There will probably be for a long time to come a certain amount of disaffection and a class of wire-pullers, men of property, chiefly half-castes, constantly in the background, urging the masses forward to their own destruction. Lucrative employments have satisfied the ambition of so many educated Filipinos who must find a living, that the same principle—a creation of material interest—might perhaps be advantageously extended to the uneducated classes. All the malcontents cannot become State dependents, but they might easily be helped to acquire an interest in the soil. The native who has his patch of settled land with unassailable title would be loth to risk his all for the chimerical advantages of insurrection. The native boor who has worked land for years on sufferance, without title, exposed to eviction by a more cunning individual clever enough to follow the tortuous path which leads to land settlement with absolute title, falls an easy prey to the instigator of rebellion. These illiterate people need more than a liberal land law—they need to be taken in hand like children and placed upon the parcelled-out State lands with indisputable titles thereto. And if American enterprise were fostered and encouraged in the neighbourhood of their holdings, good example might root them to the soil and convert the boloman into the industrious husbandman.
The poorest native who cannot sow for himself must necessarily feed on what his neighbour reaps, and hunger compels him to become a wandering criminal. It is not difficult partially to account for the greater number in this condition to-day as compared with Spanish times. In those days there was what the natives termed cayinin. It was a temporary clearance of a patch of State land on which the native would raise a crop one, two, or more seasons. Having no legal right to the soil he tilled, and consequently no attachment to it, he would move on to other virgin land and repeat the operation. In making the clearance the squatter had no respect for State property, and the damage which he did in indiscriminate destruction of valuable timber by fire was not inconsiderable. The law did not countenance the cayinin, but serious measures were seldom taken to prevent it. The local or municipal headmen refrained from interference because, having no interest whatever in public lands, they did not care, as landowners, to go out of their way to create a bad feeling against themselves which might one day have fatal consequences. Although no one would for a moment suggest a revival of the system, there is the undeniable fact that in Spanish times thousands of natives lived for years in this way, and if they had been summarily evicted, or prosecuted by a forest bureau, necessity would have driven them into brigandage. High wages, government service, and public works are no remedy; on the contrary, if the people are thereby attracted to the towns, what will become of the true source of Philippine wealth, which is agriculture? Even in industrial England the cry of “Back to the soil” has been lately raised by an eminent Englishman known by name to every educated American.
[1] Born at Aliaga (Nueva Ecija) June 17, 1877, he raised a troop of rebels in his native town and joined General Llaneras. Appointed colonel in June, 1897, he was one of the chiefs who retired to Hong-Kong after the alleged Treaty of Biac-na-bató. He returned to the Islands with Aguinaldo, and became a general officer at the age of twenty-three years.
[2] At one time Cornelio Felizardo had an American in his gang. This degenerate, Luis A. Unselt, was fortunately captured and sentenced, on April 6, 1904, to twenty-five yearsʼ imprisonment as a deserter from the constabulary and bandit.
Previous to this event, the piracy of Johnston and Hermann in the southern islands caused much sensation at the time.
In September, 1905, it was rumoured that, in order to escape capture, Cornelio Felizardo had committed suicide.
One can judge of the ferocity of these men by Clause 3 of what Julian Montalón calls his Law No. 9. Dated April 10, 1904, it says:—
“The Filipino who serves the American Government as scout, constabulary or secret-service man, who does not sympathize with his native country, shall, if caught, immediately suffer the penalty of having the tendons of his feet cut, and the fingers of both hands crushed.”
There were many cases of cutting off the lips; two victims of this atrocity were brought to Manila in 1905, during El Renacimiento trial (vide p. [550]).