And that’s exactly why they wouldn’t be allowed to have the whole Phillipines. They would get the northern part, but Britain will take the south to keep the Japanese away from Malaya. Either that or they give it to the Netherlands and get the rest of Borneo in exchange.
I’m no apologist for the Kaiserreich, but Germany deciding to just massacre the Filipinos is implausible. They would probably be more heavy-handed with the Tagalog nationalists and Moros than America, but it isn’t going to descend into Belgian Congo or Second World War Eastern Front levels of depravity.
Some more cold water.
The Germans sure tried to muscle their way in when the Americans fought at Manila Bay. It should not have come as a surprise and did not to the Americans, that would happen, based on the Samoan Incident and other clashes in the Pacific. The Americans with their hair trigger tempered commander, George Dewey was not too keen about that incompetent von Dederichs, when he stumble bummed his way into Manila Bay and tried "make deals" with the Spaniards and Aguinaldo.
The Japanese, not to be left out, at the time, had an interesting ultranationalist movement, called the Shishi, left over from their Edo Republic period nonsense, when the French tried to interfere in their internal affairs. Anyhow, one of these Shishi fellows, in a classic Japanese example of what the Americans recognized immediately as a filibuster, a chap named Hara Tei, at about the same time that von Dederichs almost got the Germans and Americans into a hot war with his shenanigans in Subic Bay and inside Manila city and with his secret meetings with Aguinaldo's people massing near Bataan, this "volunteer" joined Aguinaldo's Filipino National Army with a company of fellow "volunteers" and was almost immediately on the American "radar" as another big troublemaker. This guy, Hara, was not subtle. Well, maybe a little more subtle than von Dederichs, but the upshot was that he was persona non grataed (to be killed on sight), as soon as the Americans dealt with von Dederichs and took Manila under Aguinaldo's nose.
The idea that the Spanish American War is not going to kybosh the OP, is simply not in the cards. Your initial PoD has to go into place way before 1848 as American and Spanish enmity goes back that far at least over Cuba. Possibly as far back as the Florida conquest. This speculation, therefore, is just not going to happen. Too much 19th century history has to be derailed.
P.S. Google Sulu Sultanate and "the Battle of the Crater" and then get a true picture of American operations in the Philippine Islands. This assumption that the American army was not as harsh as the WW I Germans is utterly fallacious. Or try this;
Here.
I want no prisoners. I wish you to kill and burn, the more you kill and burn the better it will please me. I want all persons killed who are capable of bearing arms in actual hostilities against the United States," General Jacob H. Smith said.
Since it was a popular belief among the Americans serving in the Philippines that native males were born with
bolos in their hands, Major
Littleton "Tony" Waller asked, "I would like to know the limit of age to respect, sir."
"Ten years", Smith said.
"Persons of ten years and older are those designated as being capable of bearing arms?"
"Yes." Smith confirmed his instructions a second time.
That was the situation on Samar. Might want to take a look at Congressional hearings on the American army's activities in Northern Luzon. One senator is reputed to have commented after visiting the area to see for himself; that it was pacified because there were no men of arms bearing age left alive in the districts...(^^^)