Anti-Cockpit Campaign
Against the cockpit there is now a widespread campaign. This did not grow out of increased passion for the vice but out of the increased number of its enemies. None can say that cockfighting has increased; it is easy to prove that it has decreased; the number of days permitted by law is now insignificant compared with what it was a few years ago. Nevertheless, the campaign against cockfighting has increased precisely because the number of cockfighters has decreased. Exactly the same thing happened in card playing and horse-racing.
Nothing in particular would be said about this general movement in favor of social morality if the attitude of public opinion would not have that mistaken and dangerous bias which is given it by certain elements which at all times have been an obstacle to the instruction of the Filipino people. These elements, taking advantage of the preoccupation of public opinion to combat vice and purify public morals, instead of simply supporting this movement and strengthening it justifying its usefulness by the good itself which it seeks to accomplish, launches a political campaign which consists in alarming the people making them believe that immorality increases, that the social ills are growing, that national life itself is endangered thru the fault of the reformers as a result of the new régime in vogue in the Philippines since the loss of the past sovereignty. They take advantage of the current of public opinion in favor of public morals, to make it appear that the democratic form of the Government, the English language, the lay schools, coeducation, and Anglo-Saxon civilization are the causes of the supposed growth of immorality: Such is the program of certain people!