Globalization in The Philippines: Evolved From History

It all started in 15th century, when the Philippines was colonized by Spain.

Although, our country, or rather our ancestors, were exporting goods along with China,

Japan, Moluccas, etc. However, when the Spaniards came, they closed all harbors in

Manila except in Mexico. Thus, they created a galleon trade which the ship will depart in

Manila, Philippines and will arrive with the goods to Acapulco, Mexico. Manila acquired

new culture, and language. The city also became as the meeting point of individuals, and

goods (Reyes, 2017). The country began to gain something new, things that people

cannot find in their vicinity, things that cannot be found in the country. Even before, by

exporting and importing goods, we had already benefitted from it; it brought us things

that would help us in our daily lives.

Globalization introduced us to many benefits that are very useful to us today. This

launched us to having a quality life, a much improved one. Also, the technology it

presented leading to having a wider connectivity around the world. There are also large

industries that created, had given us job opportunities. According to Habito (2020), it

brought the Philippines a broader choice of services, alleviated the costs of basic goods,

things that Filipino customers will surely appreciate. In fact, because of having much

upgraded quality of businesses, the country was ranked 2nd best in Globalization

Destination list way back 2018 (Merez, 2018).

Aside from having easier life, it also taught us or rather it helped us to improve

our fluency in the universal language. The Philippines became known for having the

proficiency in the language of English. In 2015, it was said that the country has 70 percent
of the inhabitants are fluent in English (Hernandez, 2015). Although it was implemented

to be taught years ago, for a country that English isn’t their first language, that was a

pretty large amount of people. This would help the Filipinos to have job opportunities not

just in the country, but also in abroad.

With the advancement of technology left and right, we are able to see other

country’s culture without going there. We all know that the culture of K-pop from South

Korea is now widely known in the world. Nowadays, you would see a hashtag trending in

Twitter about some K-pop group. Some Filipinos now love K-pop, the culture had spread

into their hearts. Not only that, there is also called K-drama, which most Filipinos enjoy

watching. Aside from these, we also gained the likeness of other people from other people

for their respective foods. We found out that we also like their food, that a lot of food

industries from other countries had invested here in the Philippines. From the restaurants

in Binondo, fast food chains like McDonald’s, the famous unli korean barbeque, up to the

buffets such as Vikings. We can now see various cuisines in different places. The

enjoyment of wearing or having imported clothes, shoes, etc. is also the effect of

globalization in the country.

Of course, this country is more of an agriculture one than the industrial type. There

are job opportunities given by big companies. It may be inside in the country, or even

outside. We have lots of resources that we can profit from, but instead other countries

benefitted from it. Our farmers and fishermen are the most undeserving from what the

government has been treating them. The government focused on how to increase the

trading transactions, how to give more space for unnecessary buildings causing hectares
of lands to be taken away from farmers. In Netherlands, 20 percent of their millionaires

are farmers (Pascoe, 2017). If our government can pay attention to farmers and

fishermen, then maybe they wouldn’t be in their poor situation.

If we are going to focus on teaching English in class just to mold students to be

globally competitive, then how about the Filipino language? Is it going to be dismissed?

Although, I think there are subjects that are hard to translate in Tagalog, still it’s not

enough to leave the Filipino language. Some Filipinos do not even know how to write in

that language properly. They are confused on how to use or the difference between

“nang” and “ng”, “rin” and “din”.

Having or adapting several cultures will slowly lose our identity as a Filipino; the

national identity will be lost. Our traditions were slowly replaced by other nation’s

traditions. Some doesn’t appreciate OPM as much as they appreciate western music or

K-pop. The preference of people were slowly changing. They want other things, things

that were imported than being locally made. They’re choosing things from other

countries, not from their homeland. As we all know, imported goods are pricey and not

all can afford things that some people wouldn’t bat an eye on the price tag.

When the globalization started in the Philippines, we have lots of goods, goods

that are very useful. Up until now, we are evolving as things were developing. You cannot

stop the globalization. It gave us many benefits that can help us in our daily lives. We

could adapt things; it is in our hands whether we make it out for something good or bad.