An Englishwoman in the Philippines

by Mrs. Campbell Dauncey

The transport conveying the Taft party is scheduled to arrive here to-day, and this evening they are to be present at a performance of the Filipino Amateur Dramatic Club, to which we have been invited by means of a huge printed invitation, couched in elaborate Spanish, and adorned by many ornaments and flourishes.

We heard the sound of a band going past very early this morning, and when we went out on to the balcony, we saw it was the Infantry band from Guimaras, with the regiment behind them marching down the street. They marched splendidly, and the band was playing a most sad and beautiful tune, which made one think of war, and troops marching away, and women crying in the morning. The soldiers had just arrived, I expect, for everyone from Camp Josman is pouring into Iloilo for the fêtes for the Taft party.

Arches are being put up in the streets, and, as everybody has been requested to decorate their houses, we have hoisted a Union Jack on a long pole, and all this morning the servants were very happy, in the pouring rain, sticking up palm-branches which they had stolen from some plantation. They are much excited about the arrival of this hero of theirs, and one of them—who gets confused when we accuse him of being an Independiente, because he has his watch hung on a nail in the kitchen, with a portrait of Rizal over it, a sort of little shrine—is simply beaming with delight, and can’t haul up enough palms.

In the office opposite, the native clerks are surpassing themselves with archway and window decorations of greenery and flowers; while the old Tagalo dressmaker next door has been busy for a week past making paper flowers of all the hues under the sun. In that house, by-the-bye, the stock of domestic pets has lately been increased by the addition of a sheep, which is quite tame, for we can hear its little hoofs tap-tapping over the bare boards, and see it sitting amongst the work-girls in the big front room. They have a nice little black pig, too, also running about the house and equally tame, and in the evenings the old man goes out for a walk to the beach with the fat old brown dog, the pig, and the sheep all running after him and playing about. I have often seen them go along the street—such a curious company! And people who live near the beach tell me he takes them all down to the sea, washes them, and then walks about to give them an airing. They are all sharing in the popular rejoicings, too, for the brown dog and the pig have got on necklaces of paper flowers, while the sheep is crowned in the most arcadian fashion.

Mr Taft has made a lot of speeches in Manila, but, so far, they have only contained very nebulous references to the Independence question; though he has cast a sop to the malcontents by promises of abolition or reduction of certain export duties, by which the excited Filipinos argue and predict a millennium of agricultural improvement and general plenty.

But none of the business men are very clear as to how this miracle is to be wrought, for the Government will not lower the standard of wages; Chinese labour will not be allowed in; and the Filipino will not suddenly, if ever, become a thrifty, hard-working tiller of the soil, even if he passes all the standards of the American schools.

One paragraph stowed away in a corner of The Manila Times made us laugh very much, for it was an account of how Poblete de los Reyes (a Filipino Independiente agitator) and Father Aglipay were “haunting the corridors of the Ayuntamento” (the Gobierno of Manila), “but up to noon to-day they had failed to get the ear of Secretary Taft.”

This gave me a delightful vision of those two anxious flat brown faces peering out of all sorts of shadowy places, and Mr Taft for ever making a break for another room, and rushing through suites and up and down little staircases to escape the gen-u-ine patriots. This is only a fancy picture, of course, but still it may contain a grain of truth, and at any rate it afforded us much amusement.

Many people think Mr Taft is reserving some great pronouncement for Iloilo, as he favoured this town above all Philippine communities in that he made here his great pro-Filipino speech, two years ago, when he was Governor-General of the Philippines. In this famous oration he used these words: “These Philippine Islands are going to be governed for the Filipinos, and no one but the Filipinos, and any stranger or American who does not like it can get out.”

This did much to ensure his popularity with the natives everywhere in the Islands, and in Iloilo in particular. However, even the easy-going Americans seem to have grasped that these words went a little too far, for they tried to hush up that part of the speech, but the Filipinos, already fully alive to the blessings of a free press, seized on this utterance, and it was published in The Nuevo Heraldo, which is the Iloilo Independiente organ. The phrase got about everywhere, and did much to shake public confidence in justice towards the white man, with incidental harm to trade and enterprise, but it pleased the “little brown brother,” and added another step to the pedestal on which he has placed the Patron Saint.