Filipinos often ask questions like, “What would Philippines be like today had Spain not colonized the island nation? Would the Filipino character developed the way it is now had the Spaniards not succeeded in putting the natives in chains for more than three centuries?

   What if the Americans observed the principle that “governments derived their just powers from the consent of the governed” [3] and decided not to stay in 1898 and allow the Filipinos to govern themselves? The Americans should have known better. That principle was the driving force of the declaration of their independence in 1776. It is touted to be the model for the right to self-determination, the very right that they deprived the Filipinos of when they colonized the Philippines. The Americans justified their occupation of the islands by saying that the Filipinos were not ready for self-governance. But how sure were they?  And even…