o central power arose to make the Philippines a single country. Instead, the people lived in autonomous clusters of villages, or barangay, each with its own chieftain. In time, some places became important trading centers, often outposts of the Indianized empires of South-east Asia. These places became tied into the developing Asian maritime trade routes very early on. There is evidence, for example, of trade between the Philippines and Cham (in today’s Vietnam) in 500BC.

            Records for China’s largest port, Quanzhou, situated on the coast of Fujian province, show that by the 10^th century Filipino merchants were sailing regularly to China for business. Moreover, throughout China’s Song and Yuan dynasties (960-1368) Chinese ships traded extensively with the Philippines, resulting in the establishment of permanent Chinese communities at a number of sites around the coast. Large finds of Chinese pottery and coins indicate that the main Philippine trading centers were at Butuan (on the north coast of Mindanao), Cebu (today the Philippines’ second most important city), Tondo (a district in today’s Manila) and the Sulu Islands.

Traders and immigrants also came from the south, mainly Borneo, but also Java and Sumatra. The most famous of the Malay immigrations is undoubtedly that of the Ten Datus (Malay chief­tains), who are said to have fled with all their people from persecu­tion in Borneo. They landed on Panay, where they were able to reach an agreement with the local Negrit0s to take over large parcels of land. The ten groups subse­quently took over large areas of Panay and southern Luzon, becom­ing the ancestors of today's inhabi­tants of these regions. There were other Malay immigrations: the Mangyan people of Mindoro, for example, probably were derived from such an immigration 600-700 years ago

From the 13th century onwards Arab missionaries began to arrive In tile Sulu Islands aboard Chinese ships, starting the Islamization of the south-west. Sulu's first Islamic sultanate was established in 1450 under Sayyid Abu Bakr, a refugee prince from Sumatra. Islam then spread northwards into Mindanao, the sultanate of Maguindanao being established at the end of the 15th century.