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Time-based currency

In economics, a time-based currency is an alternative currency or exchange system where the unit of account is the person-hour or some other time unit. Some time-based currencies value everyone's contributions equally: one hour equals one service credit. In these systems, one person volunteers to work for an hour for another person; thus, they are credited with one hour, which they can redeem for an hour of service from another volunteer. Others use time units that might be fractions of an hour (e.g. minutes, ten minutes – 6 units/hour, or 15 minutes – 4 units/hour). While most time-based exchange systems are service exchanges in that most exchange involves the provision of services that can be measured in a time unit, it is also possible to exchange goods by 'pricing' them in terms of the average national hourly wage rate (e.g. if the average hourly rate is $20/hour, then a commodity valued at $20 in the national currency would be equivalent to 1 hour).

19th century
Time-based currency exchanges date back to the early 19th century.

The Cincinnati Time Store (1827-1830) was the first in a series of retail stores created by American individualist anarchist Josiah Warren to test his economic labor theory of value. The experimental store operated from May 18, 1827, until May 1830. The Cincinnati Time Store experiment in use of labor as a medium of exchange antedated similar European efforts by two decades.

The National Equitable Labour Exchange was founded by Robert Owen, a Welsh socialist and labor reformer in London, England, in 1832. It was established in Birmingham, England, before folding in 1834. It issued "Labour Notes" similar to banknotes, denominated in units of 1, 2, 5, 10, 20, 40, and 80 hours. John Gray, a socialist economist, worked with Owen and later with Ricardian Socialists and postulated a National Chamber of Commerce as a central bank issuing a labour currency.

In 1848, the socialist and first self-designated anarchist Pierre-Joseph Proudhon postulated a system of time chits.

Josiah Warren published a book describing labor notes in 1852.

In 1875, Karl Marx wrote of "Labor Certificates" (Arbeitszertifikaten) in his Critique of the Gotha Program of a "certificate from society that [the labourer] has furnished such and such an amount of labour", which can be used to draw "from the social stock of means of consumption as much as costs the same amount of labour."

20th century
Teruko Mizushima (1920-1996) was a Japanese housewife, author, inventor, social commentator, and activist credited with creating the world's first time bank in 1973.

Mizushima was born in 1920 in Osaka to a merchant household. She performed well in school and was given the opportunity to study overseas in the United States in 1939. Her stay was shortened from three years to one due to rising tensions between the US, Japan, and China. Mizushima opted to pursue a short-term diploma course in sewing.

After returning home, she married. Her first daughter was born at the outbreak of the Pacific War, and her husband was soon conscripted into the army.

Mizushima's sewing skills proved invaluable to her family during and after the war. While the Japanese population was suffering immense material shortages, Mizushima offered her sewing skills in exchange for fresh vegetables. It was during this time that she began to develop her ideas about economics and the relative value of labor.

In 1950, Mizushima submitted an essay to a newspaper contest as part of a national event titled “Women's Ideas for the Creation of a New Life.” Her essay received the Newspaper Companies’ Prize. While it has since been lost, the ideas in the essay attracted widespread press attention.

Mizushima soon became a social commentator, with her views being aired on the radio, in the newspapers, and on television. She frequently appeared on the NHK, the country's national broadcaster, and toured the country giving talks about her ideas.

In 1973 she started her group the Volunteer Labour Bank (later renamed the Volunteer Labour Network). By 1978, the bank had grown to include approximately 2,600 members. The membership included people of all ages, from teenagers to women in their seventies. The majority of members were housewives in their thirties and forties. Members were organized into over 160 local branches throughout the country, coordinated by the headquarters located on Mizushima’s estate.

By 1983, the network had over 3,800 members organized in 262 branches, including a branch in California.

After criticizing the incoherency of capitalist, Leninist, and Trotskyist justifications of wage differentials in his 1949 Socialisme ou Barbarie text translated as “The Relations of Production in Russia” in the first volume of his Political and Social Writings http://libcom.org/files/cc_psw_v1.pdf, the political activist and philosopher Cornelius Castoriadis, responding to the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, advocated that workers “proclaim the abolition of work norms and instaurate full equality of wages and salaries” in his 1957 Socialisme ou Barbarie text translated as "On the Content of Socialism, II" in the second volume of his Political and Social Writings http://libcom.org/files/cc_psw_v2.pdf. (See also “The Hour of Work” section from “On the Content of Socialism, III,” in the third volume: http://libcom.org/files/cc_psw_v3.pdf.) He elaborated further on this advocacy of an “absolute equality of wages and incomes” in his 1974 text, "Hierarchy of Salaries and Incomes," also in the third volume: http://libcom.org/files/cc_psw_v3.pdf, and in the “Today” section (starting on page 90) of “Done and To Be Done” (1989), in the fifth volume of Castoriadis’s Crossroads in the Labyrinth series: http://www.notbored.org/cornelius-castoriadis-crossroads-5-done-and-to-be-done.pdf

Edgar S. Cahn coined the term "Time Dollars" in Time Dollars: The New Currency That Enables Americans to Turn Their Hidden Resource-Time-Into Personal Security & Community Renewal, a book co-authored with Jonathan Rowe in 1992. He also went on to trademark the terms "TimeBank" and "Time Credit".

Timebanking is a community development tool and works by facilitating the exchange of skills and experience within a community. It aims to build the 'core economy' of family and community by valuing and rewarding the work done in it. The world's first timebank was started in Japan by Teruko Mizushima in 1973 with the idea that participants could earn time credits which they could spend any time during their lives. She based her bank on the simple concept that each hour of time given as services to others could earn reciprocal hours of services for the giver at some stage in the future, particularly in old age when they might need it most. In the 1940s, Mizushima had already foreseen the emerging problems of an ageing society such as seen today. In the 1990s the movement took off in the US, with Dr Edgar Cahn pioneering it there, and in the United Kingdom, with Martin Simon from Timebanking UK and David Boyle, who brought in the London-based New Economics Foundation (Nef).

Paul Glover created Ithaca Hours in 1991. Each HOUR was valued at one hour of basic labor or $10.00. Professionals were entitled to charge multiple HOURS per hour, but often reduced their rate in the spirit of equity. Millions of dollars' worth of HOURS were traded among thousands of residents and 500 businesses. Interest-free HOUR loans were made, and HOUR grants given to over 100 community organizations.

The first British time bank opened in 1998 in Stroud, and a national charity and membership organisation, Timebanking UK, started in 2002.

21st century
According to Edgar S. Cahn, timebanking had its roots in a time when "money for social programs [had] dried up" and no dominant approach to social service in the U.S. was coming up with creative ways to solve the problem. He would later write that "Americans face at least three interlocking sets of problems: growing inequality in access by those at the bottom to the most basic goods and services; increasing social problems stemming from the need to rebuild family, neighborhood and community; and a growing disillusion with public programs designed to address these problems" and that "the crisis in support for efforts to address social problems stems directly from the failure of ... piecemeal efforts to rebuild genuine community." In particular Cahn focused on the top-down attitude prevalent in social services. He believed that one of the major failings of many social service organizations was their unwillingness to enroll the help of those people they were trying to help. He called this a deficit based approach to social service, where organizations view the people they were trying to help only in terms of their needs, as opposed to an asset based approach, which focuses on the contributions towards their communities that everyone can make. He theorized that a system like timebanking could "[rebuild] the infrastructure of trust and caring that can strengthen families and communities." He hoped that the system "would enable individuals and communities to become more self-sufficient, to insulate themselves from the vagaries of politics and to tap the capacity of individuals who were in effect being relegated to the scrap heap and dismissed as freeloaders."

As a philosophy, timebanking, also known as Time Trade is founded upon five principles, known as TimeBanking's Core Values:
 * Everyone is an asset
 * Some work is beyond a monetary price
 * Reciprocity in helping
 * Community (via social networks) is necessary
 * A respect for all human beings

Ideally, timebanking builds community. TimeBank members sometimes refer to this as a return to simpler times when the community was there for its individuals. An interview at a timebank in the Gorbals neighbourhood of Glasgow revealed the following sentiment:

"[the time bank] involves everybody coming together as a community ... the Gorbals has never—not for a long time—had a lot of community spirit. Way back, years ago, it had a lot of community spirit, but now you see that in some areas, people won't even go to the chap next door for some sugar ... that's what I think the project's doing, trying to bring that back, that community sense ..."

In 2017 Nimses offered a concept of a time-based currency Nim. 1 nim = 1 minute of life. The concept was first adopted in Eastern Europe. The concept is based on the idea of universal basic income. Every person is an issuer of nims. For every minute of one's life, 1 nim is created, which can be spent or sent to another person, like money.

Time dollars
Time dollars are a tax-exempt complementary currency used as a means of providing mutual credit in TimeBanking. They are typically called "time credits" or "service credits" outside the United States. TimeBank members exchange services for Time Dollars. Each exchange is recorded as a corresponding credit and debit in the accounts of the participants. One hour of time is worth one Time Dollar, regardless of the service provided in one hour or how much skill is required to perform the task during that hour. This "one-for-one" system that relies on an abundant resource is designed to both recognize and encourage reciprocal community service, resist inflation, avoid hoarding, enable trade, and encourage cooperation among participants.

Timebanks
Timebanks have been established in 34 countries, with at least 500 timebanks established in 40 US states and 300 throughout the United Kingdom. TimeBanks also have a significant presence in Japan, South Korea, New Zealand, Taiwan, Senegal, Argentina, Israel, Greece, and Spain. TimeBanks have been used to reduce recidivism rates with diversionary programs for first-time juvenile offenders; facilitate re-entry of for ex-convicts; deliver health care, job training and social services in public housing complexes; facilitate substance abuse recovery; prevent institutionalization of severely disabled children through parental support networks; provide transportation for homebound seniors in rural areas; deliver elder care, community health services and hospice care; and foster women's rights initiatives in Senegal.

Timebanking
Timebanking is a pattern of reciprocal service exchange that uses units of time as currency. It is an example of a complementary monetary system. A timebank, also known as a service exchange, is a community that practices time banking. The unit of currency, always valued at an hour's worth of any person's labor, used by these groups has various names but is generally known as a time credit in the US and the UK (formerly a time dollar in the US). Timebanking is primarily used to provide incentives and rewards for work such as mentoring children, caring for the elderly, being neighborly—work usually done on a volunteer basis—which a pure market system devalues. Essentially, the "time" one spends providing these types of community services earns "time" that one can spend to receive services. As well as gaining credits, participating individuals, particularly those more used to being recipients in other parts of their lives, can potentially gain confidence, social contact and skills through giving to others. Communities, therefore, use time banking as a tool to forge stronger intra-community connections, a process known as "building social capital". Timebanking had its intellectual genesis in the US in the early 1980s. By 1990, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation had invested US$1.2 million to pilot time banking in the context of senior care. Today, 26 countries have active TimeBanks. There are 250 TimeBanks active in the UK and over 276 TimeBanks in the U.S.

Timebanking and the timebank
Timebank members earn credit in Time Dollars for each hour they spend helping other members of the community. Services offered by members in timebanks include: Child Care, Legal Assistance, Language Lessons, Home Repair, and Respite Care for caregivers, among other things. Time Dollars AKA time credits earned are then recorded at the timebank to be accessed when desired. A Timebank can theoretically be as simple as a pad of paper, but the system was originally intended to take advantage of computer databases for record keeping. Some Timebanks employ a paid coordinator to keep track of transactions and to match requests for services with those who can provide them. Other Timebanks select a member or a group of members to handle these tasks. Various organizations provide specialized software to help local Timebanks manage exchanges. The same organizations also often offer consulting services, training, and other materials for individuals or organizations looking to start timebanks of their own.

Example services offered by timebank members

The mission of an individual timebank influences exactly which services are offered. In some places, timebanking is adopted as a means to strengthen the community as a whole. Other timebanks are more oriented towards social service, systems change, and helping underprivileged groups. In some timebanks, both are acknowledged goals.

Time credit
The time credit is the fundamental unit of exchange in a timebank, equal to one hour of a person's labor. In traditional timebanks, one hour of one person's time is equal to one hour of another's. Time credits are earned for providing services and spent receiving services. Upon earning a time credit, a person does not need to spend it right away: they can save it indefinitely. However, since the value of a time credit is fixed at one hour, it resists inflation and does not earn interest. In these ways it is intentionally designed to differ from the traditional fiat currency used in most countries. Consequently, it does little good to hoard time credits and, in practice, many timebanks also encourage the donation of excess time credits to a community pool which is then spent for those in need or on community events.

Criticisms
Some criticisms of timebanking have focused on the time credit's inadequacies as a form of currency and as a market information mechanism. Frank Fisher of MIT predicted in the 1980s that such a currency "would lead to the kind of distortion of market forces which had crippled Russia's economy."

Dr. Gill Seyfang's study of the Gorbals TimeBank—one of the few studies of timebanking done by the academic community—listed several other non-theoretical problems with timebanking. The first is the difficulty of communicating to potential members exactly what makes timebanking different, or "getting people to understand the difference between timebanking and traditional volunteering." She also notes that there is no guarantee that every person's needs will be provided for by a timebank by dint of the fact that the supply of certain skills may be lacking in a community.

One of the most stringent criticisms of timebanking is its organizational sustainability. While some member-run TimeBanks with relatively low overhead costs do exist, others pay a staff to keep the organization running. This can be quite expensive for smaller organizations and without a long-term source of funding, they may fold.

Global timebanking
In 2013 TimeRepublik launched the first global Timebank. Its aim is to eliminate geographical limitations of previous timebanks. Since 2015 TimeRepublik has been promoting Time Banking within local governments, municipalities, universities, and large companies. In 2017 TimeRepublik won the first prize at the BAI Global Innovation Awards in the Innovation and Human Capital category

The Community Exchange System (CES) is a global network of communities using alternative exchange systems, many of which use timebanks. Timebanks can trade with each other wherever they are, as well as with mutual credit exchanges. The system uses a base 'currency' of one hour, and the conversion rates between the different exchange groups are based on national average hourly wage rates. This allows timebanks to trade with mutual credit exchanges in the same or different countries.

Elderplan
Elderplan was a social HMO which incorporated timebanking as a way to promote active, engaged lifestyles for its older members. Funding for the "social" part of social HMOs has since dried up and much of the program has been cut, but at its height, members were able to pay portions of their premiums in time credits (back then called Time Dollars) instead of hard currency. The idea was to encourage older people to become more engaged in their communities while also to ask for help more often and "[foster] dignity by allowing people to contribute services as well as receive them."

Gorbals timebank study
In 2004, Dr. Gill Seyfang published a study in the Community Development Journal about the effects of a timebank located in the Gorbals area of Glasgow, Scotland, "an inner-city estate characterized by high levels of deprivation, poverty, unemployment, poor health and low educational attainment." The Gorbals Timebank is run by a local charity with the intent to combat the social ills that face the region. Seyfang concluded that the timebank was effective at "building community capacity" and "promoting social inclusion." She highlights the timebank's success at "[re-stitching] the social fabric of the Gorbals." by "[boosting] engagement in existing projects and activities" in a variety of projects including a community safety network, a library, a healthy living project, and a theatre. She writes that "the timebank had enabled people to access help they otherwise would have had to do without," help which included home repair, gardening, a funeral, and tuition paid in time credits to a continuing education course.

Timebank Florianópolis
The Time Bank of the City of Florianópolis (BTF) is one of the first and best known Time Banks in Brazil. The initiative was conceived in September 2015 at a local Zeitgeist meeting, part of the international sustainability movement. BTF works from a Facebook group that has more than 20,000 members, and exchanges are counted in a spreadsheet shared with users. Scientific research on BTF indicates that the time bank is a means for creating social capital in local society and that BTF members have different socioeconomic characteristics compared to residents of the city of Florianópolis. Younger, non-white, employed, female individuals, working in the informal sector, with a higher education level and with a higher monthly income are more likely to be BTF members.

Spice Timebank
Spice is a social enterprise that has developed a time-based currency called Time Credits. Spice works across health and social care, housing, community development and education, supporting organisations and services to use Time Credits to achieve their outcomes. Spice grew out of the work of the Wales Institute for Community Currencies in the former mining districts of South Wales, UK. Several Studies are done based on Spice Timebank or referenced this timebank. In a 2016 survey, based on a 1000 members of Spice timebank, 77% of respondents said Time Credits have had a positive impact on their quality of life, 42% reported that learned a new skill and 30% reported that they having less need to go to doctor.

title: Time-based currency


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Covenanted Baptist Church of Canada

The Covenanted Baptist Church of Canada is a small body of Predestinarian Baptists in Canada with Scottish roots.

History
In 1818 Dugald Campbell, of North Knapdale, Scotland emigrated to Canada and settled in Aldborough, Elgin County, Ontario. Campbell was a deacon in Scotland, but upon his arrival soon began preaching.

In 1820, Elder Dugald Campbell and his followers, believing the Regular Baptists of the area had departed from gospel faith and order, withdrew from them and constituted a church in Aldborough, now known as the Particular Covenanted Baptist Church in Canada. Still a small group, they had grown to five churches in the 1850s - Aldborough, Dunwich, Ekfird, Lobo, and Orford. The Covenanted Baptist Church did not fellowship with any other churches in North America, until an elder, Thomas McColl, received some issues of the Signs of the Times, a Primitive Baptist periodical published by Gilbert Beebe of New York City. In 1857 and 1858, McColl invited Primitive Baptists to visit and preach among their churches. The two groups saw they were established on the same faith and order, and began a relationship of fellowship one with another, which continued to the 20th century. The Covenanted Baptists held the doctrine of absolute predestination, and, after Primitive Baptists in the United States suffered division, remained in correspondence with the Absolute Predestinarian Primitive Baptists.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Covenanted Baptist Church of Canada


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Nervous Gender

Nervous Gender is an American punk rock electronic band formed in Los Angeles in 1978 by Gerardo Velazquez, Edward Stapleton, Phranc and Michael Ochoa.

Their use of heavily distorted keyboards and synthesizers made them, along with The Screamers, one of the original innovators of what is today called "electropunk", although they could equally be considered an early industrial group. The group was confrontational and experimental.

Phranc's androgynous appearance was the embodiment of the group's name, garnered the band much press in zines such as Slash and, later, proving inspirational to founders of the queercore movement. Despite their somewhat high profile, the groups' habit of provoking the audience, obscene material and harsh erotics guaranteed they would never gain commercial acceptance. At their first show in 1979, a benefit for the Women's Video Center, Phranc called the audience "pussies" and "dykes" when the band was requested to stop playing.

History
The band were formed in Los Angeles, California, in 1978 by Gerardo Velazquez, Edward Stapleton, Phranc and Michael Ochoa. In 1979, Don Bolles of the Germs joined as drummer. The following year, Phranc left the band and Paul Roessler of the Screamers joined. At this time they recorded the tracks for the compilation Live at Target, released as an LP and a video, both seminal not only in the punk scene but also as early industrial recordings; fellow contributors Factrix and Z'EV (listed on this recording as "UNS") were early industrial acts, and Nervous Gender found more acceptance among that scene initially. All the artists involved in Live at Target were experimenting with atonality, noise and concepts not common until post-punk groups emerged later. Nervous Gender played with bands such as SPK, Factrix, NON, Einstürzende Neubauten, and Psychic TV during the early 1980s.

In 1981 they released their LP Music from Hell, which included guest vocalist Alice Bag from Bags singing on "Alice's Song". Nervous Gender did not record in the studio again. After the LP came out, Paul Roessler moved to New York City to play with the Nina Hagen Band and was replaced by Bill Cline, and Don Bolles left the band to play with 45 Grave. He was replaced by an eight-year-old boy, Sven Pfeiffer. In 1982, Sven was deported alongside his mother and both returned to live in Germany. During their career Nervous Gender was called by one critic, "...the thorn in the side of the L.A. music scene..."

During the mid-1980s, the band was on the verge of breaking up when members of Wall of Voodoo Bruce Moreland, Marc Moreland and Chas Grey, who were fans, stepped in and offered to collaborate with them. It was at this point that a guitar-driven version of Nervous Gender emerged. During this time Dinah Cancer of 45 Grave was a frequent guest performer with them, and they played shows with bands such as Christian Death, Super Heroines, Kommunity FK and Gobsheit (a side project of Stapleton's with Patrice Repose) at venues such as the Anti Club. In 1988, Edward Stapleton played his last show with the band.

In early 1990, original members Gerardo Velasquez and Michael Ochoa along with Joe Zinnato (a long time Ochoa collaborator) revived Nervous Gender as a trio. This formation did a series of 8 performances, and were working on what would have been the final Nervous Gender album (working title "American Regime") with producer Paul B. Cutler (of 45 Grave). The final performance of Nervous Gender was on August 26, 1991, at Club A.S.S. in Silverlake, CA. Gerardo Velasquez died on March 28, 1992, at age 33.

After Gerardo's death, members Ochoa and Zinnato, with the addition of singer Claire Lawrence – Slater (of Honeymoon Killers, Huge Killer Ships), formed "HighHeelTitWig" a punk-industrial-pop-grunge hybrid, which played a series of shows. In 1995 Joe Zinnato suffered a serious stroke which put an end to musical activities.

As of 2005, Edward Stapleton, Michael Ochoa and Joe Zinnato were reviewing all of the Nervous Gender material (studio, live and rehearsal recordings and performance videos) with an eye towards releasing a NG retrospective. At this time, Edward Stapleton (with Karene Stapleton) also recorded under the name Kali's Thugs. In 2007 the band reformed with Stapleton, Ochoa, Zinnato and Tammy Fraser.

As of 2017, Edward Stapleton, and Matt Comeione, San Diego Mod and Cal Arts trained composer started Nervous Gender Reloaded. The duo released the album Milking the Borg in 2021.

2023 saw the release of an expanded reissue of the Music from Hell debut album on 2LP and CD.

Discography

 * Music from Hell (Subterranean Records 1981, officially reissued on cassette tape in 2015 and on vinyl, compact disc & digitally in 2023)
 * Nervous Gender Archives, series of archival recordings available from Nervous Gender via their web site
 * Nervous Gender Live at the Hong Kong Cafe 1979 (2006)
 * Nervous Gender Live at the Whiskey A Go-Go 1980 (2006)
 * Nervous Gender Live at the Roxy 1986 (2006)
 * Nervous Gender – Music from Hell 2009 Remixed / Remastered (2009) (Limited Edition CD Limited to 250 numbered copies)
 * Gestalt / Green Tile Floors' (Test Tube Records. 2011) 7 inch green vinyl 45 record. 2 songs from 1979 newly recorded for the first time in 2010. Engineered by Paul Roessler of the Screamers and former Nervous Gender member.
 * Milking the Borg (2021) by Nervous Gender Reloaded, released digitally and on CDr.

Music from Hell
Music from Hell is the first studio album by Los Angeles electropunk band Nervous Gender.
 * Side A (Martyr Complex)
 * 1) Monsters
 * 2) Nothing to Hide
 * 3) Cardinal Newman
 * 4) Fat Cow
 * 5) Alien Point of View
 * 6) People Like You
 * 7) Regress for You
 * Side B (Beelzebub Youth)
 * 1) Christian Lovers
 * 2) Exorcism
 * 3) Bathroom Sluts
 * 4) Pie on a Ledge
 * 5) Push, Push, Push
 * 6) Alice's Song

Side B is a live performance the band labeled "an electronic bruto-canto dissertation on the banality of spiritual transcendence".

After reissues in 2009 and 2015, the San Francisco based Dark Entries record label reissued the album in 2023 as a 2LP, CD and digital release (on Bandcamp), expanded with demos and live recordings. All material was recorded between 1979 and 1982.

title: Nervous Gender


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Gloster E.28/39

The Gloster E.28/39, (also referred to as the Gloster Whittle, Gloster Pioneer, or Gloster G.40) was the first British turbojet-engined aircraft first flying in 1941. It was the third turbojet aircraft to fly after the German Heinkel He 178 (1939) and Heinkel He 280 (1941), the Italian Caprini N1 of 1940 being a motor jet and not a true turbojet.

The E.28/39 was the product of a specification which had been issued by the Air Ministry for a suitable aircraft to test the novel jet propulsion designs that Frank Whittle had been developing during the 1930s. Gloster and the company's chief designer, George Carter, worked with Whittle to develop an otherwise conventional aircraft fitted with a Power Jets W.1 turbojet engine. Flying for the first time on 15 May 1941, two E.28/39 aircraft were produced for the flight test programme. Following initial satisfactory reports, these aircraft continued to be flown to test increasingly refined engine designs and new aerodynamic features. Despite the loss of the second prototype, due to improper maintenance causing a critical aileron failure, the E.28/39 was considered to be a success.

The E.28/39 contributed valuable initial experience with the new type of propulsion and led to the development of the Gloster Meteor, the first operational jet fighter to enter service with the Allies. The first prototype continued test flying until 1944, after which it was withdrawn from service; in 1946, it was transferred to the Science Museum in London, where it has been on static display ever since; full-scale replicas have been created.

Background
The development of the turbojet-powered E.28/39 was the product of a collaboration between the Gloster Aircraft Company and Sir Frank Whittle's firm, Power Jets Ltd. Whittle formed Power Jets Ltd in March 1936 to develop his ideas of jet propulsion, Whittle himself serving as the company's chief engineer. For several years, attracting financial backers and aviation firms prepared to take on Whittle's radical ideas was difficult; in 1931, Armstrong-Siddeley had evaluated and rejected Whittle's proposal, finding it to be technically sound but at the limits of engineering capability. Securing funding was a persistently worrying issue throughout the early development of the engine. The first Whittle prototype jet engine, the Power Jets WU, began running trials in early 1937; shortly afterwards, both Sir Henry Tizard, chairman of the Aeronautical Research Committee, and the Air Ministry gave the project their support.

On 28 April 1939, Whittle made a visit to the premises of the Gloster Aircraft Company, where he met several key figures, such as George Carter, Gloster's chief designer. Carter took a keen interest in Whittle's project, particularly when he saw the operational Power Jets W.1 engine; Carter quickly made several rough proposals of various aircraft designs powered by the engine. Independently, Whittle had also been producing several proposals for a high-altitude jet-powered bomber; following the start of the Second World War and the Battle for France, a greater national emphasis on fighter aircraft arose. Power Jets and Gloster quickly formed a mutual understanding around mid-1939.

In September 1939, the Air Ministry issued a specification to Gloster for an aircraft to test one of Frank Whittle's turbojet designs in flight. The E.28/39 designation originates from the aircraft having been developed in conformance with the 28th "Experimental" specification issued by the Air Ministry in 1939. The E.28/39 specification required the aircraft to carry two 0.303 in (7.62 mm) Browning machine guns in each wing, along with 2,000 rounds of ammunition, but these were never fitted. The second paragraph of the contract for the first aeroplane stated: "The primary object of this aeroplane will be to flight test the engine installation, but the design shall be based on requirements for a fixed gun interceptor fighter as far as the limitations of size and weight imposed by the power unit permit. The armament equipment called for in this specification will not be required for initial trials but the contractor will be required to make provision in the design for the weight and space occupied by these items..."

Design effort
Early on, Gloster's chief designer, George Carter, worked closely with Whittle, and laid out a small low-wing aircraft of conventional configuration. The jet intake was located in the nose, while the single tail-fin and elevators were mounted above the jet-pipe, although due to uncertainty about the spinning characteristics of a jet aircraft, at an earlier design stage an alternative arrangement using twin fins and rudders was considered. Two jet pipe/rear fuselage arrangements were also originally considered, a normal fuselage with long jet-pipe and exhaust nozzle behind the tail, and a short fuselage and jet-pipe with the tail-plane supported on an extension boom. Flanagan highlights the advantage of a short jet-pipe as incurring a lower thrust loss. Buttler reports Gloster engineer Richard Walker considered a short fuselage would overcome structural, accessibility and maintenance difficulties and increase the maximum speed of the aircraft. Due to the unknown effects of the jet efflux on the boom-mounted tailplane, the long fuselage was selected. On 3 February 1940, a contract for two prototypes was signed by the Air Ministry.

Manufacture of the E.28/39 commenced at Brockworth near Gloucester and then moved to Regent Motors in Regent Street, Cheltenham (now the site of Regent Arcade), which was considered safer from bombing. Whittle was dissatisfied with the slowness of production, probably caused by the Battle of Britain as the area around nearby Coventry was subject to high levels of German bomber activity. In April 1941, the first of the E.28/39 prototypes was completed but a flight-worthy W.1A engine was not available and a ground-use only W.1X unit was assembled and installed for taxiing tests only.

While only two prototypes had been ordered, the operational philosophy was that, once the prototypes had proved the capabilities of the design, a more substantial programme would begin: even before the first flight of the E.28/39, this aircraft had been envisaged as being a considerably more elaborate twin-engined design, with all of the equipment required in a fighter aircraft. This aircraft, also produced by Gloster, became the Meteor, the first production jet-propelled aircraft to enter service with the Allies.

Design
The E.28/39 was a low-wing monoplane designed around the new jet engine. It was described as possessing a slightly tubby appearance as a result of a round fuselage. Due to the elimination of any risk that would have been posed by propeller tips striking the ground, the E.28/39 had an unusually short undercarriage for the era. It had a retractable undercarriage which was actuated by a hydraulic accumulator, with a manually-operated hand-pump to serve as a backup. Emergency actuation used compressed air. The flaps were also hydraulically actuated, using the hand-pump. Unusually, the nose wheel was steerable, using the rudder control, which aided in ground manoeuvring.

The E.28/39 was powered by a Power Jets W.1 turbojet engine behind the pilot and the fuel tank. The engine exhaust was directed through the centre of the fuselage, the jetpipe terminating about two feet behind the rudder. A nose air-intake led the air through bifurcated ducts around the cockpit. A fuel tank, containing up to 82 Imp gal (372.8 litres), was behind the cockpit, supposed to have been adopted as a countermeasure against the impact of negative g, which posed the risk of causing the engine to flame out, which was hard to re-light during flight.

The E.28/39 lacked features that would be expected for a fighter, such as a radio. The original engine was started using an Austin Seven car engine, connected by a flexible drive; it was replaced on the flight engine with an electric starter that used a ground-cart battery. The cockpit, which had a sliding canopy, had no pressurisation or any form of climate control, such as heating. Pilots were intended to wear electrically-heated flight suits but the lack of a generator and limited battery capacity, the latter being devoted to the automated sensors and recording devices that captured the results of each flight, meant this was not possible; pilots had to endure the cold cockpit.

John Grierson said:

""The main impressions of my first jet-propelled flight were first of the simplicity of operation. The throttle was the only engine control; there were no mixture or propeller levers, supercharger or cooling-gill controls and the fuel system had simply one low-pressure valve between the tank and the engine pump, and one high-pressure valve between the pump and the engine. There was no electric booster pump. Secondly the absence of vibration or the sensation of effort being transmitted to the pilot's seat was outstanding.""

and

""The very favourable impressions of jet propulsion obtained ... have all been endorsed by subsequent flights ... The E.28 is a most pleasant little aeroplane to handle, particularly on account of the excellent field of vision from the pilot's seat ....""

Testing
Although the initial flight tests were relatively early in the Second World War, the German Heinkel He 178 had been first test-flown on 27 August 1939, at Rostock-Marienehe on the Baltic Coast, days before the outbreak of the war.

The E.28/39 was delivered to Brockworth for ground tests beginning on 7 April 1941, using a non-flightworthy version of the Power Jets W.1 engine. Frank Whittle, who had been an RAF flying instructor and test pilot before specializing in engineering, did taxi runs on the grass airfield up to 60 mph and Gloster's Chief Test Pilot, Flight Lieutenant Gerry Sayer did further taxi tests before becoming airborne for 200 to 300 yards, which he repeated two more times.

Following the completion of these ground tests, the aircraft was fitted with a flightworthy engine rated for 10 hours use, and then partially dismantled and transported to RAF Cranwell, near Sleaford in Lincolnshire which had a long runway and no high ground in the vicinity. On 15 May 1941, Gerry Sayer flew the aircraft under jet power for the first time, in a flight lasting 17 minutes. In this first series of test flights, a maximum true speed of 350 mph was attained, in level flight at 25,000 ft and 17,000 turbine revolutions per minute. Tests continued with increasingly refined versions of the engine. Small, auxiliary fins were added near the tips of the tailplanes to provide additional stability in high-speed flight. John Grierson, in 1971, called these "end-plates" and wrote that their purpose was to increase the fin area due to the problem of rudder blanking in a side-slip. On 21 October 1942, Sayer disappeared during a flight in a Hawker Typhoon, presumed killed in a collision and his assistant, Michael Daunt, took over testing of the E.28/39. The oil system had been changed before he flew: after it was proven, the aircraft then being handed over to the RAE for testing by service pilots.

The second prototype E.28/39 (W4046) – initially powered by a Power Jets W.2 engine – joined the test programme on 1 March 1943. Flying of W4046 was by Gloster test pilots John Grierson and John Crosby Warren, because Michael Daunt was then involved with the F.9/40 (which would enter service as the Gloster Meteor). Testing revealed problems with engine oil and lubricants. In April 1943, W4046 flew to Hatfield for a demonstration in front of the Prime Minister and members of the Air Staff. It was taken to Farnborough and fitted with a 1500 lbf W2.B and achieved 466 mph. On 30 July 1943, while on a high-altitude test flight, the second prototype was destroyed in a crash resulting from an aileron failure. The accident was attributed to the use of the wrong type of grease in the aileron controls; one aileron was "stuck in position, sending the aircraft out of control". The test pilot, Squadron Leader Douglas Davie, bailed out from 33,000 ft, suffering frostbite on the way down.

The first prototype was fitted with the 1700 lbf thrust W2/500 and was flown to 42,000 ft, but level speed at altitude was not attempted, due to fuel shortage. The pilot commented in his report on a need for cockpit heating and a larger fuel tank. The aircraft continued flight tests until 1944. By that time, more advanced turbojet-powered aircraft were available. The Gloster E.28/39 was later able to achieve high speeds, the highest being 505 mph at 30,000 ft with a W.2/700 engine and it proved to be a useful experimental aircraft with a "good climb rate and ceiling". Experience with the E.28/39 paved the way for Britain's first operational jet fighter aircraft, the Gloster Meteor. The Meteor was powered by two Rolls-Royce Welland engines, which was the next stage in development from the Power Jets W.1.

Surviving aircraft
In 1946, the first prototype (W4041) was placed in the Science Museum in Central London, where it is exhibited today in the Flight Gallery. A full-size replica has been placed on an obelisk on a roundabout near the northern perimeter of Farnborough Airfield in Hampshire, as a memorial to Sir Frank Whittle. A similar full-size model is on display in the middle of a roundabout at Lutterworth in Leicestershire, where the aircraft's engine was produced.

A full-scale model taken from the same moulds, with authentic paint scheme and detailing, has been built by members of the Jet Age Museum in Gloucestershire. It has been on display in Brockworth, Gloucester, Kemble (at both the Kemble Air Day and the MVT Show), and formed part of the display for the Sir Frank Whittle Centenary commemorations at RAF Cranwell in June 2007.

Operators

 * Royal Aircraft Establishment
 * Royal Aircraft Establishment

title: Gloster E.28/39


text:
Oki

Oki or Ōki may refer to:

Places

 * Oki District, Shimane, a district in Shimane Prefecture, Japan
 * Oki Islands, an archipelago in the Sea of Japan
 * Oki Province, a former province of Japan
 * Ōki, Fukuoka, a town in southern Japan
 * Oki Airport, the airport serving the Oki Islands
 * Oki Jubilee Stadium, a stadium in Kogarah, New South Wales, also known as Jubilee Oval
 * Orkney, Chapman code OKI

Other uses

 * Oki (surname), two separate Japanese surnames
 * Oki (musician), an Ainu musician
 * Oki (rapper), a Polish rapper
 * OKI (company), an electronics and printer manufacturer (Oki Data)
 * Super Oki, the limited express train which runs in San'in Main Line and Yamaguchi Line of West Japan Railway
 * Oki, the original name of Sheriff Callie on Sheriff Callie's Wild West back when it was going to be called "Oki's Oasis"
 * Oki, a doll in the Groovy Girls doll line

OKI

 * Open Knowledge Initiative, an organization that specifies software interfaces for service-oriented architecture (SOA)
 * Open Knowledge International, a global UK-based non-profit network that promotes and shares information at no charge
 * Ohio-Kentucky-Indiana Regional Council of Governments
 * Organisasi Kerja Sama Islam (formerly, Organisasi Konferensi Islam), the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation in Indonesian

title: Oki


text:
Culture of the Philippines

The culture of the Philippines is characterized by cultural and ethnic diversity. Although the multiple ethnic groups of the Philippine archipelago have only recently established a shared Filipino national identity, their cultures were all shaped by the geography and history of the region, and by centuries of interaction with neighboring cultures, and colonial powers. In more recent times, Filipino culture has also been influenced through its participation in the global community.

History
Among the contemporary ethnic groups of the Philippine archipelago, the Negritos are generally considered the earliest settlers; today, although few in numbers, they preserve a very traditional way of life and culture. After those early settlers, the Austronesians arrived on the archipelago. The Austronesian culture is strongly evident in the ethnic majority and languages.

Before the arrival of European colonizers in the 1500s, the various ethnic groups of the Philippines were organized into various independent polities, which historians have come to call "barangays". These polities consisted of about thirty to a hundred households, and were ruled by leaders with titles. The largest of these, such as Butuan, Tondo and the Sultanate of Sulu were complex political formations based on the deltas of the archipelago's biggest river systems, with political and trade relationships with polities further upstream on one hand, and with the political and trading powers of Maritime Southeast Asia and East Asia such as the Sultanate of Brunei, the Majapahit empire, the Qing and Ming Dynasties of China, and even Japan. Indirect cultural exchange and some trade also took place with the Indian subcontinent and Arabia.

The advent of Spanish colonial rule in the islands marked the beginning of the Philippines as an entity, a collection of Southeast Asian countries united under the Spanish Empire. The empire ruled, via the Viceroyalty of New Spain and later directly from Madrid (after 1821 Mexican independence), the islands between the 16th and 19th centuries (Batanes being one of the last places to be colonized in the mid-1800s), resulting in Christianity to spread and dominate throughout the archipelago and influenced the religion and beliefs of the natives. Then, the Philippines became a U.S. territory for almost 50 years. Influence from the United States is manifested in the wide use of the English language, media and in the modern culture and clothing of present-day Philippines.

Geography and ethnic groups

The Philippines' culture is shaped by its archipelagic geography, topography and physical location within Maritime Southeast Asia, all of which defined the cultural histories of the country's 175 Ethnolinguistic groups.

Influence of geography
The cultural diversity of Philippines is the result of the fact that it is an archipelagic state. It is the world's fifth largest island country and is one of the five original archipelagic states recognized under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). It is made out of 7,641 islands with a total land area of 300000 km2, and an exclusive economic zone that covers 2263816 km2 of sea, covering an area 200 nmi from its shores. Settlement on the islands by its many ethnic groups and the cultural exchanges that shaped the cultural histories of those groups was enabled and defined by maritime and riverine transport - with travel by oceans and rivers serving as these cultures' main way of relating to each other, and long inland mountain ranges being the major physical hindrance to cultural linkages between various groups.

Ethnic groups of the Philippines
The Philippines is inhabited by more than 182 ethnolinguistic groups,  many of which are classified as "Indigenous Peoples" under the country's Indigenous Peoples' Rights Act of 1997. Traditionally-Muslim peoples from the southernmost island group of Mindanao are usually categorized together as Moro peoples, whether they are classified as Indigenous peoples or not. About 142 are classified as non-Muslim Indigenous People groups, and about 19 ethnolinguistic groups are classified as neither indigenous nor moro. Various migrant groups have also had a significant presence throughout the country's history.

The Muslim-majority ethnic groups ethnolinguistic groups of Mindanao, Sulu, and Palawan are collectively referred to as the Moro people, a broad category which includes some indigenous people groups and some non-indigenous people groups.

About 142 of the Philippines' Indigenous People groups are not classified as moro peoples. Some of these people groups are commonly grouped together due to their strongly association with a shared geographic area, although these broad categorizations are not always welcomed by the ethnic groups themselves. For example, the indigenous peoples of the Cordillera Mountain Range in northern Luzon have often been referred to using the exonym "Igorot people," and as the Cordilleran peoples. Meanwhile, the non-Moro peoples of Mindanao are collectively referred to as the Lumad, a collective autonym conceived in 1986 as a way to distinguish them from their neighboring indigenous Moro neighbors.

About 86 to 87 percent of the Philippine population belong to the 19 ethnolinguistic groups are classified as neither indigenous nor moro. known simply as Filipinos, these groups are sometimes collectively referred to as "Lowland Christianized groups" to distinguish them from the other ethnolinguistic groups. The most populous of these groups, with populations exceeding a million individuals, are the Ilocano, the Pangasinense, the Kapampangan, the Tagalog, the Ivatan, the Cuyonon, the Bicolano, the Visayans (Cebuanos, Boholano, the Hiligaynon/Ilonggo, and Waray) and many more. These groups converted to Christianity and was part of the Spanish empire, particularly both the native and migrant lowland-coastal groups, and adopted foreign elements of culture throughout the country's history.

Due to the history of the Philippines since the Spanish colonial era, there are also some historical migrant heritage groups within the lowland Filipino populations such as the Chinese Filipinos and Spanish Filipinos, both of whom intermixed with the above lowland Austronesian-speaking ethnic groups, which produced Filipino Mestizos. These groups also comprise and contribute a considerable proportion of the country's population, especially its bourgeois, and economy  and were integral to the establishment of the country, from the rise of Filipino nationalism by the Ilustrado intelligentsia to the Philippine Revolution. Other peoples of migrant and/or mixed descent include those such as, American Filipinos, Indian Filipinos, Japanese Filipinos, and many more.

Filipino psychology
A formal field interpreting Psychology as rooted on the experience, ideas, and cultural orientation of the Filipinos, called Filipino psychology, was established in 1975.

Values
As a general description, the distinct value system of Filipinos is rooted primarily in personal alliance systems, especially those based in kinship, obligation, friendship, religion (particularly Christianity), and commercial relationships.

Filipino values are, for the most part, centered around maintaining social harmony, motivated primarily by the desire to be accepted within a group. The main sanction against diverging from these values are the concepts of "Hiya", roughly translated as 'a sense of shame', and "Amor propio" or 'self-esteem'. Social approval, acceptance by a group, and belonging to a group are major concerns. Caring about what others will think, say or do, are strong influences on social behavior among Filipinos.

Other elements of the Filipino value system are optimism about the future, pessimism about present situations and events, concern and care for other people, the existence of friendship and friendliness, the habit of being hospitable, religious nature, respectfulness to self and others, respect for the female members of society, the fear of God, and abhorrence of acts of cheating people financially and thievery.

Architecture
Before the arrival of European colonizers, Austronesian architecture was the common form of housing on the archipelago.

During the Spanish era, the new Christianized lowland culture collectively evolved a new style known as the Nipa hut (Bahay Kubo). It is characterized by use of simple materials such as bamboo and coconut as the main sources of wood. Cogon grass, Nipa palm leaves and coconut fronds are used as roof thatching. Most primitive homes are built on stilts due to frequent flooding during the rainy seasons. Regional variations include the use of thicker, and denser roof thatching in mountain areas, or longer stilts on coastal areas particularly if the structure is built over water. The architecture of other indigenous peoples may be characterized by an angular wooden roofs, bamboo in place of leafy thatching and ornate wooden carvings. The Bahay na bato architecture is a variant of Nipa Hut that emerged during the Spanish era.

Spanish architecture has left an imprint in the Philippines in the way many towns were designed around a central square or plaza mayor, but many of the buildings bearing its influence were demolished during World War II. Some examples remain, mainly among the country's churches, government buildings, and universities. Four Philippine baroque churches are included in the list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites: the San Agustín Church in Manila, Paoay Church in Ilocos Norte, Nuestra Señora de la Asunción (Santa María) Church in Ilocos Sur, and Santo Tomás de Villanueva Church in Iloilo. Vigan in Ilocos Sur is also known for the many Hispanic-style houses and buildings preserved there. The introduction of Christianity brought European churches and architecture which subsequently became the center of most towns and cities in the nation. The Spaniards also introduced stones and rocks as housing and building materials and the Filipinos merged it with their existing architecture and forms a hybrid mix-architecture only exclusive to the Philippines. Filipino colonial architecture can still be seen in centuries-old buildings such as Filipino baroque churches, Bahay na bato; houses, schools, convents, government buildings around the nation. The best collection of Spanish colonial era architecture can be found in the walled city of Intramuros in Manila and in the historic town of Vigan. Colonial-era churches are also on the best examples and legacies of Spanish Baroque architecture called Earthquake Baroque which are only found in the Philippines. Historic provinces such as Ilocos Norte and Ilocos Sur, Pangasinan, Pampanga, Bulacan, Cavite, Laguna, Rizal, Batangas, Quezon, Iloilo, Negros, Cebu, Bohol and Zamboanga del Sur also boasts colonial-era buildings.

The American occupation in 1898 introduced a new breed of architectural structures in the Philippines. This led to the construction of government buildings and Art Deco theaters. During the American period, some semblance of city planning using the architectural designs and master plans by Daniel Burnham was done on the portions of the city of Manila. Part of the Burnham plan was the construction of government buildings that resembled Greek or Neoclassical architecture. In Iloilo, a lot of the colonial edifices constructed during the American occupation in the country can still be seen. Commercial buildings, houses and churches in that era are abundant in the city and especially in Calle Real.

The University of Santo Tomas Main Building in Manila is an example of Renaissance Revival architecture. The building was built in 1924 and was completed at 1927. The building, designed by Fr. Roque Ruaño, O.P., is the first earthquake-resistant building in the Philippines. Islamic and other Asian architecture can also be seen depicted on buildings such as mosques and temples. Pre-Hispanic housing is still common in rural areas. Contemporary-style housing subdivisions and suburban-gated communities are popular in urbanized places such as Metro Manila, Central Visayas, Central Luzon, Negros Island and other prosperous regions.

However, certain areas of the country like Batanes have slight differences as both Spanish and Filipino ways of architecture assimilated differently due to the climate. Limestones and coral were used as building materials.

There have been proposals to establish a policy where each municipality and city will have an ordinance mandating all constructions and reconstructions within such territory to be inclined with the municipality or city's architecture and landscaping styles to preserve and conserve the country's dying heritage sites, which have been demolished one at a time in a fast pace due to urbanization, culturally-irresponsible development, and lack of towns-cape architectural vision. The proposal advocates for the usage and reinterpretations of indigenous, colonial, and modern architectural and landscaping styles that are prevalent or used to be prevalent in a given city or municipality. The proposal aims to foster a renaissance in Philippine landscaping and townscaping, especially in rural areas which can easily be transformed into new architectural heritage towns within a 50-year time frame. Unfortunately, many Philippine-based architecture and engineering experts lack the sense of preserving heritage townscapes, such as the case in Manila, where business proposals to construct structures that are not inclined with Manila's architectural styles have been continuously accepted and constructed by such experts, effectively destroying Manila's architectural townscape one building at a time. Only the city of Vigan has passed such an ordinance, which led to its declaration as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1999 and awarding of various recognition for the conservation and preservation of its unique architectural and landscaping styles. In 2016, bills proposing to establish a Department of Culture were filed in both chambers of Congress to help formulate policy on architecture.

Traditional clothing

Baro evolved from its forerunner garment worn by the Tagalogs of Luzon Prior to the Spanish Era. When the Spaniards came and settled into the islands, the fashion changed drastically as the Spanish culture influenced the succeeding centuries of Philippine history. The Spanish dissolved the kingdoms and united the country, resulting in a mixture of cultures from different ethnic groups of the conquered archipelago and Spanish culture. A new type of clothing called Barong tagalog (for men) and Baro't saya (for women) began to emerged and would ultimately define the newly formed Filipino culture.

Throughout the 16th century up to the 18th century, women wore a more updated version of the Baro't saya, composed of a bodice – called a Camisa, often made in pineapple fiber or muslin – and a floor length skirt, while the barong tagalog of men, was a collared and buttoned lace shirt or a suit. Aside from Barong, men also wore suits. Most Visayan lowland women wear Kimona, a type of Baro't Saya blouse matching with a knee-length or floor-length skirt printed with the Patadyong pattern, hence getting the name Patadyong skirt. The dress is often accompanied with a handkerchief called tubao also printed with patadyong pattern and is often placed above the right shoulder. These traditions was brought by the Visayans to Mindanao where they also dominate the Christian lowland culture.

Salakot hat is a Filipino general term for a range of related traditional headgear used by virtually all ethnic groups of the Philippines and is a Filipino variation of the Asian conical hat of East and Southeast Asia. It is usually dome-shaped or cone-shaped, but various other styles also exist, including versions with dome-shaped, cone-shaped, or flat crowns with a flat or gently sloping brim. It can be made from various materials including bamboo, rattan, nito, bottle gourd, buri straw, nipa leaves, pandan leaves, carabao horn, and tortoiseshell. In addition to Salakot and western hats, Buntal hat, Buri hat and calasiao hat are another traditional hats worn by Filipinos. By the 19th century, due to the continuing influence of the Western culture, the rising economy, globalization, and exposure from the European fashion scene, the women's clothing began to have a change; by the 1850s, women's clothing was now full wide skirts that usually have long train rather than the simple floor length skirts, a bodice called camisa which means blouse in English and a pañuelo, The attire is composed of four pieces, namely the camisa, the saya, the pañuelo (a scarf, also spelled panuelo) and the Tapis this would later be called Maria Clara. The men also continued to wear a more intricate version barong tagalog. Underneath the transparent barong tagalog is the Camisa de Chino a type of shirt, usually in white. When the Americans arrived baro't saya started to change again and became more modern in contrast to the conservative style. The women then wore the new version called, Traje de Mestiza, the more modern version of the Maria Clara. By the 1920s, the style of the skirt still remained, influenced by the flapper dress; however, the wide sleeves had been flattened to butterfly sleeves and the big pañuelo reduced its size.

Men wore suit and coat worn in the West, mostly Americans hence the name it was called, the Americana, It was more popularly white or light in color than western counterpart. By the 1930s, young adult women and children embraced the more American style, but the typical "Traje de Mestiza" was not fully gone. By 1940's onward baro't saya was still evolving. But people started wearing more updated modern clothing and fully turned away from baros as everyday clothing. Though it became a symbol of traditional culture to be preserved for traditional ceremonies and cultural occasions, from the modern more globalized culture of the post war era.

Cultures that are un-hispanized like the Negritos, Igorot, Lumad and Moro etc. was mostly only fully absorbed into the Filipino borders much later in history, especially during the post-war's modern and globalized culture when the hispanized lowland Filipinos are modernized. As a result, they were mostly unaffected by the traditional lowland Christian Filipino culture and clothing. What influenced them instead was the modern culture and fashions. Though traditional clothing are retained for traditional ceremonies and cultural occasions as well.

Visual arts

Early pottery has been found in the form of mostly anthropomorphic earthenware jars dating from c. 5 BC to 225 AD. Early Philippine painting can be found in red slip (clay mixed with water) designs embellished on the ritual pottery of the Philippines such as the acclaimed Manunggul Jar. Evidence of Philippine pottery-making dated as early as 6000 BC has been found in Sanga-Sanga Cave, Sulu and Cagayan's Laurente Cave. It has been proven that by 5000 BC, the making of pottery was practiced throughout the archipelago. Early Austronesian peoples, especially in the Philippines, started making pottery before their Cambodian neighbors, and at about the same time as the Thais and Laotians as part of what appears to be a widespread Ice Age development of pottery technology.

Further evidence of painting is manifest in the tattoo tradition of early Filipinos, whom the Portuguese explorer referred to as Pintados or the 'Painted People' of the Visayas. Various designs referencing flora and fauna with heavenly bodies decorate their bodies in various colored pigmentation. Perhaps, some of the most elaborate painting done by early Filipinos that survive to the present day can be manifested among the arts and architecture of the Maranaos who are well known for the Nāga dragons and the Sarimanok carved and painted in the beautiful Panolong of their Torogan or King's House.

Filipinos began creating paintings in the European tradition during 17th-century Spanish period. The earliest of these paintings were Church frescoes, religious imagery from Biblical sources, as well as engravings, sculptures and lithographs featuring Christian icons and European nobility. Most of the paintings and sculptures between the 19th and 20th centuries produced a mixture of religious, political, and landscape art works, with qualities of sweetness, dark, and light.

The Itneg people are known for their intricate woven fabrics. The binakol is a blanket which features designs that incorporate optical illusions.Other parts of Highlands in the Cordillera Region or in local term " KaIgorotan" displays their art in tattoing, weaving bags like the "sangi" a traditional backpack and carving woods. Woven fabrics of the Ga'dang people usually have bright red tones. Their weaving can also be identified by beaded ornamentation. Other peoples such as the Ilongot make jewelry from pearl, red hornbill beaks, plants, and metals. Many Filipino painters were influenced by this and started using materials such as extract from onion, tomato, tuba, coffee, rust, molasses and other materials available anywhere as paint. The Lumad peoples of Mindanao such as the B'laan, Mandaya, Mansaka and T'boli are skilled in the art of dyeing abaca fiber. Abaca is a plant closely related to bananas, and its leaves are used to make fiber known as Manila hemp. The fiber is dyed by a method called ikat. Ikat fiber are woven into cloth with geometric patterns depicting human, animal and plant themes.

Kut-kut, a technique combining ancient Oriental and European art process. Considered lost art and highly collectible art form. Very few known art pieces exist today. The technique was practiced by the indigenous people of Samar Island between early 1600 and late 1800 A.D. It is an exotic Philippine art form based on early century techniques: sgraffito, encaustic and layering. The merging of the ancient styles produces a unique artwork characterized by delicate swirling interwoven lines,

Islamic art in the Philippines have two main artistic styles. One is a curved-line woodcarving and multi-layered texture and an illusion of three-dimensional space.metalworking called okir, similar to the Middle Eastern Islamic art. This style is associated with men. The other style is geometric tapestries, and is associated with women. The Tausug and Sama–Bajau exhibit their okir on elaborate markings with boat-like imagery. The Marananaos make similar carvings on housings called torogan. Weapons made by Muslim Filipinos such as the kampilan are skillfully carved.

Early modernist painters such as Haagen Hansen was associated with religious and secular paintings. The art of Lorenzo Miguelito and Alleya Espanol showed a trend for political statement. The first American national artist Jhurgen D. C. Pascua used post-modernism to produce paintings that illustrated Philippine culture, nature and harmony. While other artists such as Bea Querol used realities and abstract on his work. In the 1980s, Odd Arthur Hansen, popularly known as ama ng makabayan pintor or father of patriotic paint, gained recognition. He uses his own white hair to make his own paintbrushes and signs his painting using his own blood on the right side corner. He developed his own styles without professional training or guidance from professionals.

Dancing

Philippine folk dances include the Tinikling and Cariñosa. In the southern region of Mindanao, Singkil is a popular dance showcasing the story of a prince and princess in the forest. Bamboo poles are arranged in a tic-tac-toe pattern in which the dancers exploit every position of these clashing poles.

Music

The early music of the Philippines featured a mixture of Indigenous, Islamic and a variety of Asian sounds that flourished before the European and American colonization in the 16th and 20th centuries. Spanish settlers and Filipinos played a variety of musical instruments, including flutes, guitar, ukulele, violin, trumpets and drums. They performed songs and dances to celebrate festive occasions. By the 21st century, many of the folk songs and dances have remained intact throughout the Philippines. Some of the groups that perform these folk songs and dances are the Bayanihan, Filipinescas, Barangay-Barrio, Hariraya, the Karilagan Ensemble, and groups associated with the guilds of Manila, and Fort Santiago theatres. Many Filipino musicians have risen prominence such as the composer and conductor Antonio J. Molina, the composer Felipe P. de Leon, known for his nationalistic themes and the opera singer Jovita Fuentes.

Modern day Philippine music features several styles. Most music genres are contemporary such as Filipino rock, Filipino hip hop and other musical styles. Some are traditional such as Filipino folk music.

Literature

The Philippine literature is a diverse and rich group of works that has evolved throughout the centuries. It had started with traditional folktales and legends made by the ancient Filipinos before Spanish colonization. The main themes of Philippine literature focus on the country's pre-Hispanic cultural traditions and the socio-political histories of its colonial and contemporary traditions. The literature of the Philippines illustrates the Prehistory and European colonial legacy of the Philippines, written in both Indigenous and Hispanic writing system. Most of the traditional literatures of the Philippines were written during the Spanish period, while being preserved orally prior to Spanish colonization. Philippine literature is written in Spanish, English, or any indigenous Philippine languages.

Some well known works of literature were created in the 17th to 19th centuries. The Ibong Adarna is a famous epic about a magical bird which was claimed to be written by José de la Cruz or "Huseng Sisiw". Francisco Balagtas is one of the country's prominent Filipino poets, he is named as one of the greatest Filipino literary laureates for his contributions in Philippine literature. His greatest work, the Florante at Laura is considered as his greatest work and one of the masterpieces of Philippine literature. Balagtas wrote the epic during his imprisonment. José Rizal, the national hero of the country, wrote the novels Noli Me Tángere (Touch Me Not) and El Filibusterismo (The Filibustering, also known as The Reign of Greed). Nínay By Pedro Paterno, explores the tragic life of a female protagonist Ninay.

There have been proposals to revive all indigenous ethnic scripts or suyat in the Philippines, where the ethnic script of the ethnic majority of the student population shall be taught in public and private schools. The proposal came up after major backlash came about when a bill declaring the Tagalog baybayin as the national script of the country. The bill became controversial as it focuses only on the traditional script of the Tagalog people, while dismissing the traditional scripts of more than 100 ethnic groups in the country. The new proposal that came after the backlash cites that if the ethnic majority is Sebwano, then the script that will be taught is badlit. If the ethnic majority is Tagalog, then the script that will be taught is baybayin. If the ethnic majority is Hanunuo Mangyan, then the script that will be taught is hanunu'o, and so on.

Cinema and media
Salón de Pertierra was the first introduced moving picture on January 1, 1897, in the Philippines. All films were all in Spanish since Philippine cinema was first introduced during the final years of the Spanish era of the country. Antonio Ramos was the first known movie producer. He used the Lumiere Cinematograph when he filmed Panorama de Manila (Manila landscape), Fiesta de Quiapo (Quiapo Fiesta), Puente de España (Bridge of Spain), and Escenas Callejeras (Street scenes). Meanwhile, Jose Nepomuceno was dubbed as the "Father of Philippine Cinema". Dubbed as the "Father of Philippine Cinema", his work marked the start of cinema as an art form in the Philippines. His first film produced was entitled Dalagang Bukid (Country Maiden) in 1919.

Film showing resumed in 1900 during the American period. Walgrah, a British entrepreneur, opened the Cine Walgrah at No. 60 Calle Santa Rosa in Intramuros. It was also during this time that a movie market was formally created in the country along with the arrival of silent movies. These silent films were always accompanied by gramophone, a piano, a quartet, or a 200-man choir. During the Japanese occupation, filmmaking was put on hold. Nonetheless, it was continued on 1930s up until 1945 replacing the Hollywood market with Japanese films but met with little success. Postwar 1940s and the 1950s were known as the first golden age of Philippine cinema with the resurgence of mostly Visayan films through Lapu-Lapu Pictures. Nationalistic films became popular, and movie themes consisting primarily of war and heroism and proved to be successful with Philippine audiences.

The 1950s saw the first golden age of Philippine cinema, with the emergence of more artistic and mature films, and significant improvement in cinematic techniques among filmmakers. The studio system produced frenetic activity in the Philippine film industry as many films were made annually and several local talents started to gain recognition abroad. Award-winning filmmakers and actors were first introduced during this period. As the decade drew to a close, the studio system monopoly came under siege as a result of labor-management conflicts.

During the 1960s, James Bond movies, bomba (soft porn) pictures and an era of musical films, produced mostly by Sampaguita Pictures, dominated the cinema. The second golden age occurred from the 1970s to early 1980s. It was during this era that filmmakers ceased to produce pictures in black and white. A rise in Hollywood films dominated theater sales during the late 1980s until the 2000s. The dawn of this era saw a dramatic decline of the mainstream Philippine movie industry.

The 1970s and 1980s were considered turbulent years for the Philippine film industry, bringing both positive and negative changes. The films in this period dealt with more serious topics following the Martial law era. In addition, action, western, drama, adult and comedy films developed further in picture quality, sound and writing. The 1980s brought the arrival of alternative or independent cinema in the Philippines. The 1990s saw the emerging popularity of drama, teen-oriented romantic comedy, adult, comedy and action films.

The mid-2010s also saw broader commercial success of films produced by independent studios.

The Philippines, being one of Asia's earliest film industry producers, remains undisputed in terms of the highest level of theater admission in Asia. Over the years, however, the Philippine film industry has registered a steady decline in movie viewership from 131 million in 1996 to 63 million in 2004. From a high production rate of 350 films a year in the 1950s, and 200 films a year during the 1980s, the Philippine film industry production rate declined in 2006 to 2007. The 21st century saw the rebirth of independent filmmaking through the use of digital technology and a number of films have once again earned nationwide recognition and prestige.

With the high rates of film production in the past, several movie artists have appeared in over 100+ roles in Philippine Cinema and enjoyed great recognition from fans and moviegoers.

Protest art
Protest art has played an important part in Philippine history, and in the development of Philippine culture. The Propaganda Movement had been key in the formation of the Philippine national consciousness in the 19th century. In the 20th century, the proclamation of Martial law under Ferdinand Marcos - and the subsequent human rights abuses which came with it - led to the prominence of protest art in Filipino popular culture.

Philippine mythology
Philippine mythologies are the first literature of the Philippines, usually passed on through generation via traditional and oral folk literature. Written texts recording the stories have also been made. These literary stories are mostly chanted as part of a dynamic Philippine epic poetry. While each unique ethnic group has its own stories and myths to tell, Hindu and Spanish influences can nonetheless be detected in many cases. Philippine mythology mostly consists of creation stories or stories about supernatural creatures, such as the aswang, the manananggal, the diwata/engkanto, and nature. Some popular figures from Philippine mythologies are Makiling, Lam-Ang, and the Sarimanok.

Christianity
The arrival of the Spanish colonizers in the 16th century brought the beginning of the Christianization of the people in the Philippines. This phase in history is noted as the tipping point for the destruction of a variety of Anitist beliefs in the country, which were replaced by colonial belief systems that fitted the tastes of the Spanish, notably Christian beliefs. Christianity in form of has influenced Filipino culture in almost every facet, from visual arts, architecture, dance, and music. Presently, the Philippines is one of the two predominantly Catholic (80.58%) nations in Asia-Pacific, the other being East Timor. The country also has its own independent Philippine church, the Aglipayan, which accounts for around 2% of the national population. Other Christian churches are divided among a variety of Christian sects and cults. From the census in 2014, Christianity consisted of about 90.07% of the population and is largely present throughout the nation.

Indigenous folk religions

Indigenous Philippine folk religions, also referred collectively as Anitism, meaning ancestral religions, are the original faiths of the diverse ethnic groups of the Philippines. Much of the texts of the religions are stored through memory which are traditionally chanted, rather than written in manuscripts.

Written texts, however, have been utilized as well in modern times to preserve aspects of the religions, notably their stories which are important aspects of Philippine mythology and traditional rites and other practices. These stories consist of creation stories or stories about important figures such as deities and heroes and certain creatures.

Some popular, but distinct, figures include the Tagalog's Bathala and Makiling, the Ilocano's Lam-ang, and the Maranao's Sarimanok.

Islam
Islamic mythology arrived in the Philippines in the 13th century through trade routes in Southeast Asia. The spread of Islam established a variety of belief systems, notably in the southwestern portions of the archipelago, where the sultanate system was embraced by the natives without the need for forced conversions, as the religious traders did not intended to colonize the islands. Presently, around 6% of the population are Muslims, concentrating in the Bangsamoro region in Mindanao. Most Filipino Muslims practice Sunni Islam according to the Shafi'i school.

Others
Hinduism arrived in the Philippines in 200–300 AD while Vajrayana Buddhism arrived around 900 AD. Most adherent of Hinduism have Indian origins while those practicing Buddhism have Chinese or Japanese origins, notably those who immigrated in the Philippines in the last few decades. Shintoism arrived prior to the 12th century due to Japanese traders, while Judaism arrived in the 16th century due to the Inquisition. Taoism is also practiced by some Chinese immigrants. Atheism is also found in the Philippines.

Cuisine
Filipinos cook a variety of foods influenced by of main Indian, Chinese, influences indigenous ingredients. "Philippine Cuisine." Balitapinoy.net. Accessed July 2011.

The Spanish colonizers and friars in the 16th century brought with them produce from the Americas such as chili peppers, tomatoes, corn, potatoes, and the method of sautéing with garlic and onions. Eating out is a favorite Filipino pastime. A typical Pinoy diet consists at most of six meals a day; breakfast, snacks, lunch, snacks, dinner, and again a midnight snack before going to sleep. Rice is a staple in the Filipino diet, and is usually eaten together with other dishes. Filipinos regularly use spoons together with forks and knives. Some also eat with their hands, especially in informal settings, and also Filipinos use chopsticks when eating seafood. Rice, corn, and popular dishes such as adobo (a meat stew made from either pork or chicken), lumpia (meat or vegetable rolls), pancit (a noodle dish), and lechón baboy (roasted pig) are served on plates.

Other popular dishes include afritada, asado, tapa, empanada, mani (roasted peanuts), paksiw (fish or pork, cooked in vinegar and water with some spices like garlic and pepper), pandesal (bread of salt), laing, sisig, torta (omelette), kare-kare (ox-tail stew), kilawen, pinakbet (vegetable stew), pinapaitan, and sinigang (tamarind soup with a variety of pork, fish, or prawns). Some delicacies eaten by some Filipinos may seem unappetizing to the Western palate include balut (boiled egg with a fertilized duckling inside), longganisa (sweet sausage), and dinuguan (soup made from pork blood).

Popular snacks and desserts such as chicharon (deep fried pork or chicken skin), halo-halo (crushed ice with evaporated milk, flan, sliced tropical fruit, and sweet beans), puto (white rice cakes), bibingka (rice cake with butter or margarine and salted eggs), ensaymada (sweet roll with grated cheese on top), pulburon (powder candy), and tsokolate (chocolate) are usually eaten outside the three main meals. Popular Filipino beverages include Beer, Tanduay Rhum, lambanog, and tuba.

Every province has its own specialty and tastes vary in each region. In Bicol, for example, foods are generally spicier than elsewhere in the Philippines. Patis (fish sauce), suka (vinegar), toyo (soy sauce), bagoong, and banana ketchup are the most common condiments found in Filipino homes and restaurants.

Western fast food chains such as McDonald's, Wendy's, KFC, and Pizza Hut are a common sight in the country. Local food chains such as Jollibee, Goldilocks Bakeshop, Mang Inasal and Chowking are also popular and have successfully competed against international fast food chains.

Education
Education in the Philippines has been influenced by Western and Eastern ideology and philosophy from the United States, Spain, and its neighbouring Asian countries. Philippine students enter public school at about age four, starting from nursery school up to kindergarten. At about seven years of age, students enter elementary school (6 to 9 years) this include Grade 7 to Grade 10 as junior high school, then after, they graduate. Since the Philippines has already implemented the K-12 system, students will enter SHS or senior high school, a 2-year course, to be able to prepare college life with their chosen track such as ABM (Accountancy Business Management), STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) and HUMSS (Humanities and Social Sciences) other tracks are included like TECH-VOC (Technical Vocational). Students can make a choice if they will take the college entrance examinations (CEE) in order to attend college or university (3 to 5 years) or find work after they graduate senior high school.

Other types of schools in the country include private schools, preparatory schools, international schools, laboratory high schools, and science high schools. Of these schools, private Catholic schools are the most famous. Catholic schools are preferred in the Philippines due to their religious beliefs. Most Catholic schools are co-ed. The uniforms of Catholic schools usually have an emblem along with the school colors. International schools follow different curricula, such as Singaporean, American, and British. With this, their approach differs depending on the overall programs that these curricula offer.

The school year in the Philippines starts in June and ends in March, with a two-month summer break from April to May, two-week semestral break in October and Christmas and New Year's holidays. Changes are currently being made to the system and some universities have copied the Westernized academic calendar and now start the school year in August.

In 2005, the Philippines spent about US$138 per pupil compared to US$1,582 in Singapore, US$3,728 in Japan, and US$852 in Thailand.

Sports and recreation
Arnis, a form of martial arts, is the national sport in the Philippines. Among the most popular sports include basketball, boxing, football, billiards, chess, ten-pin bowling, volleyball, horse racing, Sepak Takraw, cockfighting and Bullfighting. Dodgeball, badminton, and tennis are also popular.

Filipinos have gained international success in sports. These are boxing, football, billiards, ten-pin bowling, and chess. Popular sport stars include Manny Pacquiao, Flash Elorde, and Francisco Guilledo in boxing, Paulino Alcántara in football, Carlos Loyzaga, Robert Jaworski, and Ramon Fernandez in basketball, Efren Reyes and Francisco Bustamante in billiards, Rafael Nepomuceno in ten-pin bowling, Eugene Torre and Renato Naranja in chess, and Mark Muñoz in MMA. The Philippine National Basketball Team is a powerhouse in Asia and has the best performance of all Asian teams in the Olympics and the FIBA World Cup.

The Palarong Pambansa, a national sports festival, has its origin in an annual sporting meet of public schools that started in 1948. Private schools and universities eventually joined the national event, which became known as the "Palarong Pambansa" in 1976. It serves as a national Olympic Games for students, competing at school and national level contests. The year 2002 event included football, golf, archery, badminton, baseball, chess, gymnastics, tennis, softball, swimming, table tennis, taekwondo, track and field, and volleyball.

Martial arts

There are several forms of Filipino martial arts that originated in the Philippines (similar to how Silat is the martial arts practiced in Asia) including Eskrima (weapon-based fighting, also known as Arnis and in the West sometimes as Kali), Panantukan (empty-handed techniques), and Pananjakman (the boxing component of Filipino martial arts).

Traditional Filipino games and pastimes
Traditional Philippine games such as luksong baka, patintero, piko, and tumbang preso are still played primarily as children's games among the youth. Sungka is played on a board game using small sea shells in which players try to take all shells. The winner is determined by who has the most shells at the point when all small pits become empty.

One traditional Filipino game is luksong tinik, a very popular game to Filipino children where one has to jump over the tinik and cross to the other side unscathed. Other traditional Filipino games include yo-yo, piko, patintero, bahay kubo, pusoy, and sungka. Tong-its is a popular gambling game. Individuals play the game by trying to get rid of all the cards by choosing poker hands wisely. Card games are popular during festivities, with some, including pusoy and tong-its, being used as a form of illegal gambling. Mahjong is played in some Philippine communities.

Sabong or cockfighting is another popular entertainment especially among Filipino men, and existed prior to the arrival of the Spanish. Antonio Pigafetta, Magellan's chronicler, first documented this pastime in the kingdom of Taytay.

The yo-yo, a popular toy in the Philippines, was introduced in its modern form by Pedro Flores with its name coming from the Ilocano language.

Filipinos have created toys using insects such as tying a beetle to string, and sweeping it circular rotation to make an interesting sound. The "Salagubang gong" is a toy described by Charles Brtjes, an American entomologist, who traveled to Negros and discovered a toy using beetles to create a periodic gong effect on a kerosene can as the beetle rotates above the contraption. Piko is a Filipino version of the game hopscotch. Children will draw a sequence rectangles using chalk on the ground. With various level of obstacle on each rectangle, children will compete against one another or in a team. Players use pamato; usually a flat stone, slipper or anything that could be tossed easily.

Rites of passage
Every year, usually in April and May, thousands of Filipino boys are taken by their parents to be circumcised. According to the World Health Organization (WHO) about 90% of Filipino men are circumcised, one of the world's highest circumcision rates. Although the roots of the practice date back to the arrival of Islam in 1450, the succeeding 200 years of Spanish rule obviated the religious reasons for circumcision. Nevertheless, circumcision, called tuli, has persisted. The pressure to be circumcised is evidenced even in the language: the Tagalog word for 'uncircumcised', supot, also means 'coward'. It is commonly believed that a circumcised eight or ten year-old is no longer a boy and is given more adult roles in the family and society.

Intangible cultural heritage
The Philippines, with the National Commission for Culture and the Arts as the de facto Ministry of Culture, ratified the 2003 Convention after its formal deposit in August 2006.

Prior to the 2003 Convention, the Philippines was invited by UNESCO to nominate intangible heritage elements for the inclusion to the Proclamation of Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity. This prompted the proclamation of the Hudhud chant of the Ifugao in 2001 and Darangen epic chant of the Maranao in 2005. After the establishment of the 2003 Convention, all entries to the Proclamation of Masterpieces were incorporated in the Representative List of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2008. A third inscription was made in 2015 through a multinational nomination between Cambodia, the Philippines, the Republic of Korea and Viet Nam for the Tugging Rituals and Games, wherein the Punnuk, tugging ritual of the Ifugao was included.

As part of the objective of the 2003 Convention, the National Commission for Culture and the Arts through the Intangible Cultural Heritage unit and in partnership with ICHCAP, published the Pinagmulan: Enumeration from the Philippine Inventory of Intangible Cultural Heritage in 2012. The publication contains an initial inventory of 335 ICH elements with elaborate discussions on 109 ICH elements. The elements listed are the first batch of continuous updating process initiated by the government, UNESCO, and other stakeholders. In 2014, the Pinagmulan was a finalist under the category of the Elfren S. Cruz Prize for Best Book in the Social Sciences to the National Book Awards organized by the National Book Development Board. The Philippine inventory is currently being updated as a measure to safeguard more intangible cultural heritage elements in the country. The updating began in 2013 and results may be released in 5–10 years after the scientific process finishes the second batch of element documentations. According to UNESCO, it is not expected by a country or state party to have a completed inventory. On the contrary, the development and updating of inventories is an ongoing process that can never be finished.

Between 2015 and 2017, UNESCO's Intangible Cultural Heritage Courier of Asia and the Pacific featured the darangen epic chant, punnuk tugging ritual, and at least three kinds of traditional healing practices in the Philippines, including the manghihilot and albularyo healing practices and belief of buhay na tubig (living water) of the Tagalog people of 20th century Quezon city, the baglan and mandadawak healing practices and stone beliefs of the Itneg people in Abra, and the mantatawak healing practices of the Tagalog people of Marinduque. By 2016, according to the ICH Unit, National Commission for Culture and the Arts, there were 367 elements listed under the Philippine Inventory of Intangible Cultural Heritage (PIICH), the official ICH inventory of the Philippines. All elements under the PIICH are listed in Philippine Registry of Cultural Property (PRECUP), the official cultural property inventory of the country which includes both tangible and intangible cultural properties. In April 2018, the buklog of the Subanen people was nominated by the National Commission for Culture and the Arts in the list for urgent safeguarding.

Filipino diaspora
An Overseas Filipino is a person of Filipino origin, who lives outside of the Philippines. This term is applied to people of Filipino ancestry, who are citizens or residents of a different country. Often, these Filipinos are referred to as Overseas Filipino Workers.

There are about 11 million overseas Filipinos living worldwide, equivalent to about 11 percent of the total population of the Philippines.

Each year, thousands of Filipinos migrate to work abroad through overseas employment agencies and other programs. Other individuals emigrate and become permanent residents of other nations. Overseas Filipinos often work as doctors, nurses, accountants, IT professionals, engineers, architects, entertainers, technicians, teachers, military servicemen, students, caregivers, domestic helpers, and household maids.

International employment includes an increasing number of skilled Filipino workers taking on unskilled work overseas, resulting in what has been referred to as brain drain, particularly in the health and education sectors. Also, the employment can result in underemployment, for example, in cases where doctors undergo retraining to become nurses and other employment programs.

Festivals
Festivals in the Philippines, locally known as fiestas, originated dating back to the Spanish colonial period when the Spaniards introduced Christianity to the country. Most Philippine towns and cities has a patron saint assigned to each of them. Fiestas in the Philippines serve as either religious, cultural, or both. These festivals are held to honor the patron saint or to commemorate history and culture, such as promoting local products and celebrate a bountiful harvest. Fiestas can be categorized by Holy Masses, processions, parades, theatrical play and reenactments, religious or cultural rituals, trade fairs, exhibits, concerts, pageants and various games and contests.

Heritage towns and cities
The Philippines is home to numerous heritage towns and cities, many of which have been intentionally destroyed by the Japanese through fire tactics in World War II and the Americans through bombings during the same war. After the war, the government of the Empire of Japan withheld from giving funds to the Philippines for the restoration of the heritage towns they destroyed, effectively destroying any chances of restoration since the pre-war Philippines' economy was devastated and had limited monetary supply. On the other hand, the United States gave minimal funding for only two of the hundreds of cities they destroyed, namely, Manila and Baguio.

Today, only the centres (poblacion or downtown areas) of Filipino heritage towns and cities remain in most of the expansive heritage cities and towns in the country. Yet, some heritage cities in their former glory prior to the war still exist, such as the UNESCO city of Vigan which was the only heritage town saved from American bombing and Japanese fire and kamikaze tactics. The country currently lacks a city/town-singular architectural style law. Due to this, unaesthetic cement or shanty structures have taken over heritage buildings annually, destroying many former heritage townscapes. Some heritage buildings have been demolished or sold to corporations, and have been replaced by commercial structures such as shopping centers, condominium units, or newly furnished modern-style buildings, completely destroying the old aesthetics of many former heritage towns and cities. This is one of the reasons why UNESCO has repeatedly withheld from inscribing further Filipino heritage towns in the World Heritage List since 1999. Only the heritage city of Vigan has a town law that guarantees its singular architecture (the Vigan colonial style) shall always be used in constructions and reconstructions.

While Silay, Iloilo City, and San Fernando de Pampanga have ordinances giving certain tax exemptions to owners of heritage houses. In 2010, the Philippine Cultural Heritage Act passed into law, effectively giving protections to all cultural heritage properties of the Philippines. However, despite its passage, many ancestral home owners continue to approve the demolition of ancestral structures. In certain cases, government entities themselves were the purveyors of such demolitions.

title: Culture of the Philippines