The powerful Roman Catholic church (the Philippines is Asia's only Catholic country) has also intervened.
Chairman and cofounder of Nickel Asia, Philippines' largest nickel producer, formed in early 2006 to consolidate ownership of several related companies.
His family is now a major shareholder in Nickel Asia, the Philippines' largest nickel producer.
The Philippines has been one of Asia's strongest performing markets over the past year, as investors were attracted to the country's growth story.
Continuing strong performances by Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines will boost Developing East Asia, excluding China, to 5.7 percent in 2013 and 5.8 percent in 2014, the Bank said in a press release today.
These visits have provoked the usual grumbles from China though not quite as fiercely as some expected but these in turn have not received the usual bland response from South-East Asia: the Philippines' dusty comment was to remind China that there was a financial crisis to worry about.
But it would be nice to see more Asian faces on the runways and in American and European magazines so that the boys growing up in China, Singapore, Indonesia, the Philippines and other parts of Asia would have role models they can relate to, models who have the same skin color or facial features as them.
The other sharp equities move in Asia was in the Philippines, where the PSE Composite dropped 3.2% as strong first quarter growth data beat expectations, triggering profit-taking in a market that has already gained 21% so far in 2013.
Now Thailand and the Philippines count themselves as South-East Asia's most open and thriving democracies.
These doubts were proven wrong nearly six decades ago, when the Republic of the Philippines became the first democratic nation in Asia.
The Filipino poor, who are denied such means, are stuck in poverty and the Philippines remains the most unequal country in Asia.
Elsewhere in Asia, stocks in the Philippines tumbled in heavy selling as foreign funds unwound positions in anticipation of the U.S. Federal Reserve beginning to wind down its bond-buying program.
Founder and chairman of Metrobank, one of the Philippines' largest financial institutions with branches in Asia, U.S. and Europe.
Perhaps it is only fitting that FORBES ASIA wrap up our inaugural series of country-specific lists of Southeast Asia's wealthiest with the Philippines.
As the climate has worsened in Japan, they have simply moved more of their business offshore: first, following the sex-tourists, to the Philippines and the rest of South-East Asia, and more recently to Latin America and even Europe.
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With good reason: in 1996 Misuari helped end one of the longest-running insurgencies in Southeast Asia, a triumph that brought the Philippines closer to its Muslim neighbors and heralded the prospect of prosperity for Mindanao.
MANILA, Philippines (AP) Filipinos in Asia's largest predominantly Roman Catholic nation attended Mass on Sunday with their church awkwardly having no pope for the first time in 600 years and prayed for the smooth rise of a successor to Benedict XVI to lead an embattled institution.
The Philippines is reported to have the most expensive electricity in Asia and slum homes do not have electricity meters with illegal connections costing more than standard rates.
Twelve months ago, leaders from the 18 nations that comprise the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum gathered in the Philippines' sunny Subic Bay for their annual meeting.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and the Pentagon have correctly determined that, if the US is to project power in remote regions of the world, American forces must move out of their huge and comfortable golf-green garrisons at home and in foreign lands that served well during the Cold War, and into Eastern Europe, Central Asia, the Horn of Africa, and the Philippines.
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"The Philippines has more operators and potential operators than most countries in Southeast Asia put together, " says Jason Billings of SBC Warburg in Hong Kong.
They are also lambasted abroad: a 2010 survey by CLSA, a broker, placed the country third-from-bottom in Asia on governance, ahead of only Indonesia and the Philippines.
Asia Pacific Fund manager Do believes the economic recovery in the Philippines will continue.
All right, the Philippines is not Malaysia, and history seldom repeats itself exactly, in Asia or anywhere else.
And East Asia, especially Korea and Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia and the Philippines, are posting impressive new growth rates as their economies recover.
In Asia the chain has stores in China, Singapore, the Philippines, Malaysia and Thailand, and he has his eye next on Vietnam and South Korea.
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It is also worth remembering that when Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Indonesia set up ASEAN in 1967, Southeast Asia was divided into two Cold War blocs: communist Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam, versus the other essentially pro-Western nations (apart from non-aligned Burma).
"In terms of dollars, we think this could be bigger than anything we have ever seen before, " says Stephen Vickers, Asia chief for Kroll Associates, which helped investigate the wealth of the Philippines' former President Ferdinand Marcos.
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