My wife’s grandfather was in the Spanish American War and i’ve never heard it refered to as anything else.
The modern generation of idiots suck!
Yes there was a Spanish American War which was focused on Cuba but we did attack the Spanish Fleet in Manila Bay, totally destroying or capturing the Spanish Navy.
When the war ended, Spain had ceded a lot of territory to the U.S. That included the Philippines.
After we took over some of the locals thought it was time to be independent and fought the U.S. for several years. As someone else said, there was also an uprising by Muslims who were known as Moros.
We treated the Filipinos so well that we pacified most of the Islands but the Moros who would typically take drugs and get themself into a rage before attacking, were hard to stop with the puny .38 Army and Navy D.A. revolvers. These were even less powerful than the .38 special. They would eventually die but often not before killing or severely injuring American soldiers. That is why we went back to the .45.
The Moros were mainly on the Southern big Island of Mindanao. That is the one which lasted much longer tho we eventually subdued them too.