Considering East Timor is not only the other Catholic majority nation in Asia and handsdown the most Catholic region in the Indonesian islands, I am curious how differently the development of the nation had been if Spain took East Timor and Portugal the Philippines instead.
Would both nations still be predominantly Catholic? In particular would the Portuguese have taken more advantage of Philipppines as a trading post and economic viability and exploit the country more while East Timor be merely used as a backwater for Spain? Would modern East Timorian culture be more European influenced while Philippines remain mostly Malayan culturally (even if they convert to Roman Catholicism via Portuguese influence)?
I mean I seen East Timorian artworks, dress, and arthcitecutre and they look very Malayan/Indonesian. About the only thing blatantly Portuguese in current East Timor is the Catholic churches for obvious reason. Meanwhile the Philippines adopted so much Spanish influences that Filipino culture can pass for Hispanic and only the lack of adoption of Spanish language and most Filipinos lacking IBerian blood being the sole reason Philippines is not a technically Hispanic nation.
So I am curious how this turns out. Would East Timor be the Hispanics of Asia today considering its much smaller and thus easier to "Hispanised" than PI?