I would like to know why phillippines is spelled with “ph” and fillipino is spelled with “f”. this has puzzled me for years.
Also, Phillippines is spelled with two Ps and Fillipino only one. 
But, both Philippines and Filipino are spelled with only one “l”.
The Philipines are named after King Philip (Felipe) of Spain, and were known in Spanish as Las Islas Felipinas. People from there are filipino/as. “The Philipines” is an Americanization of the original name.
phonetic spelling?
I do know that real Filipinos say something that sounds more like pill-ih-PEE-no (IPA: [pɪlɪˈpino])
I don’t believe Tagalog even has an “f” sound. (What if the USA’s name included a Xhosa click?)
No Spanish spelling. Easy enough to look up.
Why Americans adopted the Spanish Filipino perhaps is the proper question.
I’m aware of the fact that it is Spanish. I was submitting that maybe it was preferred by Filipinos because it was more phonetic. Spanish is really big on eliminating unnecessary letters, and is nearly phonetically perfect.
I’ve met a few Filipinas, and every one of them seemed to prefer to spell even English words phonetically. I thought there might be a cultural reason for that.