n the island world the process of centralization was not nearly so apparent, facing as it did formidable obstacles of geography and wide cultural variation.
The peoples of the Philippines still thought of themselves very much as 'Cebuanos' or 'Tagalogs', and to these localized loyalties was added the deeper divide between the Christianized north and centre and the Muslim south. Nonetheless, significant changes had taken place. The Spanish administration had helped to impose a degree of political uniformity, blurring some of the regional differences existing before the conquest, and their emphasis on the development of Manila gave it a pre-eminence which has survived to the present day.