The Spell of the Hawaiian Islands and the Philippines

by Isabel Anderson

Before the middle of the last century, life in the Philippines must have been, for Spaniards and natives alike, one long period of siesta. The sound of the wars and the passing of governments and kings in Europe must have seemed to these loiterers in a summer garden like the drone of distant bees. After that period conditions changed rapidly. In 1852, the Jesuits returned to the Philippines; in 1868, the reactionary Queen Isabella II fled from Spain, because of the rise of republicanism; in 1869, the Suez Canal was opened. All these events had their influence, but the return of the Jesuits was of dominating importance.

Throughout the nineteenth century the sole idea of the Tagals was to get rid of the friars, and for several reasons, which I will explain as briefly as possible. The Roman Catholic clergy are divided into regular and secular. Members of the secular clergy are subordinate to the bishops and archbishops, through whom the decrees of the Holy See are promulgated. The regular clergy, monks and friars, are subordinate to provincials elected for comparatively short terms of office by members of their own order. The Jesuits form a group by themselves but belong rather to the regular than the secular.

Over three hundred years after the conversion of the Filipinos, the Spanish monks and friars considered it still unsafe to admit natives into the hierarchy of the Catholic Church. The secular clergy were mostly natives, the regular clergy were Spaniards. Naturally this condition of affairs in time produced friction.

To understand the case in regard to the Jesuits, it is necessary to go back nearly a century. In 1767, the King of Spain issued a decree expelling the Jesuits from his possessions. Their property was confiscated, their schools were closed, and they were treated as enemies of the state. They had been among the earliest missionaries in the Philippines, and were probably the wealthiest and most influential of all the clergy there. Their departure left no priests for the richest parishes in the provinces of Cavite and Manila, which had been their sphere of influence. The question at once arose as to who would succeed them, and as it happened, the Archbishop of Manila who had to answer it was a member of the secular clergy, a Spanish priest to be sure, but of liberal tendencies. Consequently, he filled the parishes with native priests, who continued to occupy them until the return of the Jesuits.

Now the parish priest was the most influential man in the community. As native priests used this influence to build up the prestige of the seculars, the ecclesiastical feuds which arose became embittered by racial antagonism.

When a royal order was received permitting the return of the Jesuits it became at once necessary to find places for them in the ecclesiastical government. Spain decided that the parishes of Cavite and Manila should be henceforth filled by members of the order of Recollets, who were to transfer their missions in Mindanao to the Jesuits. The Archbishop protested against this increase in the power of the regular clergy, and the Governor General assembled his council to act upon the protest. All the members of the council who were born in Spain voted against the Archbishop. All those born in the Philippines voted for him. The regulars gained another victory over the seculars; the native was publicly informed that he was not fit to administer the parishes of his own people, and he saw himself definitely assigned to the position of lay brother or of curate. Whatever threads of attachment there had been between the opposing factions broke on the day of that decision, and every native priest from that moment became a center of disaffection and of the propaganda of hatred of the friars. This was perhaps the real beginning of the movement which continued, now secretly, now openly, until it broke out in actual revolt in 1872. The Spaniards put down this uprising of the Tagalogs with such cruelty that they feared a later retaliation, and sought help from the friars. This the friars gave them, in return for added wealth and power, which was granted, of course, at the expense of the vanquished natives.

Worcester writes in one of his earlier books, "During the years 1890-93, while traveling in the archipelago, I everywhere heard the mutterings that go before a storm. It was the old story: compulsory military service; taxes too heavy to be borne, and imprisonment or deportation with confiscation of property for those who could not pay them; no justice except for those who could afford to buy it; cruel extortion by the friars in the more secluded districts; wives and daughters ruined; the marriage ceremony too costly a luxury for the poor; the dead refused burial without payment of a substantial sum in advance; no opportunity for education; little encouragement for industry and economy, since to acquire wealth meant to become a target for officials and friars alike; these and a hundred other wrongs had goaded the natives and half-castes until they were stung to desperation."

The dissensions in the Philippines which ended in the rebellion of 1896-7 began with disagreements among the Spaniards themselves. A progressive party arose before which the clerical or conservative party slowly but steadily lost ground, and the legislation of modern Spain was by degrees introduced into the Islands. The country was not able to endure the taxation which would have been necessary to raise the revenues to carry out this legislation. Hence laws which were passed against the advice of the Spanish clergy in the Philippines were left largely in their hands for execution, not because they were loved or trusted, but because they were the only Spanish functionaries who knew the language and the people and whose residence in the Islands was a permanent one. If the friars had used their power wisely and unselfishly, there would have been no trouble, but they used it too often simply to keep the people down and extort money, for which they gave little return.

By degrees the mestizos took sides. The Chinese mestizos soon grew restive under this priestly government, and aided the progressive Spanish party in Manila. As time passed they had it borne in upon them that revolution might pay.

The insurrection of 1896-7 was planned and carried out under the auspices of a society local to the Philippines, called the "Katipunan," the full title of which may be translated as "Supreme Select Association of the Sons of the People." According to Spanish writers on the subject, it was the outgrowth of a series of associations of Freemasons formed with the expressed purpose of securing reforms in the government of the Philippines, but whose unexpressed and ultimate object was to obtain the independence of the archipelago. As if to accomplish this purpose, a systematic attack was made on the monastic orders in the Philippines, to undermine their prestige and to destroy their influence upon the great mass of the population. The honorary president of the Katipunan was José Rizal, whose name was used, without his permission, to attract the masses to the movement.