I touched on this a little here, so I will use that post as the basis for a little expansion. That post also includes a link to a previous answer on how colonialism was developedd in the Philippines by the US. The US in many ways relied a lot on guaranteeing elites that collaborated good positions in the society. Letting elites into positions of power was in stark contrast to colonialism elsewhere in the world, including the Philippines under Spain. This gave Americans favor among many important groups of Filipinos. Thus, after independence, the US could keep a finger on the pulse of Filipino politics without direct control; the people in charge in the Philippines were there because of the US to begin with. After independence, the US became a privileged economic partner to the Philippines. The Philippines closely followed the dangerous advices given by the International Monetary Fund and World Bank (two organizations controlled or heavily influenced by the US). The later Marcos dictatorship was also funded by the US; in that time Marcos never dedicated resources to economic development. As you can see, the insidious nature of US colonialism has affected Filipino politics all the way up to the present day.

As for social aspects, a big one to mention is language. It's a great example of the effects of what is essentially America-positive propaganda. Tagalog is the national language and everyone generally speaks a different native language as well. Usually English is a third language for Filipinos. However, it is very privileged in the school system; some schools even punish children for speaking in local vernaculars instead of English. Subjects such as math and science are taught in English instead of local vernaculars, which no doubt contributes to the extremely low test scores in those subjects in the country; it must be incredibly difficult to learn calculus or statistics in one's third or fourth language, right? But English is a prestige language, so it is not questioned seriously by most people, and many even make excuses for this silly and ridiculous situation. As a result, many Filipinos do not see their languages as "important" or languages of intelligence. In fact, the laws are written in English and English is used in court as well; this has caused significant issues in court cases, since most Filipinos do not have a good enough understanding of English to understand legal language. So now you have an issue of democracy on the line; Filipinos are beholden to laws not written by or for them, and comprehension is a problem. How can this be a consolidated, liberal democracy when the people cannot even understand the laws effectively? The government can do whatever it wants. English will never replace local vernaculars or Tagalog as the primary language for communication, but for education and cultural pride, English occupies very concerning territory.