I keep hearing the statistics: at various times after the US colonial occupation—from the late colonial years before WW2, through "independence" in 1946, until the 1960s when Ferdinand Marcos the dictator came to power—the American Philippines had the best treatment, all things considered, of any colony under any colonial power; or if not the best, certainly up there with the best. As in:
That to me is more than a bit troubling, because if it's true, it means we (I'm Filipino) are indebted to them to such an enormous degree that we can never go it properly on our own. Even today they give us military equipment and keep helping us fight our insurgencies; do you see Vietnam relying on France or Indonesia relying on the Netherlands to the degree the Philippines insists on relying on the US today? Those European powers may not have brought as much material benefits to their colonies … but that helped the cause of nationalism in those colonies in the long run. For Filipinos, America has such an enormously positive public perception, that any sort of genuine nationalism runs afoul of offending American sensibilities.
Like I heard online once: "if you're anti-American, you're anti-Filipino."
Is it really true that the US-PH colonial relationship was, in terms of real benefits, the most "benevolent"? Did any other colonial empire in the last 500–1000 years treat their colonies this "nicely"—the French in Vietnam, the British in Singapore or Malaysia, Hong Kong or India, the Dutch in Indonesia, the Japanese in Taiwan, the Germans in Tsingtao or their tiny pre-WW1 Pacific colonies, or even the Soviets in the satellite republics? Indeed, does the US treat its other colonies this "good" as well (e.g. Puerto Rico)? I mean, they've apparently worked their magic on Puerto Rico so well, that Puerto Ricans insist on voting to become the 51st state!
I realise independence might be fraught with difficulty for a lot of Puerto Ricans, but come on, would you really rather want to remain a US colony? (Because, yeah, let's call it what it is—instead of a PC term like "territory", and it's not like a lot of US politicians like being PC anymore, especially now.)
(For this question, do not include settler colonies, e.g. colonial America, Canada, Australia or New Zealand; the fundamental dynamics of those colonies, even under colonial rule, was very different, because settlers (or prisoners in Australia's case) from the colonial centres founded them; they didn't have large, organised indigenous populations to be exploited (mostly they just killed them off, though they exploited the remainder anyway).)
What you're talking about is the "uplift" model of colonialism, and it's enormously problematic.
I think you would be interested in reading Julian Go's American Empire and the Politics of Meaning. He's a sociologist but it's about what you're asking. I also recommend Paul Kramer's The Blood of Government.