Japanese occupation of the Philippines in the context of Philippine Commonwealth

The Commonwealth of the Philippines (Spanish: Mancomunidad de Filipinas; Tagalog: Komonwelt ng Pilipinas) was an unincorporated territory and commonwealth (dependency) of the United States that existed from 1935 to 1946. It was established following the Tydings–McDuffie Act to replace the Insular Government of the Philippine Islands and was designed as a transitional administration in preparation for full Philippine independence. Its foreign affairs remained managed by the United States.

During its more than a decade of existence, the Commonwealth had a strong executive and a supreme court. Its legislature, dominated by the Nacionalista Party, was initially unicameral but later bicameral. In 1937, the government selected Tagalog – the language of the capital Manila and its surrounding provinces – as the basis of the national language, although it would be many years before its usage became general. Women's suffrage was adopted, and the economy recovered to pre-Depression levels before the Japanese invasion of the islands in 1941. A period of exile took place during World War II from 1942 to 1945, when Japan occupied the Commonwealth.

The governor-general of the Philippines (Tagalog: Gobernador-Heneral ng Pilipinas; Spanish: Gobernador General de Filipinas; Japanese: フィリピン総督, romanized: Firipin sōtoku) was the title of the government executive during the colonial period of the Philippines, first by the Spanish in Mexico City and later Madrid as "Captain General"– Spanish: Capitán General de Filipinas, Filipino: Kapitan Heneral ng Pilipinas) from 1565 to 1898 and the United States (1898–1946), and briefly by Great Britain (1762–1764) and Japan (1942–1945). They were also the representative of the executive of the ruling power.

On November 15, 1935, the Commonwealth of the Philippines was established as a transitional government to prepare the country for independence from American control. The governor-general was replaced by an elected Filipino president of the Philippine Commonwealth, as the chief executive of the Philippines, taking over many of the duties of the governor-general. The former American governor-general then became known as the high commissioner to the Philippines.

The Second Philippine Republic, officially the Republic of the Philippines and also known as the Japanese-sponsored Philippine Republic, was a Japanese-backed government established on October 14, 1943, during the Japanese occupation of the islands until its dissolution on August 17, 1945.

The National Assembly of the Philippines (Tagalog: Kapulungáng Pambansâ ng Pilipinas, Spanish: Asamblea Nacional de Filipinas) refers to the legislature of the Commonwealth of the Philippines from 1935 to 1941, and of the Second Philippine Republic during the Japanese occupation. The National Assembly of the Commonwealth was created under the 1935 Constitution, which served as the Philippines' fundamental law to prepare it for its independence from the United States of America.

The National Assembly during the Japanese occupation of the Philippines during the Second World War in the Pacific was created by the 1943 Constitution. With the invasion of the Philippines, the Commonwealth government had gone into exile to the United States. It left behind a skeletal bureaucracy whose officials formed a government under the Japanese Imperial Army. In an attempt to win the loyalty of Filipinos, the Japanese established a nominally independent Republic of the Philippines, with a National Assembly as its legislative body. The Second Philippine Republic was only recognized by the Axis powers.

The Battle of Leyte (Filipino: Labanan sa Leyte; Waray: Gubat ha Leyte; Japanese: レイテの戦い) in the Pacific campaign of World War II was the amphibious invasion of the island of Leyte in the Philippines by American forces and Filipino guerrillas under the overall command of General Douglas MacArthur, who fought against the Imperial Japanese Army in the Philippines led by General Tomoyuki Yamashita. The operation, codenamed King Two, launched the Philippines campaign of 1944–45 for the recapture and liberation of the entire Philippine Archipelago and to end almost three years of Japanese occupation.

Emilio Aguinaldo y Famy QSC CCLH PMM KGCR (Spanish: [eˈmiljo aɣiˈnaldo j ˈfami]: March 22, 1869 – February 6, 1964) was a Filipino revolutionary, statesman, and military leader who became the first president of the Philippines (1899–1901), and the first president of an Asian constitutional republic. He led the Philippine forces first against Spain in the Philippine Revolution (1896–1898), then in the Spanish–American War (1898), and finally against the United States during the Philippine–American War (1899–1901). He is regarded in the Philippines as having been the country's first president during the period of the First Philippine Republic, though he was not recognized as such outside of the revolutionary Philippines.

Aguinaldo is known as a national hero in the Philippines. However, he was also known to be somewhat controversial due to his alleged involvement in the deaths of the revolutionary leader Andrés Bonifacio and general Antonio Luna, and for his collaboration with the Empire of Japan during their occupation of the Philippines in World War II.

UTC+09:00 is an identifier for a time offset from UTC of +09:00.

During the Japanese occupations of British Borneo, Burma, Hong Kong, Dutch East Indies, Malaya, Philippines, Singapore, and French Indochina, it was used as a common time with Tokyo until the fall of the Empire of Japan.