A Brief History of U.S.-Philippine Relations

In China last week, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte announced his military and economic “separation from the United States.” America “had lost,” he said to applause in Beijing’s Great Hall of the People.

Duterte’s beef with the U.S. spans historical atrocities and picayune slights — such as being denied a visa to visit his college girlfriend. Here is some more of the shared history that has shaped U.S.-Philippine relations.

When Obama nixed a meeting with Duterte on the sidelines of last month’s ASEAN summit, the international press focused on how POTUS would take being called a “son of a whore.”

Lost in the furor, though, was Duterte’s big swing: the U.S., he said, hadn’t apologized for the 1906 Battle of Bud Dajo, in which American soldiers slaughtered as many as 1,000 Moro — Philippine Muslims — holed up in an extinct volcano.