Following our usual custom of facing squarely the most difficult and
delicate questions relating to the Philippines, without weighing the
consequences that our frankness may bring upon us, we shall in the
present article treat of their future.
In order to read the destiny of a people, it is necessary to open
the book of its past, and this, for the Philippines, may be reduced
in general terms to what follows.
Scarcely had they been attached to the Spanish crown than they had to
sustain with their blood and the efforts of their sons the wars and
ambitions of conquest of the Spanish people, and in these struggles,
in that terrible crisis when a people changes its form of government,
its laws, usages, customs, religion and beliefs the Philippines were
depopulated, impoverished and retarded--caught in their metamorphosis,
without confidence in their past, without faith in their present and
with no fond hope for the years to come. The former rulers who had
merely endeavored to secure the fear and submission of their subjects,
habituated by them to servitude, fell like leaves from a dead tree, and
the people, who had no love for them nor knew what liberty was, easily
changed masters, perhaps hoping to gain something by the innovation.
Then began a new era for the Filipinos. They gradually lost their
ancient traditions, their recollections--they forgot their writings,
their songs, their poetry, their laws, in order to learn by heart
other doctrines, which they did not understand, other ethics,
other tastes, different from those inspired in their race by their
climate and their way of thinking. Then there was a falling-off,
they were lowered in their own eyes, they became ashamed of what was
distinctively their own, in order to admire and praise what was foreign
and incomprehensible: their spirit was broken and they acquiesced.
Thus years and centuries rolled on. Religious shows, rites that
caught the eye, songs, lights, images arrayed with gold, worship in
a strange language, legends, miracles and sermons, hypnotized the
already naturally superstitious spirit of the country, but did not
succeed in destroying it altogether, in spite of the whole system
afterwards developed and operated with unyielding tenacity.
When the ethical abasement of the inhabitants had reached this stage,
when they had become disheartened and disgusted with themselves,
an effort was made to add the final stroke for reducing so many
dormant wills and intellects to nothingness, in order to make of
the individual a sort of toiler, a brute, a beast of burden, and to
develop a race without mind or heart. Then the end sought was revealed,
it was taken for granted, the race was insulted, an effort was made
to deny it every virtue, every human characteristic, and there were
even writers and priests who pushed the movement still further by
trying to deny to the natives of the country not only capacity for
virtue but also even the tendency to vice.
Then this which they had thought would be death was sure
salvation. Some dying persons are restored to health by a heroic
remedy.
So great endurance reached its climax with the insults, and the
lethargic spirit woke to life. His sensitiveness, the chief trait of
the native, was touched, and while he had had the forbearance to suffer
and die under a foreign flag, he had it not when they whom he served
repaid his sacrifices with insults and jests. Then he began to study
himself and to realize his misfortune. Those who had not expected this
result, like all despotic masters, regarded as a wrong every complaint,
every protest, and punished it with death, endeavoring thus to stifle
every cry of sorrow with blood, and they made mistake after mistake.
The spirit of the people was not thereby cowed, and even though it had
been awakened in only a few hearts, its flame nevertheless was surely
and consumingly propagated, thanks to abuses and the stupid endeavors
of certain classes to stifle noble and generous sentiments. Thus when
a flame catches a garment, fear and confusion propagate it more and
more, and each shake, each blow, is a blast from the bellows to fan
it into life.
Undoubtedly during all this time there were not lacking generous and
noble spirits among the dominant race that tried to struggle for the
rights of humanity and justice, or sordid and cowardly ones among
the dominated that aided the debasement of their own country. But
both were exceptions and we are speaking in general terms.
Such is an outline of their past. We know their present. Now, what
will their future be?
Will the Philippine Islands continue to be a Spanish colony, and if
so, what kind of colony? Will they become a province of Spain, with
or without autonomy? And to reach this stage, what kind of sacrifices
will have to be made?
Will they be separated from the mother country to live independently,
to fall into the hands of other nations, or to ally themselves with
neighboring powers?
It is impossible to reply to these questions, for to all of them
both yes and no may be answered, according to the time desired to be
covered. When there is in nature no fixed condition, how much less
must there be in the life of a people, beings endowed with mobility
and movement! So it is that in order to deal with these questions, it
is necessary to presume an unlimited period of time, and in accordance
therewith try to forecast future events.