A Woman's Impression of the Philippines

by Mary H. Fee

Bicol School Children One Generation Removed from Savagery

During my third year in Capiz a Baptist missionary arrived and took up his work. He seemed to feel that he had a claim upon all Americans to rally to his support. But, alas! they did not come up to his expectations. Some were Roman Catholics; others, of whom I was one, had an affection for the more formal, punctilious service of the Church of England; and even two or three nonconformist teachers realized that a too open devotion to the missionary cause would hopelessly endanger their usefulness as teachers.

So the missionary carried on his services for nearly a year, and no single American appeared at them. His congregation, which was largely recruited from the poorer classes, and which had been hoping for the social advantage which would be derived from the American alliance, naturally pressed the unfortunate missionary for a reason. The sorely tried man spoke at last. He said briefly that the Americans in Capiz were pagans.

On one occasion the missionary arranged a service for Thanksgiving morning and invited us personally. Of course we all said that we should be glad to go. But the astute padre of the Church Catholic was not going to have any such object lesson as that paraded before his flock. He arranged for the singing of a Te Deum in honor of the day at half-past nine, just half an hour before the time set for the other service. Then he got the Filipino Governor to send out written invitations from his office in such a way that the affair assumed the complexion of a national courtesy offered by the Filipino to the American. For us, as Government employees, to disregard this was impossible. So we went en masse to the Roman Catholic church, where two rows of high-backed chairs were arranged facing each other up the centre of the church for our high mightinesses.

We had agreed privately that after the Te Deum we would go over to the Protestant chapel, and not leave the poor missionary to feel himself wholly deserted. But no opportunity came. The service was prolonged till any hope of our appearing in the rival chapel was effectually quashed. When we came out, we looked at one another and burst out laughing. It was one more evidence that the American is no match for the Filipino in finesse.

Naturally, unless one falls in with the Filipino devotion to dancing, there are few sources of so-called amusement in provincial life. The American women visit each other and give dinners, which, to the men who live in helpless subjection to an ignorant native cook, are less a social than a gastronomic joy. If we are near the seashore, we make up picnics on the beach, swim, dig clams, and cook supper over a fire of driftwood. If thirst overtakes us, we send a native up a tree for green cocoanuts. He cuts a lip-shaped hole in the shell with two strokes of his bolo, and there is water, crystal clear and fresh. The men hunt snipe and wild ducks, and sometimes wild pigs and deer.

In default of travelling theatrical companies, the provincial natives have their own organizations of local talent and present little plays in either Spanish or the native tongue. If American troops are stationed near a town, there will be one or two minstrel shows each year. The Filipinos all go to these, but they don’t understand them very well and are not edified. I think they imagine that the cake walk is a national dance with us, and that the President of the United States leads out some important lady for this at inaugural balls.

Once in a while a travelling cinematograph outfit roams through the provinces, and then for a tariff of twenty-five cents Mexican we throng the little theatre night after night. I remember once a company of “barn-stormers” from Australia were stranded in Iloilo. They had a moving picture outfit, and a young lady attired in a pink costume de ballet stood plaintively at one side and sang, plaintively and very nasally, a long account of the courting of some youthful Georgia couple. The lovers embraced each other tenderly (as per view) in an interior that had a “throw” over every picture corner, table, and chair back. Some huge American soldier down in the pit said, “That’s the real thing; no doubt about it,” but whether his words had reference to the love-making or the room we could not tell.

The song went on, the lovers married and went North; but after awhile the bride grew heartsick for the old home, so “We journeyed South a spell.” With this line the moving picture flung at us, head on, a great passenger locomotive and its trailing cars. To the right there were a country road, meadows, some distant hills, a stake and rider fence, and a farmhouse. The scene was homely, simple, typically American, and rustic, and it sent every drop of loyal American blood tingling. The tears rushed to my eyes, and I couldn’t forbear joining in the roar of approbation that went up from the American contingent. An Englishman who was with our party insisted that I opened my arms a yard and a half to give strength to my applause. I said I didn’t regret it. We poor expatriated wanderers had been drifting about for months with no other emotion than homesickness, but we had a lively one then. The Filipino audience at first sat amazed at the outburst; but their sympathies are quick and keen, and in an instant they realized what it meant to the exiles, and the wave of feeling swept into them too. The young lady in the pink costume grew perceptibly exalted, and in the effort to be more pathetic achieved a degree of nasal intonation which, combined with her Australian accent, made her unique.

The poorer natives have one source of enjoyment in a sort of open-air play which they call colloquio. This is always in the hands of local talent, and is probably of Spanish mediæval origin. The three actors are a captive princess, a villain, and a true knight. The villain is nearly always masked, and sometimes the princess and knight are masked also. The costuming is European. The performance may take place in a house if anybody is kind enough to offer one, but more frequently the street is the scene. A ring is marked off, and the captive princess stands in the middle, while knight and villain circle about her with their wooden swords, countering, and apparently making up verses and dialogue as they go along. When they get tired, the princess tells her sorrowful tale. The people will stand for hours about a performance of this sort, and for weeks afterwards the children will repeat it in their play.