Spanish–Moro conflict
The Spanish initiated the conflict by conquering the Philippines and invading Moro territory in an effort to subjugate the region to their rule since the 1500s. When the Spanish conquered the Muslim Kingdom of Maynila, a vassal of the Sultanate of Brunei, the Islamic rajah, Rajah Sulayman resisted the Spanish. Manila then became the capital of the Spanish Philippines after the conquest, with the Spanish forcibly converting people to Catholicism. The Spanish–Moro Wars started with the Castille War, a war between Spaniards and the Sultanate of Brunei. (The term "Moro" at this time included Muslim Tagalogs who were ruled by the Sultanate of Brunei).
Miguel López de Legazpi
For the next 333 years, from 1565 when Spain first established a colony in the country until the Treaty of Paris on December 10, 1898, the Philippines was a Spanish colony (including the years 1762–1764 when the British controlled Manila and the port city of Cavite but not the whole country).