffering, imprisonment and great courage knowing that their cause was just for which they are due great credit.

In a future post to this blogsite I will describe how I cope with American English and culture in the Philippines.
The Spanish influence on the Philippines is still very strong and I will blog that subject on another day.