The Philippines: A Singular And A Plural Place, Fourth Edition (Nations of the Modern World)

A unified nation with a single people, the Philippines is also a highly fragmented, plural society. Divided between uplander and lowlander, rich and poor, Christian and Muslim, between those of one ethnic, linguistic, and geographic region and those of another, the nation is a complex mosaic formed by conflicting forces of consensus and national identity and of division and instability.It is not possible to comprehend the many changes in the Philippines—such as the rise and fall of Ferdinand Marcos or the revolution that toppled him—without an awareness of the religious, cultural, and economic forces that have shaped the history of these islands. These forces formed the focus of the first edition of The Philippines. Of that 1982 edition, the late Benigno Aquino Jr., noted that “anyone wanting to understand the Philippines and the Filipinos today must include this book in his ‘must' reading list.”The fourth edition has been updated through the final years of the Ramos presidency, and contains a new section on the impact of President Estrada. Dedication 6 Contents 8 List of Illustrations 12 Preface to the Fourth Edition 14 1 The Rules of the Road 18 2 This Very Beautiful Pearl of the Orient Sea 28 3 A Singular and a Plural Folk 54 4 The Search for a Usable Past 70 5 The Religious Impulse: Global and Local Traditions 96 6 Collaboration and Restoration 118 7 The Marcos Era 132 8 The Ace of Aquino 168 9 The Ramos Years: Solid, Stolid, Successful 210 10 The Estrada Anomaly 226 Glossary 240 Bibliography 244 Index 274