Historical Background of the Philippine

Government
Chronological list of Philippine leaders from the Spanish government up to the present
government.

Emilio Aguinaldo -(1899–1901) -1st President

Manuel L. Quezon - (1935-1944) -2nd President
Jose P. Laurel - (1943–1945) - 3rd President
Sergio Osmeña - (1944-1946) - 4th President
Manuel Roxas - (1946-1948) – 5th President
Elpidio Quirino - (1948-1953) – 6th President
Ramon Magsaysay - (1953–1957) – 7th President
Carlos P. Garcia – (1957-1961) – 8th President
Diosdado Macapagal – (1961- 1965) – 9th President
Ferdinand Marcos – 1965-1986) – 10th President
Corazon Aquino – (1986-1992) – 11th President
Fidel V. Ramos – (1992-1998) – 12th President
Joseph Estrada – (1998-2001) – 13th President
Gloria Macapagal Arroyo – (2001-2010) – 14th President
Benigno Aquino III – (2010-2016) – 15th President
Rodrigo Duterte – (2016- Present) – 16th President

 The History of the term Barangay.

The barangay was also known by its former name as barrio (Spanish:
barrio), is the smallest local government unit in the Philippines.
Barangays make up towns and cities. It is sometimes referred to as
"Brgy" and it also forms the "Sangguniang Kabataan" to guide the order
and health of the youth in each barangay. The term barangay and its
structure came to mind in the modern context during the administration
of President Ferdinand Marcos, replacing the old barrios. The barangays
were codified under the Local Government Code in 1991.
Historically, a barangay was a small community consisting of 30 to 100
families. There are only villages of thirty to one hundred houses and the
population is only one hundred to five hundred people. The word
barangay itself is derived from the old Malay boat called balangay. It is
commonly believed that at the time when the Philippines was not yet a
colony, each of the original “barangays” on the coast was formed as a
result of people arriving by boat from other parts of Southeast Asia.
  Early Ancestors of the Filipinos
According to the Holy Bible, men and women originated from the first
man (Adam) and first woman (Eve). After the Great Flood, Noah and his
three sons left to settle the earth. Noah’s sons – Shem, Ham and Japheth
– themselves had sons after the flood. One of the sons of the youngest,
Japheth, was named Javan. Out of Javan, Noah’s grandson, came four
sons named Elishah, Tharsis, the Kittim and the Rodanim.
Scientist does not believe in the story of God’s creation, as told in the
Holy Bible. Instead, they have invented the theory of “evolution”, or the
story of how the first man came from apelike creatures that walked in the
face of earth thousands of years ago. The other story about the origin of
the first Filipinos comes from those scientists who study about the past.
These scientists are called “archaeologists”.

Slowly but surely, the early Filipinos grew in number and lifestyle. They
began to cook with fire and to make sharper tools. Many families also
lived in Central Luzon and Cagayan Valley. About 5,000 years ago, the
early Filipinos learned to make axes, seashell ornaments and pottery.
They chewed betel nut. Later, the Filipinos became expert craftsmen,
travelers and traders. Their pottery and jewelry became more beautiful.
They traded with beads of stone, shells, precious stones and gold. They
made better clothes.
 The early form Government during the Pre-colonization Period and during the
Spanish Regime.
Spanish colonial motives were not, however, strictly commercial. The
Spanish at first viewed the Philippines as a stepping-stone to the riches of
the East Indies (Spice Islands), but, even after the Portuguese and Dutch
had foreclosed that possibility, the Spanish still maintained their presence
in the archipelago.
The Portuguese navigator and explorer Ferdinand Magellan headed the
first Spanish foray to the Philippines when he made landfall on Cebu in
March 1521; a short time later he met an untimely death on the nearby
island of Mactan. After King Philip II (for whom the islands
are named) had dispatched three further expeditions that ended in
disaster, he sent out Miguel López de Legazpi, who established the first
permanent Spanish settlement, in Cebu, in 1565. The Spanish city of
Manila was founded in 1571, and by the end of the 16th century most of
the coastal and lowland areas from Luzon to northern Mindanao were
under Spanish control. Friars marched with soldiers and soon
accomplished the nominal conversion to Roman Catholicism of all the
local people under Spanish administration. But the Muslims of Mindanao
and Sulu, whom the Spanish called Moros, were never completely
subdued by Spain.
For the first 100 years, Spanish sovereignty was implemented in most
areas through the encomienda, a sort of tax farming adopted from the
Americas. However, by the end of the 17th century, the Spanish had
abandoned the system due to abusive treatment of local tribute payers,
disregard of religious education by encomenderos (tribute collectors),
and repeated withholding of funds from the crown. The governor-
general, who had been nominated directly by the king, began appointing
his own civil and military governors.
Until the 19th century, Manila's central government had a medieval
flavor, and the governor-general was so powerful that he was frequently
compared to an independent monarch. He ruled the Audiencia, or
supreme court, was the captain-general of the military forces, and had
the right to engage in private commerce.
Not merely as the political capital, Manila dominated the islands.
Manila's commercial primacy was also secured by the galleon trade with
Acapulco, Mexico. The trade of Chinese silks for Mexican silver not only
kept the Spanish who were looking for a quick buck in Manila, but it also
drew a huge Chinese population. Despite becoming the victims of
frequent atrocities at the hands of suspicious Spaniards, the Chinese
persisted and quickly established a trade domination that lasted for
centuries.
Manila was also the Philippines' ecclesiastical capital. The governor-
general was the civil head of the church in the islands, although he
competed with the archbishop for political power. The archbishop, who
also possessed the formal rank of lieutenant governor, frequently won in
the late 17th and 18th centuries. Religious orders, Roman Catholic
hospitals and schools, and bishops amassed vast wealth, primarily in the
form of land, to bolster their political authority. The heart of their estates
were royal grants and devises, although many arbitrary extensions were
made outside the original grants' bounds.
The church's strength was drawn not only from its money and official
status. Priests and friars had a grasp of native languages that lay
Spaniards lacked, and they outnumbered civil officials in the provinces. As
a result, they provided the colonial authority with crucial information.
The thorough Christianization and Hispanization of the Filipino was the
cultural goal of the Spanish clergy. Local faiths were fiercely suppressed
in the early decades of missionary effort, and ancient traditions were not
permitted. However, as the Christian laity expanded in number and the
clergy's fervor diminished, it became more difficult to prevent the
continued practice of traditional beliefs and rituals under Roman Catholic
guise. Pre-Spanish Filipino culture was thus not completely eradicated,
especially in the domain of religion.
Economic and political institutions were also influenced by the Spanish,
albeit probably less so than religious institutions. The priests attempted
to re-locate everyone to the pueblos, or towns, that surrounded the
massive stone churches. However, the previous barangays' fragmented
demographic patterns mostly remained. Nonetheless, the datu's status,
which had previously been hereditary, was susceptible to Spanish
appointment.
Agricultural technique progressed slowly until the late 18th century,
when shifting cultivation gave place to more intensive sedentary farming,
aided in part by the friars. The socioeconomic ramifications of the
Spanish policies that accompanied this transformation exacerbated class
divisions. Even if traditional property rights were confined to usufruct,
the datus and other members of the old aristocratic class took advantage
of the arrival of the Western concept of absolute ownership of land to
claim as their own lands cultivated by their numerous subordinates. The
principalia, or successors of pre-Spanish aristocracy, had a prominent role
in the friar-dominated local government.

Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_presidents_of_the_Philippines
https://thefaceofhistory.wordpress.com/2015/02/20/our-early-ancestors/
https://www.britannica.com/place/Philippines/The-Spanish-period
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Philippines