The first general election was held in the Islands on the third of July, 1907, to choose delegates for the Assembly. Before that the Philippine Commission had been the sole legislative body. The delegates were chosen from the thirty-five Christian provinces. At that time only a minute percentage of the population, even among the Filipinos, was qualified to meet the simple conditions which would enable them to vote, and to-day the percentage is far from large. The electorate consists mainly of two classes, the ilustrados, or educated natives and mestizos,[16] and the taos, or peasants. The latter are not only ignorant but indifferent, with no vision beyond what their eyes can see, and no interest in who governs them, so long as crops are good and taxes low. One of the tasks of our representatives is to educate and awaken these people to responsible citizenship. It is a task still far from accomplishment.
It must be admitted that the work of the Assembly to-day, after eight years of fair trial, does not encourage Filipinization of the service. It is fortunate—at times—that the two legislative bodies have equal power not only to initiate legislation but to block the passage of each other's bills. In this way the Commission has been able to hold up some of the freak legislation sent up to it by the lower body. The Manila Times has published a list of the laws which were wanted by the Filipino assemblymen recently. They spent the valuable time of the entire first session talking them over and the Commission refused to concur. One was to increase their own salaries, of course. Another was to erect monuments to all the ilustrados who had cried "Bajo los Americanos" most loudly. Others wanted to fly the Philippine flag above the American on all masts, to make a legal holiday of the birthday of Rizal's grandmother, and to free all prisoners, no matter what their crimes.
OSMEÑA, THE SPEAKER OF THE FIRST ASSEMBLY.
As may be imagined, a body of men which can pass such bills is quite capable of blocking the sane legislation which comes to them for approval, and unfortunately they have the power to do this. The way in which the slavery question was handled illustrates their methods.
Slavery was known to exist in the Islands, and to take two forms,—actual slavery, where one person was sold by another, and a sort of semi-slavery, or peonage, where a man sold his services for debt.
The peon was given his keep, but the interest on his debt was added faster than he could earn. He was really a slave, except that he had sold himself rather than been sold by another. But his debts might be bought and sold, so that it amounted to the same thing in the end. Interest was sometimes as high as ten per cent a month, while fifty cents a month was allowed for his services. Worcester in his book tells of a man who borrowed $1.25, which he and his wife and children worked several years in the effort to repay; but by that time the amount had become $37.50!
Spain had nominally abolished slavery long before, but it had continued in force in both the Christian and non-Christian provinces. The legislators themselves held peons. The law of Congress creating the Philippine Government prohibited slavery, but there are no penalties attached, so it could not be enforced.
The Filipinos denied that slavery existed in the Islands. Worcester made a careful investigation, and an exhaustive report on both slavery and peonage. All but a few copies of this report were burned by a Filipino official. It was a subject which neither the Filipino politician nor their self-styled friends the anti-imperialists wished to see discussed in print. The Manila papers had been absolutely silent on the subject, and even the anti-slavery legislation which was finally forced through, after having been tabled again and again without so much as the briefest formality of discussion, passed unnoticed. It was a sore subject, and the Filipino method of treating a sore subject is not to heal it, but to refrain from discussing it.
There is no question but we have given the Filipinos too much power for their own good. They now, under the Democratic Administration, have five members in the Commission, to America's four. They have to-day much power—only colonies such as Canada and Australia have more, while Egypt has been given less in a generation than the Filipinos have received in ten years.