It was signed by US President Harry Truman on August 14, 1946, after the U.S. Senate gave its advice and consent on July 31, 1946, by ratification of the treaty.

Commodore Dewey's decisive victory in the Battle of Manila Bay on May 1, 1898, marked the fall of Spanish inshore defenses in the Philippines.

[7]The "painful discrepancy in interests"[7] became increasingly obvious to Aguinaldo, who once declined to attend a Fourth of July ceremony in Cavite after he was addressed "general", instead of "president", in the written invitation.

"[7] Brigadier General Thomas Anderson dismissed Aguinaldo's speculations: "I cannot answer that, but in 122 years we have established no colonies....

Instead, both agreed on a set of terms provided by the Treaty of Paris to which the First Philippine Republic objected, marking the start of the Philippine–American War.

The Treaty of Paris of 1898 was an agreement made in 1898 that involved Spain relinquishing nearly all of the remaining Spanish Empire, especially Cuba, and ceding Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines to the United States.

By the end of his term, US President Theodore Roosevelt "came to believe that the United States could not sustain long-term imperialism because of its ideals of self-government and its party system."

[19] The Commonwealth, as established in 1935 featured a very strong executive, a unicameral national assembly, and a supreme court that had entirely Filipinos for the first time since 1901.

In 1935, Quezon won the election to fill the newly created office of President, and a government was formed on the basis of principles that were superficially similar to the US Constitution.

The new government embarked on an ambitious agenda of establishing the basis for national defense, greater control over the economy, reforms in education, improvement of transport, the colonization of the island of Mindanao, and the promotion of local capital and industrialization.

The Commonwealth however, was also faced with agrarian unrest, an uncertain diplomatic and military situation in Southeast Asia, and uncertainty about the level of United States commitment to the future Republic of the Philippines.

[20] In 1939 and 1940, the Philippine Constitution was amended to restore a bicameral Congress and to permit the re-election of Quezon, previously restricted to a single, six-year term.

[21] The Commonwealth ended when the United States recognized Philippine independence on July 4, 1946, as scheduled per the Tyding-McDuffie Act and Article XVIII of the 1935 Constitution.

[22][23] In accordance with the Tydings–McDuffie Act, President Harry S. Truman issued Proclamation 2695 of July 4, 1946 officially recognizing the independence of the Philippines.

President Osmena "supported U.S. rights to bases in his country by backing them publicly and by signing a secret agreement.

"[30] That culminated in the Military Bases Agreement, which was signed and submitted for Philippine Senate approval by Osmena's successor, President Manuel Roxas.

[30] Firstly, the US proposed to have its own large-scale military facility in Manila even though it would have intervened with urban growth as well as lead to "serious friction between U.S. soldiers and local citizens"[30] because of the hostile postwar environment.