Commonwealth of the Philippines
After the War in the Philippines the Commonwealth was restored and a one-year transitional period in preparation for independence began. Elections followed in April 1946 with Manuel Roxas winning as the first president of the independent Republic of the Philippines and Elpidio Quirino winning as vice-president. In spite of the years of Japanese occupation, the Philippines became independent exactly as scheduled a decade before, on July 4, 1946.
Moro people
In 1898 via the treaty of Paris the Philippines was turned over to the United States of America. The Americans took over the Philippines in 1898, despite the ratification of the Philippine Declaration of Independence on September 29, 1898 by the Malolos Congress. Prior to the signing of the treaty, a cable message from Pres. McKinley on Nov. 25, 1898 was very explicit: "... to accept merely Luzon, leaving the rest of the islands subject to Spanish rule, or to be the subject of future contention, cannot be justified on political, commercial, or humanitarian grounds. The cessation must be the whole archipelago or none. The latter is wholly inadmissible, and the former must therefore be required." This however, did not settle well with the Muslims (Moros), and they fought, and are still continuing to fight to take back the homeland they lost to the subsequent violence of American colonizers.