Filipino congressman pushes for a name change to shake off the country’s colonial past

Filipino Congressman Gary Alejano thinks the Philippines could do a lot better for itself if it wasn’t named after a 16th century Spanish king.

“If we want to be truly independent, then we should throw away the bonds of colonialism by establishing our own national identity,” Mr. Alejano said late Sunday, ahead of the Philippines’s Independence Day on Monday. The Spanish rule, which began under King Philip II, followed by nearly 50 years of American rule have “muddled our identity as a people and a nation,” he said.

To push the ball along, Mr. Alejano has filed a bill in Congress to finance a search for possible alternatives, much as Indonesia and other former European colonies renamed themselves after securing independence.
Mr. Alejano—a former marine captain who recently failed in a bid to impeach President Rodrigo Duterte for his war on drugs—didn’t suggest any new names himself. But there are some ideas out there.

Andres Bonifacio, one of the leaders of the Philippines’s 19th-century revolt against Spanish rule, favored the term Katagalugan, which can be loosely translated as Nation of the Tagalogs, or those who settle by the river.
Late dictator Ferdinand Marcos supported changing the name to Maharlika, originally a reference to an ancient warrior caste and a close relation to the term “merdeka,” or freedom, in Indonesian and Malaysian languages.

Some people in the present-day Philippines, notably those living in the Muslim-majority areas in the south of the country, don’t consider themselves to be Filipino at all. They consider it as a term for those who submitted to King Philip II and the Roman Catholic Church. A rebellion has long simmered in the southern parts of the country after these areas were annexed by the Republic of the Philippines following independence from the U.S. in 1946.

It is unclear how much traction Mr. Alejano’s proposal will gain.
The earlier push to rename the country was tainted in part by the dictator Marcos’s support for it. Some Filipinos also say they feel that the current name also reflects the Christian faith practiced by a large majority of its inhabitants.

“The origin of the name is from Philip, one of the 12 apostles of Christ,” said one commentator, Edgar Villanueva. “We should be proud of that name as we are the only country named after a disciple of Jesus Christ.”

Still, there is a glimmer of a precedent. In 1962, the Philippines’s Independence Day was switched from July 4—as in the U.S.—to June 12, which marks the Philippines’s declaration of independence from Spain in 1898.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/katagal...ame-1497322253

Mayan kaget juga gw Pinoy ternyata ada rencana mau ganti nama negara,,,,,,Maharlika leh uga tuh,,