10. Magellan died here. He didn't actually circumnavigate the globe, though his surviving crew did. He was the first European to make contact with the Philippines in 1521. He was killed by a tribal leader Lapu-Lapu. There is a gigantic statue of Lapu-Lapu in Rizal Park. No statues of Magellan.
9. The best pound for pound fighter in the world is Manny Paquiao, who recently beat Oscar de la Hoya. I issued a lot of visas for Filipinos to see that fight.
8. Karaoke was invented in the Philippines, not in Japan. People love karaoke here. It is the standby activity at any event, party or gathering.
7. The Philippines used to be an American colony. When the USA took it over from Spain, it put down a bloody revolution in which 250,000 Filipinos died fighting for independence.
6. The Philippines has about the same land area as Arizona when you combine its 7000 plus islands. However, it has 90 million people, making it the 12th most populous country in the world. Arizona has 6 million.
5. Text Messages are huge. It is estimated there are 400 million texts per day sent from the 35 million cell phone subscribers. That is more than the US and Europe combined. It costs about 2 cents to send a text message.
4. There is twice as much coastline in the Philippines as there is in the US.
3. 11 million Filipinos work overseas. They supply about 1/3 of the world's seafarers. In the US, they congregate in California and in New Jersey. They need a lot of visas.
2. The Filipino flag is hoisted upside down if it is at war.
1. Rainy season is from May to October. The hottest part of the year is March and April. It never gets cold.
Now you know, and knowing is half the battle.
I saw the title of your post and thought "Knowing is half the battle" from GI Joe, then I saw you put it at the bottom and smiled. It also made me think of one of my old dumb jokes I liked to say: "Knowing is actually only 49% of the battle, but GI Joe liked to round up."
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