Countries of the World/COUNTRYS.BIN/dp/0288/02881.txt

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$Unique_ID{COW02881}
$Pretitle{272}
$Title{Philippines
Chapter 1C.   American Rule}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Frederica M. Bunge}
$Affiliation{HQ, Department of the Army}
$Subject{philippine
united
states
party
american
islands
filipino
political
government
act}
$Date{1983}
$Log{}
Country:     Philippines
Book:        Philippines, A Country Study
Author:      Frederica M. Bunge
Affiliation: HQ, Department of the Army
Date:        1983

Chapter 1C.   American Rule

The First Phase of American Rule, 1899-1935

     On January 20, 1899, President McKinley appointed the First Philippine
Commission, a five-man group headed by Dr. Jacob Schurman, president of
Cornell University, and including Admiral Dewey and General Otis, to
investigate conditions in the islands and make recommendations. In the report
that they issued to the president the following year, the commissioners
acknowledged Filipino aspirations for independence (in Manila, they had
conferred with emissaries of the Aguinaldo government) but declared that they
were not ready for it. Specific recommendations included the establishment
of civilian government as rapidly as possible (the American chief executive in
the islands at that time was the military governor), including a bicameral
legislature; the creation of autonomous governments on the provincial and
municipal levels; and the organization of a system of free public elementary
schools. The Second Philippine Commission (Taft Commission), appointed by
McKinley on March 16, 1900, and headed by William Howard Taft, was granted
legislative as well as limited executive powers. Between September 1900 and
August 1902 it issued 499 laws. A judicial system was established, including
an insular supreme court, a legal code was drawn up to replace antiquated
Spanish ordinances, and a civil service was organized. The 1901 Municipal Code
provided for popularly elected presidents, vice presidents, and councillors to
serve on municipal boards; these officials had the responsibilities of
collecting taxes, maintaining municipal properties, and undertaking necessary
construction projects. The municipal board members elected provincial
governors. In July 1901 the Philippine Constabulary (PC) was organized as
an islands-wide police force to control brigandage and deal with the
remnants of the insurgent movement. After military rule was terminated
on July 4, 1901, the PC gradually took over from United States Army units
the responsibility for suppressing guerrilla and bandit activities.

     From the very beginning, United States presidents and their
representatives in the islands defined their colonial mission in terms of
tutelage: a process of preparing the Philippines for eventual independence.
Except for a small group of "retentionists," the issue was not whether they
would be granted self-rule, but when and under what conditions. Thus,
political development in the islands was rapid and particularly impressive
in light of the complete lack of representative institutions under the
Spanish. The Philippine Organic Act of July 1902 stipulated that, upon the
achievement of peace, a legislature would be established composed of a lower
house, the Philippine Assembly, which would be popularly elected, and an upper
house consisting of the Philippine Commission, which was appointed by the
president of the United States. The two houses would share legislative
powers, although the upper house alone was responsible for passing laws
relating to the Moros and other non-Christian peoples. The act also
provided for extension of the United States Bill of Rights to cover
Filipinos and the sending of two Filipino resident commissioners to
Washington to attend sessions of the United States Congress. In July 1907
the first elections for the assembly were held, and it opened its first
session on October 16, 1907. Political parties were organized, and although
open advocacy of independence had been banned during the insurgency years,
criticism of government policies in the local newspapers was tolerated.

     Taft, the Philippines' first civilian governor, outlined a comprehensive
development plan that he described in sum as "the Philippines for the
Filipinos"-that "every measure, whether in the form of a law or an
executive order, before its adoption, should be weighed in the light of this
question: does it make for the welfare of the Filipino people, or does it
not?" Its main features included not only the broadening of
representative institutions but also the expansion of a system of free
public elementary education and economic policies designed to promote the
islands' development. Filipinos widely interpreted Taft's pronouncements
as a promise of independence. But in fact the governor, personally
disillusioned with the "shallowness" of the westernized elite, felt that
the people were totally unprepared for the responsibilities of self-rule.
With the condescension of a person overly sure of himself and his benevolent
intentions, he wrote that "the character of the people contains many
discouraging defects which can only be cured by careful tutelage and
widespread education."

Religious Issues

     Opposition to the Spanish friars was a point of view shared by
practically all Filipinos, and in the first years of United States rule the
prospects of the Catholic church were in some doubt. Aguinaldo had appointed
Gregorio Aglipay, a Filipino secular priest, "Spiritual Head of the Nation
under Arms." Catholic bishops, because of their Spanish nationality, were
declared deposed by the revolutionists, and parish priests who remained
loyal to them were also relieved of their responsibilities.

     The 1902 Philippine Organic Act disestablished the Catholic church. The
United States government, in an effort to resolve the friar issue,
negotiated with the Vatican; the church agreed to the sale of the friar
estates and promised gradual substitution of non-Spanish and Filipino
priests for the friars. It refused, however, to withdraw the religious
orders from the islands immediately, in part for fear of offending Spain.
In 1904 the administration bought for US$7.2 million the major part of the
friars' holdings, amounting to some 166,000 hectares, of which one-half was
in the vicinity of Manila. The land was eventually resold to Filipinos, some
of them tenants but the majority of them estate owners.

     Anger over the Vatican's continued resistance to appointing Filipino
priests contributed to the rapid growth of the Iglesia Filipina Independiente
(Philippine Independent Church), which Aglipay, breaking with the Catholic
church, and journalist Isabelo de los Reyes had established in 1902. The
desertion to Aglipay's church of one out of every 16 priests and, by 1904,
one-quarter to one-third of the total Christian population testified to the
magnitude of popular disaffection with Catholicism. His movement's fortunes
waned, however, owing to internal dissension and government suspicions;
Aglipay had taken an active part in guerrilla resistance and was considered
subversive. In 1906 the Philippine Supreme Court ruled that property seized by
the Aglipayans be returned to the Catholic church.

     In 1907 Pope Pius X appointed a Benedictine monk as papal delegate to
preside over the Philippine Provincial Council, a council of bishops and other
religious officials. The council, held in Manila during 1907 and 1908, set in
motion a counterreformation in response to the challenges of Aglipayanism,
Protestantism brought by American missionaries, and the declining influence of
the church in Philippine society. Largely as a result of its reforms,
Philippine Catholicism acquired greater vigor and more unity than it had had
for a long time. Members of the clergy were forbidden to accept government
positions. For the first time, Catholic education was made available to the
majority of Filipino children of both sexes in more than 1,200 schools. By
1927 there were more than 1,000 boys and men preparing for the priesthood.
By the early 1930s a major portion