In the Battle of Manila, the United States captured the city from the Spanish.

T his battle marked an end of Filipino-American collaboration, as Filipino forces were prevented from entering the captured city of Manila, an action deeply resen ted by the Filipinos.[92] Spain and the United States sent commissioners to Pari s to draw up the terms of the Treaty of Paris which ended the Spanish American War. The Filipino representative, Felipe Agoncillo, was excluded from sessions as the revolutionary government was not recognized by the family of nations.[92] Altho ugh there was substantial domestic opposition, the United States decided to anne x the Philippines. In addition to Guam and Puerto Rico, Spain was forced in the negotiations to hand over the Philippines to the U.S. in exchange for US$20,000, 000.00.[93] U.S. President McKinley justified the annexation of the Philippines by saying that it was "a gift from the gods" and that since "they were unfit for self-government, ... there was nothing left for us to do but to take them all, and to educate the Filipinos, and uplift and civilize and Christianize them",[94 ][95] in spite of the Philippines having been already Christianized by the Spani sh over the course of several centuries. It is also in spite of the Spanish havi ng created the first public education system in Asia (public education decree of 1863) and the first universities in the continent: University of Santo Tomas in 1611, and University of San Carlos (Cebu) in 1595. It was also clearly a misrep resentation to state that the Philippines needed to be "civilized". The archipel ago saw rapid growth and development during Spanish rule thanks to the introduct ion of many elements of Western civilization, including irrigation, the plow and the wheel, new construction and engineering methods, factories, modern hospital s, the telephone and the telegraph, railroads and public lighting. By 1898 the P hilippines was one of the most advanced countries in Asia, producing great state smen, writers and scientists such as national hero Jose Rizal.