Who else could colonise the "Philippines"?

If Ferdinand Magellan lands elsewhere and does not claim the land for Spain, and subsequently Miguel Lopez de Legazpi similarly reaches a different destination, then would it be possible for another European power to colonise it before Spain? And if so, who would be the most likely contenders?

Corollary question : would it be possible for the archipelago to be split between several powers?
 
Manuelinhas, né?

Luções or something based off Magellan last name could also work a Portuguese Philippines.

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The Byzantine Greeks is also possible. I've had a far fetch idea where the Byzantine Empire survived and focus and take control of the Indian Ocean, colonizing East Africa, India, Southeast Asia, and Australia.

Edit: Also I wonder if the Philippine split into a Portuguese Luzon but a Spanish Visayans & Mindanao. Any thoughts? I find it odd that the Portuguese where the first to come into contact with us but never tried to make any claim to the Philippines. https://www.philstar.com/opinion/2014/03/30/1306726/our-historical-ties-portugal
 
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Well, one of the key factors is who could find a good reason to colonize/use for the Phillipenes; one needs to remember that Spainish colonization of the islands was relatively limited, and mainly for the purpose of using Manilla as a major port/lynchpin of the Galleon trade to bring South American silver to China with which to purchase Chinese goods. The Portuguese already have Macau for that purpose, so I don't see the motivation. The Dutch seem like prime candidates, as they tried to muscle the Iberians out of the East Asian trade... perhaps it becomes a base for piracy against Spainish and Portugese commerce to start out with, gaining legitiment bussiness later on as a point of projection for trade with the Chinese (Including smuggling, perhaps?) and Japan.
 
Historians generally agree that the Philippines would have been home to little Muslim sultanates like the rest of Indonesia had the Spaniards not arrived. These weren’t conquered by Europe until the late nineteenth century.

So the answer is: nobody until the 19th century, then (assuming a butterfly net) most likely the Netherlands or GB, maybe France.
 
Byzantine Philippines! :D
Just kidding.

Japan could, in theory, conquer Luzon, if the Shogun's policy of diplomatic isolation is avoided. If this is compounded with a successful Imjin War in the 1590's and, thus, an early Japanese Korea, then the Japanese drive for conquest could be even more intense.
 
The Philippines would have been grabbed by the Portuguese and then, vassalize existing sultanates and rajanates and transform the archipelago into a trading center of East Asia.
 
Historians generally agree that the Philippines would have been home to little Muslim sultanates like the rest of Indonesia had the Spaniards not arrived. These weren’t conquered by Europe until the late nineteenth century.

So the answer is: nobody until the 19th century, then (assuming a butterfly net) most likely the Netherlands or GB, maybe France.

Yes.

Byzantine Philippines! :D
Just kidding.

Japan could, in theory, conquer Luzon, if the Shogun's policy of diplomatic isolation is avoided. If this is compounded with a successful Imjin War in the 1590's and, thus, an early Japanese Korea, then the Japanese drive for conquest could be even more intense.

No, because it is the center of trade from Malay Archipelago to Japan, the only people interested there are people from the south and west i.e. Brunei and Majapahit.

The Spanish were not interested in Acquiring Northern Luzon, it was Lakandula who made them get it.
 
Their is this map. POD is not tod bad IMO. Russia just becomes more Pacific oriented.

Without an earlier POD, Russia just doesn't have the power to maintain control over a large overseas colony like that. It would probably just be taken by another power like Britain in a war. Not to mention that Vladivostok isn't a warm water port, and it was hard to get to from European Russia pre-Trans Siberian.
 
The Manchus never conquer China, but they do conquer Korea and navally invade Japan.

The resulting thalassocratic Manchu empire colonizes the Philippines.
 
The Manchus never conquer China, but they do conquer Korea and navally invade Japan.

The resulting thalassocratic Manchu empire colonizes the Philippines.
There's so much wrong in these two sentences that it just seems...so right.

Serious note though, it'll probably be some combination of random sultanates, the Dutch, or Portuguese.

China's had a tendency of having a massive overseas presence due to migrants while also completely ignoring said migrants. So while there almost certainly will be Chinese Han presence (in OTL, there's quite a few Filipinos with Han ancestry), it probably won't be state sponsored (just going by OTL trends).

Japan's even less likely as their main focus has always ever been the mainland, i.e. the Korean peninsula and China. A victorious Toyotomi Japan that conquers AND maintains long term control of the Korean peninsula (which is unlikely seeing how much trouble they had doing the former despite having the element of surprise and more more-experienced troops) will be dedicating most of its resources projecting into China and Manchuria, then also defending from northern nomads, for at least the better part of a century. By which point some European probably has a stake in the Philippines or the Japanese turn their attention to solidifying control of SE Asia (and going bankrupt in the process since that kinda happened with most of the Chinese dynasties at some point, attacking Vietnam and suffering terrible financial losses) or the north. The Southern islands just don't have the same appeal prestige or financially that projecting towards the mainland does, especially for a nation in the Sinosphere, and controlling China as a foreign invader forces quite a bit attention towards bureaucracy (especially if the capital of Toyotomi Japan is not Beijing like with the Jin, Yuan, Ming, and Qing, forcing a shift in management), rebellions, and raids.
 
China is probably the next-most likely, and i'm not just saying that because of their proximity: iirc, for a time the Philippines were/could have been controlled by Chinese pirates (i learned about this in a book on travel legends and folklore, been meaning to look closer into it) which were set against the government of the time, so you could probably easily justify a settlement of the Phillipines by Chinese like how Madagascar was/could be settled by Europeans via Libertatia, which in turn could mean that eventually the pirates are defeated by the Chinese government which then takes an interest in the Philippines or at least has nominal control over them and so when the Europeans arrive they find that the Chinese have already set up shop and go for trade instead of colonization
 
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