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The Philippines has a long history but in the past 400 years or so it's been turbulent. Occupation by The Spanish left some magnificent buildings and a language, Tagalog, which is a combination of an old tongue, Spanish and Malay; being over-run by the Japanese left vast damage and, according to legend, vast hidden treasure plundered from across South East Asia followed by near-annexation by the USA and its abrupt departure left a country with social and economic uncertainty baked in and a half-baked legal system with much American influence.

The result is one of the most resilient peoples on earth.

Filipinos, reportedly, make up a huge proportion of the world's maritime crews and Filipinas are in demand worldwide as healthcare workers, domestic helpers, in F&B, offices and call centres. The common feature of all of them is that they send money home. As a result the legal remittance business for The Philippines is huge. But it hides some dark money, too and the remittances industry has had some significant challenges in the recent past. The scale of international money flows hid early signs of trouble at Wirecard where it was known in South East Asia that massive amounts of money were being moved from Singapore to The Philippines in the months before the scandal became public knowledge.

In the mid 1990s, sex tourism in the Philippines took an especially awful turn with the violent, injurious and often deadly child sexual abuse. But as technology has developed and both internet and 5G communications, as well as mobile satellite internet, have become widely available, the systematic and equally abhorrent abuse of children and babies has mutated to the point where it is often a family business. Jailing parents who are at least complicit and at worst the organisers is barely denting the problem because babies are an infinitely renewable resource. Efforts to deter customers and prevent the money flow are made, in the Philippines and overseas but what was a problem in Manila's streets and dodgy hotels has gone nationwide; add in easy international money transfers and a concentrated industry is now fragmented across more than 7,500 islands and a large archipelago covering a total area of some 300,000 square kilometres, most of which is rural and much of which is isolated.

In October 2024, the Bureau of Internal Revenue announced a campaign to combat tobacco smuggling but with a coastline that is essentially impossible to police, efforts must be focussed on the distribution of illegally imported goods of which tobacco is only one. There is a drugs problem, too, and the country has been gaining importance as a source country for methamphetamines.

It is impossible to consider The Philippines without having regard to, in particular, the terrorism in the South. In October, 2024 a long-time foreign resident, married to a local, was kidnapped. His body was found several weeks later. The authorities regularly conduct paramilitary action - and occasionally all-out military action - against premises and areas known or suspected to be used by terrorists. There are well documented links with Da'esh/ISIS and Indonesian and Malaysian terrorist groups. But the terrorists are intermingled with the general population in, in particular, Mindanao.

With international and domestic political upheaval, The Philippines is striving for political and economic stability. But poverty is a serious problem causing many hard-working people to live hand to mouth and often in short term, expensive, debt. The failure of the government, seemingly with the backing of the Catholic Church, to make men who desert families pay is at odds with good governance. Many men leave one family and start another but, because divorce is not permitted (annulment is a work-around but it's expensive and complex) wives are left to care for children without support while mistresses, with illegitimate children, cannot get the security of marriage because the man will not co-operate in an annulment suit. What is worse is that many of the wives became pregnant in their teenage years with all the financial and social consequences that brings. It is this that is the primary driver of the Filipina overseas workers market where many are exposed to exploitation and abuse by unscrupulous employers and agents and even to being trafficked while their children are funded from that work but looked after by the wife's mother (who, in many cases, has herself been through the cycle).

Yet, through it all, the people are lovely, enjoy what they can, work hard when they can find work and try to put their children through training courses for IT, nursing, maritime, agriculture. Many take up jobs with outsourcing companies. It's far from all bad news.