The Philippines as a Pacific Nation: A Brief History of Interaction between Filipinos and Pacific Islanders

ABSTRACT

Filipinos are the second largest Asian migrant group in the contemporary Pacific behind Indians and ahead of Chinese. While Filipinos are prominent in local histories of Guam and Hawai‘i, where their populations are concentrated, little is written or known about their presence elsewhere. Pacific connections are similarly neglected by Filipino scholars. This may largely be due to the unobtrusive nature of most Filipino integration into Pacific Island communities. Nor were Filipino Austronesians as isolated from their Micronesian neighbours as is commonly assumed. During the Spanish era, Filipinos travelled all over the Pacific as ships’ crew, pearl divers and Catholic missionaries. The United States’ takeover of the Spanish Pacific in the 1890s ushered in a century of American domination and provided employment and migration opportunities for Filipino workers across the American Pacific. Today Filipino professionals are increasingly common in nations of the Western Pacific and this trend seems set to continue.

Key words:

• Philippines
• Pacific Islanders
• Micronesia
• Austronesia
• Spanish Pacific
• American Pacific
• labour migration
• Filipino workers

Acknowledgements

Thank you to the journal’s editors and anonymous reviewers for their comments – and to the scholars and students whose work has informed the thinking here.

Notes

1 ‘Filipino’ is used here as an umbrella-term for all peoples living within the Philippines Archipelago, while the ‘Philippines’ is used to designate both the archipelago in its geographical entirety, and/or the political entity as a whole.

2 Regina Layug-Rosero, ‘The Philippines and the Pacific World: Past Connections, Modern Ties’, 22 May 2013. Available online at http://www.gmanetwork.com/news/story/309561/lifestyle/artandculture/the-philippines-and-the-pacific-world-past-connections-modern-ties. Accessed 27 November 2017. As will be noted later, Zialcita is incorrect about Filipino and Micronesian canoes being of similar design.

3 On Filipinos in Guam and the Marianas, see Robert F. Rogers, Destiny’s Landfall: A History of Guam (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1995), 47, 60, 79, 101, 104‒6, 124–5, 217‒18, 224, 236, 238, 251, 287. For a historical overview of Filipinos in Papua New Guinea (PNG), see Alfredo P. Hernandez, ‘Invading PNG, Filipino style’, National, Weekender, 12 January 2007. The most recent reliable estimate of the Filipino population in PNG is the Philippines’ embassy in PNG’s figure of 12,850 in November 2009; see ‘Philippines Dismisses Claims 16,000 Illegal Filipinos in PNG’, Radio Australia interview with Shirley Ho Vicario, Philippines ambassador to PNG. Available online at www.radioaustralia.net.au/pacbeat/stories/200911/s2742530.htm. Accessed 27 November 2011. I am indebted to my Australian National University colleagues Deveni Temu for the Radio Australia reference and Robin Hide for a copy of the Hernandez article. The largest Filipino company in PNG is RD Tuna Canners and Fishing Pty who are based outside Madang in the huge Pacific Maritime Industrial Zone (PMIZ); the most comprehensive source for RD Tuna’s activities in PNG were the writings of the late Madang-based anthropologist Nancy Sullivan, e.g., Nancy Sullivan and Vina Ram-Bidesi, Gender Issues in Tuna Fisheries: Case Studies in Papua New Guinea, Fiji and Kiribati (Honiara: Forum Fisheries Agency and Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat, 2008).

4 Ron Crocombe, Asia in the Pacific Islands: Replacing the West (Suva: IPS Publications, University of the South Pacific, 2007), 94–7. Crocombe’s figures were: Guam, 38,000; CNMI, 15,000 or more as no Filipino category in census data; Palau, 3253; Federated States of Micronesia, 500; Marshall Islands, 243; Kiribati, ‘a few’; PNG, 9,000; Solomon Islands, 130; Vanuatu, 60; New Caledonia, 100; Fiji, 5000; Wallis and Futuna, none?; Tuvalu, none?; Samoa, 100; Tonga, 100; Niue, few; Cook Islands, 200; and French Polynesia, ‘some’. Crocombe listed 400,000 Indians in the Pacific Islands, 80,000 Chinese, and 75,000 Filipino but did not include Hawai‘i in this figure. If it is included, the total increases dramatically: Filipinos and part-Filipinos made up about 23% of Hawai‘i’s 2005 population, or 290,705 out of 1,238,158; see University of Hawai‘i at Manoa’s Center for Philippine Studies website, ‘A Brief History of Filipinos in Hawaii’, http://www.hawaii.edu/cps/hawaii-filipinos.html. Accessed 27 November 2017.

5 Bronwen Douglas and Chris Ballard, eds., Foreign Bodies: Oceania and the Science of Race 1750‒1940 (Canberra: ANU E Press, 2008); and especially Bronwen Douglas, ‘Geography, Raciology, and the Naming of Oceania, 1750‒1900’, Globe 69 (2011): 1–28.

6 Matt K. Matsuda, Pacific Worlds: A History of Seas, Peoples, and Cultures (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012).

7 Elsdon Best, ‘The Races of the Philippines’, Journal of the Polynesian Society 1:1 (1892): 7‒19; Paul Rainbird, The Archaeology of Micronesia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004).

8 Studies of marine species’ dispersal and regional differentiation in eastern Indonesia by the Barber Lab of the University of California Los Angeles suggest these currents are perhaps not as conducive to linkages as first thought, but not to the extent that they act as barriers to dispersal. The Barber Lab, ‘Dispersal and Connectivity in Marine Environments’. Available online at http://www.eeb.ucla.edu/Faculty/Barber/Projects.htm. Accessed 2 December 2012.

9 B.W. Hoeksema, ‘Delineation of the Indo‒Malaysian Centre of Maximum Marine Biodiversity: The Coral Triangle’, in Biogeography, Time and Place: Distributions, Barriers and Islands, ed. W. Renema (Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer, 2007), 117–78.

10 James J. Fox and Clifford Sather, eds., Origins, Ancestry, and Alliances: Explorations in Austronesian Ethnography (Canberra: The Australian National University, Department of Anthropology, 1996).

11 Patricio N. Abinales and Donna J. Amoroso, State and Society in the Philippines (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2005), 20‒8 provide one of the best overviews of the literature on Filipino culture on the eve of Spanish contact. An excellent collection of primary sources on indigenous Filipino culture at this time is F. Landa Jocano, ed., The Philippines at the Spanish Contact: Some Major Accounts of Early Filipino Society and Culture (Manila: MCS Enterprises, 1975).

12 Abinales and Amoroso, State and Society, 27‒8; William Henry Scott, Barangay: Sixteenth-Century Philippine Culture and Society (Manila: Ateneo de Manila University Press, 1994), 83, 130.

13 Anthony Reid, ‘Continuity and Change in the Austronesian Transition to Islam and Christianity’, in The Austronesians: Historical & Comparative Perspectives, ed. Peter Bellwood, James J. Fox, and Darrell Tryon (Canberra: The Australian National University, The Department of Anthropology, 1995), 314‒31, 317; Tomé Pires, The Suma Oriental of Tomé Pires (translation of 1515 original into English by A. Cortesão) (London: The Hakluyt Society, 1944), 134, 281.

14 Rainbird, Archaeology of Micronesia, 13‒36.

15 D.L. Oliver, Oceania: The Native Cultures of Australia and the Pacific Islands, 2 vols. (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1989), 1, 361–86; Paul D’Arcy, The People of the Sea: Environment, Identity and History in Oceania (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2006), 79‒81.

16 H.C. Hung, ‘From Coastal Southern China to the Pacific ‒ An Update of Archaeological Perspectives on Early Austronesian Expansion’, in New Lights on East Asian Archaeology, ed. Kwang-tzuu Chen and Cheng-hwa Tsang (Taiwan: Academica Sinica, 2013), 279‒332; M.T. Carson, H.C. Hung, G. Summerhayes, and P. Bellwood, ‘The Pottery Trail from Southeast Asia to Remote Oceania’, Journal of Island & Coastal Archaeology 8:1 (2013): 17‒36; P. Bellwood, H.C. Hung, and Y. Lizuka, ‘Taiwan Jade in the Philippines: 3,000 Years of Trade and Long-Distance Interaction’, in Paths of Origins: The Austronesian Heritage in the Collections of the National Museum of the Philippines, Museum Nasional Indonesia, and the Netherlands Rijksmuseum voor Volkenkunde, ed. Lorraine V. Aragon et al. (Manila: ArtPostAsia, 2010), 31–41; H.C. Hung, ‘Neolithic Interaction between Taiwan and Northern Luzon: The Pottery and Lade Evidence from the Cagayan Valley’, Journal of Austronesian Studies 1:1 (2005): 109‒34; B.V. Rolett, ‘Southeast China and the Emergence of Austronesian Seafaring’, in Lost Maritime Cultures: China and the Pacific, ed. T. Jiao (Honolulu: Hawai‘i Bishop Museum Press, 2007), 54‒61. On the initial colonization of the Marianas from the northern Philippines, see Rainbird, Archaeology of Micronesia; Scott Russell, Tiempon I Manmofo’na: Ancient Chamorro Culture and History of the Northern Mariana Islands (Saipan: Division of Historic Preservation, 1998), 69‒96; Rosalind L. Hunter Anderson and Brian M. Butler, An Overview of Northern Marianas Prehistory (Saipan: The Micronesian Archaeological Survey, Division of History Preservation, Department of Community and Cultural Affairs, 1995), 29‒30; Boyd Dixon, Laura Gilda, and Tina Mangieri, ‘Archaeological Identification of Stone Fish-weirs Mentioned to Freycinet in 1819 on the Island of Guam’, Journal of Pacific History 48:4 (2013): 349‒68, 351‒3.

17 Rodrique Lévesque, ed., History of Micronesia: A Collection of Source Documents, 10 vols. (Gatineau, Quebec: Levesque Publications, 1992‒2002).

18 This primary material is summarized in William Lessa, ‘An Evaluation of Early Descriptions of Carolinian Culture’, Ethnohistory 9:4 (1962): 313‒403, 328‒9; Francis X. Hezel and Maria Teresa Del Valle, ‘Early European Contact with The Western Carolines: 1525‒1750’, Journal of Pacific History 7 (1972): 26‒44, 29‒30.

19 A. Krämer, ‘Palau’, in Ergebnisse der Südsee Expedition 1908‒1910, ed. G. Thilenius, 2 vols. (Hamburg: L. Friederichsen, 1914), II, Bd. 3 (Hamburg: Friederichsen, De Gruyter & Co., 1917), I, 14.

20 Jager, Travel in the Philippines, 253, cited in Lessa, ‘An Evaluation of Early Descriptions’, 334.

21 Otto von Kotzebue, A Voyage of Discovery into the South Sea and Behring’s Straits, in Search of a North-east Passage, Undertaken in the Years 1815, 16, 17, and 18 in the Ship Rurick, 3 vols. (Amsterdam and New York: Da Capo Press, 1967) (Bibliotheca Australiana reproduction of the 1821 edition), 3, 184.

22 See Chris Ballard, Paula Brown, R. Michael Bourke, and Tracy Harwood, eds., The Sweet Potato in Oceania: A Reappraisal (Pittsburgh and Sydney: University of Pittsburgh and University of Sydney, Ethnology Monograph 19/Oceania Monograph 56, 2005). Caution is required in linking botanical diffusion to specific periods because of the difficulty of distinguishing such introductions from later ones in the botanical record. See C. Roullier, L. Benoit, D.B. McKey, and V. Lebot, ‘Historical Collections Reveal Patterns of Diffusion of Sweet Potato in Oceania Obscured by Modern Plant Movements and Recombination’, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 110:6 (2013): 2205‒10.

23 Inez de Beauclair, ‘Some Ancient Beads of Yap and Palau’, Journal of the Polynesian Society 72 (1963): 1‒10, 5‒9; Richard J. Parmentier, The Sacred Remains: Myth, History, and Polity in Belau (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987), 38.

24 Roland Force, ‘Palauan Money: Some Preliminary Comments on Material and Origins’, Journal of the Polynesian Society 68 (1959): 40‒4.

25 George Keate, An Account of the Pelew Islands, 2nd ed. (London: W. Nicol, 1788), 24‒5; John Pearce Hockin, A Supplement to the Account of the Pelew Islands (London: G. & W. Nicol, 1803), 17.

26 Andres Serrano, Breve Noticia del Nuevo Descubrimiento de las Islas Pais, O Palaos, Entre las Philipines, y Marianas, Madrid [1705], Microfilm no. S 00833, Hamilton Library, University of Hawaii at Manoa, f.10.

27 Reid, ‘Austronesian Transition’, 314, 314‒15; Abinales and Amoroso, State and Society, 42‒9.

28 Reid, ‘Austronesian Transition’, 325.

29 See, e.g., Miriam Kahn, ‘Sunday Christians, Monday Sorcerers: Selective Adaptation to Missionization in Wamira’, The Journal of Pacific History 18:2 (1983): 96‒112.

30 Reid, ‘Austronesian Transition’, 334.

31 Abinales and Amoroso, State and Society, 50‒9. A classic work on the conversion is Vincente Rafael, Contracting Colonialism: Translation and Christian Conversion in Tagalog Society under Early Spanish Rule (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1988). On the theme of female shamans and the religious conversion in the Philippines, see Carolyn Brewer, ‘From Animist “Priestess” to Catholic Priest: The Re/gendering of Religious Roles in the Philippines, 1521‒1685’, in Other Pasts: Women, Gender, and History in Early Modern Southeast Asia, ed. Barbara Watson Andaya (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2000), 69‒86. The Spanish attempts to target and undermine female shamans failed to eradicate their influence. See, for example, the case of the female shaman Estrella Bangobanwa who used her magical powers to break a drought, thus undermining the influence of local friars who were helpless to do so in the 1870s on the Visayan island of Negros. See Filemeno V. Aguilar, Jr., Clash of Spirits: The History of Power and Sugar Planter Hegemony on a Visayan Island (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 1998), 166. For an astute understanding of the shamanistic nature of Austronesian religion in the Pacific Islands, see Niel Gunson, ‘Tongan Historiography: Shamanic Views of Time and History’, in Tongan Culture and History, ed. P. Herda, J. Terrell, and N. Gunson (Canberra: Australian National University, Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, 1990), 12‒20; Gunson, ‘Understanding Polynesian Traditional History’, Journal of Pacific History 28:2 (1993): 139‒58; Gunson, ‘Shamanistic Story and Song Cycles in Polynesia’, in Shamanism in Performing Arts, ed. T. Kim and M. Hoppál with the assistance of O.J. von Sadovszky (Bibliotheca Shamanistica vol. 1) (Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 1995), 213‒24. For a critique of Gunson, see Meredith Filihia, ‘Shamanism in Tonga: An Assessment’, Journal of the Polynesian Society 117:4 (2008): 383‒97, and Gunson’s response, ‘A Note on Oceanic Shamanism’, Journal of the Polynesian Society 119:2 (2010): 205‒12.

32 Abinales and Amoroso, State and Society, 66‒9; Reid, ‘Austronesian Transition’, 335‒6. On the trans-Pacific galleon trade, see O.H.K. Spate, The Spanish Lake (Canberra: Australian National University Press, 1979), 85; Brian Moloughney and Xia Weizhong, ‘Silver and the Fall of the Ming: A Reassessment’, Papers on Far Eastern History 40 (1989): 51‒78.

33 Eliodoro Robiles, The Philippines in the Nineteenth Century (Quezon City, Philippines: Malaya Books, 1969), 103‒4, 121‒7, 290‒2; Abinales and Amoroso, State and Society, 84‒90.

34 Edgar Wickberg, The Chinese in Philippine Life, 1850‒1898 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1965), 140‒1; Abinales and Amoroso, State and Society, 98.

35 Reid, ‘Austronesian Transition’, 336‒8.

36 Reid, ‘Austronesian Transition’, 334, 336.

37 Augusto V. de Viana, ‘The Pampangans in the Mariana Mission 1618‒1684’, Micronesian Journal of the Humanities and Social Sciences 4:1 (2005): 1‒16; Stephanie Mawson, ‘Rebellion and Mutiny in the Mariana Islands, 1680‒1690’, Journal of Pacific History 50:2 (2015): 128‒48, 135.

38 See, especially, Floro L. Mercene, Manila Men in the New World: Filipino Migration to Mexico and the Americas from the Sixteenth Century (Quezon City: University of the Philippines Press, 2007); Tatiana Seijas, Asian Slaves in Colonial Mexico: From Chinos to Indians (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014).

39 Rainer Buschmann, Edward Slack, and James Tueller, Navigating the Spanish Lake: The Pacific in the Iberian World, 1521‒1898 (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2014).

40 Frank Quimby, ‘The Hierro Commerce: Culture Contact, Appropriation, and Colonial Entanglement in the Marianas, 1521‒1668’, Journal of Pacific History 46:1 (2011): 1‒26; Francis X. Hezel, ‘From Conversion to Conquest: The Early-Spanish Mission in the Marianas’, Journal of Pacific History 17:3‒4 (1982): 115‒37.

41 Russell, Tiempon I Manmofo’na, 302‒15; Rogers, Destiny’s Landfall, 63; Francis X. Hezel and Marjorie Driver, ‘From Conquest to Colonization: Spain in the Mariana Islands 1690–1740’, The Journal of Pacific History 23:2 (1988): 137–55.

42 Glynn Barratt, Carolinian Contacts with the Islands of the Marianas: The European Record (Saipan: Micronesian Archaeological Survey Report no. 25, Division of Historic Preservation, Department of Community and Cultural Affairs, Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, August 1988), 4‒8; Scott Russell, ‘Gani Revisited: A Historical Overview of the Mariana Archipelago’s Northern Islands’, Pacific Studies 21:4 (1998): 83‒105, 87‒91; Russell, Tiempon I Manmofo’na, 311‒15.

43 Rogers, Destiny’s Landfall, 76, 79. On the diverse sets of circumstances influencing ability to respond from epidemics, see David Stannard, ‘Disease and Infertility: A New Look at the Demographic Collapse of Native Populations in the Wake of Western Contact’, Journal of American Studies 24:3 (1990): 325‒50. Stephen Kunitz, Disease and Social Diversity: The European Impact on the Health of Non-Europeans (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), argues that retention of land aided recovery by providing nutrition and social stability and coherence in the wake of epidemics. In this regard, the Spanish policy of concentrating the remnant Chamorro population in new villages disrupted the potential for Chamorro demographic recovery.

44 Frédéric Lutké, Voyage Autour du Monde Exécuté par ordre de sa Majesté l’Empereur Nicholas 1er, 3 vols. (Paris, 1835‒1836), II, 124‒5; Jacques Arago, Narrative of a Voyage around the World (Amsterdam: N.Israel, 1971), 2, 12; Don A. Farrell, A History of the Northern Mariana Islands (Saipan: Public School System, Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, 1991), 198, 201.

45 Rogers, Destiny’s Landfall, 104‒5. Ron Crocombe disagrees, arguing that intermixing was more the norm: Crocombe, Asia in the Pacific Islands, 38.

46 The distance from Manila to Guam is 2573 kilometres.

47 Augusto V. de Viana, In the Far Islands: The Role of Natives from the Philippines in the Conquest, Colonization and Repopulation of the Mariana Islands 1668‒1903 (Manila: University of Santo Tomas Press, 2004), 160. While this conclusion is at odds with Dixon et al., ‘Stone Fish-weirs’, de Viana’s conclusion finds support in Alexander Spoehr, Saipan: The Ethnology of a War-Devastated Island (Saipan: NMI Division of Historic Preservation, 2000), 125, where, however, gigao are described as ‘a recent’ introduction.

48 David A. Chappell, Double Ghosts: Oceanic Voyagers on Euroamerican Ships (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1997), 41; Matsuda, Pacific Worlds, 119.

49 Matsuda, Pacific Worlds, 119‒21. Tubâ can be made from the fermented sap of a variety of palm trees, but most commonly coconut palm in the Philippines.

50 Rhys Richards, ‘The Manilla-Men and Pacific Commerce’, Solidarity 95 (1983): 44‒57; Chappell, Double Ghosts, 41, 118, 163.

51 Alfred Tetens, Among the Savages of the South Seas: Memoirs of Micronesia, 1862‒1868 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1958), 73, 93, 94‒5; Chappell, Double Ghosts, 98.

52 Anna Shnukal, ‘They Don’t Know what Went on Underneath: Three Little-known Communities of Torres Strait’, in Anna Shnukal, Guy Ramsay, and Yuriko Nagata, eds., Navigating Boundaries: The Asian Diaspora in Torres Strait (Canberra: Pandanus Books, 2004), 81‒122, 84‒6, 88‒90, 96‒7; M. Brady and V. McGrath, ‘Making Tubâ in the Torres Strait Islands: The Cultural Diffusion and Geographic Mobility of an Alcoholic Drink’, Journal of Pacific History 45:3 (2010): 315‒30.

53 Hernandez, ‘Invading PNG’, 1‒2.

54 Hernandez, ‘Invading PNG’, 3.

55 Crocombe, Asia in the Pacific Islands, 38.

56 Rogers, Destiny’s Landfall, 124‒5, 217.

57 Theodore S. Gonzalves and Roderick N. Labrador, Filipinos in Hawai‘i (Charleston, SC: Arcadia Publishing, 2011).

58 Benedict Anderson, ‘Cacique Democracy in the Philippines: Origins and Dreams’, New Left Review 169 (1988): 3‒31.

59 See, for example, Sheila S. Coronel et al., The Rulemakers: How the Wealthy and Well-Born Dominate Congress (Quezon City: Philippine Centre for Investigative Journalism, 2004); Jennifer C. Franco and Saturnino M. Borras, Jr., On Just Grounds: Struggling for Agrarian Justice and Citizenship Rights in the Rural Philippines (Quezon City: Institute for Popular Democracy, 2005).

60 Benedict Kerkvliet, The Huk Rebellion: A Study of Peasant Revolt in the Philippines (Manila: Ateneo de Manila Press, 2014).

61 See, Robyn Magalit Rodriguez, Migrants for Export: How the Philippine State Brokers Labor to the World (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2010); Joaquin Lucero Gonzalez, Philippine Labour Migration: Critical Dimensions of Public Policy (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 1998); Stephen Castles, ‘Migrant Settlement, Transnational Communities and State Strategies in the Asia Pacific Region’, in Robyn Iredale et al., eds., Migration in the Asia Pacific: Population, Settlement and Citizenship Issues (Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 2003), 3‒26; Randolph S. David, ‘The Filipino Diaspora: Identity in the Global Village’, in Randolph S. David, Reflections on Sociology and Philippine Society (Quezon City: University of the Philippines Press, 2001), 68‒77.

62 Abinales and Amoroso, State and Society, 16‒23.

63 Rogers, Destiny’s Landfall, 217‒18. Detail on this first wave of post-war Filipino construction workers can be found in Bruce L. Campbell, ‘The Filipino Community of Guam (1945‒1975)’, unpublished MA thesis, University of Hawai’i, 1987, 22‒6.

64 Rogers, Destiny’s Landfall, 218, 224, 232, 236.

65 Rogers, Destiny’s Landfall, 239, 251.

66 Recent studies of Filipino Americans include Juanita Tamayo Lott, Common Destiny: Filipino American Generations (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2006); Jon Sterngass, Filipino Americans (Broomall, PA: Chelsea House Publishers, 2007). In 2000, Filipinos became the largest migrant group in the US.

67 See Monina A. Mercado and Francisco S. Tatad, People Power: The Philippine Revolution of 1986: An Eyewitness History (Manila: James B. Reuter, S.J., Foundation, 1986); Benedict V. Kerkvliet and Resil B. Mojares, eds., From Marcos to Aquino: Local Perspectives on Political Transition in the Philippines (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1992).

68 For a well-researched account of the stark implications of the US base closures in combination with local political corruption and looting of the public purse, see Donald Kirk, Philippines in Crisis: U.S. Power versus Local Revolt (Manila: Anvil Publishing, Inc., 2005). On the announcement of base closures, see David Sanger, ‘Philippines Orders U.S. to Leave Strategic Naval Base at Subic Bay’, New York Times, 28 December 1991.

69 Rogers, Destiny’s Landfall, 277; Crocombe, Asia in the Pacific Islands, 77‒8; Frank Quimby, ‘Americanised, Decolonised, Globalised and Federalised: The Northern Mariana Islands since 1978’, Journal of Pacific History 48:4 (2013): 464‒83, 467‒9, 471‒4; Korean Air Flight 801 Memorial Site. Available online at https://www.postguam.com/news/local/flight-crashed-years-ago-today/article_147acdc4-78f5-11e7-b2e7-832f163a3306.html. Accessed 16 May 2018.

70 For the political background to this move of US forces from Okinawa to Guam, see Gavan McCormack and Satoko Oka Norimatsu, Resistant Islands: Okinawa Confronts Japan and the United States (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2012).

71 See Jason Gutierrez, ‘Philippines Sees Subic Port as Vital to US Interests’, ABS-CBN News, Agence France-Presse, 8 October 2012; Lindsay Murdoch, ‘Philippines Divided over US Return to Subic Bay’, Sydney Morning Herald, 20 November 2012. On tensions within Guam over any increase in the military presence, see Frank Quimby, ‘Fortress Guahan: Chamorro Nationalism, Regional Economic Integration and US Defence Interests Shape Guam’s Recent History’, Journal of Pacific History 46:3 (2011): 357‒80.

72 Hernandez, ‘Invading PNG’, 4‒6; Crocombe, Asia in the Pacific Islands, 77.

73 Hernandez, ‘Invading PNG’, 4‒6; Crocombe, Asia in the Pacific Islands, 77.

74 Hernandez, ‘Invading PNG’, 7‒9; Crocombe, Asia in the Pacific Islands, 77.

75 Radio Australia, ‘Filipinos in PNG’. For an analysis of recent trends in Filipino immigration and participation in the PNG workforce based on 2012 data, see Carmen Voigt-Graf, ‘The Changing Composition of PNG’s Foreign Workforce’, Development Policy Blog, Development Policy Centre, Australian National University, 16 March 2015. Available online at http://devpolicy.org/the-changing-composition-of-pngs-foreign-workforce-20150316/. Accessed 31 March 2018.

76 Republic of Palau, Ministry of Health, Medical Referral Program and Medical Referral Committee, Annual Report December 2014, 7, 8. Available online at http://www.palauhealth.org/files/MRP%20MRC%20Annual%20Report%20December%202014.pdf. Accessed 16 May 2018. The International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness (IAPB) Western Pacific Region notes that Palau sends acute patients who can afford care to the Philippines for specialist ophthalmology; IAPB, Western Pacific Region, Western Pacific Regional Update and Country Profile, August 2013, 14. Available online at https://www.iapb.org/wp-content/uploads/Western-Pacific-Regional-Update-Country-Profile-Aug-2013.pdf. Accessed 31 March 2018.

77 Crocombe, Asia in the Pacific Islands, 77. See, for example, Tess Guese, ‘Filipino in Papua New Guinea – My Pinoy Life in Lae’, Illustrado Magazine, 25 January 2012. Available online at http://www.illustradolife.com/filipino-in-papua-new-guinea-my-pinoy-life-in-lae/. Accessed 31 March 2018.

78 See Secretariat of the Pacific Community, ‘Population Projection by PICT.xlsx’. Available online at https://prism.spc.int. Accessed 31 March 2018.