North Philippines

The Free Philippine Republic (Filipino: Maláyang Bayáng Pilipíno, : República Filipina Libre), also known as North Philippines or Puláng̃lupa ("Red Land"), is a in Southeast Asia occupying the northern half of the, with direct maritime borders with China, Indochina, the South Philippines and the United Republics by way of the. It has two capitals, being being the seat of government in the province of Balintawak and the city of, Bulakan as its ceremonial and secondary capital. The country has an area of XXX km2 and, as of 2017, had a population of XXX. Together with its southern counterpart, the islands form a key area for. With the formal end of the United States proper in the Red May Revolution, the country's declared the independence of the Philippines from the United States on 1933 as the Commonwealth of the Philippines, with its capital in Manila under sponsorship of the United Kingdom and the Japanese Empire. However, the breakdown of the Anglo-Japanese alliance in the Great Revolutionary War prompted the latter to invade the country despite declarations of neutrality. In response, a nascent nationalist resistance movement helmed by the local Communist Party waged an insurgency until the surrender of Japan. Their contributions to the war effort allowed for the Party to participate in elections, though disagreements over conditions and later crackdowns revived the insurgency which later became a Civil War, dividing the country into the TCI-aligned north to the AFS-aligned south.

The Philippine Islands are considered a perpetual Cold War hotspot and a key location in AFS and TCI military plans for defeating each other in a prospective Asia-Pacific theater of a conventional Third World War. North Philippines is a member of the Third Communist International and XXX. It is also the country with the most significant religious population in the Comintern, with about XX% subscribing to Christianity (mainly Aglipayan-Trinitarian), Islam (in Palawan), Buddhism and local Neopaganism.

Geography and Ecology
The Free Philippine Republic currently spans from the - to. The Philippines islands' location on the and close proximity to the equator makes the country prone to earthquakes and typhoons, but also endows it with abundant natural resources and some of the world's greatest biodiversity.

Luzon and Palawan in particular are known to be a predominantly mountainous region, especially in Luzon in the Cordillera region. North Philippines' highest point is in the Kabundukan Council Provinces, while the  mountain range—spanning six provinces: New Biscay, Kagayan, Rizal, Kaliraya, Laguna, and Bulakan—is the longest mountain range in all the Philippine Islands.

Revolution and war with the United States


The Philippine Revolution began just after the execution of in 1896, inaugurated in what is now Balintawak in the. The first instances of rebellion began in the provinces adjacent to :, and , and spread to ,  (now Valmonte), , ,  and later Manila itself. With early military victories such as the and, the revolutionary Katipunan was waging both a guerilla and formal war against the. With major setbacks of the skirmishes under 's leadership, his faction, and the leading chapter in Cavite,, the political unity within the Katipunan would disintegrate, and would come to ahead in the  in May 1897. Here, Magdalo enjoyed a decisive win and Emilio Aguinaldo would be helmed as the new leader of the Katipunan. Andres Bonifacio's faction would later decry the Convention as acting against him, and after his promulgation of the which denounced Aguinaldo, would be executed in that same month.

The Katipunan would later continue to wage war against Spain despite the forced exile of the Supreme Council and other key Katipuneros to Hong Kong in the. A would continue until Aguinaldo's return. With continuing victories and eventual retreat of Spanish forces from the country, the reorganized Filipino revolutionaries in 1898, essentially founding the, essentially absorbing the other local revolutionary governments save for. In January 1899, a constitution was ratified in Malolos, and in that same year elected Aguinaldo as President.

The Filipino revolutionary government (and later the Republic) ambiguously coexisted with the incoming American forces until the outbreak of war with America. Spain, suffering with heavy losses after the preceding Spanish-American War, made moves to sell all its remaining holdings (Puerto Rico, Guam, the Philippines, with Cuba the only colony in the War achieving sovereignty) to the United States. In particular, the Spanish and American governments formed backstage agreements towards the former's surrender, staging a essentially relinquishing the city to the Americans. By this point, the Americans are held as allies and co-liberators from Spanish rule. Thus, while most of the country was still technically under Philippine territory, it was bound to be under American rule, with their presence becoming increasingly assertive.

This ambiguity would end after a shooting incident in Santa Mesa, Manila between Filipino and American soldiers leads to, formally putting the city under American hands. Continuous incursions of the United States Army deep into the interior and the continued retreat of Aguinaldo's government (evacuating to Tarlac). In June 1899, the Republic formally declares war on the United States, though it was too late a motion--the Republican government would later retreat far north, the United States eventually taking much of central Luzon, and continuing further north. Their advance was delayed by Filipino forces in the abortive. Aguinaldo and the rest of the Republic's leadership are eventually captured and arrested on March 1901, officially ending the war and putting the Philippines under. Some Filipinos, such as, and  continued the war effort, though these continued insurgencies would have died down after 1906 with the capture of Sakay in that year.

American rule and rise of the Movimiento Obrero
The United States government was met with controversy over the war, mainly in the country itself. A ... [...] A civil government under the in the Philippines was instituted in 1900. In the following year, a formal was established (the ). For the most part, the United States justified its rule of the country as both a "civilizing" effort and as a preparation for the Filipino people towards independence (and defending them from other "predatory" great powers of the time).

The civilizing effort was taken to heart, and an active Americanization campaign was instituted: aggressive secularization (Church lands being expropriated and redistributed), establishment of new mandatory education programs (making English an enforced language) and building up infrastructure. Education in particular had led to the modern University System, founding the University of the Philippines, Philippine Normal University and the Philippine School of Arts and Trades (all now the Filipino People's University), Capitalist firms began setting up in conjunction to native ones, with cash crops such as  being a major product. Mechanized industry led to more migration to the cities, shaping the urban and economic landscape. With this, about XX% of the Philippine population of the time were working in cities, industrial labor in the form of XXX and manufacturing becoming equal with the plantation economy and rural agriculture. In reply, some Filipino activists upheld local languages and preserve the events of the Philippine Revolution such as Hermeningildo Cruz or Lope K. Santos.

The worker's movement at the time would also become Americanized in its own way, being informed by the Socialist Labor Party's radical thought and increased militancy. With this, the (UTF) and  (UODF) would later unite as the Congreso Obrero de Filipinas, (COF) in May 1, 1913. It would include uniona in support of not only city workers, but also farmers and agricultural workers and fisherfolk. In alignment with the DeLeonist strategy of labor union agitation and conduct of class struggle; a political party was founded in concert by the more left-leaning members of the COF called the Partido Sosyalista ng Pilipinas (PSP) two days after the establishment of the COF, led by activist and writer Lope K. Santos.

Through Isabelo de los Reyes, city councilor for Manila and leader of the UODF--though more conservative than his comrades--and with his connections to the Philippine Independent Church; the PSP acquired an Aglipayan base of support alongside the larger Catholic workforce. By 1922, its close contact with the Socialist Labor Party in the United States would later reorganize the COF's political wing, along with other smaller left-wing nationalist parties into the Workers’ and Farmers’ Party of the Philippines (Partido ng Manggagawa at Magsasaka ng Pilipinas, PMMP). During this period, the COF maintained a political stronghold in Central Luzon, which will also be of both Hukbalahap and the early Sakdalistas.

Lope K. Santos would later accept appointment in the Senate as representative of non-Christian Filipinos in the early 1920's, focusing on pro-Labor legislation and most notably in his forwarding of which proclaims November 30 as honoring revolutionary. This was seen as a victory amongst the Filipino left, and would contribute to gains in the PMMP's electoral struggle in the coming years.

In 1927, Governor-General Leonard Wood vetoed the Philippine Independence Bill of 192X which was already passed in the Philippine Legislature. With Wood's already notorious record of his abuse of veto powers, his conflict with the Filipino leadership would precipitate the political crisis of 1927, continued to his death. The crisis would later emphasize the issues of independence and political rights of the legislature in the national discourse. In particular, First Secretary Manuel L. Quezon used the independence issue as a way of getting support from sections of the Philippine left and divide the Philippine left at times.





Dissolution of the Metropole and formal Independence
With the withdrawal of United States in their colonial holdings with political unrest in the metropole, the Insular Government was largely left to their own devices. Inspired by the developments on America, sections of the PMMP sowed discord in the major urban areas of Luzon (namely Antipolo, Manila, Laguna, Malolos and XXX), setting in motion a civil armed conflict against the insular government in 1932.With the Governor-General in Manila without a center to report to (the rump government of the United States wouldn't reorganize fully until 193X), he, with assent of the members of the Philippine Legislature, declared a state of emergency. The burgeoning British-Japanese alliance, seeing an opportunity with the American withdrawal, supported the Insular Government.

The uprising largely suppressed within the year (culminating in the Manila Siege, the PMMP was banned and Benigno Ramos was forced to Exile in the UASR. The Governor-General and Philippine Legislature in concert declared the Insular Government's independence from the United States in June 12, 1934, establishing the Philippine Commonwealth. The promulgation of their formal constitution was sponsored by the U.K. and Japan under a formal agreement.

The Commonwealth was formed as a liberal republic under a constitutionally-sanctioned Anglo-Japanese protectorate status. As per deal with both powers, economic parity rights between Filipino, British, Japanese and U.S. nationals were established; with a British Resident-General appointed by the British Crown and a Japanese Resident-General appointed by the Emperor of Japan. This was established over a semi-presidential parliamentary government, under insistence of the British and the Japanese. The question of parity rights was emphasized in the latter's side, which was allowed exploitation of natural resources and limited trusteeship over Mindanao, where the Japanese Resident-General was based in Davao. Manuel L. Quezon was appointed the First President of the Commonwealth.

Second World War
The breakdown of the Second Anglo-Japanese Alliance and the decision of Japan to formally join the Anti-Comintern Axis pulled the Commonwealth in opposite directions that culminated with the Japanese invasion of the island of Mindanao when the nascent Franco-British Union declared war on Japan’s allies Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, starting the Western European and Southeast Asian fronts of the Second World War.

President Manuel L. Quezon declared neutrality in an attempt to bring the conflict out of the islands to no avail; leading to a Japanese occupation of the rest of the islands under a military commission in preparation for an eventual annexation to the Empire of Japan under the newly formed Government-General of the South Islands. Quezon and his government then went in exile in Sydney, Australasia. In the place of the Quezon-Osmena regime, a corporatist-nationalist regime was formed by the Makapili one-party state; which was slightly patterned after the emergent Japanese fascist state but with liberal democratic institutions nominally intact. 

The war with Japan opened a space for the Filipino left, which has greater popularity and organizational strength. In response to the Japanese occupation, the Anti-Japanese Liberation Army or Hukbalahap (Huks for sort) was established, a guerilla paramilitary which became the formal armed wing of the PMMP. Coinciding with it, an insurgent underground state was in place with loyalties with the Quezon's government-in-exile in Sydney. The Hukbalahap strategically declares its loyalty to the republic and it became the left wing of the Philippine resistance movement.

The British and Australian and French soldiers that liberated the islands with the right-wing guerillas started to forcibly disarm the Huks, which led to resistance and as part of the precursor to the Cold War; the Huks were being supported by the Comintern on the underground by the way of the leftist-leaning Chinese community and contacts with the UASR's Filipino-American community. By this point, Luzon was under effective control of the PMMP-Hukbalahap movement.

The returning President Sergio Osmena, who happens to be a Cebuano, previously has the seat of his government in Tacloban and then moved to Cebu during his return to the country as Japanese forces were slowly being defeated. He returned the capital of the Commonwealth to Manila, though this largely held little water as the Commonwealth's control of Luzon was tenuous due to the bigger Hukbalahap movement.

Second Sakdalista Uprising and the Philippine Civil War
Liberation from Japanese occupation proved to be chaotic, with returning British soldiers accompanied by soldiers from the rest of the Franco-British Commonwealth and the Allied powers meeting insurgents affiliated with a resurgent PKP. President Sergio Osmena agreed for holding of new elections with PKP participation in return for the disarmament of the PKP-aligned Hukbalahap Army; which the left-wing of the PKP refused until the elections were finished, driving themselves to the underground.

The unseating of the loyalist PKP elected representatives that refused to renew the parity rights provision of the Commonwealth Constitution fully dissolved any potential of concordance between the Reds and the Commonwealth. The Huks, now called the Hukbong Magpapalaya sa Bayan (HMB, now the National Liberation Forces), thus renewed the Hukbalahap insurgency; now aimed at the Commonwealth government itself. Supported by First Republic figures such as Aguinaldo, Ricarte and de Jesus and the parallel Sakdalista movement, the nascent PMMP-Huk government under the Democratic-Revolutionary Commission (Komisyong Demokratiko-Rebolusyonaryo or KDR) held control of the Luzon, Marinduque, Masbate, Panay, Mindoro and Palawan.

The ensuing Philippine Civil War led to the declaration of the Free Philippine Republic on June 12, 1948, the 50th anniversary of the in Malolos, Bulakan. This largely socialist republic followed a mix of the early revolutionary government and the administrative system of the United Republics. The country had its first general elections in 1949, with Emilio Aguinaldo winning as President and Benigno Ramos winning as Chairman of the Central Committee.

The Civil War didn't formally end until the First Tacloban Conference in 1951, establishing the Philippine demarcation lines between the Northern and Southern Philippine republics that remains up to the present-day. The conference declared a ceasefire, but no peace treaty was signed until the second Tacloban Conference in 1968.

Early years of the Third Republic
Aguinaldo-Ramos tenure, market socialism-cooperativism years and the rise of Maphilindo. First Conference of the East Asia-Pacific Section of the Comintern.

Sison's Protracted People's Revolution
Cold war and militarized internationalism, Sison's rise to power. Support of the Issarak Dong-Minh movement in Indochina. Sison's PKP-Sangbayan (internationalist) cadre imposes restrictions on other parties and, for a time, locks down the Revolutionary Assembly building in Balintawak. "Paranoia of the 70's" begin.

Storm of 1986 to present
The Troika between Balintawak Justice Miriam Defensor, HMB General Fidel V. Ramos and Bakid (Bagong Kilusang Demokratiko) Leader Walden Bello begins to challenge the Sison regime, culminating in the Storm of 1986 which was a mix of a democratic spring and coup d'état. Fidel Ramos becomes interim president (later running to be an actual one)

Some overtures with South Philippines and shit idk

Government and politics
North Philippines is a socialist federation of XX provinces working under a formally national framework. Due to taking from First Republic Constitution as much as the UASR government system, the North Filipino council republic maintains a presidential system over a unicameral National Revolutionary Congress, which appoint about 3 or 4 delegates per Province and 5-9 per 300 Barangays (about 500,000-700,000 adult voters on average). A Central Committee (analogous to the Soviet Sovnarkom and the Central Committee of the American CEC) serves as an informal overseer of the NRC. The President, which officially convenes the NRC, is more less a ceremonial head of state, while the Chairman of the Central Commitee is the head of government.

The local Council Provinces operate in a similar way to the NRC...

The Barangay serve as the organizational nucleus of the North Philippine federal system. Being the smallest administrative subdivision of the country (analogous to the South Philippine ).

Administrative divisions
North Philippines is made up of 30 Council Provinces (Kalawigang Katilimban, usually shortened as kalakat).

Military
People's Liberation Forces (Hukbong Tagapaglaya ng Bayan, Hukbong Bayan for short)

ANG ATING HUKBONG BAYAN SANDATA NG SAMBAYANAN

Economy
North Philippine economic development accelerated during the Cold War with the help of TCI-wide economic assistance; shifting the economy from one based in agriculture and light manufacturing to one based on energy, services, and advanced manufacturing.

Culture and society
Owing to the participation and considerable presence of radical and nationalists during the Revolutionary period, North Filipino society is considered unique in the long-standing members of the Comintern for its continued attachment to a national and cultural identity. Deeply based around anti-colonialist sentiments and attitudes and an informed approach to Communist internationalism, this newfound identity would become the defining point of much of local North Filipino culture.

This cultural ethos, known as Pulahan ("to be red" or "reddening"), has been described by academics as a "social compromise between the national romanticism and the futurist outlook of the two sides of North Filipinos". It may be seen as a cultural movement of soets mainly defined by syncretizing the modernist and cosmopolitan sensibilities of American Communism and adherence to aesthetics and practices of indigenous and traditional culture. The pervasiveness and popularity of Pulahan has made it invoked by government propaganda from time to time, persisting even through the Militarized Internationalism period of the 70's despite constant suppression.

Art and architecture
Art deco baby ever heard of the Metropolitan Thester I heard BB King played there and everyone lost their shit

"Pacific Deco" and "Pop-Pulahan" (ie. most Filipino artists on twitter rn)

Music
Mostly defined by rock, folk (see: OTL flip communist music), perhaps Luk Thing/Molam style funk pop by way of Indochina, blues rock (see: Jimi Hendrix) as countercultursl thing during the Milintern era

Indie rock is what the kiddies like, rev up those ukelele shit

Sport
I don't even like basketball but I have to put it in