What will become of the Philippines within a century? Will they
continue to be a Spanish colony?
Had this question been asked three centuries ago, when at Legazpi's
death the Malayan Filipinos began to be gradually undeceived and,
finding the yoke heavy, tried in vain to shake it off, without
any doubt whatsoever the reply would have been easy. To a spirit
enthusiastic over the liberty of the country, to those unconquerable
Kagayanes who nourished within themselves the spirit of the Magalats,
to the descendants of the heroic Gat Pulintang and Gat Salakab of
the Province of Batangas, independence was assured, it was merely a
question of getting together and making a determined effort. But for
him who, disillusioned by sad experience, saw everywhere discord and
disorder, apathy and brutalization in the lower classes, discouragement
and disunion in the upper, only one answer presented itself, and it
was: extend his hands to the chains, bow his neck beneath the yoke and
accept the future with the resignation of an invalid who watches the
leaves fall and foresees a long winter amid whose snows he discerns the
outlines of his grave. At that time discord justified pessimism--but
three centuries passed, the neck had become accustomed to the yoke,
and each new generation, begotten in chains, was constantly better
adapted to the new order of things.
Now, then, are the Philippines in the same condition they were three
centuries ago?
For the liberal Spaniards the ethical condition of the people
remains the same, that is, the native Filipinos have not advanced;
for the friars and their followers the people have been redeemed from
savagery, that is, they have progressed; for many Filipinos ethics,
spirit and customs have decayed, as decay all the good qualities of
a people that falls into slavery that is, they have retrograded.
Laying aside these considerations, so as not to get away from our
subject, let us draw a brief parallel between the political situation
then and the situation at present, in order to see if what was not
possible at that time can be so now, or vice versa.
Let us pass over the loyalty the Filipinos may feel for Spain;
let us suppose for a moment, along with Spanish writers, that there
exist only motives for hatred and jealousy between the two races;
let us admit the assertions flaunted by many that three centuries
of domination have not awakened in the sensitive heart of the native
a single spark of affection or gratitude; and we may see whether or
not the Spanish cause has gained ground in the Islands.
Formerly the Spanish authority was upheld among the natives by a
handful of soldiers, three to five hundred at most, many of whom were
engaged in trade and were scattered about not only in the Islands but
also among the neighboring nations, occupied in long wars against
the Mohammedans in the south, against the British and Dutch, and
ceaselessly harassed by Japanese, Chinese, or some tribe in the
interior. Then communication with Mexico and Spain was slow, rare
and difficult; frequent and violent the disturbances among the ruling
powers in the Islands, the treasury nearly always empty, and the life
of the colonists dependent upon one frail ship that handled the Chinese
trade. Then the seas in those regions were infested with pirates,
all enemies of the Spanish name, which was defended by an improvised
fleet, generally manned by rude adventurers, when not by foreigners
and enemies, as happened in the expedition of Gomez Perez Dasmarinas,
which was checked and frustrated by the mutiny of the Chinese rowers,
who killed him and thwarted all his plans and schemes. Yet in spite of
so many adverse circumstances the Spanish authority has been upheld
for more than three centuries and, though it has been curtailed,
still continues to rule the destinies of the Philippine group.
On the other hand, the present situation seems to be gilded and
rosy--as we might say, a beautiful morning compared to the vexed and
stormy night of the past. The material forces at the disposal of
the Spanish sovereign have now been trebled; the fleet relatively
improved; there is more organization in both civil and military
affairs; communication with the sovereign country is swifter and surer;
she has no enemies abroad; her possession is assured; and the country
dominated seems to have less spirit, less aspiration for independence,
a word that is to it almost incomprehensible. Everything then at
first glance presages another three centuries, at least, of peaceful
domination and tranquil suzerainty.
But above the material considerations are arising others, invisible,
of an ethical nature, far more powerful and transcendental.
Orientals, and the Malays in particular, are a sensitive people:
delicacy of sentiment is predominant with them. Even now, in spite
of contact with the occidental nations, who have ideals different
from his, we see the Malayan Filipino sacrifice everything--liberty,
ease, welfare, name, for the sake of an aspiration or a conceit,
sometimes scientific, or of some other nature, but at the least word
which wounds his self-love he forgets all his sacrifices, the labor
expended, to treasure in his memory and never forget the slight he
thinks he has received.
So the Philippine peoples have remained faithful during three
centuries, giving up their liberty and their independence, sometimes
dazzled by the hope of the Paradise promised, sometimes cajoled by
the friendship offered them by a noble and generous people like the
Spanish, sometimes also compelled by superiority of arms of which
they were ignorant and which timid spirits invested with a mysterious
character, or sometimes because the invading foreigner took advantage
of intestine feuds to step in as the peacemaker in discord and thus
later to dominate both parties and subject them to his authority.
Spanish domination once established, it was firmly maintained, thanks
to the attachment of the people, to their mutual dissensions, and
to the fact that the sensitive self-love of the native had not yet
been wounded. Then the people saw their own countrymen in the higher
ranks of the army, their general officers fighting beside the heroes
of Spain and sharing their laurels, begrudged neither character,
reputation nor consideration; then fidelity and attachment to Spain,
love of the fatherland, made of the native, encomendero [1] and even
general, as during the English invasion; then there had not yet been
invented the insulting and ridiculous epithets with which recently
the most laborious and painful achievements of the native leaders
have been stigmatized; not then had it become the fashion to insult
and slander in stereotyped phrase, in newspapers and books published
with governmental and superior ecclesiastical approval, the people
that paid, fought and poured out its blood for the Spanish name,
nor was it considered either noble or witty to offend a whole race,
which was forbidden to reply or defend itself; and if there were
religious hypochondriacs who in the leisure of their cloisters dared
to write against it, as did the Augustinian Gaspar de San Agustin and
the Jesuit Velarde, their loathsome abortions never saw the light,
and still less were they themselves rewarded with miters and raised
to high offices. True it is that neither were the natives of that time
such as we are now: three centuries of brutalization and obscurantism
have necessarily had some influence upon us, the most beautiful work
of divinity in the hands of certain artisans may finally be converted
into a caricature.
The priests of that epoch, wishing to establish their domination over
the people, got in touch with it and made common cause with it against
the oppressive encomenderos. Naturally, the people saw in them greater
learning and some prestige and placed its confidence in them, followed
their advice, and listened to them even in the darkest hours. If
they wrote, they did so in defense of the rights of the native and
made his cry reach even to the distant steps of the Throne. And not a
few priests, both secular and regular, undertook dangerous journeys,
as representatives of the country, and this, along with the strict
and public residencia [2] then required of the governing powers,
from the captain-general to the most insignificant official, rather
consoled and pacified the wounded spirits, satisfying, even though
it were only in form, all the malcontents.
All this has passed away. The derisive laughter penetrates like
mortal poison into the heart of the native who pays and suffers and
it becomes more offensive the more immunity it enjoys. A common sore,
the general affront offered to a whole race, has wiped away the old
feuds among different provinces. The people no longer has confidence
in its former protectors, now its exploiters and executioners. The
masks have fallen. It has seen that the love and piety of the past
have come to resemble the devotion of a nurse who, unable to live
elsewhere, desires eternal infancy, eternal weakness, for the child in
order to go on drawing her wages and existing at its expense; it has
seen not only that she does not nourish it to make it grow but that
she poisons it to stunt its growth, and at the slightest protest she
flies into a rage! The ancient show of justice, the holy residencia,
has disappeared; confusion of ideas begins to prevail; the regard
shown for a governor-general, like La Torre, becomes a crime in
the government of his successor, sufficient to cause the citizen to
lose his liberty and his home; if he obey the order of one official,
as in the recent matter of admitting corpses into the church, it is
enough to have the obedient subject later harassed and persecuted in
every possible way; obligations and taxes increase without thereby
increasing rights, privileges and liberties or assuring the few in
existence; a regime of continual terror and uncertainty disturbs the
minds, a regime worse than a period of disorder, for the fears that
the imagination conjures up are generally greater than the reality;
the country is poor; the financial crisis through which it is passing
is acute, and every one points out with the finger the persons who
are causing the trouble, yet no one dares lay hands upon them!
True it is that the Penal Code has come like a drop of balm to such
bitterness. [3] But of what use are all the codes in the world, if by
means of confidential reports, if for trifling reasons, if through
anonymous traitors any honest citizen may be exiled or banished
without a hearing, without a trial? Of what use is that Penal Code,
of what use is life, if there is no security in the home, no faith in
justice and confidence in tranquility of conscience? Of what use is
all that array of terms, all that collection of articles, when the
cowardly accusation of a traitor has more influence in the timorous
ears of the supreme autocrat than all the cries for justice?
If this state of affairs should continue, what will become of the
Philippines within a century?
The batteries are gradually becoming charged and if the prudence
of the government does not provide an outlet for the currents that
are accumulating, some day the spark will be generated. This is
not the place to speak of what outcome such a deplorable conflict
might have, for it depends upon chance, upon the weapons and upon
a thousand circumstances which man can not foresee. But even though
all the advantage should be on the government's side and therefore
the probability of success, it would be a Pyrrhic victory, and no
government ought to desire such.
If those who guide the destinies of the Philippines remain obstinate,
and instead of introducing reforms try to make the condition of
the country retrograde, to push their severity and repression to
extremes against the classes that suffer and think, they are going
to force the latter to venture and put into play the wretchedness
of an unquiet life, filled with privation and bitterness, against
the hope of securing something indefinite. What would be lost in
the struggle? Almost nothing: the life of the numerous discontented
classes has no such great attraction that it should be preferred
to a glorious death. It may indeed be a suicidal attempt--but then,
what? Would not a bloody chasm yawn between victors and vanquished,
and might not the latter with time and experience become equal in
strength, since they are superior in numbers, to their dominators? Who
disputes this? All the petty insurrections that have occurred in the
Philippines were the work of a few fanatics or discontented soldiers,
who had to deceive and humbug the people or avail themselves of
their power over their subordinates to gain their ends. So they all
failed. No insurrection had a popular character or was based on a
need of the whole race or fought for human rights or justice, so it
left no ineffaceable impressions, but rather when they saw that they
had been duped the people bound up their wounds and applauded the
overthrow of the disturbers of their peace! But what if the movement
springs from the people themselves and bases its cause upon their woes?
So then, if the prudence and wise reforms of our ministers do not find
capable and determined interpreters among the colonial governors and
faithful perpetuators among those whom the frequent political changes
send to fill such a delicate post; if met with the eternal it is out
of order, proffered by the elements who see their livelihood in the
backwardness of their subjects; if just claims are to go unheeded, as
being of a subversive tendency; if the country is denied representation
in the Cortes and an authorized voice to cry out against all kinds
of abuses, which escape through the complexity of the laws; if, in
short, the system, prolific in results of alienating the good will
of the natives, is to continue, pricking his apathetic mind with
insults and charges of ingratitude, we can assert that in a few years
the present state of affairs will have been modified completely--and
inevitably. There now exists a factor which was formerly lacking--the
spirit of the nation has been aroused, and a common misfortune, a
common debasement, has united all the inhabitants of the Islands. A
numerous enlightened class now exists within and without the Islands,
a class created and continually augmented by the stupidity of certain
governing powers, which forces the inhabitants to leave the country,
to secure education abroad, and it is maintained and struggles thanks
to the provocations and the system of espionage in vogue. This class,
whose number is cumulatively increasing, is in constant communication
with the rest of the Islands, and if today it constitutes only the
brain of the country in a few years it will form the whole nervous
system and manifest its existence in all its acts.
Now, statecraft has various means at its disposal for checking a people
on the road to progress: the brutalization of the masses through
a caste addicted to the government, aristocratic, as in the Dutch
colonies, or theocratic, as in the Philippines; the impoverishment
of the country; the gradual extermination of the inhabitants; and
the fostering of feuds among the races.
Brutalization of the Malayan Filipino has been demonstrated to be
impossible. In spite of the dark horde of friars, in whose hands rests
the instruction of youth, which miserably wastes years and years
in the colleges, issuing therefrom tired, weary and disgusted with
books; in spite of the censorship, which tries to close every avenue
to progress; in spite of all the pulpits, confessionals, books and
missals that inculcate hatred toward not only all scientific knowledge
but even toward the Spanish language itself; in spite of this whole
elaborate system perfected and tenaciously operated by those who
wish to keep the Islands in holy ignorance, there exist writers,
freethinkers, historians, philosophers, chemists, physicians, artists
and jurists. Enlightenment is spreading and the persecution it suffers
quickens it. No, the divine flame of thought is inextinguishable
in the Filipino people and somehow or other it will shine forth and
compel recognition. It is impossible to brutalize the inhabitants of
the Philippines!
May poverty arrest their development?
Perhaps, but it is a very dangerous means. Experience has everywhere
shown us and especially in the Philippines, that the classes
which are better off have always been addicted to peace and order,
because they live comparatively better and may be the losers in
civil disturbances. Wealth brings with it refinement, the spirit of
conservation, while poverty inspires adventurous ideas, the desire to
change things, and has little care for life. Machiavelli himself held
this means of subjecting a people to be perilous, observing that loss
of welfare stirs up more obdurate enemies than loss of life. Moreover,
when there are wealth and abundance, there is less discontent, less
complaint, and the government, itself wealthier, has more means for
sustaining itself. On the other hand, there occurs in a poor country
what happens in a house where bread is wanting. And further, of what
use to the mother country would a poor and lean colony be?
Neither is it possible gradually to exterminate the inhabitants. The
Philippine races, like all the Malays, do not succumb before the
foreigner, like the Australians, the Polynesians and the Indians
of the New World. In spite of the numerous wars the Filipinos have
had to carry on, in spite of the epidemics that have periodically
visited them, their number has trebled, as has that of the Malays
of Java and the Moluccas. The Filipino embraces civilization and
lives and thrives in every clime, in contact with every people. Rum,
that poison which exterminated the natives of the Pacific islands,
has no power in the Philippines, but, rather, comparison of their
present condition with that described by the early historians, makes
it appear that the Filipinos have grown soberer. The petty wars
with the inhabitants of the South consume only the soldiers, people
who by their fidelity to the Spanish flag, far from being a menace,
are surely one of its solidest supports.
There remains the fostering of intestine feuds among the provinces.
This was formerly possible, when communication from one island
to another was rare and difficult, when there were no steamers or
telegraph-lines, when the regiments were formed according to the
various provinces, when some provinces were cajoled by awards of
privileges and honors and others were protected from the strongest. But
now that the privileges have disappeared, that through a spirit of
distrust the regiments have been reorganized, that the inhabitants
move from one island to another, communication and exchange of
impressions naturally increase, and as all see themselves threatened
by the same peril and wounded in the same feelings, they clasp hands
and make common cause. It is true that the union is not yet wholly
perfected, but to this end tend the measures of good government,
the vexations to which the townspeople are subjected, the frequent
changes of officials, the scarcity of centers of learning, which
forces the youth of all the Islands to come together and begin to
get acquainted. The journeys to Europe contribute not a little to
tighten the bonds, for abroad the inhabitants of the most widely
separated provinces are impressed by their patriotic feelings,
from sailors even to the wealthiest merchants, and at the sight of
modern liberty and the memory of the misfortunes of their country,
they embrace and call one another brothers.
In short, then, the advancement and ethical progress of the Philippines
are inevitable, are decreed by fate.
The Islands cannot remain in the condition they are without requiring
from the sovereign country more liberty Mutatis mutandis. For new men,
a new social order.
To wish that the alleged child remain in its swaddling-clothes is to
risk that it may turn against its nurse and flee, tearing away the
old rags that bind it.
The Philippines, then, will remain under Spanish domination, but
with more law and greater liberty, or they will declare themselves
independent, after steeping themselves and the mother country in blood.
As no one should desire or hope for such an unfortunate rupture,
which would be an evil for all and only the final argument in the most
desperate predicament, let us see by what forms of peaceful evolution
the Islands may remain subjected to the Spanish authority with the very
least detriment to the rights, interests and dignity of both parties.