Governor Miller set to work very actively to better the condition of the Filipinos and to establish friendly and helpful relations with the non-Christians.
The bulk of the Christians are unusually poor and ignorant and many of them were held in a miserable state of peonage by a few caciques. Vigorous efforts extending through a long term of years have weakened the grip of the caciques, but have by no means broken it.
At an early date the new governor won the admiration of the Moros, who like courage, by a series of very brave acts. A number of constabulary soldiers who were coasting along the west shore of Palawan in a sail-boat went ashore, leaving their rifles on board guarded by two or three of their comrades. They also left several Moros on the boat, and the latter, watching their opportunity, killed the guards and got away with the rifles, taking them to Dato Tumay, their chief, who armed his people with them.
Governor Miller, with Captain Louden, of the constabulary company concerned, promptly attacked Tumay’s place and drove him into the hills. Tumay took refuge in a Tagbanua village, never dreaming that he would be pursued into the mountain fastnesses. Miller and his companions succeeded in getting into the place before Tumay knew they were in the vicinity, and there followed a fight to the death at close quarters. Two soldiers, standing one to the right and one to the left of Governor Miller, were shot dead, but he was not scratched.
On a number of other occasions he displayed a bravery approaching recklessness. Hearing that a fleet of some fifty Moro boats had put to sea on a piratical expedition, he embarked in a twenty-foot launch accompanied only by a captain of constabulary, and the two of them ran down and disarmed the pirates and sent them home. They nearly sank their tiny launch with the dead weight of the weapons which they took on board. The thing seems preposterous, and only Miller’s extraordinary moral influence over these unruly people made it humanly possible.
When I visited Palawan on my regular inspection trip in the year 1909, I found Mrs. Miller much worried about her husband, who was absent from the capital, having gone to arrest some Moro murderers at Lara. As usual, he had taken with him only a constabulary captain and three or four soldiers, and Mrs. Miller feared that he might be killed.
I hastened down the coast of the island at the full speed of my steamer, keeping a close watch for his boat, and finally located it at Bonabóna, where he had succeeded in arresting several of the criminals. On his way down he had stopped at Lara and had learned that a brother of the local chief, Dato Pula, was responsible for the murder, having ordered it and paid the assassins who committed it, one of whom was lurking in the vicinity, while others had gone to Bonabóna. Governor Miller called upon Dato Pula to deliver both his brother and the murderer, who was then at Lara, and stated that he would be back on a certain day to receive them. As he insisted on returning at the appointed time and attempting to arrest these men, I took him on my steamer, together with his American companion and one constabulary soldier. The other soldiers remained on his boat to guard the prisoners he had already taken.
We returned to Lara, but were unable to land in front of the town as a heavy surf was thundering on the beach. A mile to the north we found a sheltered spot where we could safely disembark and our little party, consisting of Governor Miller armed with a six-shooter, a constabulary captain armed with a Winchester shotgun and a six-shooter, a constabulary soldier armed with a carbine, ex-Insurgent Colonel Pablo Tecson armed with my double-barrelled shotgun, Governor Pack of the Mountain Province, my brother George S. Worcester, and my stenographer, all of whom were without weapons, and myself carrying an automatic Winchester rifle, marched on the town. Governor Miller sent the soldier ahead to warn the Moros that they must meet us unarmed. A small reception committee did so.
On the very outskirts of Lara we waded a creek nearly up to our necks in water, then marched up the street and entered Pula’s house. Just as we did so I saw twenty or thirty fully armed Moros come in on the run and hastily conceal themselves in one of the numerous neighbouring houses. I further promptly discovered that two rooms partitioned off in the corners of the great living room of Pula’s house were crowded full of men armed to the teeth, and that a second-story room, immediately under the roof and over our heads, was similarly occupied. I asked Governor Pack quietly to ascertain how many of the houses in the village were occupied by fully equipped fighting men, and he soon informed me that every one of them was packed. We estimated that there were several hundred warriors in town, which meant that Pula had raked the coast of the island north and south for miles and brought in every male Moro big enough to wield a weapon.
We seated ourselves on a table, back to back and facing out, with our own weapons very handy, and had a talk with Pula which lasted until late in the afternoon. Standing within striking distance of us most of the day, were two stalwart Moros, each of whom had a kriss dagger firmly gripped in his right hand and concealed between his folded arms. When one remembers that the average Moro fighter does not seem to know when he is dead, but keeps on doing damage after he ought to be busily occupied in passing to the other world, it will be seen that our situation left much to be desired.