The Philippines: Past and Present Volume II Part 42

The working forces of certain bureaus of the government have been utilized for purposes of special instruction in surveying, printing and binding, and forestry, and even the inmates of penal inst.i.tutions are not forgotten, but have good schools provided for them.

Quite as important as the development of the minds of the young is the development of their bodies through the introduction of athletic games and sports, which have incidentally promoted intercommunication and mutual understanding between the several Filipino peoples. In many regions baseball is emptying the c.o.c.kpits, and thus aiding the cause of good order and morality.

Educational work has not been limited to the Filipinos, but has been carried on among the children of the wilder tribes, many of whom are proving to be apt pupils and are making extraordinary progress in industrial work.

By educating the ma.s.ses we are giving to the Filipinos proper, as distinguished from the mestizo politicians, the first opportunity they have ever had to show what is in them.

The means of the government are at present insufficient to educate all of the eight hundred thousand children who, it is believed, would attend school voluntarily if given the opportunity. The insular revenues are derived chiefly from import duties and internal revenue taxes, so that there is a very direct relations.h.i.+p between the amount of government receipts and the volume of business of the country. Careful attention has long been given to stimulating the development of the vast natural resources of the archipelago in order to increase the prosperity of the people and that of the government, which are inseparably united.

Owing to the breaking up of the land area of the country into a very large number of small units, water transportation plays an unusually important part in commercial development. More than two-thirds of the very long coast line has been surveyed, as have the waters adjacent thereto.

The former scarcity of lighthouses has been remedied. An admirable weather service gives due warning of the approach of dangerous storms, and travel and the transportation of freight by sea have thus been rendered safe.

The previous almost complete lack of good roads has been remedied by the construction of four thousand four hundred miles of well-built, admirably maintained highways in the lowlands, supplemented in the highlands of Luzon and Mindanao and in the lowlands of Mindoro and Palawan, by some thirteen hundred miles of cart roads and horse trails. Hundreds of thousands of small farmers, who previously had no inducement to raise more than their families or their immediate neighbours could consume, because they were unable to sell their surplus products, have thus been brought within reach of the market.

The hundred and twenty-two miles of railway which we found in 1898 have been increased to six hundred eleven.

The government has utilized its coast-guard vessels to build up new trade routes until they became commercially profitable, so that private companies were willing to take them over.

Agriculture, the main source of the country's wealth, was conducted in a most primitive manner, modern methods and modern machinery being practically unknown. Worse yet, it was threatened with complete prostration, owing to the prevalence of surra among the horses and of rinderpest among the horned cattle. At a time when great areas were lying uncultivated because of lack of draft animals, and when the horses and cattle of the archipelago seemed doomed to extinction, a vigorous campaign was inaugurated against animal diseases. It has been carried out in the face of manifold obstacles up to the present day, and is resulting in the re-stocking of the islands through natural reproduction and the safeguarding of the young animals. Strenuous efforts, made through the medium of the public schools and through demonstration stations, are bringing about a slow change in the previously existing antiquated agricultural methods, and the example set by Americans is leading to the gradual introduction of a considerable amount of modern farm machinery.

The placing of the currency of the country on a gold basis has been a powerful factor in promoting material prosperity, and together with the other measures previously enumerated, supplemented by favourable tariff legislation giving the Philippines a market in the United States, has led to an era of extraordinary commercial development.

There has been a very rapid increase in the trade between the Philippines and the United States, the former country purchasing from us, practically dollar for dollar, as much as it sells to us, and furnis.h.i.+ng us tropical products of a sort which we should otherwise be obliged to buy from countries with which we have a trade balance on the wrong side of the ledger.

The Philippines have a potential source of great wealth in their fifty-four thousand square miles of forest. We have introduced a conservation system which, if maintained and developed, will permanently preserve the more important forests while at the same time facilitating the establishment of a great lumber industry. The free use of forest products from government lands for other than commercial purposes has been granted to the people.

In the face of quiet but determined opposition from the cacique cla.s.s, material progress has been made in a.s.sisting the common people to become owners of agricultural land, while in spite of the restrictions imposed by unwise legislation, several modern agricultural estates have been established. They are not only serving as great demonstration stations, of far more practical value than any agricultural college could be at the present stage of development of the Filipinos, but have materially raised the daily wage of agricultural labourers in the regions where they are situated.

We have established an efficient civil service in which national politics have played no part, and appointments and promotion have depended on merit alone. This rule has been made to apply to Filipinos as well as to Americans, with the result that the former have for the most part been compelled to enter the lower grades because of defective preparation, but with the further consequence that they have been promoted as rapidly as the result of subsequent careful training has fitted them for advancement. The proportion of Filipino employees as compared with Americans has increased from forty-nine per cent in 1903 to seventy-one per cent in 1913.

We have given to the country religious liberty. We have also given it free speech and a free press, both of which have been shamelessly abused. We have created, prematurely in my opinion, a legislature with an elective lower house composed exclusively of Filipinos and having equal powers with the upper house in the matter of initiating and pa.s.sing legislation.

I reserve for the following chapter a statement of the opportunities which we have given the Filipinos to partic.i.p.ate in the executive control of their towns and provinces, and of the results of these experiments.

Never before in the history of the world has a powerful nation a.s.sumed toward a weaker one quite such an att.i.tude as we have adopted toward the Filipinos. I make this statement without thought of disparaging the admirable work which Great Britain has done in her colonies, but on the contrary in the conviction that in some particulars we ourselves have gone too fast and too far, and as a result are likely in the end to have forcibly brought home to us the wisdom of making haste somewhat more slowly, and paying more heed to the experience of others, when dealing with new problems.

However, it will do those of us who thought that we were infallible, if such there be, a world of good to learn that this is not the case; and it will do our Filipino wards good to discover, one of these days, that we can, if necessary, take away as well as give.

Up to the present time our successes certainly over-balance our mistakes, and in my opinion we have just cause for pride in the results of our Philippine stewards.h.i.+p.

CHAPTER x.x.xVI

IS PHILIPPINE INDEPENDENCE NOW POSSIBLE?

This question is one of great importance to the people of the United States, for national honour is involved in finding its true answer.

Both of our great political parties are committed to the policy of granting independence when the Filipinos are ready for it. Are they ready now? If so, the promise should be kept. If not, we should be guilty of an unjust and cowardly act if we withdrew our protection and control.

I have already called attention to the fact that the Filipinos [197]

are divided into a number of peoples, sometimes called tribes. The census of 1903 recognizes the following: Visayans, numbering 3,219,030; Tagalogs, 1,460,695; Ilocanos, 803,942; Bicols, 566,365; Pangasinans, 343,686; Pampangans, 280,984; Cagayans, 159,648; Zambalans, 48,823.

The loose use of the word "tribe" in designating these peoples is liable to lead to very grave misapprehension. Their leaders vigorously, and very properly, object to the idea that they have at present anything resembling a tribal organization. The truth is that they are the descendants of originally distinct tribes or peoples which have gradually come to resemble each other more and more, and to have more and more in common.

The very large majority of them have been brought up in the Catholic faith. In physical characteristics, dress and customs they resemble each other quite closely. They are alike in their dignity of bearing, their sobriety, their genuine hospitality, their kindliness to the old and the feeble, their love of their children and eagerness to obtain for them educational advantages which they themselves have been denied, their fondness for music, their patience in the face of adversity, and the respect which they show for authority so long as their pa.s.sions are not played upon, or their prejudices aroused, by the unscrupulous. These are admirable characteristics and afford a good foundation on which to build. Such differences as exist between these several peoples are steadily diminis.h.i.+ng. This is especially true of the Tagalogs and the numerically comparatively unimportant peoples lying immediately to the north and west of their territory, namely, the Pampangans, Pangasinans and Zambalans. The Tagalogs, Ilocanos, Cagayans, Bicols and Visayans are distinguished by much more marked differences.

In general, the Tagalogs tend to become the dominating Filipino people of the islands, and successfully attempt to a.s.sert themselves in their dealings with all the other Christian peoples except the Ilocanos, who are quite capable of holding their own. The Ilocanos have a reputation for orderliness and industry which the Tagalogs lack. The Cagayans are, as a people, notoriously lazy and stupid, although there are of course numerous conspicuous individual exceptions to this rule. The Visayans are comparatively docile and law-abiding. Many of the Bicols are energetic and capable, and they seem to be possessed of a rather keen sense of humour, which their neighbours lack.

Two things tend to keep the several peoples apart. The first is the present lack of any common medium of communication. There are more quite sharply distinct dialects than there are peoples. The Visayans, for instance, speak Cebuano, Ilongo and Cuyuno. The language difficulty is of least importance among the peoples immediately north of Manila where the use of Tagalog is generalized to a considerable extent, but even here it is serious.

Mr. Justice Johnson of the Philippine Supreme Court tells me that when he was serving in Zambales as a judge of first instance the examination of a family of four persons necessitated two interpreters, one for the father, and another for the mother and two step-children, while in the trial of seven men charged with a murder it was necessary to read the complaint in four different dialects.

Taylor cites the following typical instances of practical difficulty growing out of the multiplicity of dialects:--

"In December, 1898, General Macabulos was the commissioner in Tarlac Province. At Camiling the orders prescribing how the elections were to be carried on were read in Spanish and then translated into Ilocano. General Macabulos next delivered in Tagalog a speech informing the a.s.semblage of their duties under the new form of government. This was translated into Ilocano, as the people did not understand Tagalog any more than they did Spanish. [198] When on July 6, 1898, a junta of men in favour of the independence of the Philippines met at Gerona, Tarlac, to elect among themselves the civil officials for the town, the decrees of Aguinaldo, of June 18 and 20, were read in Ilocano, in Tagalog, in Pampanga, and Pangasinan, all of which languages were spoken in the town." [199]

The head of the town of Antipolo, Morong Province, wrote to the secretary of the interior on October 21, 1898, that his delay in executing orders had been caused by the fact that they were written in Tagalog, which he did not understand. He recommended that Spanish be always used by the central government. [200] Mabini himself at one time proposed that English be made the official language. The const.i.tution of the "Republic," while making Tagalog the official language, provided for instruction in English. [201]

There is no literature worth mentioning written in the native dialects, nor do they open a way to the fields of science, the arts, history, or philosophy. Their vocabularies are comparatively poor in words, and they do not afford satisfactory media of communication, especially as words of generalization are almost entirely lacking. This latter fact conclusively demonstrates the stage of mental evolution attained by the peoples which have developed these several languages. Not long since I heard a keen student of Philippine affairs remark that the trouble with the Filipinos was that none of them were more than fourteen years old! There is truth enough in the statement to make it sting.

The use of Spanish never became common, and knowledge of this language was limited to the educated few. After fifteen short years English is far more widely spoken than Spanish ever was. When English comes into comparatively general use, as it will if the present educational policy is adhered to, one fundamental difficulty in the way of welding the Filipinos into "a people" will have been largely done away with.

The second important barrier between the several Filipino peoples is built up of dislikes and prejudices, in part handed down from the days when they were tribally distinct and actively hostile; in part resulting from the well-marked tendency of the Tagalogs and the Ilocanos to impose their will upon the others. The actual differences between a Tagalog and a Visayan are not so great. The important thing, from the American view point, is that every Tagalog and every Visayan really considers them very great.

There would have been no insurrection of any importance in the Visayas and Mindanao if the Tagalogs had kept their hands off. We have seen how they worked their will on the people of the Cagayan valley and the Visayas, and what bitter animosities they provoked. We have also seen how on various occasions the Ilocanos opposed the Tagalogs as such, and even planned to kill them, while the Visayans did kill them on various occasions. However much politicians may declaim about a united Filipino people, certain uncomfortable but indisputable facts reduce such claims to idle vapourings.

At the time when there was great excitement in Manila over the Jones Bill, and many Filipinos believed that independence was coming on July 4, 1913, there took place at the house of General Aguinaldo a very significant gathering of former insurgent generals and colonels. There was then much interest in the question of who would be appointed president of the coming Philippine Republic. It was officially announced that the object of this meeting was to unite those who attended it in an effort to aid in the maintenance of a good condition of public order. I learned from a source which I believe to be thoroughly reliable that one of the conclusions actually reached was that no Visayan should be allowed to become president of the republic, and that one of the real objects of the meeting was to crystallize opposition to the candidacy of Senor Osmena, the speaker of the a.s.sembly. But the undesirability of giving publicity to such factional differences at this time was promptly realized and this att.i.tude on the part of Aguinaldo's supporters was not publicly announced.

Troubles between Ilocanos and Cagayans continue in Cagayan, Isabela and Nueva Vizcaya up to the present day. Several years since, when investigating the cause which lay behind a pet.i.tion from certain people of the latter province for an increase in the educational requirement precedent to the exercise of the franchise, I discovered that the whole thing resolved itself into an effort to disfranchise the Ilocanos, who always voted together and already controlled elections in several towns.h.i.+ps.

Without going further into the differences which separate the several civilized peoples, I will say emphatically that the great ma.s.s of Filipinos do not const.i.tute "a people" in the sense in which that word is understood in the United States. They are not comparable in any way with the American people or the English people. They cannot be reached as a whole, and they do not respond as a whole. In this they agree with all other Malays. Colquhoun has truly said: [202]--

"No Malay nation has ever emerged from the hordes of that race, which has spread over the islands of the Pacific. Wherever they are found they have certain marked characteristics and of these the most remarkable is their lack of that spirit which goes to form a h.o.m.ogeneous people, to weld them together. The Malay is always a provincial; more, he rarely rises outside the interests of his own town or village."

More important than the differences which separate the Tagalogs, Ilocanos, Cagayans, and Visayans as such, are those which separate the individuals composing these several groups of the population. Very few of the present political leaders are of anything approaching pure Malayan blood. To give details in specific cases would be to give offence, and to wound the feelings of men who certainly are not to blame for their origin. Suffice it to say that with rare exceptions, if one follows their ancestry back a very little way he finds indubitable evidence of the admixture of Spanish, other European or Chinese blood. The preeminence of these men is undoubtedly due in large measure to the fact that through the wealth and influence of their fathers they had educational advantages, and in many instances enjoyed broadening opportunities for travel, which were beyond the reach of their less fortunate countrymen. To what extent their present demonstrated abilities are due to these facts, and to what extent they are due to white or Mongolian blood, will never be known until the children of the common people, who are now enjoying exceptionally good educational opportunities, arrive at maturity and show what they can do. [203]

Meanwhile there is more or less thinly veiled hostility between the mestizo cla.s.s and the great dark ma.s.s of the people. For a time we heard much of Filipinos de cara y corazon, [204] and while because of political expediency there is less of this talk now than formerly, the feeling which caused it persists, and will continue to endure. Throughout the Christian provinces the same condition exists everywhere. The mestizo element is in control. Until the common people have learned to a.s.sert themselves, and have come to take an important part in the commercial and political development of their country, anything but an oligarchical form of independent government is impossible.

There has been complaint from politicians and others of the mestizo cla.s.s that American men are, as a rule, disinclined to increase it by marrying its women and breeding mestizo children.