Spell of the Hawaiian Islands and the Philippines — 10-The Philippines, Ch.2 The Philippines of the Past pt 2

Before the middle of the last century, life in the Philippines must have been, for Spaniards and natives alike, one long period of siesta.

The sound of the wars and the passing of governments and kings in Europe must have seemed to these loiterers in a summer garden like the drone of distant bees.

After that period conditions changed rapidly.

In 1852, the Jesuits returned to the Philippines; in 1868, the reactionary Queen Isabella II fled from Spain, because of the rise of republicanism; in 1869, the Suez Canal was opened.

All these events had their influence, but the return of the Jesuits was of dominating importance.

Throughout the nineteenth century the sole idea of the Tagals was to get rid of the friars, and for several reasons, which I will explain as briefly as possible.

The Roman Catholic clergy are divided into regular and secular.

Members of the secular clergy are subordinate to the bishops and archbishops, through whom the decrees of the Holy See are promulgated.

The regular clergy, monks and friars, are subordinate to provincials elected for comparatively short terms of office by members of their own order.

The Jesuits form a group by themselves but belong rather to the regular than the secular.

Over three hundred years after the conversion of the Filipinos, the Spanish monks and friars considered it still unsafe to admit natives into the hierarchy of the Catholic Church.

_The secular clergy were mostly natives, the regular clergy were Spaniards.

_ Naturally this condition of affairs in time produced friction.

To understand the case in regard to the Jesuits, it is necessary to go back nearly a century.

In 1767, the King of Spain issued a decree expelling the Jesuits from his possessions.

Their property was confiscated, their schools were closed, and they were treated as enemies of the state.

They had been among the earliest missionaries in the Philippines, and were probably the wealthiest and most influential of all the clergy there.

Their departure left no priests for the richest parishes in the provinces of Cavite and Manila, which had been their sphere of influence.

The question at once arose as to who would succeed them, and as it happened, the Archbishop of Manila who had to answer it was a member of the secular clergy, a Spanish priest to be sure, but of liberal tendencies.

Consequently, he filled the parishes with native priests, who continued to occupy them until the return of the Jesuits.

Now the parish priest was the most influential man in the community.

As native priests used this influence to build up the prestige of the seculars, the ecclesiastical feuds which arose became embittered by racial antagonism.

When a royal order was received permitting the return of the Jesuits it became at once necessary to find places for them in the ecclesiastical government.

Spain decided that the parishes of Cavite and Manila should be henceforth filled by members of the order of Recollets, who were to transfer their missions in Mindanao to the Jesuits.

The Archbishop protested against this increase in the power of the regular clergy, and the Governor General assembled his council to act upon the protest.

All the members of the council who were born in Spain voted against the Archbishop.

All those born in the Philippines voted for him.

The regulars gained another victory over the seculars; the native was publicly informed that he was not fit to administer the parishes of his own people, and he saw himself definitely assigned to the position of lay brother or of curate.

Whatever threads of attachment there had been between the opposing factions broke on the day of that decision, and every native priest from that moment became a center of disaffection and of the propaganda of hatred of the friars.

This was perhaps the real beginning of the movement which continued, now secretly, now openly, until it broke out in actual revolt in 1872. The Spaniards put down this uprising of the Tagalogs with such cruelty that they feared a later retaliation, and sought help from the friars.

This the friars gave them, in return for added wealth and power, which was granted, of course, at the expense of the vanquished natives.

Worcester writes in one of his earlier books, "During the years 1890-93, while traveling in the archipelago, I everywhere heard the mutterings that go before a storm.

It was the old story: compulsory military service; taxes too heavy to be borne, and imprisonment or deportation with confiscation of property for those who could not pay them; no justice except for those who could afford to buy it; cruel extortion by the friars in the more secluded districts; wives and daughters ruined;

the marriage ceremony too costly a luxury for the poor; the dead refused burial without payment of a substantial sum in advance; no opportunity for education; little encouragement for industry and economy, since to acquire wealth meant to become a target for officials and friars alike;

these and a hundred other wrongs had goaded the natives and half-castes until they were stung to desperation."

The dissensions in the Philippines which ended in the rebellion of 1896-7 began with disagreements among the Spaniards themselves.

A

progressive party arose before which the clerical or conservative party slowly but steadily lost ground, and the legislation of modern Spain was by degrees introduced into the Islands.

The country was not able to endure the taxation which would have been necessary to raise the revenues to carry out this legislation.

Hence laws which were passed against the advice of the Spanish clergy in the Philippines were left largely in their hands for execution, not because they were loved or trusted, but because they were the only Spanish functionaries who knew the language and the people and whose residence in the Islands was a permanent one.

If the friars had used their power wisely and unselfishly, there would have been no trouble, but they used it too often simply to keep the people down and extort money, for which they gave little return.

By degrees the mestizos took sides.

The Chinese mestizos soon grew restive under this priestly government, and aided the progressive Spanish party in Manila.

As time passed they had it borne in upon them that revolution might pay.

The insurrection of 1896-7 was planned and carried out under the auspices of a society local to the Philippines, called the "Katipunan," the full title of which may be translated as "Supreme Select Association of the Sons of the People."

According to Spanish writers on the subject, it was the outgrowth of a series of associations of Freemasons formed with the expressed purpose of securing reforms in the government of the Philippines, but whose unexpressed and ultimate object was to obtain the independence of the archipelago.

As if to accomplish this purpose, a systematic attack was made on the monastic orders in the Philippines, to undermine their prestige and to destroy their influence upon the great mass of the population.

The honorary president of the Katipunan was José Rizal, whose name was used, without his permission, to attract the masses to the movement.

Rizal was born in 1861 not far from Manila.

He came of intelligent stock.

After his early training at the Jesuit school in Manila and the Dominican university, Rizal went to Spain, where he took high honors at the University of Madrid in medicine and philosophy.

Post-graduate work in France and Germany followed.

He was an ardent patriot, and in order to awaken his countrymen to the need of reform, although he was a Roman Catholic, he published while in Germany his book called "Noli Me Tangere,"--Touch Me Not--which dealt with the immoral life of the friars.

An English translation has been issued with the title, "The Social Cancer."

The circulation of the book in the Islands was forbidden, but it was read by most of the educated Filipinos.

In reading it, one is again and again struck by the author's clear comprehension of the needs and the difficulties of the Filipinos, and the calm, unprejudiced way in which their problems are discussed.

[Illustration: JOSE RIZAL.

] In 1891, Rizal began the practice of medicine in Hongkong.

Meanwhile, the Spanish authorities, in their desire to get him into their power, worked upon his feelings by persecuting his mother.

The trick was successful, and he returned to Manila, where he was soon arrested, and banished to the island of Mindanao.

The most powerful leader of the insurrection was Andres Bonifacio, a passionate and courageous man of little education.

He sent an agent to Dr. Rizal to aid him in escaping from his place of exile and to request him to lead the Katipunan in open revolt.

Rizal refused, believing that the Filipinos were not yet ready for independence.

Bonifacio resolved to proceed without him.

Bonifacio assured his audience that when he gave the signal the native troops would join them.

It was of great importance to the success of his plan that the army, as in 1872, was engaged in operations against the Moros.

There were available in Manila only some three hundred Spanish artillery, detachments amounting to four hundred men, including seamen, and two thousand native soldiers.

The plot was discovered, but Bonifacio escaped from Manila, and sent out orders for an uprising in that part of Luzon which had been organized by the Katipunan.

Manila was attacked, but the rebels were repulsed.

Martial law was proclaimed in eight provinces of Luzon, followed by wholesale executions.

Many of those arrested on suspicion "were confined in Fort Santiago, one batch being crowded into a dungeon for which the only ventilation was a grated opening at the top, and one night the sergeant of the guard carelessly spread his sleeping-mat over this, so the next morning some fifty-five asphyxiated corpses were hauled away."

Just before the outbreak, Rizal received permission to join the army in Cuba as surgeon, but on the way there was arrested and brought back to Manila.

His fate was now sealed.

The trial by court-martial was a farce.

On a December day in 1896 he was led to execution.

Rizal was undoubtedly the noblest and most unselfish of the Filipino leaders, and his execution was not only a crime but a blunder on the part of the Spanish authorities.

From his prison he issued an address to the Filipinos remarkable for its moderation and its condemnation of the "savage rebellion," stating that the education of the people must precede any truly beneficial reforms, and urging them to go back to their homes.

The Spanish officials deemed this not sufficiently "patriotic" to be published, and sentenced its author to the death of a traitor by shooting in the back.

To-day he is the national hero of the Filipinos.

[Illustration: FORT SANTIAGO.

] The seacoast towns were under the leadership of Emilio Aguinaldo, a young radical, who was already a recognized leader among the local disaffected.

The Spaniards had not expected this outbreak in Cavite.

Aguinaldo had personally assured the governor of the province of his devotion to Spain, but when fighting began isolated Spanish officers were killed and their families carried into captivity.

The difficulties, of the Spaniards were increased by the fact that the defense of Manila and Cavite until reinforcements arrived, would be largely in the hands of native troops, among whom the Katipunan was known to have been at work.

But the troops of the old native regiments--the men who for years had followed Spanish officers--were on the whole faithful, and it was largely due to them that Manila and Cavite were held.

The leaders in the insurrection were of that class who called themselves _ilustrados_, enlightened, a class whose blood is, in almost every case, partly Spanish or partly Chinese.

The supremacy of the friars was passing, and men of this class intended to be the heirs to their domain.

The idea of forming a republic and even of adopting the titles appropriate to a republic to designate the functionaries of a Malay despotism was an afterthought.

Reinforcements arrived from Spain, and by June 10, 1897, the insurrection was broken, and Aguinaldo with his remaining adherents had taken refuge at Biacnabato, some sixty miles from Manila.

He was now without a rival, for Bonifacio had dared to attempt his life, had been brought before a court-martial, had been condemned to death and had disappeared.

Aguinaldo, who now called himself not only Generalissimo of the Army of Liberation but President of the Revolutionary Government, had adopted guerilla warfare, and the Spanish commands were forced to follow an enemy who was never dangerous to large bodies, but who always was to small ones--an enemy who, wearing no uniform, upon the approach of a large body became peaceful labourers in the fields along the road, but were ready to pick up their rifles or bolos and use them against a small party or a straggler.

Still, whatever they had fought for at first, the insurgent leaders were now fighting for their own safety.

The governor general sought in various ways to gain the support of the country.

He called for Filipino volunteers, and, curiously enough, they responded with enthusiasm.

The rapidity with which they were recruited was probably largely due to the activity of the friars.

This added to the hatred of them felt by the class of natives represented by Aguinaldo.

Between June and December, 1897, the time was spent in an obscure bargaining, the outcome of which was the so-called Treaty of Biacnabato, which Primo de Rivera--the governor general--has stated was merely a promise to pay a money bribe to the insurgents if they would cease a combat in which they had lost hope of success but which they could still prolong to the detriment of the resources and the prestige of Spain.

The result of the bargainings was that Spain agreed to pay eight hundred thousand Mexican dollars for the surrender of Aguinaldo and his principal leaders and the arms and ammunition in their possession.

An amnesty was proclaimed.

Aguinaldo and his leaders were sent to Hongkong under escort, where they declared themselves loyal Spanish subjects.

Primo de Rivera returned to Spain.

As he received in return for the money only about two hundred rifles and a little ammunition, it is not probable that he made any of the promises of changes in the government of the archipelago which the Filipinos have insistently stated since then were the real objects of the agreement.

Whatever may have been the true motives which actuated the Spanish governor general in adopting this method of terminating a successful campaign, he succeeded in purchasing only an armistice and not a peace.

On January 23, 1898, a Te Deum was sung in the cathedral of Manila to mark the reëstablishment of peace in the archipelago.

The insurgent leaders had been bought off and their followers had surrendered their arms.

As Spanish dominion in the Philippines was now about to close, let us stop a moment to inquire what it had brought to the Islands.

It may have been hard and utterly unprogressive, but it turned the tribes of Luzon and the Visayas from tribal feuds and slave-raiding expeditions to agriculture.

To accomplish these results required untiring energy and a high enthusiasm among the missionaries.

They had lived among savages, speaking their tongue, until they had almost forgotten their own.

Spain had ceased to be everything to them; their order was their country.

Spanish officials came and went, but the ministers of the Church remained, and as they grew to be the interpreters of the wants of the people, in many cases their protectors against spoliation, power fell into their hands.

It is rather interesting to learn that in 1619, in the reign of Philip III, it was proposed to abandon the Philippines on account of their useless expense to Spain, but a delegation of friars from the Islands implored him not to abandon the twenty thousand Christians they had converted, and the order was countermanded.

Spanish dominion left the people Christians, whereas, if the Islands had not been occupied by Spain, their people would in all probability to-day be Mohammedan.

The point of view of the Spanish friars may not be ours, but when their efforts are judged by the good rather than the evil results, it can still be said that Spain gave Christianity and a long term of peace to the Philippine archipelago.

The Filipinos are the only Christian Asiatics.

But Philippine history was to take an unexpected turn.

The Spanish-American war broke out, and a new factor appeared upon the scene in the shape of Commodore Dewey and his fleet.

We all know the story of the battle of Manila Bay, but we may just recall it briefly.

It was the night of April 30, 1898, that the American Asiatic squadron, which had received its orders at Hongkong, arrived off the Philippines.

They took a look first into Subig Bay, but seeing no enemy, they made their way into Manila Bay by the Boca Grande entrance.

There were rumours of mines in the channel and big guns in the forts, but Dewey took the chance, and the fleet steamed in at night.

The ships formed two columns, the fighting ships all in one line, and the auxiliary vessels about twelve hundred yards behind.

They moved at the rate of their slowest vessel.

Black thunder clouds at times obscured even the crescent moon that partially lighted their course, but occasional lightning flashes gave the bold Americans a glimpse of frowning Corregidor and the sentinel rock of El Fraile.

The ships were dark except for one white light at the stern of each as a guide to the vessel next in line.

As the _Olympia_ turned toward El Fraile her light was seen by a Spanish sentry.

A sheet of flame from the smokestack of the _McCulloch_, a revenue cutter attached to the fleet, also betrayed its presence to the enemy at the same moment.

El Fraile and a battery on the south shore of the bay at once opened fire, which was returned by the ships to such good purpose that the battery was silenced in three minutes.

Slowly, steadily, Dewey's ships steamed on, and at dawn discovered the gray Spanish vessels lying in front of the naval arsenal at Cavite, over on the distant shore to the right.

Admiral Montojo's flagship, the _Reina Cristina_, and the _Castilla_, and a number of smaller vessels, formed a curved line of battle, which was protected in a measure by the shore batteries.

The Spaniards had one more ship than the Americans, but the latter had bigger guns.

Silently the American squadron advanced across the bay, with the Stars and Stripes flying from every ship.

At quarter past five on the morning of May 1st, the Spanish ships fired their first shots.

When less than six thousand yards from their line, Dewey gave the famous order to Captain Gridley, in command of the _Olympia_: "You may fire when you're ready, Gridley."

Two hours later, the _Reina Cristina_ had been burned, the _Castilla_ was on fire, and all but one of the other Spanish vessels were abandoned and sunk.

Dewey gave his men time for breakfast and a little rest, then shelled and silenced the batteries at Cavite.

Soon after noon the Spaniards surrendered, having lost 381 men and ten war vessels.

Seven Americans were slightly wounded, but none were killed.

So ended this famous battle.

CHAPTER III