Brigandage first came into prominence in Governor Arandiaʼs time (1754–59), and he used the means of “setting a thief to catch a thief,” which answered well for a short time, until the crime became more and more habitual as provincial property increased in value and capital was accumulated there. In 1888 the Budget provided an allowance of 2,000 pesos for rewards for the capture or slaughter of these ruffians. Up to the end of Spanish rule, brigandage, pillage, and murder were treated with such leniency by the judges that there was little hope for the extinction of such crimes. When a band of thieves and assassins attacked a village or a residence, murdered its inhabitants, and carried off booty, the Civil Guard at once scoured the country, and often the malefactors were arrested. The Civil Guard was an excellent institution, and performed its duty admirably well; but as soon as the villains were handed over to the legal functionaries, society lost hope. Instead of the convicted criminals being garrotted according to law, as the public had a right to demand, they were “protected”; some were let loose on the world again, whilst others were sent to prison and allowed to escape, or they were transported to a penal settlement to work without fetters, where they were just as comfortable as if they were working for a private employer. I record these facts from personal knowledge, for my wanderings in the Islands brought me into contact with all sorts and conditions of men. I have been personally acquainted with many brigands, and I gave regular employment to an ex-bandit for years.
The Philippine brigand—known in the northern islands as Tulisán and in the southern islands as Pulaján—is not merely an outlaw, such as may yet be found in Southern and Eastern Europe; his infamous work of freebooting is never done to his satisfaction without the complement of bloodshed, even though his victim yield to him all without demur. Booty or no booty, blood must flow, if he be the ordinary Tulisán of the type known to the Tagálogs as dugong-aso (blood of a dog). as distinguished from the milder Tulisán pulpul (literally, the blunt brigand), who robs, uses no unnecessary violence, but runs away if he can, and only fights when he must.
At Christmas, 1884, I went to Laguimanoc in the Province of Tayabas to spend a few days with an English friend of mine.[3] On the way there, at Sariaya, I stayed at the house of the Captain of the Civil Guard, when a message came to say that an attack had been made the night before on my friendʼs house, his manager, a Swede, having been killed, and many others in the village wounded. The Captain showed me the despatch, and invited me to join him as a volunteer to hunt down the murderers. I agreed, and within half an hour we were mounted and on their track all through that dark night, whilst the rain poured in torrents. Four native soldiers were following us on foot. We jumped over ditches, through rice-paddy fields and cocoanut plantations, and then forded a river, on the opposite bank of which was the next guardsʼ post in charge of a lieutenant, who joined us with eight foot-soldiers. That same night we together captured five of the wretches, who had just beached a canoe containing part of their spoils. The prisoners were bound elbows together at their backs and sent forward under escort. We rode on all night until five oʼclock the next morning, arriving at the convent of Pagbilao just as Father Jesus was going down to say Mass. I had almost lost my voice through being ten hours in the rain; but the priest was very attentive to us, and we went on in a prahu to the village where the crime had been committed. In another prahu the prisoners were sent in charge of the soldiers. In the meantime, the Chief Judge and the Government Doctor of the province had gone on before us. On the way we met a canoe going to Pagbilao, carrying the corpse of the murdered Swede for burial. When we arrived at Laguimanoc, we found one native dead and many natives and Chinese badly wounded.
My friendʼs house had the front door smashed in—an iron strong-box had been forced, and a few hundred pesos, with some rare coins, were stolen. The furniture in the dining-room was wantonly hacked about with bowie-knives, only to satisfy a savage love for mischief. His bedroom had been entered, and there the brigands began to make their harvest; the bundles of wearing-apparel, jewellery, and other valuables were already tied up, when lo! the Virgin herself appeared, casting a penetrating glance of disapproval upon the wicked revelry! Forsaking their plunder, the brigands fled in terror from the saintly apparition. And when my friend re-entered his home and crossed the bloodstained floor of the dining-room to go to his bedroom, the cardboard Virgin, with a trade advertisement on the back, was still peeping round the door-jamb to which she was nailed, with the words “Please to shut the door” printed on her spotless bust.
The next day the Captain remained in the village whilst I went on with the Lieutenant and a few guards in a prahu down the coast, where we made further captures, and returned in three days. During our journey in the prahu the wind was so strong that we resolved to beach our craft on the seashore instead of attempting to get over the shoal of the San Juan River. We ran her ashore under full sail, and just at that moment a native rushed towards us with an iron bar in his hand. In the evening gloom he must have mistaken us for a party of weather-beaten native or Chinese traders whose skulls he might smash in at a stroke and rifle their baggage. He halted, however, perfectly amazed when two guards with their bayonets fixed jumped forward in front of him. Then we got out, took him prisoner, and the next day he was let off with a souvenir of the lash, as there was nothing to prove that he was a brigand by profession. The second leader of the brigand gang was shot through the lungs a week afterwards, by the guards who were on his track, as he was jumping from the window-opening of a hut, and there he died.
The Captain of the Civil Guard received an anonymous letter stating where the brigand chief was hiding. This fact came to the knowledge of the native cuadrillero officer who had hitherto supplied his friend, the brigand, with rice daily, so he hastened on before the Captain could arrive, and imposed silence for ever on the fugitive bandit by stabbing him in the back. Thus the cuadrillero avoided the disclosure of unpleasant facts which would have implicated himself. The prisoners were conducted to the provincial jail, and three years afterwards, when I made inquiries about them, I learnt that two of them had died of their wounds, whilst not a single one had been sentenced.
The most ignorant classes believe that certain persons are possessed of a mystic power called anting-anting, which preserves them from all harm, and that the body of a man so affected is even refractory to bullet or steel. Brigands are often captured wearing medallions of the Virgin Mary or the Saints as a device of the anting-anting. In Maragondón (Cavite), the son of a friend of mine was enabled to go into any remote place with impunity, because he was reputed to be possessed of this charm. Some highwaymen, too, have a curious notion that they can escape punishment for a crime committed in Easter Week, because the thief on the cross was pardoned his sins.
In 1885 I purchased a small estate, where there was some good wild-boar hunting and snipe-shooting, and I had occasion to see the man who was tenant previous to my purchase, in Manila Jail. He was accused of having been concerned in an attack upon the town of Mariquina, and was incarcerated for eighteen months without being definitely convicted or acquitted. Three months after his release from prison he was appointed petty-governor of his own town, much to the disgust of the people, who in vain petitioned against it in writing.
I visited the Penal Settlement, known as the Agricultural Colony of San Ramon, situated about fifteen miles north of Zamboanga, where I remained twelve days. The director of the settlement was D. Felipe Dujiols, an army captain who had defended Oñate (in Guipuzcoa, Spain), during the Carlist war; so, as we were each able to relate our personal experiences of that stirring period, we speedily became friends. As his guest, I was able to acquire more ample information about the system of convict treatment. With the 25 convicts just arrived, there were in all 150 natives of the most desperate class—assassins, thieves, conspirators, etc., working on this penal settlement. They were well fed, fairly well lodged, and worked with almost the same freedom as independent labourers. Within a few yards of the directorʼs bungalow were the barracks, for the accommodation of a detachment of 40 soldiers—under the command of a lieutenant—who patrolled the settlement during the day and mounted guard at night. During my stay one prisoner was chained and flogged, but that was for a serious crime committed the day before. The severest hardship which these convicts had to endure under the rule of my generous host, D. Felipe, was the obligation to work as honest men in other countries would be willing to do. In this same penal settlement, some years ago, a party of convicts attacked and killed three of the European overseers, and then escaped to the Island of Basilan, which lies to the south of Zamboanga. The leader of these criminals was a native named Pedro Cuevas, whose career is referred to at length in Chap. [xxix].
Within half a dayʼs journey from Manila there are several well-known maraudersʼ haunts, such as San Mateo, Imus, Silan, Indan, the mouths of the Hagonoy River (Pampanga), etc. In 1881 I was the only European amongst 20 to 25 passengers in a canoe going to Balanga on the west shore of Manila Bay, when about midday a canoe, painted black and without the usual outriggers, bore down upon us, and suddenly two gun-shots were fired, whilst we were called upon to surrender. The pirates numbered eight; they had their faces bedaubed white and their canoe ballasted with stones. There was great commotion in our craft; the men shouted and the women fell into a heap over me, reciting Ave Marias, and calling upon all the Saints to succour them. Just as I extricated myself and looked out from under the palm-leaf awning, the pirates flung a stone which severely cut our pilotʼs face. They came very close, flourishing their knives, but our crew managed to keep them from boarding us by pushing off their canoe with the paddles. When the enemy came within range of my revolver, one of their party, who was standing up brandishing a bowie-knife, suddenly collapsed into a heap. This seemed to discourage the rest, who gave up the pursuit, and we went on to Balanga.