This, this is what I'm talking about. The philippines is too heavily influenced by the west via culture and religion. To effectively replace the said country's name, you have to replace the local "Superior"(take note of the quotation mark) culture and instill your own replacement. You don't name a heavily populated catholic latino country with a chinese name. Even if china had a colony there once, the Chinese culture in that example country would be just a footnote.
Tell me, what percentage of moro people hates being called filipinos? Do you have any quotes of a person that said or implied that he hates being called a filipino while also represent the large percentage of the moro people? When I've been in mindanao, every school I see sang the national anthem, a large percentage of them speak tagalog and all of them identified them self as a filipino.
Seriously? why the **** would you even bring the spratly island in a discussion about naming a country on which you have no authority to do? And since philippines also has claims of the spratly island, by that logic the philippine government also has a say on naming your country. The same thing can also be said to china, Vietnam and Borneo. I'm guessing logic isn't your strong suit.
I really don't care. Why post this?
Because the local "superior" culture at the time named the country. By that 300+ years, the culture, language and religion became INTERTWINED hence and the people began to accept the name. You don't rename a place that's been accepted for 300 years in a whim.
And Protip, nearly all colonization in the past have same racism in them. The philippines is not an exception.