The Philippines: Past and Present (Volume 1 of 2)

by Dean C. Worcester

Felipe Buencamino

Perhaps the most prolific writer on political subjects whom the Philippines have produced. He was at one time a member of Aguinaldo’s cabinet and accompanied Aguinaldo’s mother and son when they surrendered in order to obtain American protection.

It is my purpose to tell the plain, hard truth regardless of the effect of such conduct upon my future career. It has been alleged that my views on Philippine problems were coloured by a desire to retain my official position. Nothing could be further from the truth. Indeed, no man who has not served for long and sometimes very weary years as a public official, and has not been a target for numerous more or less irresponsible individuals whose hands were filled with mud and who were actuated by a fixed desire to throw it at something, can appreciate as keenly as I do the manifold blessings which attend the life of a private citizen.

I trust that I have said enough to make clear my view point, and now a word as to subject-matter. It is my intention to correct some of the very numerous misstatements which have been made concerning past and present conditions in the Philippines. I shall quote, from time to time, such statements, both verbal and written, and more especially some of those which have recently appeared in a book entitled “The American Occupation of the Philippines, 1898–1912,” by James H. Blount, who signs himself “Officer of the United States Volunteers in the Philippines, 1899–1901; United States District Judge in the Philippines, 1901–1905.”

Judge Blount has indulged so freely in obvious hyperbole, and has made so very evident the bitter personal animosities which inspire many of his statements, that it has been a genuine surprise to his former associates and acquaintances that his book has been taken seriously.

It should be sufficiently evident to any unprejudiced reader that in writing it he has played the part of the special pleader rather than that of the historian. He has used government records freely, and as is usually the case when a special pleader quotes from such records, the nature of the matter which he has omitted is worthy of more than passing attention. I shall hope to be able to fill some of the gaps that he has left in the documentary history of the events which he discusses and by so doing, very materially to change its purport.

As public documents have been so misused, and as a new administration is bestowing on Filipinos political offices, and giving them opportunities, for which they are as yet utterly unprepared, thus endangering the results of years of hard, patient, self-sacrificing work performed by experienced and competent men, it becomes necessary to strike home by revealing unpleasant facts which are of record but have not heretofore been disclosed because of the injury to reputations and the wounding of feelings which would result from their publication. In doing this I feel that I am only discharging a duty to the people of the United States, who are entitled to know the truth if the present possibility of Philippine independence is to be seriously considered, and to the several Filipino peoples who are to-day in danger of rushing headlong to their own utter and final destruction.

At the outset I shall discuss the oft-asserted claim that the Filipino leaders were deceived and betrayed by American officials whom they assisted, and that this unpardonable conduct led to the outbreak of active hostilities which occurred just prior to the arrival at Manila of the first Philippine Commission.

I shall then show that these leaders never established a government which adequately protected life and property, or gave to their people peace, happiness or justice, but on the contrary inaugurated a veritable reign of terror under which murder became a governmental institution, while rape, inhuman torture, burying alive and other ghastly crimes were of common occurrence, and usually went unpunished. The data which I use in establishing these contentions are for the most part taken directly from the Insurgent records, in referring to which I employ the war department abbreviation “P.I.R.” followed by a number.

I next take up some of the more important subsequent historical events, describing the work of the first Philippine Commission, and showing in what manner the government established by the second Philippine Commission has discharged its stewardship, subsequently discussing certain as yet unsolved problems which confront the present government, such as that presented by the existence of slavery and peonage, and that of the non-Christian tribes. For the benefit of those who, like Judge Blount, consider the Philippines “a vast straggly archipelago of jungle-covered islands in the south seas which have been a nuisance to every government that ever owned them,” I give some facts as to the islands, their climate, their natural resources and their commercial possibilities, and close by setting forth my views as to the present ability of the civilized Cagayans, Ilocanos, Pampangans, Zambals, Pangasináns, Tagálogs, Bicols and Visayans, commonly and correctly called Filipinos, to establish, or to maintain when established, a stable government throughout Filipino territory, to say nothing of bringing under just and effective control, and of protecting and civilizing, the people of some twenty-seven non-Christian tribes which constitute an eighth of the population, and occupy approximately half of the territory, of the Philippine Islands.