Robert Jan M.
Reyes
1. Prehistory (pre-900)
The prehistory of the Philippines covers the occasions preceding the recorded history of what is
currently the Philippines. The primary proof of the orderly utilization of Stone Age innovation in the
Philippines is assessed to 50,000 BC and this stage in the improvement of proto-Philippine social orders
is considered to end with the ascent of metal instruments in around 500 BC, though with stone
apparatuses still utilized past that date. Filipino anthropologist F. Landa Jocano alludes to the most
punctual perceptible stage in the improvement of proto-Philippine social orders as the Formative Phase.
He likewise distinguished stone instruments and artistic assembling as the two center ventures that
characterized the period's financial movement, and which formed the methods by which early Filipinos
adjusted to their condition during this period.
2. Archaic Epoch (900-1565)
Laguna Copperplate - this artifact is written in Kawi, the indigenous writing system in Java,
Indonesia. This only proves baybayin and other related indigenous scripts of the country were a later
development. Aside for its archeological value, the LCI is regarded by the historians as the earliest
known Philippine historical document found locally. It is about the granting of the ruler of Dewata (now
part of Butuan City) of perpetual freedom from debt to a certain family in Luzon, testified by the ruler of
Tundun (now Tondo, Manila) and ruled by the court of the Kingdom of Mdang (now in Java, Indonesia).
3. Colonial Period (1565 - 1946)
Also known as the Spanish Colonial Period from 1565, was the period following the arrival of
Magellan in the Philippines and during Spain financed undertakings to the Philippine islands and after
that ruled them as the Captaincy General of the Philippines inside the Spanish East Indies, at first under
New Spain until Mexican freedom in 1821, which gave Madrid direct command over the region. It began
with the entry in 1521 of European voyager Ferdinand Magellan cruising for Spain, which proclaimed the
period when the Philippines was a state of the Spanish Empire, and finished with the episode of the
Philippine Revolution in 1898, which denoted the start of the American provincial time of Philippine
history.
4. Post-colonial Period (1946 - 1986)
This period covers the history of the Phillipines from the acknowledgment of freedom in 1946 to
the part of the arrangement of Diosdado Macapagal, which secured a great part of the Third Republic of
the Philippines which finished on January 17, 1973 with the approval of the 1973 Constitution of the
Republic of the Philippines.
The Philippines as of now commends its Independence Day on June 12, the commemoration of
Emilio Aguinaldo's assertion of autonomy from Spain in 1898. The assertion was not perceived by the
United States which, in the wake of overcoming the Spanish in the Battle of Manila Bay in May that year,
obtained the Philippine Islands by means of the Treaty of Paris that finished the Spanish–American War.
5. Contemporary history (1986 - present)
In this period covers the history if the Philippines following the 1986 People Power Revolution
also known as the contemporary history of the Philippines.
The Asian money related emergency was a time of monetary emergency that held quite a bit of
East Asia and Southeast Asia starting in July 1997 and raised feelings of trepidation of a worldwide
economic meltdown due to financial contagion.
Economic growth was additionally hampered by a series of natural disasters. In June
1991, Mount Pinatubo in Central Luzon erupted, after being dormant for 600 years. It was the 2nd
largest volcanic eruption of the 20th century. It left 700 dead and 200,000 homeless, and cooled global
weather by 1.5 °C.
The history of the Philippines were truly astounding, imagine yourself doing things using only
stone and bones just like our ancestor in prehistoric period. As a student, I am very eager to know the
true meaning of laguna copperplate made in our Archaic epoch period.
