1.

Physical Features
a. Taal Volcano in Talisay, Batangas, is one of the worlds 17 Decade
Volcanoes volcanoes that need to be looked after given their active
state and explosive history. Its also located in a lake, and has a lake
inside it, with an even smaller island in it!
b.
c. The amount of sulfur dioxide expelled by Mount Pinatubo during its
eruption on Jun. 15, 1991, created a two-year haze of sulfuric acid all
over the world. It caused global temperatures to drop by 0.5 C (0.9
F).
d. In the province of Camiguin, there are more volcanos (seven) than
towns (five). There hasnt been an eruption since the mid-1950s, but
the island has the most number of volcanoes per square kilometer in
the world.
e. The rice terraces of the Philippine Cordilleras are a UNESCO World
Heritage Site. The terraces were built about 2,000 years ago and
thanks to the rough terrain keeping settlers out remain as they
would have been in pre-colonial times.
f. The cone of the sea snail Conus gloriamaris is a highly valued
collectors item, the first examples of which were found in the
Philippines and sold at auction for upwards of $5,000.
2. History
a. After the Second World War, the Philippine jeepney was born out of the
G.I. Jeeps American soldiers brought to the country in the 1940s. Its
Pinoy upcycling!
b. About 25 years before the first book was printed in the United States,
the Tagala, the first Filipino-Spanish dictionary, was printed in 1613.
c. The Philippines has won at least eight major international beauty
pageant titles: two for Miss Universe; five for Miss International; and at
least one for Miss World, the current titleholder being Megan Young.
d. In 2002, the worlds biggest pair of shoes was made in Marikina City.
The wingtips clock in at about 5.3 meters in length, 2.4 meters in
width, and almost 2 meters in height. They cost two million Philippine
pesos.
e. The positioning of the Philippine flags colors indicates a message. If it
is flown with the red stripe on top, the nation is in a state of war.
Otherwise, during peacetime, the blue is on top.
3. Natural Resources
a. The largest Philippine wild animal, the tamaraw, is a species of the
buffalo that is similar to the carabao. It is found only in the island of
Mindoro.
b. The largest fish in the world, the Whale Shark, locally known as
Butanding, regularly swims to the Philippine waters.
c. The worlds shortest and lightest freshwater fish is the dwarf pygmy
goby (Pandaka Pygmaea), a colorless and nearly transparent species

found in the streams and lakes of Luzon. Males have an average length
of 8.7 mm. and weigh 4-5 mg.
d. There are 12,000 or so species of seashells in the Philippines. The
Conus Gloriamaris or "Glory of the Sea" is the rarest and most
expensive in the world.
e. Waling Waling Orchids - With some 800 to 1,000 species of orchids, the
Philippines has one of the richest orchid floras in the world. Philippine
orchids come in an amazing array of shapes, sizes and colors. Most
grow only in old-growth forest, often on branches of huge trees dozens
of meters above the forest floor.
4. Climate / Weather
a. Filipinos celebrate the worlds longest religious holiday. The Christmas
season begins on September 1st, as chillier winds and Christmas carols
start filling the air, and ends on the first week of January, during the
Feast of the Three Kings.
b. Kibungan is known as the Switzerland of Benguet because of the
frost during the cold months.
c. The coldest temperature ever recorded in our country happens in
January 1903 at Baguio where the temperature plump to just 3
degrees Celsius.
d. In May 1987, the hottest temperature in Metro Manila was recorded at
38.5 degrees Celsius.
e. The 42.2 degrees C recorded on April 1969 in Tuguegarao, Cagayan
which is considered as the hottest temperature ever recorded in the
Philippine history.
5. Government
a. The Philippines, in southeastern Asia, consists of 7,107 islands lying between
the South China Sea and the Pacific Ocean. The islands of Luzon and
Mindanao account for two-thirds of the land area.
b. The Philippines lies just north of the world's largest Muslim state, Indonesia, it
is about 94 percent Christianmostly Roman Catholic.
c. The government continues to make progress in negotiations with Muslim
rebels with a cease-fire in 2003, and it works to provide political
representation and economic development to the Autonomous Region of
Muslim Mindanao.
d. The Philippines is a republic with a presidential form of government wherein
power is equally divided among its three branches: executive, legislative, and
judicial.
e. One basic corollary in a presidential system of government is the principle of
separation of powers wherein legislation belongs to Congress, execution to
the Executive, and settlement of legal controversies to the Judiciary.