Part 3

Of the written alphabets in use before the coming of the Spaniards, fourteen were of Malay origin, one was Arabic, and one Hebrew. Of the Malayan alphabets many were structurally alike, so that a learned Visayan must have been able to make out Tagalog words and a Pampangan to spell Ilocano. We are not to imagine that every Filipino could read the written speech; there were in the Islands at that time, as in India, Spain, England, and elsewhere, the educated and the uneducated. But it seems likely that the percentage of literacy in the Philippines, about the year 1500, let us say, was as large as in Spain, larger than in India and compared favorably with the percentage in other places.

[Traders and artisans]

The inhabitants were able traders as well as skilful artisans. Manila was one of the great commercial centers of the East and long had been so; it was not a mere collection of fishermen's huts. When the inhabitants of England were wearing skins, painting their bodies, and gashing their flesh in religious frenzies, the Filipinos were already conducting commercial marts in which were offered silks, brocades, cotton and other cloths, household furniture, precious stones, gold and gold dust, jewelry, wheat from Japan, weapons, works of art and of utility in many metals, cultivated fruits, domesticated animals, earthenware, and a variety of agricultural products from their rich volcanic soil.

[Able Agriculturists]

The people understood how to make agricultural implements which, if crude by present standards, were nevertheless serviceable. They knew how to make machines, to hull and separate rice, to express oil from coconuts, and to weave their cloths. They worked out their own problems of irrigation and in their own way. The huge rice terraces in some parts of Luzon were and still are the wonder of all beholders. "I know of no more impressive examples of primitive engineering," says Dean C. Worcester, "than the terraced mountain-sides of Nueva Vizcaya beside which the terraced hills of Japan sink into insignificance."

WRITTEN AND UNWRITTEN LAWS.--The people had both written and unwritten laws. They were made and promulgated by the chiefs after consultation with the elders, and were "observed with so great exactness that it was not considered possible to break them in any circumstance."

The laws covered many of the subjects which are common in modern times. A few of the most striking points were: Respect of parents and elders, carried to so great a degree that not even the name of one's father could pass the lips, in the same way as the Hebrews regarded the name of God. Even after reaching manhood and even after marriage, the son was under a strict obligation to obey his father and mother. Marriage had reached the stage of mutual consent. Marriage ceremonies approaching the religious were elaborate, according to rank. Husband and wife were equal socially and in the control of their property. Property was acquired principally by occupation, but also by gift, purchase, and succession. Wills were sometimes made. Contracts were strictly fulfilled. The Chinese writer, Wang Ta-yuan; in a book of 1349 says: "The natives and the traders having agreed on prices, they let the former carry off the goods and later on they bring the amount of native products agreed upon. The traders trust them, for they never fail to keep their bargains." In fact, non-performance of a contract was severely punished. Partnerships were formed and the respective obligations of the partners enforced.

The Code of Calantiao.--The penal law was the most extensive. Penalties were severe, altho compared with present laws, they appear cruel and illogical. However, they compared favorably with Greek and Roman laws as well as with the contemporary Spanish and English criminal laws.

Calantiao, the third chief of Panay, had, in 1433, promulgated a penal code. It ran as follows:

"Ye shall not kill; neither shall ye steal; neither shall ye do harm to the aged; lest ye incur the danger of death. All those who infringe this order shall be condemned to death by being drowned with stones in the river, or in boiling water.

"Ye shall obey. Let all your debts with the headmen (principales) be met punctually. He who does not obey shall receive for the first offense one hundred lashes. If the debt is large, he shall be condemned to thrust his hand thrice into boiling water. For the second offense, he shall be condemned to be beaten to death.

"Observe and obey ye: let no one disturb the quiet of graves. When passing by the caves and trees where they are, give respect to them.

"Ye shall obey: he who makes exchange for food, let it be always done in accordance with his word. He who does not comply, shall be beaten for one hour, he who repeats the offense shall be exposed for one day among ants.

"They shall be burned: Those who by their strength or cunning have mocked at and escaped punishment; or who have killed young boys; or try to steal away the women of agorangs (rich men).

"Those shall be killed who profane sites where idols are kept, and sites where are buried the sacred things of their diuatas (spirits) and headmen."

[Testimonies of Occidental Writers]

All which bespeak a culture of no mean order, and occidental writers themselves have given it the credit that it deserves, as shown by the following testimonies:

"They had already reached a considerable degree of civilization at the time of the Spanish conquest."--Professor Ferdinand Blumentritt.

"The inhabitants of these Islands were by no means savages, entirely unreclaimed from barbarism, before the Spanish advent in the sixteenth century. They had a culture of their own."--John Foreman.

"The inhabitants of the Philippines possessed a culture of their own prior to the coming of the Spaniards to the Islands. Those along the coasts were the most advanced in civilization. Their material wealth was considerable. The chief occupations were agriculture, fishing, weaving, some manufacturing, and trade both inter-island and with the mainland, generally in the form of barter. They were expert navigators. They used standard weights and measures. The year was divided into twelve lunar months. They had a peculiar phonetic alphabet, wrote upon leaves, and had a primitive literature. The majority of the people are said to have been able to read and write."--Justice George A. Malcolm.

"The inhabitants practise various kinds of industry; they weave matting of extraordinary fineness and of the brightest colors, straw hats, cigar-cases and baskets; they manufacture cloth and tissues of every sort from leaves of the aguana, make cambric of a texture much finer than that of France; and they also manufacture coarse strong cloth for sails, etc.; and ropes and cables of all dimensions; they tan and dress leather and skins to perfection; they manufacture coarse earthenware and forge and polish arms of various kinds; they build ships of heavy tonnage and also light and neat boats, and at Manila they frame and finish off beautiful carriages; they are also very clever workers in gold and silver and copper; and the Indian (Filipino) women are especially expert in needlework and in all kinds of embroidery." (Twenty years in the Philippines, pp. 304, 307.)

PROGRESS DURING SPANISH RULE.--The Spanish rule in the Philippines lasted 350 years. The Spanish Crown meant well, but the way her policies were translated into deeds was all but desirable. The best men could not be induced to go to Manila. The Church wielded tremendous power, and at times was more powerful than the government itself. Each village was under the rule of a priest. Character was stifled; progress was deliberately discouraged; independence of thought stamped out.

It would be doing Spain a great injustice, however, if no credit whatever is given her rule in the Philippine Islands. She introduced Christianity into the Islands and unequivocably converted the inhabitants to the creed, thus setting up the only Christian country in this part of the globe with a Christian outlook on life; in the women, particularly, the tenets of Christianity instilled dignity and it freed them from Hindu and Mohammedan degradations.

[Schools and Colleges]

Efforts were also taken to teach the people the rudiments of education. Access was thus given to the splendid tongue of Castile, and, thru that, to all the glories and traditions of Latin civilization. As early as 1866, for a population of 4,000,000 people, there were 841 schools for boys and 833 for girls. In 1892, six years before the coming of the Americans, there were 2,137 schools. There were also colleges and universities where professional training was given. The colleges were: University of Santo Tomas, Manila, established in 1611 (twenty-five years older than Harvard); San Juan de Letran, Municipal Athenaeum, Normal School, College of San Jose, the Nautical School, the School of Commercial Accounting, the Academy of Painting and Drawing, and many other private schools, fourteen of which were in Manila. There were also seminaries in Manila, Nueva Segovia, Cebu, Jaro, and Nueva Caceres, where all branches of secondary instruction were taught in addition to those prescribed for the priesthood.

Many of the prominent Filipinos in Philippine history, as stated above, including the national hero, Jose Rizal, had their first instructions in these schools established by Spain.

[Filipino Record Abroad]

A number of the ambitious students were sent by their parents to complete their education in Spain, France, England, Belgium, and Germany. Groups of these young men took part in the various liberal movements of nineteenth century Europe. They wrote and spoke in behalf of liberal institutions for the Islands, in terms that would have cost them their lives in the Philippines; in fact, Rizal was put to death upon his return to his native land. Several of these young Filipinos even rose to eminence in the public service, a right which was denied them at home except in a few cases in the minor judiciary. In the eighties and nineties, a group of them of which Rizal, Juan Luna, Resurrección Hidalgo, M. H. del Pilar, Lopez Jaena, Pedro A. Paterno, and Dr. Pardo de Tavera were the leading spirits--made a deep impression in the literary and artistic circles of Madrid, Paris, and Berlin. A newspaper was founded by them in Madrid to further their political views. Although proscribed in the Philippines, their books and articles were circulated secretly in the Islands and helped to arouse the people and to consolidate the growing unrest.

Opinions of Foreign Authors.--On Spain's achievements in the Philippines, foreign authors have been considerate. The famous French explorer of the Pacific, for example, La Perouse, who was in Manila in 1787, wrote:

"Three million people inhabit these different islands, and that of Luzon contains nearly a third of them. These people seem to me no way inferior to those of Europe; they cultivate the soil with intelligence, they are carpenters, cabinet-makers, smiths, jewelers, weavers masons, etc. I have gone through their villages and I have found them kind, hospitable, and affable." ("Voyage de la Perouse autour du Monde," Paris, 1787, II, p. 347.)

"Almost every other country of the (Malay or Indian) Archipelago is, at this day, in point of wealth, power, and civilization, in a worse state than when Europeans connected themselves with them three centuries back. The Philippines alone have improved in civilization, wealth, and populousness. ("History of the Indian Archipelago," by John Crawford, F. R. S. Edinburgh, 1820, Vol. ii, pp. 447, 488.)

The Austrian professor, Ferdinand Blumentritt, wrote in La Solidaridad of October 15, 1899, to this effect:

"If the general condition of the civilization of the Tagalos, Pampangos, Bicols, Bisayans, Ilocanos, Cagayanes, and Sambales is compared to the European constitutional countries of Servia, Roumania, Bulgaria, and Greece, the Spanish-Filipino civilization of the said Indian districts is greater and of larger extent than of those countries."

And the foremost American scholar on the Philippines, gives the following résumé of the results of the Spanish administration:

"The Spaniards did influence the Filipinos profoundly, and on the whole for the better. There were ways, indeed, in which their record as a colonizing power in the Philippines stands today unique in all the world for its benevolent achievement and its substantial accomplishment of net progress. We do not need to gloss over the defects of Spain; we do not need to condone the backward and halting policy which at last turned the Filipinos against Spanish rule, nor to regret the final outcome of events, in order to do Spain justice. But we must do full justice to her actual achievements, if not as ruler, at any rate as teacher and missionary, in order to put the Filipinos of today in their proper category." (Le Roy: "Philippine Life in Town and Country," 1905, pp. 6, 7.)

[The Background on Which America Had Built]

It was on all that cultural background--the native and the Spaniard--that America had built. Without belittling what she, alone, has done for the Filipinos since 1898 it hardly can be disputed that the rapid progress towards modern democracy in the Islands has been due mainly to the materials she found there. This fact has made her task a great deal easier, and is the reason why even the early military governors thought best to preserve the old municipal institutions with very slight changes.

III. THE FIRST PHILIPPINE REPUBLIC

The earlier revolutions against Spain were actuated by well-defined causes. They have been summarized as follows:

[Causes of Earlier Revolutions]

(1) Denial of freedom of speech and press; (2) desire for Filipino representation; (3) proceedings by which a man was condemned without being heard; (4) violation of domicile and correspondence on mere secret denunciations; (5) agitation for the secularization of parishes; (6) political and civil equality for Filipinos and Spaniards; (7) desire for promulgation of the Spanish Constitution in the Philippines; and (7) the martyrdom of Burgos, Gomez, and Zamora, and later of Rizal.

[The Revolution of 1896]

The revolution of 1896, however, had an additional cause which was dominant in the minds of the leaders. It was "Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity." In the words of General Aguinaldo in a manifesto, "We aspire to the glory of obtaining the Liberty, Independence, and Honor of the Country."

[The Pact of Biac-na-Bato]

This revolution was halted in 1897 by the Pact of Biac-na-Bato, which was signed between the Revolutionists and the Spanish authorities. There were three outstanding stipulations in the pact:

First, that the Filipino leaders should leave the country for the time being.

Second, that liberal and sweeping reforms would be introduced without delay.

Third, that the sum of $800,000 would be paid the Filipinos in two instalments, as evidence of good faith.

The Filipinos complied with their part of the agreement; Aguinaldo and his followers went to Hongkong. But the Spaniards did not comply with theirs; only $400,000 was paid to the revolutionists and no reforms were introduced.

[The Republic]

Accordingly, Aguinaldo and his companions returned to the Islands and renewed the struggle. On June 12, 1898 at Kawit, Cavite, they proclaimed the Independence of the Philippines from Spain. Soon afterwards a Philippine Republic was ratified, with General Aguinaldo as President. The capital was established at Malolos about 30 miles from Manila. There an elective Congress sat regularly, passed laws, levied taxes, administered revenues, kept in motion the machinery of justice, directed a military organization, carried on efficient war and constantly appealed to the patriotism of the people.

[Governmental Machinery Set Up]

A complete governmental machinery was set up. The government was declared to be "popular, representative, and responsible." Church and state were made separate, and, profiting by the experience of the past, freedom of religious worship was expressly recognized in the Constitution. The powers of government were made to reside in three distinct entities--the legislative, the executive, and the judicial, to be entirely separate. It was declared that no two of these powers should be vested in a single person or corporation, nor can the legislative power be conferred on a single individual alone. The government was recognized throughout the islands and had the wholehearted support of the entire population.

At the time America insisted in imposing her sovereignty and authority not only were the Filipinos in military control of the country; they were administering its political affairs as well. This they did from the establishment of the Republic until the autumn of 1899. "Up to that time," writes Albert G. Robinson, of the New York Evening Post, "the territory occupied by the forces of the United States in the Island of Luzon was confined to a very limited area in the vicinity of Manila, with a filamentary extension northward for some fifty or sixty miles along the Manila-Dagupan railway. Very much the same condition obtained on the other islands. One thing is certain: although greatly disturbed by the conditions of war, this territory was under some form of governmental administration."

THE MALOLOS CONSTITUTION.--The fundamental law that had been prepared and adopted by the independent government has since then been known as the "Malolos Constitution." This Philippine Magna Carta embodied the advanced thought of the times and was replete with sound principles. It had all the requisites of a "fundamental law of the land"--an enumeration of individual rights, the organization of the state and of the government, provisions pertaining to the public welfare (such as education, appropriation, the militia, local government, impeachment, etc.) and provisions for constitutional revisions.

[Salient Features]

The Parliamentary System of government was adopted as best suited to the needs of the archipelago. Sovereignty was to reside in the people through their duly elected representatives. The aim throughout was to adopt a government and a social order essentially democratic, without those privileges of caste or classes which were the determinant causes of the revolution. The popular assembly was to be the directing power.

The following progressive principles were enunciated:

(1) That no one should be tried in courts created by private laws or by special tribunals; (2) that throughout the republic there should not be more than one kind of court for all citizens both in civil, criminal, and military actions; (3) that no person or corporation should be given emoluments that were not as compensation for public service fixed by law; (4) there shall be no primogeniture nor should decorations and titles of nobility be accepted; (5) that every Filipino citizen shall enjoy the right of meeting, association, petition, and liberty of the press; (6) freedom of religious worship throughout the land and inviolability of domicile, correspondence, and property; (7) the right of habeas corpus; (8) gratuitous and compulsory public instruction; (9) taxes to be in proportion to the income of the taxpayers.

The legislative power was vested in an unicameral assembly. The representatives elected by the people were to be representatives of the entire nation and could not bind themselves to specific mandates from their constituents.

The President of the republic and the Assembly were to initiate laws.

Impeachment of high officials of the government was unhesitatingly made a part of the fundamental law. Even the President of the republic could be impeached in cases of high treason.

A permanent commission was created to take the place of the assembly during recess, the motive behind its creation being that legislative bodies should be permanent because the popular will works continually and consequently should be continually represented in the governmental machinery.

The permanent commission was to be composed of seven members elected by the assembly from among its members. Its powers were:

(1) To declare if a certain official of the government should be impeached; (2) to convene the assembly to an extraordinary session in cases in which it should constitute itself into a tribunal of justice to consider impeachments; (3) to resolve all pending questions with a view to bringing them before the assembly for consideration; (4) to convoke the assembly to special sessions whenever these are necessary; (5) to substitute the assembly in its power regarding the. constitution with the exception that the permanent commission can not pass laws.

The executive power was vested in the President of the Republic who exercised it through his secretaries.

The President of the Republic was elected by the constituent assembly by an absolute majority of votes. His term of office was four years but might be reëlected. The powers of the President were expressly enumerated. The secretaries of departments constituted the Cabinet, presided over by the President. There were seven departments--foreign relations; interior; finance; war and navy; public instruction; communications and public works; agriculture, industry, and commerce.

Ministerial responsibility was established so that whenever a cabinet had lost the confidence of the majority of the assembly its members were morally bound to resign.

The judicial power was vested in a supreme court and in such other tribunals as might be created by law. The judiciary was made absolutely independent of the legislative and executive departments. The chief justice and the attorney-general were appointed by the Assembly with the concurrence of the President and of the cabinet.

Provinces and municipalities were given administrative autonomy. The central government intervened in their acts only when they over-stepped their powers to the prejudice of general or individual interests.

A Constituent Assembly was to be convened in case of an election of the President of the Republic and whenever there were proposed changes in the constitution. In either of these two cases the regular assembly was dissolved by the President and the Constituent Assembly convoked. The constituent assembly was to be composed of the same members of the regular assembly plus special representatives.

Such was the framework of the governmental machinery created by the first republican constitution ever promulgated in the East. In the words of General Aguinaldo, the Constitution was "the most glorious note in the noble aspirations of the Philippine revolution and is an irrefutable proof before the civilized world of the culture and capacity of the Filipino people to govern themselves."

Comments of Foreigners.--The comments of unbiased foreigners on this ill-fated attempt of the Filipino people to live an independent existence all point to the fact that the Republic together with the constitution the independent government had established was a great work of an unquestionably able people.

John Barrett, ex-director of the Pan-American Union, saw the Philippine Republic in operation, and described it as follows:

"It is a government which has practically been administering the affairs of that great island, 'Luzon' since the American possession of Manila, and is certainly better than the former administration. It had a properly formed Cabinet and Congress, the members of which, in appearance and manners, would compare favorably with the Japanese statesmen."