Roleplay:Philippines (No. 1)/Overview

OOC: The infobox is copied from wikipedia. It may not contain accurate statistics about the RP country, since I still havent changed some IRL values and the years. Bear with me please

The Philippines, officially the Republic of the Philippines is an archipelagic country in Southeast Asia. It is a unitary nation, ruled by the current leader Benigno Aquino III. The Philippines consists of nearly 7,000 islands, only 2,000 of which are inhabited, broadly divided into three island groups named Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao. The capital of the Philippines is Manila. However, Quezon City is the most populous and both, along with 15 other cities are broadly referred to as Metro Manila.

The Philippines' location on the Pacific Ring of Fire, has caused it to have many typhoons and earthquakes but also large natural resources. Additionally, the natural resources can be easily exported to other countries due to the Philippines' access to the South China Sea, but access to the sea is not exclusive to the Philippines, with Nusantara, Malaysia, especially China, and other countries.

The Philippines professes strong diplomatic relations with Nusantara, at the south of the country, and many projects linking the two have been proposed, most notably the Manila-Jakarta cable to supplement Philippines' existing connection to the SEA-ME-WE internet cable in Batangas, which itself is also connected to Jakarta and Medan.

The Philippines is a member of the United Nations, and is a highly active member of the Broad Regional Initiative.

Etymology
The Philippines is named after Philip II, who was king of Spain from 1556-1598.

Prehistory
Humans

Politics
The Philippines is a largely democratic country, unlike it’s main ally, Nusantara, following a variation of the Arthashastra method of governance, which Filipino political science scholars have struggled to explain or define for a long time.

The President functions both as the head of state and the commander-in-chief of the armed forces. Therefore, the President can declare war on nations as he/she wishes, without the approval of the House of Congress or the Senate, but the President has almost always consulted the House of Congress or the Senate before declaring war.

The president is elected by popular vote every 8 years, during which he/she has full control of the cabinet.

A major difference of the Philippine government is that presidents have the ability to commission long-term projects, or megaprojects, which cannot be tampered with by subsequent presidents without extensive consultation, feasibility studies and the approval of the president who commissioned the long-term project. The House of Congress has the ability to override the president’s decision, only by a two-thirds vote.

Economy
The Philippines has the 2nd largest economy in Southeast Asia, and is the 3rd largest economy in the Broad Regional Initiative. The Philippines mainly exports semiconductors, and other electronic products. By far, nearly 40% of Filipino trade is conducted with Nusantara, making the Natuna Sea and Celebes Sea very crowded areas; full of Nusantaran and Filipino freight. The currency of the Philippines is the peso (₱)

A newly industrialized economy, with the population shifting into service and manufacturing industries, agriculture continues to employ 30% of the population and accounts for 14% of Filipino GDP. The Filipino economy also relies on remittances from OFWs abroad, mainly from the Middle East.

The unemployment rate is approximately 6.2%, mainly decreasing due to economic growth and the tendency of Filipino presidents to launch longterm projects.