The Inhabitants of the Philippines Part 7

CHAPTER VI.

CAUSES OF TAGAL REVOLT.

Corrupt officials--"Laws of the Indies"--Philippines a dependency of Mexico up to 1800--The opening of the Suez Ca.n.a.l--Hordes of useless officials--The Asimilistas--Discontent, but no disturbance--Absence of crime--Natives pet.i.tion for the expulsion of the Friars--Many signatories of the pet.i.tion 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 circ.u.mstances 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 cla.s.s 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 a.s.sistants. 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 ill.u.s.trate 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 cla.s.s governors.h.i.+ps or judges.h.i.+ps."

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 G.o.dfather.

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 princ.i.p.ally 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 impa.s.sable 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 s.h.i.+pment, as it was absolutely impossible for carts to pa.s.s 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 pa.s.sengers 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 G.o.d), a code of laws deserving of the greatest praise for wisdom and humanity. They protected the native against extortion, const.i.tuting 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 princ.i.p.al 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 cla.s.s 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 t.i.tle 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 Ca.n.a.l 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 subst.i.tuted 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 a.s.sistant-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 was.h.i.+ngs. 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 princ.i.p.al 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 a.s.similate the administration of the Philippines to that of the Mother Country. They thought it wise to a.s.similate the inst.i.tutions of a tropical dependency with eight millions of native inhabitants, of whom one-sixth part were independent heathen or Mahometans, to the gradually evolved inst.i.tutions 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 doc.u.ment of ident.i.ty, and this was paid by all adults of both s.e.xes, 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 circ.u.mstances 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 famis.h.i.+ng 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 pa.s.sed 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 G.o.ds 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 pet.i.tion 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 pet.i.tion 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 pet.i.tion 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 pet.i.tion accused the friars of compa.s.sing the death of Father Burgos, by subornation of justice.

The result of this appeal of the natives was that the princ.i.p.al 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.