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Capital: Manila

Bustling city with "non-stop" activity (Hamper, 2020)

Jeepneys - colorful jeeps which are the main source of transportation

Other popular places in the city: Rizal Park, San Agustin Church, Quiapo Church

Boracay

Considered the beach capital of the Philippines (Hamper, 2020)

Most popular beach: White Beach

Bohol

Chocolate Hills of Carmen - collection of 1,200 geological formations that resemble a landscape of chocolate candy kisses (Hamper, 2020)

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Christmas

biggest celebrations in the Philippines

celebrations can begin before December even begins.

Celebrations may take the form of:

music

dancing

feasting

beauty contests

balls

processions

sports challenges

a host of other events (Abundo, 2015)

Weddings

often very religious

“a covenant between two who love each other in God and with God, whose joining becomes an expression of the desire of each to love and serve God together” (Abundo, 2015).

Deaths

first nine days - prayers and masses in the deceased honor

The first forty days - mourning period

relatives wear a small black rectangular pin to show their state of bereavement

After these forty-days - mass is held  and the soul enters heaven (Abundo, 2015).

“Pagamano”

Shows respect of elders

a younger person takes the hand of an older individual and places the back of the older person’s hand on their forehead (Escalona, 2017)

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Bululs

Stylized representations of Ilfugao and Kalanguya ancestors (Afinidad-Bernardo, 2017)

Ifugao tribesmen carved the wooden figures to guard rice crops

Flag

The sun stands for liberty

The sunburst of eight rays for the first eight provinces to take up arms against Spain

The three stars for the three island groups of the Philippines ("Learn about the,” 2017)

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Adobo

Chicken or pork cooked in vinegar, salt, garlic, pepper, soy sauce, and other spices

Lechon

A Pig is spit roasted over coals

Served with liver sauce

In Cebu, the stomach is stuffed with star anise, pepper, spring onions, laurel leaves and lemongrass

Taba ng talangka

Fat from crabs

Pressed in sauteed garlic

Often used as a sauce for prawns or eaten with fried fish and rice

Produces

Coconuts (largest producer)

Mangosteens

Papayas

Bananas

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Chicken Adobo Recipe - Filipino Recipe - Pai's Kitchen

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Teachers create a learning environment where “all children feel safe and understood and can reach their potential” (“Teaching Effectively,” 2017).
Positive Discipline in Everyday Teaching (PDET)
Four main ideas:

know what you want and what you don’t want

show and tell your students what you want

when you get what you want, acknowledge (not praise) it

when you get something else, act quickly and appropriately

Teacher’s in the Philippines believe in using conflict as an opportunity to teach their students

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Students must address elders, teachers and other persons of authority as Miss, Ma’am, Sir or Teacher X (“Philippines,” n.d.)

Students must stand to greet a teacher who enters the room, they must also stand when he or she leaves the room

Student-teacher interactions in the Philippines are much like they are here in the United States

Classrooms are facing hard times financially and lack of resources

Relationships between teachers and students are very important to make up for lack of resources

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K-12 model with school year running from June to April

"Paralang Elementarya” (Primary School) - grades K-6,

“Paaralang Sekundarya” (Junior High School) - grades 7-10

“Mataas na paaralan/ hayskul” (Senior High School) - grades 11-12 (“The education system in the Philippines,” 2017)

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The New K-12 Education System in the Philippines

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Over 80% Catholic (Cultural Atlas, n.d.).

About 5% Islamic

over 100 denominations of Protestant churches

other Christian denominations

indigenous beliefs (Miller, n.d.).

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Music is heavily influenced by the West due to the 333 years of Spanish rules and 45 years of American domination

Highland and lowland hamlets - strong Asian elements

Urban areas - Spanish and American influence

Old Asian influence (gong music, harana and kundiman)

Religious and secular music influenced by Spanish and European forms,

American/European inspired classical, semi-classical, and popular music

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aim to nurture the “holistically developed Filipino” and instill a sense of nationalism (GOVPH, n.d.).

aims to prepare students in four areas:

Information, media and technology skills

learning and innovation skills

effective communication skills

life and career skills

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Over 100 languages are spoken in the Philippines (Koyfman, 2019)

2 Official languages

English-used by the government and used in math/science classes in school (“The education system in the Philippines,” 2017)

Filipino-used in media like movies and  used in reading, writing, and social studies classes in school (“The education system in the Philippines,” 2017)

An updated version of Tagalog

the terms Tagalog and Filipino are often used interchangeably

Follow the link to an interactive map showing the top 10 languages spoken in the Philippines

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If you were to randomly pick two people from anywhere in the Philippines, there's a roughly 76% to 84% chance that they grew up speaking different languages.

This is based on the country's Greenberg Linguistic Diversity Index, which estimates a place's linguistic richness on a scale of 0 to 1. A place in which every person speaks a different language would have a diversity index of 1, while a country in which every person speaks the same language would have an index of 0.

While the language website Ethnologue pegs the country's diversity index at 0.84 or 84%, our own computations based on data from the 2010 Philippine Census puts the figure at around 76%. Even at the lower figure of 76%, the Philippines would still be more linguistically diverse than as many as 190 other countries.

This remarkable fact is rarely celebrated during the country's Buwan ng Wika (Language Month), which, every August, promotes the use of the Tagalog-based national language, Filipino. Yet more than six out of every 10 Filipinos speak languages other than Tagalog at home.

Because we think all of the Philippines' 187 languages are worth celebrating, we've put together a series of maps and charts to visualize the colorful and delightfully complex Philippine language landscape. [Read about our methodology.]

90% of Filipinos speak one of 10 languages

While there are nearly 200 unique languages and dialects spoken by the Philippines' nearly 100 million residents, over 90 percent of Filipino households speak one of just 10 languages. This map shows the provinces where these top 10 languages are the most widely-spoken.

Language diversity across the country

But just looking at the top language in a place can obscure its linguistic richness. Linguistic diversity varies from province to province. Some of the most multilingual provinces are also the most physically rugged and home to more indigenous peoples.

The more multilingual provinces

The provinces of Mindanao are generally more diverse than elsewhere in the country. The province with the highest diversity index is Sarangani, where you're more likely to meet a native speaker of Maguindanao or T'boli than a native speaker of Tagalog. In North Cotabato, the second most multilingual province, the most spoken languages are Hiligaynon, Maguindanao, and Cebuano.

The more multilingual provinces

In Luzon, the mountains of the Cordillera are an island of linguistic diversity surrounded by more monolingual, Ilocano-speaking provinces. Ifugao province, where more than half the households speak Tuwali or Ayangan, is the country's third most multilingual province, followed by Mountain Province, where over half of the households speak Kankanaey and Bontok.

The more monolingual provinces

Many of the provinces near Metro Manila are also among the country's most monolingual. These include many of native Tagalog-speaking provinces like Bulacan, Marinduque, Batangas, Laguna, and Rizal. Bikol-speaking Catanduanes and Sorsogon and Waray-speaking Eastern Samar are some of the most monolingual provinces farther away from the Tagalog-speaking regions.

Top languages aside from Tagalog/Bisaya in Metro Manila

Even though there are at least 120 languages spoken in Metro Manila - more than in any other province - the national capital region is still pretty monolingual with a diversity index of just 0.09, though this varies slightly from city to city. Tagalog and Bisaya are the first and second most-spoken languages in almost all cities.

Top languages aside from Tagalog/Bisaya in Metro Manila

But if we look at the most-spoken language in each city aside from Tagalog or Bisaya, we learn that there are robust Bikolano communities throughout the whole Metro, with some pockets of Ilocano, Maranao, Waray, and Ilonggo. Meanwhile, American English is a major language in Makati and Alabang, while Chinese is dominant in Manila and San Juan.

What languages are spoken where? Explore our language map.

What patterns can you find in the Philippine language landscape? Use this interactive to explore where the top 50 languages in the country are spoken:

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The language landscape of the Philippines in 4 maps

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If you were to randomly pick two people from anywhere in the Philippines, there's a roughly 76% to 84% chance that they grew up speaking different languages. This is based on the country's Greenberg Linguistic Diversity Index, which estimates a place's linguistic richness on a scale of 0 to 1.