The Visayas
Feeling between Tagálog soldiers and Visayan people grew constantly more bitter, and before many months had passed they fell to killing each other. The highest officers of the “Regional Revolutionary Government of the Visayas” protested vigorously to Aguinaldo,[7] but without result. The situation was entirely beyond his control.
On April 20, 1899, General Delgado issued an order which tells a significant story of conditions, and of his own weakness in dealing with them.[8]
In Luzón General Trias of Cavite accused the soldiers and citizens of his province of committing “robberies, assaults, kidnappings and crimes which are committed only by barbarous and savage tribes.”[9]
That very serious conditions promptly became general is conclusively shown by the record of Aguinaldo’s government for February 24, 1899, when it decided—
“that the president of the council shall study such measures as will put an end to the continual discord and friction between the civil and military authorities of every province, in order that fatal consequences may be avoided.”
With such conditions prevailing among the Filipinos themselves, it was to be expected that the laws of civilized warfare would be violated and that American soldiers taken prisoners would sometimes be treated with barbarity. Flags of truce were deliberately violated.[10] American soldiers were trapped, poisoned[11] and murdered in other ways.[12]
It was promptly charged in the United States that American soldiers were committing barbarities, and Blount has revived these old tales.