CAUSES OF TAGAL REVOLT.
Corrupt officials--"Laws of the Indies"--Philippines a dependency
of Mexico up to 1800--The opening of the Suez Canal--Hordes
of useless officials--The Asimilistas--Discontent, but no
disturbance--Absence of crime--Natives petition for the expulsion
of the Friars--Many signatories of the petition punished.
The Spanish Colonial system was based upon the simple and
well-recognised principle of rewarding political services to the
Government in power, by the pillage of a colony.
Sometimes special circumstances rendered it necessary for the
Government to send out the man best fitted to cope with a critical
situation, but in normal times the good old corrupt plan was followed.
The appointment of a Governor-General would be arranged by the Prime
Minister and submitted for the approval of the monarch. The Colonial
Minister, like the other subordinate ministers, counted for little in
a Cabinet presided over by such commanding personalities as Canovas,
or Sagasta. They were, in fact, mere heads of departments.
In another chapter I have remarked that it was generally believed
that General Weyler purchased his appointment as Governor-General of
the Philippines, by a cash payment and an annual subsidy.
There were, however, certain officials whom it would be unjust to
class with those who practically had to rob for their living, because
they were subject to dismissal at any moment. These unfortunates knew
perfectly well that integrity and ability would not ensure them a
single day's grace. Whenever the man in power wanted that place for
his cousin or his uncle, out they would go. Similarly, if they had any
interest, misbehaviour would not lose the appointment. Considering
the system, the wonder was that some of them were honest, not that
most of them were thieves.
Amongst those who had fixed appointments were the Inspector-General
of Forests and his assistants. Every British and American resident
in, or visitor to Manila, will remember a Catalan gentleman, Don
Sebastian Vidal y Soler and his charming wife Dona Ella Paoli de
Vidal, a lady from Philadelphia. Vidal was a man of great learning
and equal modesty, a man of the strictest honour, kind-hearted and
charitable in the extreme. He was well-known in America, in London,
Paris, and Amsterdam, and wherever botanists congregate. His death
in 1890 was universally regretted.
In the same branch of the service there was another gentleman whom
I must name. Don Jose Sainz de Baranda, at one time acting Colonial
Secretary, is a most courteous gentleman, whose high character and
marked ability were well worthy of the confidence reposed in him by
General Terrero. Any country might be proud to own Senor Sainz de
Baranda. For my part I preserve the most agreeable remembrances of
these two friends.
In the Department of Public Works there were men of considerable
attainments as engineers--Don Eduardo Lopez Navarro, author of the
project for the new harbour; Don Genaro Palacios, who designed and
carried out the waterworks and designed the Church of Saint Sebastian,
in both of which works I took part; and Senor Brockman, who constructed
several lighthouses in different parts of the Archipelago. I feel bound
to say that so far as my knowledge went, there was no corruption or
underhand work in either the Inspection of Forests or the Public Works.
As to the patronage of other civil offices I have had the procedure
explained to me by a Spaniard well up in the subject, and I give an
imaginary instance to illustrate the system.
When a political party came into power and the question of forming
the Cabinet was being debated, Senor M----, a leader of a group of
deputies, might say, "I renounce the honour of entering the Cabinet,
and instead will take the Presidency of the Chamber and the right to
appoint the Collector of Customs at Havana, the Intendant General of
Hacienda at Manila, and the Governor of Batangas, with a dozen second
and third class governorships or judgeships."
If this was agreed to, perhaps, after some haggling, Senor M----
distributed the nominations to the lower appointments amongst his
supporters, who disposed of them for their own advantage.
The nominations to the higher offices remained the absolute private
property of Senor M----, and he proceeded to pick out men up to the
job, to undertake the appointments. Some of them paid him large sums
in cash, and others entered into contracts binding themselves to remit
him monthly a large proportion of their emoluments and pickings. In
some cases it was stipulated that if a single payment was in default,
the unfortunate employe would be instantly dismissed. I have personally
known of this condition. Those he nominated referred to him as their
padrino or godfather.
The actual holders of the offices referred to would then be summarily
dismissed, however well they might have behaved whilst serving, and
the new horde would be installed in their places and would use every
means to fill their pockets and to pay their padrino.
Complaints against them were not likely to lead to their removal, for
they were protected in Madrid by the powerful political interest of
their padrino. If they kept within the criminal law, they had little
to fear, however greedy they might be.
Some of the governors and other officials had the talent of filling
their pockets without making enemies. I have already referred to
a Governor of Batangas, as eminent in this line. It must not be
supposed that the illicit gains of the officials were extorted from
the individual native. They were principally drawn from the fallos,
or local tax in redemption of polos or personal service. This money
ought to have been employed in repairing roads, bridges, and public
buildings. But as nearly the whole was diverted into the pockets
of the officials and their padrinos, the roads became impassable in
the wet season, the bridges, if of wood, rotted, if of stone, were
thrown down by the earthquakes or carried away by floods, whilst the
tribunales (town halls), fell into decay. I have known cases where
a planter has been unable for months to send his sugar down to the
port for shipment, as it was absolutely impossible for carts to pass
along the road in the wet season. In a wealthy and populous province
like Batangas, the fallos were sufficient to have paved all the main
roads in the province with granite and to have bridged every stream.
I may mention here a characteristic trait of Spanish
administration. When a river-bridge fell down, they not only did
not repair or renew it, but they put up to auction the monopoly of
ferrying vehicles and passengers across the stream. The purchaser of
the right fastened a rattan across the river and provided a couple
of canoes with a platform of cane laid over them, which served to
ferry vehicles across by means of the rope; one or two at a time at a
rather heavy charge. This truly Spanish method provided a revenue for
the Administration, or pickings for an official, instead of requiring
an outlay for a new bridge.
Still, the natives, never having known anything better, supported
these drawbacks with remarkable equanimity. They were left very much
to themselves, and were not interfered with nor worried. The army
was small and the conscription did not press heavily upon them.
They lived under the "Leyes de Indias" (may their makers have found
favour with God), a code of laws deserving of the greatest praise
for wisdom and humanity. They protected the native against extortion,
constituting him a perpetual minor as against the usurer. He could not
be sued for more than five dollars. Compare this wise disposition with
what has been going on in India ever since the British Government has
administered it, where the principal occupation of the lower courts
is to decree the foreclosure of mortgages on the ryot's patches of
land at the suit of the village usurer. The result has been that
in some provinces the small landowner class who furnished fighting
men for the Indian Army has almost disappeared. It is only now in
1900 that something is proposed to be done to remedy this evil, and
knowing my countrymen, I quite expect some weak-kneed compromise will
be arrived at.
The "Leyes de Indias" conferred upon the native the perpetual usufruct
of any land that he kept under cultivation; and this right descended
from father to son.
As a result of these laws, most of the arable land in Luzon, Cebu,
and some other islands belongs to the natives to this day, although
many of them have no other title than possession. The natives also had
the privilege of cutting timber in the forests for house-building or
repairing, or for making a canoe free of dues. They could also cut
bamboos for their fences or roofs and collect firewood.
These privileges were restricted to natives, and were not extended
to Spaniards or Chinese. The taxes paid by the natives were light
and they could live and thrive.
Had these wise and admirable laws been carried out in the spirit in
which they were made, the Philippines might have been Spanish to this
day and the natives would have had little to complain of.
The Philippines were for nearly three centuries after their discovery
by the Spaniards a mere dependency of Mexico, communication being kept
up by an annual galleon or sometimes two sailing between Acapulco and
Manila through the Strait of San Bernardino. The long and tedious
voyage deterred all but priests and officials from proceeding to
the Philippines.
When this route was given up, which happened some ten years before the
Independence of Mexico, which was proclaimed in 1820, communication
with the Peninsula was by sailing vessels via the Cape of Good
Hope. That was a voyage that would not be lightly undertaken either
going or returning. Spaniards who then came to the Archipelago often
stayed there for the rest of their lives.
The opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 and the establishment of a
line of steamers bringing Manila within thirty days of Barcelona was
the most important event in the history of the Philippines since the
conquest, and it had the gravest consequences. It greatly stimulated
the trade of the Philippines, but it enormously increased the number of
Spaniards in the Islands. Hordes of hungry-looking Iberians arrived
by every steamer with nominations to posts for which most of them
possessed no qualification. It seemed as if all the loafers of the
Puerta del Sol and the Calle de Alcala were to be dumped in the
Philippines and fed by the Treasury.
Places had to be found for them, and a bureaucratic administration
partly copied from French practice, was rapidly substituted for
the old paternal regime. New departments were organised or the old
ones greatly extended. Far more money was spent on the salaries
of engineers and assistant-engineers than on public works. The
salaries of the officials of the Woods and Forests exceeded the
revenue derived from dues on timber cut in the Crown forests,
and their regulations seriously interfered with the privileges of
the natives previously mentioned, and caused great discontent. The
salaries of the Inspectors of Mines were almost a useless expense,
for there was no revenue derived from mines, in fact there were no
mines, only placers and washings. A medical service was organised at
great cost and to little advantage. Doctors were appointed to reside
at the hot springs, and one could not take a bath there without paying
a fee. Model farms and Schools of Agriculture were started, to find
places for more Spaniards, for the officials received their salaries,
but no funds were forthcoming for material or establishment.
In 1886 there took place the separation of the executive and the
judicial functions, and eighteen civil governors were appointed to
the principal provinces. Later on, eighteen judges of first instance
were nominated to these same provinces. After centuries of rule,
the Alcaldes Mayores were abolished.
Then came a period when certain bureaucrats in Madrid conceived what
they thought a vast and patriotic idea. They founded a school of
politicians who called themselves Asimilistas. Their grand idea was
to assimilate the administration of the Philippines to that of the
Mother Country. They thought it wise to assimilate the institutions
of a tropical dependency with eight millions of native inhabitants,
of whom one-sixth part were independent heathen or Mahometans, to
the gradually evolved institutions of Old Spain.
By way of a commencement they began to speak and write of the
Philippines as "that beautiful province of Spain." The Philippine army
had always been distinct from the Peninsular army, but now by a paper
reform it was embodied in it, and the regiments were re-numbered,
the 1st Visayas Regiment becoming the 74th, etc. This was considered
to be a strong link to bind together the Mother Country and the Colony.
The extra expense of these crowds of employes and of some expeditions
to Mindanao and Jolo was very heavy, accordingly every year saw
some new and oppressive tax. In 1883 the "Tributo," or tribute that
had been paid by the natives since the conquest, was replaced by a
tax on the Cedula Personal, or document of identity, and this was
paid by all adults of both sexes, whether Spaniards, foreigners,
or half-castes. In the Appendix will be found a facsimile of my cedula.
The Customs duties were several times raised, sometimes without much
notice. A tax on all trades and professions, on horses and carriages,
a heavy port tax, a vexatious tax on all animals slaughtered, even down
to a sucking pig, taxes on the hand-looms used by the women in their
spare time, taxes on sugar-mills, rice-mills, on boats and lighters,
and on houses; all these and many more were collected.
There were also serious agrarian disputes between the Dominicans,
the Augustinians, and the tenants on their estates, owing to
excessive rents demanded by the friars. All these circumstances
brought about a great change in the relations between the Spaniards
and the natives. Whereas formerly the wealthy native kept open house
on feast days, and received with pleasure the visits of Spaniards,
generally elderly men used to the country and speaking the language
of the people, he now found his house invaded by a crowd of young
officials new to the country and its ways, who fell on the eatables
like a swarm of famishing locusts, and soon devoured the turkeys
and hams and other good things he had provided to entertain his
friends. Besides, his women-folk would probably not be treated by the
new-comers with the courtesy and consideration they had been used to.
An estrangement gradually made itself felt, and increased year by
year, in direct proportion to the influx of Spaniards. Not one in a
hundred of these did any useful work or added in any way to the wealth
of the community. They were the drones of the hive, and were in fact
directly harmful, for they had to be supported from the Treasury, and
they irritated the natives by their illegal exactions and overbearing
conduct whenever they came in contact with them.
Still year after year passed without disturbances. From 1877 to 1892,
whilst I was in the country, I can testify that almost perfect order
reigned. The fighting in Mindanao and Jolo went on as a matter of
course like the Acheen war in Sumatra, and an expedition was sent
against the Igorrotes. But in the civilised districts of Luzon and
Visayas good order was kept. The only outbreak I remember was the
religious excitement in Samar, which closed when the false gods were
shot down.
Crime was infrequent, and in those fourteen years I do not think
half-a-dozen executions took place. There was less risk of burglary in
Manila than in a London suburb. Whatever their faults I must give the
Spanish Administration credit for the perfect order they kept. Manila,
in this respect, compared favourably with Hong Kong, and still better
with Singapore, where the authorities, perhaps remembering the fate of
Governor Eyre of Jamaica, and in terror of Exeter Hall, tolerated the
incredible insolence of the Chinese secret societies. These villainous
organisations, which in Singapore successfully defied the law, never
raised their heads in Manila, and Rajah Brooke showed how to treat
them in Sarawak.
In pursuance of the Asimilista policy, in July 1887, the Penal Code
was put in force in the Philippines by peremptory order from the
Government at Madrid, and much against the opinion of experienced
officials. In December of the same year the Civil Code was promulgated.
It cannot be said that these reforms, however well-intended,
produced any beneficial effect on the natives. Combined with the great
increase in taxation, they intensified the discontent that was always
smouldering, more especially in the hearts of the native priests. Their
grievances against the religious orders, and more particularly against
the Recollets, who had been compensated for the handing over of their
benefices in Mindanao to the Jesuits, at the expense of the secular
clergy, were the cause of their bitter hatred of the Spanish friars.
In 1883 Field-Marshal Jovellar had thought it necessary to strengthen
the small garrison by bringing out two battalions of Marine
Infantry. However it was not till March 1st, 1888, that some natives
and mestizos, emboldened by the fact that an anti-clerical, D. Jose
Centeno, a mining engineer, was Acting Civil Governor of Manila,
walked in procession to his official residence and presented a petition
addressed to the Governor-General, demanding the immediate expulsion of
the friars of the religious orders, and of the Archbishop, whom they
declared unworthy to occupy the Primacy of the Islands. They further
demanded the secularisation of the benefices and the confiscation of
the estates of the Augustinians and the Dominicans.
To this petition there were 810 signatures, but when the signatories
were summoned and examined, most of them (as is their custom) declared
they did not know what they had signed, and denied that they wished
the friars to be expelled.
The petition was said to have been written by Doroteo Cortes, a
mestizo lawyer, but I am told he did not sign it.
This manifestation, sixteen years after the mutiny at Cavite, seems
to have had some relation to that event, for the petition accused
the friars of compassing the death of Father Burgos, by subornation
of justice.
The result of this appeal of the natives was that the principal persons
who took part in it were banished, or sent to reside at undesirable
spots within the Archipelago.
There were some agrarian disturbances at Calamba and Santa Rosa,
one of the estates of the Dominicans, in 1890.
I may say that only the Augustinians, the Dominicans, and the
Recollets possess landed estates, and that I have had the opportunity
of examining several of them. They are all situated in Tagal territory,
and as they are the pick of the lands, their possession by the friars
has caused great heart-burnings amongst the Tagals--there has been
a smouldering agrarian discontent for years.