I was on TikTok when I stumbled upon a video of a young American, maybe in his mid 30s, seated in a café in Bonifacio Global City. The setting was polished and familiar. His caption read, “What’s it like dating and living in the third world.”
I paused. Then I commented.
I cannot remember my exact words, but the point was simple. The term he used was outdated and historically inaccurate. I added that if someone plans to make content about living or dating in the Philippines, especially for a wide audience, the least they could do is a bit of research to avoid misunderstanding and confusion.
That was it. No insults. No outrage. Just a correction.
What followed surprised me. Fellow Filipinos jumped into the replies, calling me dumb, oversensitive, and in denial. Many insisted that we are a third world country anyway, so why bother correcting him. That reaction said more about us than the video ever did.
Filipinos have grown up hearing the phrase “third world country” used casually, sometimes jokingly, sometimes with embarrassment, and often as an explanation for why things do not work the way we want them to. Brownouts, traffic, red tape, corruption. Someone will inevitably say, “Eh third world kasi tayo.” It sounds factual, almost scientific. But the truth is, the label itself is outdated, confused, and frequently misused.
The term “Third World” did not begin as an economic insult. It was coined in the 1950s by a French demographer during the Cold War, when the world was divided politically, not economically. The First World referred to countries aligned with the United States and its allies. The Second World described the communist bloc aligned with the Soviet Union. The Third World meant everyone else. Neutral states. Non-aligned nations. Countries that refused to take sides.
By that definition, nations as different as Yugoslavia, Switzerland, India, and Brazil once fell under the same category. None of them were poor by default. They were simply not playing the Cold War game.
That original meaning has been largely forgotten. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Second World quietly disappeared from public vocabulary. Its former members were absorbed into NATO, the European Union, or reclassified under looser economic groupings. What remained was a binary: First World and Third World, developed and developing, rich and poor. The political meaning faded, replaced by an economic judgment.
This is where the problem begins.
Calling a country “third world” today is no longer descriptive. It is dismissive. It suggests permanent backwardness, as if development were a fixed ladder and some countries are destined to remain at the bottom. That is why the term has slowly become unacceptable in academic and diplomatic spaces, even as it continues to thrive in everyday conversation as an insult, sometimes even aimed at developed nations experiencing political turmoil.
In response, the term “Global South” emerged.
On the surface, it sounds more neutral, more polite. It avoids ranking. There is no first or third, just geography. But the term is not literal. Australia and New Zealand are in the southern hemisphere and are among the most developed nations in the world. Meanwhile, many countries considered part of the Global South are actually north of the equator: India, the Philippines, much of Southeast Asia.
The “South” in Global South is symbolic. It refers to regions that experienced colonialism, delayed industrialization, and uneven access to global capital. It highlights historical and structural inequality rather than inherent failure. In theory, it is a more honest framework.
Yet even this term has limits.
There is no meaningful Global North in everyday discussion, despite the phrase existing in theory. Europe and North America are lumped together, ignoring massive political, cultural, and economic differences. The same oversimplification applies to the Global South. Singapore and Yemen do not share the same realities. Neither do the Philippines and Nigeria. Lumping them together may be convenient, but it blurs more than it clarifies.
So where does that leave us as Filipinos?
The Philippines is not a Third World country in the original sense. We are not neutral outsiders in a Cold War that ended decades ago. We are also not accurately defined by perpetual “developing” status, as if growth were something always about to happen but never arriving.
We are a lower middle-income country with a complex economy, deep inequality, strong human capital, chronic governance problems, and enormous potential that is often undermined by political choices rather than lack of capability. That is not a slogan. It is a reality.
Perhaps the better question is not what label we should use, but why we are so eager to label ourselves at all.
When Filipinos casually describe the country as “third world,” it often functions as a shortcut for frustration. It explains failure without demanding accountability. It normalizes dysfunction. It allows us to accept poor services, weak institutions, and low standards as inevitable rather than fixable.
Language matters because it shapes expectation. When we speak of ourselves as permanently behind, we begin to govern and live that way.
If we must use a term, “developing country” remains the most accurate in a technical sense, though even that suggests a destination that is never clearly defined. More importantly, we should speak in specifics rather than labels. Talk about infrastructure gaps. Talk about education outcomes. Talk about governance failures and policy successes. These are measurable. “Third world” is not.
The Philippines is not a punchline, and it is not a convenient backdrop for someone else’s content. It is also not a country that can be reduced to a Cold War label that no longer fits.
We are a place where progress and failure exist side by side, often in the same street, sometimes in the same building. We have areas that function well and systems that clearly do not. Pretending all of this can be explained by calling ourselves “third world” only flattens the conversation and excuses the people and decisions that actually deserve scrutiny.
Maybe the issue is not choosing between “Third World” or “Global South.” Maybe the issue is our comfort with labels that allow us to stop asking harder questions.
What kind of country are we building? Who benefits from the way things work now? And why are we so quick to accept a term that lowers the bar before the conversation even begins?
Those questions matter more than any label we borrow.