Lost In World: Philippines

Chapter 1: Prologue

February 10, 2040.

Pasig City, Philippines.

It's 7:30 am, the people of Pasig are all awake, busy setting up their small stores, malls beginning to open, children are all dressed up ready to go to school, and the roads and highways are beginning to fill with jeepneys, cars, and trucks. Combined traffic and police patrol groups are maintaining the order on the road.

Life has been better for the Filipinos, the last 20 years have granted the Philippines stable economic growth, and by 2030, the country experience an economic boom up until this date. The once GDP per capita of $3,000 has been long gone, now the people enjoy an income of $25,000. Though not comparable to Korea and Japan that has more than $70-90,000 income, nevertheless, it was huge money for ordinary Filipinos, the government, and employment benefits are given fairly to everyone, even City Street sweepers.

With the country increased its economic power, 3 major metropolitan cities rose, the Metro Cebu in the Visayas, Metro Davao in Mindanao, and Metro-North in Aparri, Cagayan. Including the Metro Manila, the Philippines has now 4 metropolitan cities that make up the country's 45% of GDP, two new underdevelopment metropolitan cities are in the works, the Metro Zamboanga and the New Tacloban City, it is expected upon the completion of said cities will increase the country's GDP by at least 10-15 percent and possibly to generate more in the future.

With the country earning the title of a major power, the Armed Forces of the Philippines had a drastic change. The Philippine Navy has decommissioned its World War era ships donated by the USA back in 2027, a new class of ships was commissioned such as the Jose Rizal-class frigates, Andres Bonifacio-class frigates, the Lapu-Lapu class corvettes, and the PN's new Mabuhay-class destroyers, along with Scorpean-class submarines from France, some Los Angeles-class submarines from the USA and the locally made Dugong-class submarine.

The Philippine Air Force as well finally decommissioned its old helicopter fleets of UH-1 Huey helicopters, MD 520MG, OV 10 Broncos, and older types of transport aircraft and trainers. It was then replaced by UH-60 Black Hawks, CH-47 Chinook, Mi-17, and some variants of Huey plus light utility helicopters from Europe.

The PAF's Korean-made fa-50 was the primary fighter jet of the Air Force before it was taken over by the US-made F-16 Fighting Falcon, Saab Gripens, and F-15 Eagle. Despite this, PAF still uses the fa-50 and ordered more of it along with some new variants, currently, the Philippine Air Force and local arms industries joint ventured by some American and Japanese companies are making two new fighters, one multirole and one light/support fighter.

The Philippine Air Force also ordered and commissioned new attack helicopters, replacing the MD 520MG are the T129 ATAK multi-role, all-weather attack helicopter, AH-64 Apache, Bell AH-1 SuperCobra, and some donated AH-1 Cobra, there are also some units of AH-1Z for the Philippine Marine Corps.

Other than that, the Philippine Air Force also bought more C-130 transport aircraft and their variants.

The Philippine Army went into drastic change as well, first, the army decided to put its old Simba APCs and V-150 Commando, they are to be replaced by the Iveco VBTP-MR Guarani 6x6 armored carrier, M113 APC donated by the USA, and Pars III 6x6 APC from Turkey. The PA also ordered and commissioned K21 IFV.

The PA's old APCs are to be stored temporarily, there are debates about whether they scrap the APCs or upgrade and modify them to modern APC standards.

The Philippine Army's MBT and MMBT acquisition project is nearly complete, although many disagree with the PA's main battle tank acquisition, it continues without any hitch, The Merkava MBT from Israel was chosen by the Philippine Army to exclusively defend strategic areas in the main islands.