The Treason Act of 1901
Enacted November 4, 1901
From Annual Reports of the War Department for the Fiscal
Year
Ended June 30, 1902, Vol. 11, Acts of the Philippine
Commission
(Washington: Government Printing Office, 1902).
-----------------------------------------------------------------
[No. 292.]
AN ACT defining the crimes of treason, insurrection,
sedition, conspiracies to commit such crimes, seditious
utterances, whether written or spoken, the formation of
secret political societies, the administering or taking
of oaths to commit crimes or to prevent the discovering
of the same, and the violation of oaths of allegiance,
and prescribing punishment therefor.
By authority of the President of the United States, be it
enacted
by the United States Philippine Commission, that:
SECTION 1. Every person resident in the Philippine
Islands, owing
allegiance to the United States or the Government of the
Philippine Islands, who levies war against them, or
adheres to
their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the
Philippine
Islands or elsewhere, is guilty of treason, and upon
conviction
shall suffer death or, at the discretion of the court,
shall be
imprisoned at hard labor for not less than five years and
fined
not less than ten thousand dollars.
SEC. 2. Every person, owing allegiance to the United
States or
the Government of the Philippine Islands, and having
knowledge of
any treason against them or either of them, who conceals,
and
does not as soon as may be disclose and make known the
same to
the provincial governor in the province in which he
resides or to
the Civil Governor of the Islands or to some Judge of a
Court of
Record, is guilty of misprision of treason, and shall be
imprisoned not more than seven years and be fined not
more than
one thousand dollars.
SEC. 3. Every person who incites, sets on foot, assists,
or
engages in any rebellion or insurrection against the
authorities
of the United States or of the Government of the
Philippine
Islands, or the laws thereof, or who gives aid or comfort
to
anyone so engaging in such rebellion or insurrection,
shall, upon
conviction, be imprisoned for not more than ten years and
be
fined not more than ten thousand dollars.
SEC. 4. If two or more persons conspire to overthrow, put
down,
or destroy by force the Government of the United States
in the
Philippine Islands or the Government of the Philippine
Islands,
or by force to prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of
any law
of the United States or of the Philippine Islands, or by
force to
seize, take, or possess any property of the United States
or of
the Government of the Philippine Islands contrary to the
authority thereof, each of such persons shall be punished
by a
fine of not more than five thousand dollars and by
imprisonment,
with or without hard labor, for a period of not more than
six
years.
SEC. 5. All persons who rise publicly and tumultuously in
order
to obtain by force or outside of legal methods any of the
following objects are guilty of sedition:
1. To prevent the promulgation or execution of any law or
the
free holding of any popular election.
2. To prevent the Insular Government or any Provincial or
Municipal Government or any public official from freely
exercising its or his duties, or the due execution of any
judicial or administrative order.
3. To inflict any act of hate or revenge upon the person
or
property of any official or agent of the Insular
Government or of
a Provincial or Municipal Government.
4. To inflict, with a political or social object, any act
of hate
or revenge upon individuals or upon any class of
individuals in
the Islands.
5. To despoil, with a political or social object, any
class of
persons, natural or artificial, a Municipality, a
Province, or
the Insular Government, or the Government of the United
States or
any part of its property.
SEC. 6. Any person guilty of sedition, as defined in
section 5
hereof, shall be punished by a fine of not exceeding five
thousand dollars and by imprisonment not exceeding ten
years, or
both.
SEC. 7. All persons conspiring to commit the crime of
sedition
shall be punished by a fine of not exceeding one thousand
dollars
or by imprisonment not exceeding five years, or both.
SEC. 8. Every person who shall utter seditious words or
speeches,
write, publish, or circulate scurrilous libels against
the
Government of the United States or the Insular Government
of the
Philippine Islands, or which tend to disturb or obstruct
any
lawful officer in executing his office, or which tend to
instigate others to cabal or meet together for unlawful
purposes
or which suggest or incite rebellious conspiracies or
riots, or
which tend to stir up the people against the lawful
authorities
or to disturb the peace of the community, the safety and
order of
the Government, or who shall knowingly conceal such evil
practices, shall be punished by a fine not exceeding two
thousand
dollars or by imprisonment not exceeding two years, or
both, in
the discretion of the Court.
SEC. 9. All persons who shall meet together for the
purpose of
forming, or who shall form any secret society, or who
shall after
the passage of this act continue membership in a society
already
formed, having for its object in whole or in part the
promotion
of treason, rebellion, or sedition, or the promulgation
of any
political opinion or policy, shall be punished bye fine
not
exceeding one thousand dollars or by imprisonment not
exceeding
one year, or both.
SEC. 10. Until it has been officially proclaimed that a
state of
war or insurrection against the authority or sovereignty
of the
United States no longer exists in the Philippine Islands,
it
shall be unlawful for any person to advocate orally or by
writing
or printing or like methods the independence of the
Philippine
Islands or their separation from the United States,
whether by
peaceable or forcible means, or to print, publish, or
circulate
any handbill newspaper, or other publication advocating
such
independence or separation.
Any person violating the provisions of this section shall
be
punished by a fine of not exceeding two thousand dollars
and
imprisonment not exceeding one year.
SEC. 11. Every person who shall administer, or be present
and
consent to the administering of, any oath or any
engagement
purporting to bind the person taking the same to commit
any crime
punishable by death or by imprisonment for five years or
more, or
who shall attempt to induce or compel any person to take
any such
oath or engagement or who shall himself take any such
oath or
engagement, shall be punished by a fine not exceeding two
thousand dollars or by imprisonment not exceeding ten
years.
SEC. 12. Any person who administers, or who is present
at, and
consenting to, the administering of any oath or
engagement
purporting to bind the person taking the same, either;
1. To engage in any seditious purpose, or
2. To disturb the public peace or commit or endeavor to
commit
any criminal offense, or
3. To fail or refuse to inform and give evidence against
any
associate, confederate, or other person, or
4. To fail or refuse to reveal or discover any unlawful
combination or confederacy or any illegal act done or to
be done
or any illegal oath or obligation or engagement which may
have
been administered or tendered to or taken by any person
or the
import of any such oath, obligation, or engagement:
And likewise anyone who attempts to induce or compel any
person
to take any such oath or engagement, and likewise any
person who
takes any such oath or engagement shall be punished by a
fine not
exceeding one thousand dollars or by imprisonment not
exceeding
five years, or both.
SEC. 13. Any person who, under such compulsion as would
otherwise
excuse him, offends against either of the last two
preceding
sections shall not be excused thereby, unless within the
periods
hereinafter stated he declares the same, and what he
knows
touching the same, and the persons by whom such oath or
obligation or engagement was administered or taken, by
information upon oath before a Justice of the Peace,
Judge of a
Court of First Instance, or Provincial Fiscal of the
Municipality, or Province, in which such oath or
engagement was
administered or taken. Such declaration may be made by
him within
fourteen days after the commission of the offense, or, if
he is
hindered from making it by actual force or sickness, then
within
eight days after cessation of such hindrance, or on his
trial, if
that happens before the expiration of either of those
periods.
SEC. 14. Any person who shall have taken any oath before
any
military officer of the Army of the United States or
before any
officer under the Civil Government of the Philippine
Islands,
whether such official so administering the oath was
specially
authorized by law so to do or not, in which oath the
affiant in
substance engaged to recognize or accept the supreme
authority of
the United States of America in these Islands or to
maintain true
faith and allegiance thereto or to obey the laws, legal
orders,
and decrees promulgated by its duly constituted
authorities, and
who shall, after the passage of this act, violate the
terms and
provisions of such oath or any of such terms or
provisions, shall
be punished by a fine not exceeding two thousand dollars
or by
imprisonment not exceeding ten years, or both.
SEC. 15. The provisions of this act shall not apply to
the
organized provinces of Batangas, Cebú, and Bohol, nor to
any
province where civil government has not been established,
so long
as insurrection against the authority of the United
States exists
therein, unless the Commanding General of the Army of the
United
States Division of the Philippines, shall authorize and
direct
prosecutions in the civil courts in such territories for
offenses
under this act, in which event it shall apply.
SEC. 16. All laws and parts of laws now in force, so far
as the
same may be in conflict herewith, are hereby repealed;
provided:
that nothing herein contained shall operate as a repeal
of
existing laws in so far as they are applicable to pending
actions
or existing causes of actions, but as to such causes of
actions,
or pending actions, existing laws shall remain in full
force and
effect, this act being entirely prospective.
SEC. 17. A foreigner, residing in the Philippine Islands,
who
shall commit any of the crimes specified in the preceding
sections of this act, except those specified in sections
1 and 2,
shall be punished in the same way and with the same
penalty, as
that prescribed for the particular crime therein.
SEC. 18. This act shall take effect on its passage.
Enacted, November 4,1901.
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Sentenaryo/Centennial, edited by Jim Zwick.
Copyright © 1995-1999 Jim Zwick. All rights reserved.
Please see the Conditions of Use.
On January 20, 1899, President McKinley
appointed the First
Philippine Commission (the Schurman Commission), a
five-person
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; they declared, however, that the
Philippines was
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 establishment of a
bicameral
legislature, autonomous governments on the provincial and
municipal levels, and a system of free public elementary
schools.
The Second Philippine Commission (the 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 a
Supreme
Court, and a legal code was drawn up to replace
antiquated
Spanish ordinances. A civil service was organized. The
1901
municipal code provided for popularly elected presidents,
vice
presidents, and councilors to serve on municipal boards.
The
municipal board members were responsible for collecting
taxes,
maintaining municipal properties, and undertaking
necessary
construction projects; they also elected provincial
governors. In
July 1901 the Philippine Constabulary was organized as an
archipelago-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 Philippine Constabulary
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 as
tutelage: preparing the Philippines for eventual
independence.
Except for a small group of "retentionists,"
the issue was not
whether the Philippines 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, with
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 to be appointed by the
president
of the United States. The two houses would share
legislative
powers, although the upper house alone would pass laws
relating
to the Moros and other non-Christian peoples. The act
also
provided for extending the United States Bill of Rights
to
Filipinos and sending 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 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 broadening representative
institutions
but also expanding a system of free public elementary
education
and designing economic policies to promote the islands'
development. Filipinos widely interpreted Taft's
pronouncements
as a promise of independence.
The 1902 Philippine Organic Act disestablished the
Catholic
Church as the state religion. The United States
government, in an
effort to resolve the status of the friars, negotiated
with the
Vatican. The church agreed to sell the friars' estates
and
promised gradual substitution of Filipino and other
non-Spanish
priests for the friars. It refused, however, to withdraw
the
religious orders from the islands immediately, partly to
avoid
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.
A Collaborative Philippine Leadership
The most important step in establishing a new political
system
was the successful coaptation of the Filipino
elite--called the
"policy of attraction." Wealthy and
conservative ilustrados, the
self-described "oligarchy of intelligence," had
been from the
outset reluctant revolutionaries, suspicious of the
Katipunan and
willing to negotiate with either Spain or the United
States.
Trinidad H. Pardo de Tavera, a descendant of Spanish
nobility,
and Benito Legarda, a rich landowner and capitalist, had
quit
Aguinaldo's government in 1898 as a result of
disagreements with
Mabini. Subsequently, they worked closely with the
Schurman and
Taft commissions, advocating acceptance of United States
rule.
In December 1900, de Tavera and Legarda established the
Federalista Party, advocating statehood for the islands.
In the
following year they were appointed the first Filipino
members of
the Philippine Commission of the legislature. In such an
advantageous position, they were able to bring influence
to bear
to achieve the appointment of Federalistas to provincial
governorships, the Supreme Court, and top positions in
the civil
service. Although the party boasted a membership of
200,000 by
May 1901, its proposal to make the islands a state of the
United
States had limited appeal, both in the islands and in the
United
States, and the party was widely regarded as being
opportunistic.
In 1905 the party revised its program over the objections
of its
leaders, calling for "ultimate independence"
and changing its
name to the National Progressive Party (Partido Nacional
Progresista).
The Nacionalista Party, established in 1907, dominated
the
Philippine political process until after World War II. It
was led
by a new generation of politicians, although they were
not
ilustrados and were by no means radical. One of the
leaders,
Manuel Quezon, came from a family of moderate wealth. An
officer
in Aguinaldo's army, he studied law, passed his bar
examination
in 1903, and entered provincial politics, becoming
governor of
Tayabas in 1906 before being elected to the Philippine
Assembly
the following year. His success at an early age was
attributable
to consummate political skills and the support of
influential
Americans. His Nacionalista Party associate and sometime
rival
was Sergio Osmena, the college-educated son of a
shopkeeper, who
had worked as a journalist. The former journalist's
thoroughness
and command of detail made him a perfect complement to
Quezon.
Like Quezon, Osmena had served as a provincial governor
(in his
home province of Cebu) before being elected in 1907 to
the
assembly and, at age twenty-nine, selected as its first
speaker.
Although the Nacionalista Party's platform at its
founding
called for "immediate independence," American
observers believed
that Osmena and Quezon used this appeal only to get
votes. In
fact, their policy toward the Americans was highly
accommodating.
In 1907 an understanding was reached with an American
official
that the two leaders would block any attempt by the
Philippine
Assembly to demand independence. Osmena and Quezon, who
were the
dominant political figures in the islands up to World War
II,
were genuinely committed to independence. The failure of
Aguinaldo's revolutionary movement, however, had taught
them the
pragmatism of adopting a conciliatory policy.
The appearance of the Nacionalista Party in 1907 marked
the
emergence of the party system, although the party was
without an
effective rival from 1916 for most of the period until
the
emergence of the Liberal Party in 1946. Much of the
system's
success (or, rather, the success of the Nacionalistas)
depended
on the linkage of modern political institutions with
traditional
social structures and practices. Most significantly, it
involved
the integration of local-level elite groups into the new
political system. Philippine parties have been described
by
political scientist Carl Lande as organized
"upward" rather than
"downward." That is, national followings were
put together by
party leaders who worked in conjunction with local elite
groups--in many cases the descendants of the principalia
of
Spanish times--who controlled constituencies tied to them
in
patron-client relationships. The issue of independence,
and the
conditions and timing under which it would be granted,
generated
considerable passion in the national political arena.
According
to Lande, however, the decisive factors in terms of
popular
support were more often local and particularistic issues
rather
than national or ideological concerns. Filipino political
associations depended on intricate networks of
personalistic
ties, directed upward to Manila and the national
legislature.
The linchpins of the system created under United States
tutelage
were the village- and province-level notables--often
labeled
bosses or caciques by colonial administrators--who
garnered
support by exchanging specific favors for votes.
Reciprocal
relations between inferior and superior (most often
tenants or
sharecroppers with large landholders) usually involved
the
concept of utang na loob (repayment of debts) or kinship
ties,
and they formed the basis of support for village-level
factions
led by the notables (see The System Values and
Organization, ch.
2). These factions decided political party allegiance.
The
extension of voting rights to all literate males in 1916,
the
growth of literacy, and the granting of women's suffrage
in 1938
increased the electorate considerably. The elite,
however, was
largely successful in monopolizing the support of the
newly
enfranchised, and a genuinely populist alternative to the
status
quo was never really established.
The policy of attraction ensured the success of what
colonial
administrators called the political education of the
Filipinos.
It was, however, also the cause of its greatest failure.
Osmena
and Quezon, as the acknowledged representatives, were not
genuinely interested in social reform, and serious
problems
involving land ownership, tenancy, and the highly unequal
distribution of wealth were largely ignored. The growing
power of
the Nacionalista Party, particularly in the period after
1916
when it gained almost complete control of a bicameral
Filipino
legislature, barred the effective inclusion of nonelite
interests
in the political system. Not only revolution but also
moderate
reform of the social and economic systems were precluded.
Discussions of policy alternatives became less salient to
the
political process than the dynamics of personalism and
the ethic
of give and take.
The Jones Act
The term of Governor General Francis Burton Harrison
(1913-21)
was one of particularly harmonious collaboration between
Ameri-
cans and Filipinos. Harrison's attitudes (he is described
as
having regarded himself as a "constitutional
monarch" presiding
over a "government of Filipinos") reflected the
relatively
liberal stance of Woodrow Wilson's Democratic Party
administration. In 1913 Wilson had appointed five
Filipinos to
the Philippine Commission of the legislature, giving it a
Filipino majority for the first time. Harrison undertook
rapid
"Filipinization" of the civil service, much to
the anger and
distress of Americans in the islands, including
superannuated
officials. In 1913 there had been 2,623 American and
6,363
Filipino officials; in 1921 there were 13,240 Filipino
and 614
American administrators. Critics accused Harrison of
transforming
a "colonial government of Americans aided by
Filipinos" into a
"government of Filipinos aided by Americans"
and of being the
"plaything and catspaw of the leaders of the
Nacionalista Party."
A major step was taken in the direction of independence
in 1916,
when the United States Congress passed a second organic
law,
commonly referred to as the Jones Act, which replaced the
1902
law. Its preamble stated the intent to grant Philippine
independence as soon as a stable government was
established. The
Philippine Senate replaced the Philippine Commission as
the upper
house of the legislature. Unlike the commission, all but
two of
the Senate's twenty-four members (and all but nine of the
ninety
representatives in the lower house, now renamed the House
of
Representatives) were popularly elected. The two senators
and
nine representatives were appointed by the governor
general to
represent the non-Christian peoples. The legislature's
actions
were subject to the veto of the governor general, and it
could
not pass laws affecting the rights of United States
citizens. The
Jones Act brought the legislative branch under Filipino
control.
The executive still was firmly under the control of an
appointed
governor general, and most Supreme Court justices, who
were
appointed by the United States president, still were
Americans in
1916.
Elections were held for the two houses in 1916, and the
Nacionalista Party made an almost clean sweep. All but
one
elected seat in the Senate and eighty-three out of ninety
elected
seats in the House were won by their candidates, leaving
the
National Progressive Party (the former Federalista Party)
a
powerless opposition. Quezon was chosen president of the
Senate,
and Osmena continued as speaker of the House.
The Jones Act remained the basic legislation for the
administra-
tion of the Philippines until the United States Congress
passed
new legislation in 1934 which became effective in 1935,
establishing the Commonwealth of the Philippines.
Provisions of
the Jones Act were differently interpreted, however, by
the
governors general. Harrison rarely challenged the
legislature by
his use of the veto power. His successor, General Leonard
Wood
(1921-27), was convinced that United States withdrawal
from the
islands would be as disastrous for the Filipinos as it
would be
for the interests of the United States in the western
Pacific. He
aroused the intense opposition of the Nacionalistas by
his use of
the veto power 126 times in his six years in office. The
Nacionalista Party created a political deadlock when
ranking
Filipino officials resigned in 1923 leaving their
positions
vacant until Wood's term ended with his death in 1927.
His
successors, however, reversed Wood's policies and
reestablished
effective working relations with Filipino politicians.
Although the Jones Act did not transfer responsibility
for the
Moro regions (reorganized in 1914 under the Department of
Mindanao and Sulu) from the American governor to the
Filipino-
controlled legislature, Muslims perceived the rapid
Filipinization of the civil service and United States
commitment
to eventual independence as serious threats. In the view
of the
Moros, an independent Philippines would be dominated by
Chris-
tians, their traditional enemies. United States policy
from 1903
had been to break down the historical autonomy of the
Muslim
territories. Immigration of Christian settlers from Luzon
and the
Visayan Islands to the relatively unsettled regions of
Mindanao
was encouraged, and the new arrivals began supplanting
the Moros
in their own homeland. Large areas of the island were
opened to
economic exploitation. There was no legal recognition of
Muslim
customs and institutions. In March 1935, Muslim datu
petitioned
United States president Franklin D. Roosevelt, asking
that "the
American people should not release us until we are
educated and
become powerful because we are like a calf who, once
abandoned by
its mother, would be devoured by a merciless lion."
Any
suggestion of special status for or continued United
States rule
over the Moro regions, however, was vehemently opposed by
Christian Filipino leaders who, when the Commonwealth of
the
Philippines was established, gained virtually complete
control
over government institutions.
Economic and Social Developments
The Taft Commission, appointed in 1900, viewed economic
development, along with education and the establishment
of
representative institutions, as one of the three pillars
of the
United States program of tutelage. Its members had
ambitious
plans to build railroads and highways, improve harbor
facilities,
open greater markets for Philippine goods through the
lowering or
elimination of tariffs, and stimulate foreign investment
in
mining, forestry, and cash-crop cultivation. In 1901 some
93
percent of the islands' total land area was public land,
and it
was hoped that a portion of this area could be sold to
American
investors. Those plans were frustrated, however, by
powerful
agricultural interests in the United States Congress who
feared
competition from Philippine sugar, coconut oil, tobacco,
and
other exports. Although Taft argued for more liberal
terms, the
United States Congress, in the 1902 Land Act, set a limit
of 16
hectares of Philippine public land to be sold or leased
to
American individuals and 1,024 hectares to American
corporations.
This act and tight financial markets in the United States
discouraged the development of large-scale, foreign-owned
plantations such as were being established in British
Malaya, the
Dutch East Indies, and French Indochina.
The Taft Commission argued that tariff relief was
essential if
the islands were to be developed. In August 1909,
Congress passed
the Payne Aldrich Tariff Act, which provided for free
entry to
the United States of all Philippine products except rice,
sugar,
and tobacco. Rice imports were subjected to regular
tariffs, and
quotas were established for sugar and tobacco. In 1913
the
Underwood Tariff Act removed all restrictions. The
principal
result of these acts was to make the islands increasingly
dependent on American markets; between 1914 and 1920, the
portion
of Philippine exports going to the United States rose
from 50 to
70 percent. By 1939 it had reached 85 percent, and 65
percent of
imports came from the United States.
In 1931 there were between 80,000 and 100,000 Chinese in
the
islands active in the local economy; many of them had
arrived
after United States rule had been established. Some
16,000
Japanese were concentrated largely in the Mindanao
province of
Davao (the incorporated city of Davao was labeled by
local
boosters the "Little Tokyo of the South") and
were predominant in
the abaca industry. Yet the immigration of foreign
laborers never
reached a volume sufficient to threaten indigenous
control of the
economy or the traditional social structure as it did in
British
Malaya and Burma.
The Tenancy Problem
The limited nature of United States intervention in the
economy
and the Nacionalista Party's elite dominance of the
Philippine
political system ensured that the status quo in landlord
and
tenant relationships would be maintained, even if certain
of its
traditional aspects changed. A government attempt to
establish
homesteads modeled on those of the American West in 1903
did
little to alter landholding arrangements. Although
different
regions of the archipelago had their own specific
arrangements
and different proportions of tenants and small
proprietors, the
kasama (sharecropper) system, was the most prevalent,
particularly in the rice-growing areas of Central Luzon
and the
Visayan Islands.
Under this arrangement, the landowners supplied the seed
and
cash necessary to tide cultivators over during the
planting
season, whereas the cultivators provided tools and work
animals
and were responsible for one-half the expense of crop
production.
Usually, owner and sharecropper each took one-half of the
harvest, although only after the former deducted a
portion for
expenses. Terms might be more liberal in frontier areas
where
owners needed to attract cultivators to clear the land.
Sometimes
land tenancy arrangements were three tiered. An original
owner
would lease land to an inquilino, who would then sublet
it to
kasamas. In the words of historian David R. Sturtevant:
"Thrice
removed from their proprietario, affected taos [peasants]
received ever-diminishing shares from the picked-over
remains of
harvests."
Cultivators customarily were deep in debt, for they were
dependent on advances made by the landowner or inquilino
and had
to pay steep interest rates. Principal and interest
accumulated
rapidly, becoming an impossible burden. It was estimated
in 1924
that the average tenant family would have to labor
uninterruptedly for 163 years to pay off debts and
acquire title
to the land they worked. The kasama system created a
class of
peons or serfs; children inherited the debts of their
fathers,
and over the generations families were tied in bondage to
their
estates. Contracts usually were unwritten, and landowners
could
change conditions to their own advantage.
Two factors led to a worsening of the cultivators'
position. One
was the rapid increase in the national population (from
7.6
million in 1905 to 16 million in 1939) brought about
through
improvements in public health, which put added pressure
on the
land, lowered the standard of living, and created a labor
surplus. Closely tied to the population increase was the
erosion
of traditional patron-client ties. The landlord-tenant
relationship was becoming more impersonal. The landlord's
interest in the tenants' welfare was waning. Landlords
ceased
providing important services and used profits from the
sale of
cash crops to support their urban life-styles or to
invest in
other kinds of enterprises. Cultivators accused
landowners of
being shameless and forgetting the principle of utang na
loob,
demanding services from tenants without pay and giving
nothing in
return.
As the area under cultivation increased from 1.3 million
hectares in 1903 to 4 million hectares in
1935--stimulated by
United States demand for cash crops and by the growing
population--tenancy also increased. In 1918 there were
roughly 2
million farms, of which 1.5 million were operated by
their
owners; by 1939 these figures had declined to 1.6 million
and
800,000, respectively, as individual proprietors became
tenants
or migrant laborers. Disparities in the distribution of
wealth
grew. By 1939 the wealthiest 10 percent of the population
received 40 percent of the islands' income. The elite and
the
cultivators were separated culturally and geographically,
as well
as economically; as new urban centers rose, often with an
Americanized culture, the elite left the countryside to
become
absentee landlords, leaving estate management in the
hands of
frequently abusive overseers. The Philippine Constabulary
played
a central role in suppressing antilandlord resistance.
Resistance Movements
The tradition of rural revolt, often with messianic
overtones,
continued under United States rule. Colorum sects,
derived from
the old Cofradia de San Jose, had spread throughout the
Christian
regions of the archipelago and by the early 1920s
competed with
the Roman Catholic establishment and the missionaries of
Gregorio
Aglipay's Independent Philippine Church (Iglesia Filipina
Independiente). A colorum-led revolt broke out in
northeastern
Mindanao early in 1924, sparked by a sect leader's
predictions of
an imminent judgment day. In 1925 Florencio
Entrencherado, a
shopkeeper on the island of Panay, proclaimed himself
Florencio
I, Emperor of the Philippines, somewhat paradoxically
running for
the office of provincial governor of Iloilo that same
year on a
platform of tax reduction, measures against Chinese and
Japanese
merchants, and immediate independence. Although he lost
the
election, the campaign made him a prominent figure in the
western
Visayan Islands and won him the sympathies of the poor
living in
the sugar provinces of Panay and Negros. Claiming
semidivine
attributes (that he could control the elements and that
his
charisma had been granted him by the Holy Spirit and the
spirits
of Father Burgos and Rizal), Florencio had a following of
some
10,000 peasants on Negros and Panay by late 1926. In May
1927,
his supporters, heeding his call that "the hour will
come when
the poor will be ordered to kill all the rich,"
launched an
abortive insurrection.
Tensions were highest in Central Luzon, where tenancy was
most
widespread and population pressures were the greatest.
The 1931
Tayug insurrection north of Manila was connected with a
colorum
sect and had religious overtones, but traditionally
messianic
movements gradually gave way to secular, and at times
revolutionary, ones. One of the first of these movements
was the
Association of the Worthy Kabola (Kapisanan Makabola
Makasinag),
a secret society that by 1925 had some 12,000 followers,
largely
in Nueva Ecija Province. Its leader, Pedro Kabola, called
for
liberation of the Philippines and promised the aid of the
Japanese. The Tangulang (Kapatiran Tangulang Malayang
Mamamayang--Association for an Offensive for Our Future
Freedom)
movement founded in 1931 was both urban and rural based
and had
as many as 40,000 followers.
The most important movement, however, was that of the
Sakdalistas. Founded in 1933 by Benigno Ramos, a former
Nacionalista Party member and associate of Quezon who
broke with
him over the issue of collaboration, the Sakdal Party
(sakdal
means to accuse) ran candidates in the 1934 election on a
platform of complete independence by the end of 1935,
redistribution of land, and an end to caciquism.
Sakdalistas were
elected to a number of seats in the legislature and to
provincial
posts, and by early 1935 the party may have had as many
as
200,000 members. Because of poor harvests and
frustrations with
the government's lack of response to peasant demands,
Sakdalistas
took up arms and seized government buildings in a number
of
locations on May 2-3, 1935. The insurrection, suppressed
by the
Philippine Constabulary, resulted in approximately 100
dead and
Benigno Ramos fled into exile to Japan.
Through the 1930s, tenant movements in Central Luzon
became more
active, articulate, and better organized. In 1938 the
Socialist
Party joined in a united front with the Communist Party
of the
Philippines (Partido Komunista ng Pilipinas--PKP), which
was
prominent in supporting the demands of tenants for better
contracts and working conditions. As the depression wore
on and
prices for cash crops collapsed, tenant strikes and
violent
confrontations with landlords, their overseers, and the
Philippine Constabulary escalated.
In response to deteriorating conditions, commonwealth
president
Quezon launched the "Social Justice" program,
which included
regulation of rents but achieved only meager results.
There were
insufficient funds to carry out the program, and
implementation
was sabotaged on the local level by landlords and
municipal
officials. In 1939 and 1940, thousands of cultivators
were
evicted by landlords because they insisted on enforcement
of the
1933 Rice Share Tenancy Act, which guaranteed larger
shares for
tenants.