With the biggest resistance movements being put down at the turn of the century, America didn't seem to be having problems in holding the Philippines. In granting the Philippines it's independence, of course there were concessions made by the Philippine government. The maintenance of bases, trade agreements, etc. but wouldn't America have been able to reap all of these benefits and more had it chosen to not grant the Philippines its independence? Why would they choose to do this?
hoo boy, this is a hard question that historians have been arguing over for a long time. this isn't exactly my specialty.
suffice it to say, british or french-style colonization of the philippines was never on the table.
the united states has never been totally on board with the project of colonial acquisition the way that the great powers of europe were. just like russia's experience in siberia, the americans had the luxury of expanding into the lightly populated west, creating a massive continent-spanning country, at the expense of the few mexicans and indians living there.
during the great westward expansion, the americans consciously tried to avoid large pre-existing populations that would be difficult to control -- witness the failure of the "all-mexico movement" in 1848 and the failure to annex santo domingo (the dominican republic) in 1869. some of this has to do with racism, and some of this has to do with america's own history as a colony. whatever the reason, it wasn't an accident that a big chunk of the democratic party's platform in the 1900 presidential election was to oppose the annexation of cuba, the philippines, and puerto rico.
now, don't get me wrong. this doesn't mean that the americans didn't play the game of empires, or that the americans were paragons compared to the british, french, belgians, and japanese. but what it does mean is that american imperialism in the 19th and early 20th century preferred to have indirect rule over the countries in its sphere of influence, repeatedly intervening militarily under what's known as the roosevelt corollary to the monroe doctrine. puerto rico and the philippines, both under direct american control, were the exception rather than the rule. places like haiti, cuba, panama, and nicaragua were all invaded repeatedly by the u.s., but never were taken under direct american suzerainty.
Follow up: Why didn't they make Philippines a state?