[2] A designation applied by the Spaniards to people who had taken to the hills to avoid paying taxes or to escape abuses, or punishment for crimes.
[3] A Tagálog designation applied to the common people, and especially to field labourers.
[4] See p. 699 et seq.
[5] Mabini’s “True Decalogue,” published as a part of his constitutional programme for the Philippine Republic (P. I. R., 40. 10) contains the following among other remarkable provisions:—
“Elementary instructions shall comprise reading, speaking and writing correctly the official language which is Tagálog, and the rudimentary principles of English and of the exact physical and natural sciences, together with a slight knowledge of the duties of man and citizenship.”—Taylor, 19 MG.
Also the following:—
“Whenever the English language is sufficiently diffused through the whole Philippine Archipelago it shall be declared the official language.”—Taylor, 20 MG.
Of this language matter Taylor says:—
“Mabini’s plan of having English the language of the state is odd. He wanted independence and he wanted the recognition of the right and of the ability of the natives to govern themselves; and yet he wanted them to adopt a foreign language. By the time this pamphlet was published, or shortly afterwards, Tagálog had been tried and found wanting. The people of the non-Tagálog provinces did not know it and showed no desire to learn it, and indeed protested against its use. Spanish, and all things Spanish, Mabini was weary of, and would sweep them all away. Yet, when he wrote this he did not know English.”
[6] Brigandage.