The American Occupation of the Philippines 1898-1912

by James H. Blount

In other words, possibly, a fire may spread from one field of dry grass to another near by.

As to the Cavite-Batangas-Laguna insurrection of 1905, in an executive order dated September 28, 1907,[9]—noticed in a previous chapter, but too pertinent to be entirely omitted here—wherein are set forth the reasons for withholding executive clemency from the condemned leaders of that movement, Governor-General Smith describes in harrowing terms “a reign of terror, devastation, and ruin in three of the most beautiful provinces in the archipelago,” wrought by the condemned men, who he says “assumed the cloak of patriotism, and under the titles of ‘Defenders of the Country,’ and ‘Protectors of the People’ proceeded to inaugurate” said reign of terror. These men were most of them former insurgent officers who had remained out after the respectable generals had all surrendered. This Cavite-Batangas-Laguna insurrection was the very sort of thing which the conditional promise of a legislature made by Congress to the Filipino people in Sections 6 and 7 of the Act of July 1, 1902—the Philippine Government Act—had stipulated should not happen. This is no mere dictum of my own. In the case of Barcelon against Baker, 5 Philippine Reports, pp. 87 et seq., already very briefly noticed in a previous chapter, the Supreme Court of the Islands had, in effect, so held. Section 5 of the Act of Congress of July 1, 1902, had provided that if any state of affairs serious enough should arise, the Governor of the Philippines should have authority to suspend the writ of habeas corpus “when in cases of rebellion, insurrection, or invasion the public safety may require it.” Sections 6 and 7 of the same Act had provided, on the other hand, that if a condition of general and complete peace should prevail for a stated period the Filipinos should have a legislature. In the case of Barcelon against Baker the Supreme Court held that the situation contemplated by Section 5 of the Act of Congress had arisen in the provinces of Cavite and Batangas. That, of course, automatically, so to speak, made the postponement of the Philippine Assembly a necessary logical sequence, under the provisions of Sections 6 and 7. These Sections 6 and 7 promised the Filipinos a legislature in the event the conditions contemplated by Section 5 should not arise. Barcelon, who was one of the (non-combatant) reconcentrados restrained of his liberty at Batangas, claimed that his detention as such reconcentrado by the defendant in the habeas corpus proceeding, the constabulary officer, Colonel Baker, was unlawful, in that, he being charged with no crime, such detention deprived him of his liberty without due process of law. The Philippine Commission, however, had declared, by virtue of the authority vested in it by Section 5 of the Act of Congress aforesaid, that a state of insurrection existed in Cavite and Batangas, and accordingly the Governor-General had suspended the writ of habeas corpus and declared martial law in those provinces. The Attorney-General representing the Philippine Commission before the court rested the Government’s case on the proposition that the petitioner was not entitled to claim the ordinary “due process of law” because “open insurrection against the constituted authorities” existed in the provinces named. And the Supreme Court upheld his contention. In so holding, they say, among other things (page 93), in construing Section 5 of the Act of Congress we are considering:

Inasmuch as the President, or Governor-General with the approval of the Philippine Commission, can suspend the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus only under the conditions mentioned in the said statute, it becomes their duty to make an investigation of the existing conditions in the archipelago, or any part thereof, to ascertain whether there actually exists a state of rebellion, insurrection, or invasion, and that the public safety requires the suspension of the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus. When this investigation is concluded, and the President, or the Governor-General with the consent of the Philippine Commission, declares that there exists these conditions, and that the public safety requires the suspension of the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus, can the judicial department of the Government investigate the same facts and declare that no such conditions exist?

They answer “No!” The head note of the decision is as follows:

The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus may be suspended in the Philippine Islands in the case of rebellion, insurrection, and invasion, when the public safety requires it, by the President of the United States, or by the Governor-General of the Philippine Islands with the approval of the Philippine Commission.

Thus the Supreme Court of the Islands squarely held that on the fourth day of August, 1905 (the day the writ of habeas corpus was made returnable), open insurrection existed against the constituted authorities in the Islands, in the provinces named, and had existed since the Executive Proclamation of January 31st, previous, declaring a state of insurrection, and on that ground denied the writ. Yet the Commission certified on March 28, 1907, that a state of general and complete peace as contemplated by the Act of Congress conditionally promising a legislature, had prevailed for the two years preceding. In other words the Philippine Commission declared a state of insurrection to exist in certain populous provinces, and was upheld by the Supreme Court of the Islands in so doing, and later certified to the continuance of a state of general and complete peace covering the same period.

All the uncandid things—uncandid in failure to take the American people into their confidence—that have been done by all the good men we have sent to the Philippines from the beginning, have been justified by those good men to their own consciences on the idea that, because the end in view was truly benevolent, therefore the end justified the means. As a matter of fact, American Benevolent Assimilation in the Philippines has, in its practical operation, worked more of misery and havoc, first through war, and since through legislation put or kept on the statute books by the influence of special interests in the United States with Congress, “than any which has darkened their unhappy past” to use one of Mr. McKinley’s early expressions deprecating doing for the Philippines what we did for Cuba.[10]

But let us see just how much the Philippine Commission that signed the peace certificate of March 28, 1907, swallowed, and how they swallowed it. It will be observed that they sugar-coated their certificate with a lot of whereases. The first of these recites President Roosevelt’s promise of March 28, 1905, that the Filipinos should have a legislature two years thereafter “provided that a condition of general and complete peace with recognition of the authority of the United States should be certified by the Philippine Commission to have continued in the territory of the Philippine Islands for a period of two years” after the proclamation. Whereas number two, it will be noted, goes on to state that there have been “no serious disturbances of public order save and except” those in Cavite, Batangas, Samar, and Leyte,[11] the magnitude of which has been fully described in previous chapters. Of the Cavite-Batangas insurrection, the only one they had previously formally admitted to be an insurrection, they say it was “caused by certain noted outlaws and bandit chieftains [naming them], and their followers.” Obviously this was hardly sufficient to show that an insurrection they had once officially recognized as such was not in fact such at all. So in order to justify a statement that “a condition of general and complete peace” had continued in these two great provinces of Cavite and Batangas, which they had but shortly previously declared to be in a state of insurrection, and been upheld by the Supreme Court in so doing, they resort to the old Otis expedient of 1898–9, worked on the American people through Mr. McKinley to show absence of lack of consent-of-the-governed. This expedient, as we have seen in the earlier chapters of this book, consisted in vague use of the word “majority.” It had stood Judge Taft in good stead in the campaign of 1900, because when he then said that “the great majority of the people” were “entirely willing” to accept American rule, there was no earthly way to disprove it in time for the verdict of the American people to be influenced by the unanimity of the Filipinos against a change of masters in lieu of independence. It was the only possible expedient for an American conscience, because every American naturally feels that unless he can, by some sort of sophistry, persuade himself that “the majority” of the people want a given thing, then the thing is a wrong thing to force upon them. So the ethical hurdle the Commission had to leap in order to sign the certificate of 1907 was cleared thus:

The overwhelming majority of the people of said provinces have not taken part in said disturbances and have not aided and abetted the lawless acts of said bandits.