EXPLAINER: Why Philippine National Bank’s name is grammatically correct

A linguistic look into dropping “S” from the Philippines’ name.

A viral social media post recently reignited a long-running question: if the country’s name is the Philippines, why do institutions such as the Philippine National Bank use “Philippine” instead of “Philippines” in their names?

The short answer is that “Philippine” is the correct adjective form of the country’s name.

In English, the Philippines is a proper noun—the official name of the country. Philippine, meanwhile, functions as an adjective describing something that belongs to, comes from, or relates to the Philippines.

Because “National Bank” is a noun, it needs an adjective to identify which nation it is associated with. Thus, Philippine National Bank essentially means “the national bank of the Philippines.” Using Philippines National Bank would place two nouns side by side in a way that is generally considered grammatically incorrect.

The same naming convention appears in many well-known institutions, including Philippine Airlines, Philippine Army, and Philippine Senate.

There are exceptions, however. Some institutions use the country’s full name as part of a possessive or descriptive phrase, such as the Bank of the Philippine Islands or the Development Bank of the Philippines.

So while social media may debate whether the “S” has been forgotten, linguists and historians would say institutions like PNB have actually been following standard English grammar—and doing so since the bank was established in 1916.

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