The first of the certificates required of the commission was issued on September 8, 1902. President Roosevelt on September 23, 1902, issued an order for the taking of the census.
On March 28, 1905, Governor-General Wright proclaimed the publication of the census. On March 28, 1907, the commission issued the second of the certificates required of it.[1]
The following day a cablegram was received from the President directing the commission to call a general election for the choice of delegates, and on March 30, 1907, the commission adopted the necessary resolution calling such election to be held on July 30, 1907, in accordance with an election law previously passed on January 9 of the same year. This law provided for eighty-one delegates proportioned among thirty-five provinces according to population, except that each province entitled to representation was allotted at least one delegate, no matter how few people it might have. Cebú, the most populous of all, was given seven. The Mountain Province, the Moro Province, Nueva Vizcaya and Agusan were left without representation because of the predominance of Moros or other non-Christians among their people. On April 1, 1907, the governor-general issued a proclamation embodying the resolution of the commission.
The election was duly held, and on October 16, 1907, the first session of the Philippine Legislature was opened, under authority of the President, by Mr. Taft, then secretary of war, who had returned to the Islands for this and other purposes.
The action of the commission in issuing its second certificate has been criticized on account of conditions which arose subsequent to the publication of the census, in Cavite, La Laguna and Samar. These conditions were referred to in the commission resolution. There was no desire to conceal or misrepresent them. As we have already seen, the trouble in Samar was stirred up by abuses among the hill people. It has been claimed that they were not members of any non-Christian tribe. There are a limited number of genuine wild people in Samar, but the great majority of the so-called pulájanes were in reality remontados[2] or the descendants of remontados.
In La Laguna and Cavite disorder caused by wandering ladrone bands at one time had become so serious that it was deemed advisable temporarily to suspend the writ of habeaus corpus and to authorize the reconcentration of the law-abiding inhabitants of certain regions to the end that they might be adequately protected and to make it easier to distinguish between good citizens, and thieves and murderers.
Whether these occurrences were or were not to be considered as of such a nature as to render it impossible to certify that a condition of “general and complete peace, with recognition of the authority of the United States” had continued to exist in the Philippine territory not occupied by Moros or other non-Christians, was a matter of judgment, and the commission exercised the best judgment it possessed.
During the Spanish days ladronism had always been rampant, affecting every province in the islands and being especially bad in the immediate vicinity of Manila. When we issued our certificate we had little hope of promptly ridding the archipelago of ladrones, as has since been done. On the contrary we expected that a certain amount of ladronism would continue for many years. We did not think that it should be considered public disorder within the meaning of the act of Congress. Furthermore, we were all anxious to encourage the Filipinos and to give them a chance to show what they could do. I for one hoped that by this act of liberality we might win the good-will, and secure the real coöperation, of many of the Filipino politicians. It is always easy to look back and see one’s mistakes. I now know that nothing could have been more futile than the hope of gaining the good-will of the men with whom we were dealing by any concessions whatsoever, yet the attempt was worth making. It is the wild men in the hills and the good old taos[3] in the lowland plains who appreciate and are grateful for fair treatment when they realize that they are receiving it.
The politicians of the present day are a hungry lot. The more they are fed, the more their appetites grow, and the wider their voracious maws open. Most of them are without gratitude or appreciation, and regard concessions as evidences of weakness on the part of those who grant them. Philippine officials and lawmakers might as well make up their minds to do what is right because it is right, and let it go at that. By the same token they should refrain from doing what is questionable in the hope that the good-will resulting will more than counterbalance the possible evil effect of doubtful measures.
