The Philippines is the world's leading producer of coconut, having produced 19.5 million tons of fruit in 2010.

The According to the 2000 census, 52 million people in the Philippines speak English, making it the fifth largest English-speaking nation behind the U.S., India, Pakistan, and the U.K.

Of the top 10 largest shopping malls in the world, three are found in the Philippines: SM Megamall, SM North Edsa, and SM Mall of Asia.

The islands were dubbed “the Philippines” after King Philip II of Spain.

In 2009, about 1.39 billion SMS messages were being sent in the Philippines daily. The country was one of the earliest adopters of text messaging, earning the moniker “text capital of the world” from the mid ’90s to the early 2000s.

The positioning of the Philippine flag’s colors indicate 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.

Then in 1611, the University of Santo Tomas (or, lovingly, “Usté”) was founded in Manila by the Dominican Order. It is the world’s largest Catholic university in terms of population. Both it and University of San Carlos are older than Harvard, which was not founded until 1636.

Depending on the method of classification, there are 125 to 170 languages in use in the Philippines, such as Tagalog, Cebuano, Ilocano, Hiligaynon, Bicolano, Waray, and Kapampangan.

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. It’s Pinoy upcycling!

Pope John Paul II offered a mass to about five million Filipinos on Jan. 18, 1995, at Luneta Park in Manila. The event went into the Guinness Book of World Records as the Biggest Papal Crowd at the time.