The Philippines: Past and Present Volume I Part 39

After the war was over, when my private secretary, Mr. James H. LeRoy, was one day approaching Malolos, he was sternly commanded by a sentry to halt, the command being emphasized as usual by presenting to his attention a most unattractive view down the muzzle of a Krag. He was next ordered to "salute the flag," which he finally discovered with difficulty in the distance, after being told where to look. The army way is right and necessary in war, but it makes a lot of bother in time of peace!

This was not the only reason for failing to make more extensive use of American soldiers in police duty. A veteran colonel of United States cavalry who had just read Judge Blount's book was asked what he thought of the claim therein made that the army should have done the police and pacification work of the Philippines. His reply was:--

"How long would it take a regiment of Filipinos to catch an American outlaw in the United States? Impossible!"

Another army officer said:--

"Catching Filipino outlaws with the Army is like catching a flea in a twenty-acre field with a traction engine."

There is perhaps nothing so demoralizing to regular troops as employment on police duty which requires them to work singly or in small squads. Discipline speedily goes to the dogs and instruction becomes impossible.

Successful prosecution of the work of chasing _ladrones_ in the Philippines requires a thorough knowledge of local topography and of local native dialects. Spanish is of use, but only in dealing with educated Filipinos. A knowledge of the Filipino himself; of his habits of thought; of his att.i.tude toward the white man; and toward the _ill.u.s.trado_, or educated man, of his own race; ability to enter a town and speedily to determine the relative importance of its leading citizens, finally centring on the one man, always to be found, who runs it, whether he holds political office or not, and also to enlist the sympathy and cooperation of its people; all of these things are essential to the successful handling of brigandage in the Philippines, whether such brigandage has, or lacks, political significance.

The following parallel will make clear some of the reasons why it was determined to use constabulary instead of American soldiers in policing the Philippines from the time the insurrection officially ended:--

United States Army Philippine Constabulary

Soldier costs per annum $1400. Soldier costs per annum $363.50.

(Authority: Adjutant General Heistand in 1910.)

American soldiers come from Constabulary soldiers are America. enlisted in the province where they are to serve.

Few American soldiers speak All constabulary soldiers the local dialects. speak local dialects.

Few American soldiers speak All educated constabulary any Spanish. soldiers speak Spanish.

American soldiers usually have Constabulary soldiers, native to but a slight knowledge of local the country, know the geography geography and topography. and topography of their respective provinces.

Few American soldiers have had The Filipino soldier certainly enough contact with Filipinos knows his own kind better than to understand them. the American does.

The American soldier uses a The constabulary soldier is ration of certain fixed components rationed in cash and buys the imported over sea. (A ration is food of the country where he the day's allowance of food for happens to be.

one soldier.)

The American ration costs The constabulary cash ration is 24.3 cents United States currency 10.5 cents United States currency.

(exclusive of cost of (No freight or handling charges.) transportation and handling). The constabulary soldier knows not Fresh meat requiring ice to keep ice. His food grows in the islands.

it is a princ.i.p.al part of the He buys it on the ground and needs American ration. To supply it no transportation to bring it to him.

requires a regular system of transport from the United States to Manila and from thence to local ports, and wagon transportation from ports to inland stations.

The American soldier is at no The idea of enlisting the sympathy pains to enlist the sympathy and and cooperation of the local cooperation of the people; and population is the strongest tenet his methods of discipline habits in the constabulary creed.

of life, etc., make it practically impossible for him to gain them.

Before preparing the foregoing statement relative to the reasons for using Philippine constabulary soldiers instead of soldiers of the United States army for police work during the period in question, I asked Colonel J. G. Harbord, a.s.sistant director of the constabulary, who has served with that body nine years, has been its acting director and is an officer of the United States army, to give me a memorandum on the subject. It is only fair to him to say that I have not only followed very closely the line of argument embodied in the memorandum which he was good enough to prepare for me, but have in many instances used his very words. The parallel columns are his.

The constabulary soldier, thoroughly familiar with the topography of the country in which he operates; speaking the local dialect and acquainted with the persons most likely to be able and willing to furnish accurate information; familiar with the characteristics of his own people; able to live off the country and keep well, is under all ordinary circ.u.mstances a more efficient and vastly less expensive police officer than the American soldier, no matter how brave and energetic the latter may be. Furthermore, his activities are much less likely to arouse animosity.

Incidentally, the army is pretty consistently unwilling to take the field unless the const.i.tutional guarantees are temporarily suspended, and it particularly objects to writs of habeas corpus. The suspension of such guarantees is obviously undesirable unless really very necessary.

Let us now consider some of the specific instances of alleged inefficiency of the constabulary in suppressing public disorder, cited by Blount.

On page 403 of his book he says, speaking of Governor Taft and disorder in the province of Albay which arose in 1902-1903:--

"He did not want to order out the military again if he could help it, and this relegated him to his native munic.i.p.al police and constabulary, experimental outfits of doubtful loyalty, and, at best, wholly inadequate, as it afterwards turned out, for the maintenance of public order and for affording to the peaceably inclined people that sort of security for life and property, and that protection against semi-political as well as unmitigated brigandage, which would comport with the dignity of this nation."

The facts as to these disorders are briefly as follows:--

In 1902 an outlaw in Tayabas Province who made his living by organizing political conspiracies and collecting contributions in the name of patriotism, who was known as Jose Roldan when operating in adjoining provinces, but had an alias in Tayabas, found his life made so uncomfortable by the constabulary of that province that he transferred his operations to Albay. There he affiliated himself with a few ex-Insurgent officers who had turned outlaws instead of surrendering, and with oath violators, and began the same kind of political operations which he had carried out in Tayabas, the princ.i.p.al feature of his work being the collection of "contributions."

The troubles in Albay were encouraged by wealthy Filipinos who saw in them a probable opportunity to acquire valuable hemp lands at bottom prices, for people dependent on their hemp fields, if prevented from working them, might in the end be forced to sell them. Roldan soon lost standing with his new organization because it was found that he was using for his personal benefit the money which he collected.

About this time one Simeon Ola joined his organization. Ola was a native of Albay, where he had been an Insurgent major under the command of the Tagalog general, Belarmino. His temporary rank had gone to his head, and he is reported to have shown considerable severity and hauteur in his treatment of his former neighbours in Guin.o.batan, to which place he had returned at the close of the insurrection. Meanwhile, a wealthy Chinese _mestizo_ named Don Circilio Jaucian, on whom Ola, during his brief career as an Insurgent officer, had laid a heavy hand, had become _presidente_ of the town.

Smarting under the indignities which he had suffered, Jaucian made it very uncomfortable for the former major, and in ways well understood in Malay countries brought it home to the latter that their positions had been reversed. Ola's house was mysteriously burned, and his life in Guin.o.batan was made so unbearable that he took to the hills.

Ola had held higher military rank than had any of his outlaw a.s.sociates, and he became their dominating spirit. He had no grievance against the Americans, but took every opportunity to avenge himself on the _caciques_ of Guin.o.batan, his native town.

Three a.s.sistant chiefs of constabulary, Garwood, Baker and Bandholtz, were successively sent to Albay to deal with this situation. Baker and Bandholtz were regular army officers. The latter ended the disturbances, employing first and last some twelve companies of Philippine scouts, armed, officered, paid, equipped and disciplined as are the regular soldiers of the United States army, and a similar number of constabulary soldiers. Eleven stations in the restricted field of operations of this outlaw were occupied by scouts. There were few armed conflicts in force between Ola's men and these troops. In fact, it was only with the greatest difficulty that this band, which from time to time dissolved into the population only to reappear again, could be located even by the native soldiers. It would have been impracticable successfully to use American troops for such work.

Referring to the statement made by Blount [492] that Vice-Governor Wright made a visit to Albay in 1903 in the interest "of the peace-at-any-price policy that the Manila Government was bent on,"

and the implication that he went there to conduct peace negotiations, General Bandholtz, who suppressed outlawry in Albay, has said that Vice-Governor Wright and Commissioner Pardo de Tavera came there at his request to look into conditions with reference to certain allegations which had been made.

Colonel Bandholtz and the then chief of constabulary, General Allen, were supported by the civil governor and the commission in their recommendations that no terms should be made with the outlaws. The following statement occurs in a letter from General Bandholtz dated September 21, 1903:--

"No one is more anxious to terminate this business than I am, nevertheless I think it would be a mistake to offer any such inducements, and that more lasting benefits would result by hammering away as we have been doing."

And General Allen said in an indors.e.m.e.nt to the Philippine Commission:--

"... in my opinion the judgment of Colonel Bandholtz in matters connected with the pacification of Albay should receive favourable consideration. Halfway measures are always misinterpreted and used to the detriment of the Government among the ignorant followers of the outlaws."

These views prevailed.

Blount has claimed that the death rate in the Albay jail at this time was very excessive, and cites it as an instance of the result of American maladministration.

a.s.suming that his tabulation [493] of the dead who died in the Albay jail between May 30 and September, 1903, amounting to 120, is correct, the following statements should be made:--

Only recently has it been demonstrated that beri-beri is due to the use of polished rice, which was up to the time of this discovery regarded as far superior to unpolished rice as an article of food, and is still much better liked by the Filipinos than is the unpolished article. Many of these deaths were from beri-beri, and were due to a misguided effort to give the prisoners the best possible food.

Cholera was raging in the province of Albay throughout the period in question, and the people outside of the jail suffered no less than did those within it. The same is true of malarial infection. In other words, conditions inside the jail were quite similar to those then prevailing outside, except that the prisoners got polished rice which was given them with the best intentions in the world, and was by them considered a superior article of food.

With the present knowledge of the methods of dissemination of Asiatic cholera gained as a result of the American occupation of the Philippines, we should probably be able to exclude it from a jail under such circ.u.mstances, as the part played by "germ carriers"

who show no outward manifestations of infection is now understood, but it was not then dreamed of. One of the greatest reforms effected by Americans in the Philippines is the sanitation of the jails and penitentiaries, and we cannot be fairly blamed for not knowing in 1903 what n.o.body then knew.

The troubles in Albay ended with the surrender of Ola on September 25, 1903. Blount gives the impression that he had a knowledge of them which was gained by personal observation. He arrived in the province in the middle of November, seven weeks after normal conditions had been reestablished.

On October 5, 1903, General Bandholtz telegraphed with reference to the final surrender of Ola's band:--

"The towns are splitting themselves wide open celebrating pacification and Ramon Santos (later elected governor) is going to give a record-breaking fiesta at Ligao. Everybody invited. Scouts and Constabulary have done superb work."