In many instances, the first use made of their newly acquired powers by provincial governors and municipal presidents was to persecute in all sorts of petty ways those who had opposed their election, while the latter displayed marked disinclination to accept the will of the majority.
It is not to be expected that the Filipino should understand modern democratic government. Where could he have obtained knowledge of it? Under Spanish rule he saw officials habitually enriching themselves at the expense of the communities they were supposed to govern. He saw a government of privilege where the work of the many benefited the few. How could he have gained experience in modern and enlightened administration for the benefit of the people rather than for the benefit of the administrators? Not only must there be knowledge on the part of officials that this is the proper way to govern, but there must be a demand on the part of the people for such a government, and until the people know and understand that such a government is their right there will be no such demand. There is not yet a sufficient proportion of the Filipino people literate to make approval or disapproval felt.
Incidentally it should be remembered that in the Philippine Islands any provincial or municipal officer may be suspended by the governor-general, or removed for failure properly to perform his duties, for disloyalty, or for other causes. The provincial governors also hold same power over the municipal presidents. Existing conditions are therefore not comparable with those which would arise without such control. I would as soon say that an automobile could go without a driver because it runs fairly well when there is a driver directing it as that the administration of the municipalities and provinces of the Philippine Islands would go as well as it now does under a system which does not provide for strong central control. It is one thing to administer when you are carefully supervised, and when the power of removal is held directly over you by a superior officer watching your every move, and another to administer equally well when the reins are not firmly held.
Serious consideration must be given to another group of facts in considering the fitness of the Filipinos for independence. It is undeniably true that they have progressed much further in civilization than has any other group of peoples of Malayan origin. It is just as indubitable that their development has not been a natural evolution, but has resulted from steady pressure brought to bear during three and a half centuries by Spain, and during the last decade and a half by the United States. What would happen were this pressure removed? One may judge, within limits, from what has happened where it has been removed. Take, for instance, Cagayancillo; which is an isolated town on a small island southwest of Panay. Here the Spanish friar was the sole representative of governmental authority in bygone days. Cagayancillo was then a thriving town, with a strong stone fort for defense against the Moros, a beautiful, large church with splendid wood carvings ornamenting its interior, and a fine masonry convento of most original architecture, with long rows of giant clam shells embedded in its outer walls. There were a good municipal building and a stone schoolhouse, also excellent for their day. I first visited the place shortly after Palawan was made a province under civil rule. No priest had been there for three years. The town and its inhabitants reeked with filth. The wits of the two or three exceptionally intelligent men of the place were befogged with opium. The church and convento were falling into ruin. The fort had already gone to the bad. The presidencia[15] was a wreck, and so was the schoolhouse. There were no teachers for the children. The people were rapidly lapsing into barbarism.
In 1910 I visited the town of Malaueg, situated in the province of Cagayan. It was one of the first mission stations in northern Luzón. I found there the walls of an immense church and convento. These walls were approximately forty inches thick, and were intact, though roofs and floors had disappeared, in part from decay and in part from the stealing of the boards. Over the door of the church was a thick hardwood beam on which were carved in raised letters Spanish words signifying that the church was rebuilt in 1650. The walls of Manila were built about 1590. When was this church constructed to require rebuilding sixty years later? And what must then have been the size of the town which furnished the necessary hands to erect such a huge structure?
The Spanish friar in charge had left during the revolution against Spain some time subsequent to 1896, and as a result the town had gone to pieces after so many centuries of life. Nothing remained but a small collection of grass huts. The men had reverted to the breechclout, and were again adopting the head-axe. Many of them had already taken to the mountains.
The Spaniards compelled Filipinos to live in towns, or at least to have houses there. Under our form of government we allow them to do as they please, with the result that in provinces like Palawan our utmost efforts do not avail to keep them from forsaking settlements and scattering out through inaccessible mountain regions, where they are rapidly gravitating back to the state of barbarism from which they originally emerged. I might multiply instances of this sort of thing.
In the early days of civil government the commission in many instances combined municipalities which lay immediately adjacent to each other and could readily enough be administered from a common governmental centre. This action was taken in the interest of economy, and in the belief that the resulting saving in salaries would make possible the employment of more school-teachers, and the construction of better school buildings.
In many, if not most, cases such fusion of municipalities proved a mistake. The town which happened to become the new seat of government prospered. There were spent the taxes collected in the other formerly independent centres of population, which, deprived of their autoridades,[16] promptly became insanitary, disorderly and unprogressive.
I am firmly convinced that the Filipinos are where they are to-day only because they have been pushed into line, and that if outside pressure were relaxed they would steadily and rapidly deteriorate.