Philippines

The Southeast Asian country of the Philippines, located in the western part of the Pacific Ocean, consists of some 7,107 islands, of which the major two are Luzon, where the capital Manila is located, and Mindanao in the south. It was occupied by the Spanish in 1565 and remained a Spanish colony until U.S. forces captured it in 1898. Occupied by the Japanese from 1942 until 1944, it was then granted independence, and with a population of 91 million, it is the second most populous country in southeast Asia.

There are many local customs, traditions, and games that survived the Spanish Occupation. These largely focus on tests of physical strength for men, such as wrestling, or games of skill, such as using spinning tops, flicking stones, and various versions of Hide-and-Seek. One game called Sungka involves a board with 20 holes in it that is played with seashells.

The Chinese introduced Mahjong and Chinese Chess, and the Spanish introduced card games, Checkers, Backgammon, and also European/Indian Chess. The latter has been particularly popular in the country, with the formation of the National Chess Federation of the Philippines. Florencio Campomanes was president of the World Chess Federation F.I.D.E., and in 1978, the World Chess Championship match at Baguio was held between Anatoly Karpov and Viktor Korchnoi, signifying a clash in Cold War politics not seen since Bobby Fischer beat Boris Spassky in 1972. In June 1992, the 30th Chess Olympiad was held in Manila. The Spanish also introduced Roman Catholicism, and for some religious holidays such as the fiesta of San Pablo on July 29, children dress up in elaborate costumes.

With the arrival of the Americans, baseball became popular, but soccer, which came at around the same time, quickly overtook it, and boys and young men around the country play recreational soccer, some as parts of school, scouting, or community teams, and others against members of their family or other families. The heavy promotion of recreational sports in schools from the 1910s has helped this, and governments since the 1920s have been involved in building public playgrounds with swings, slides, and sandpits, and also adventure playgrounds for older children.

Under the Spanish, a number of clubs were established in the country, and the oldest surviving one, the Club Filipino, dates from November 1898, the end of Spanish rule. It has provided a venue for billiards, snooker, darts, and tennis, with sporting and recreational facilities now provided through youth centers, sporting venues, and the like. Since the 1950s, there have been many bowling alleys throughout the country, and amusement arcades. For indoor activities, board games were popular, and there was a Filipino version of the board game Monopoly that had properties in Manila, and Cebu, Davao, and Laoag.

Wargaming was popular, especially those connected with U.S. military activity in the southwest Pacific in World War II, and also with U.S. themes. Certainly American movies did generate large-scale interest in Cowboy and Indian role-playing games for younger children, and arcade games for older ones. However, [Page 476]video games and computer games have taken over, and many children and young people have become heavily involved in the subculture connected with sophisticated computer games, which are readily available throughout the Philippines. However, many children living in abject poverty have no access to these games.

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