The fact is, one can sustain any view he prefers to take of this subject, by detached citations from documents of one sort or another. The real answer is to be found only by a careful survey of all the evidence as to Filipino activities and aspirations. We note that, when Rizal discusses the possibility of future independence for his people, he sets it as a century hence. We need not take him literally, nor, on the other hand, need we say his title was merely hypocritical, and he was insidiously inciting his people to think of immediate independence; we shall be fairer to survey his writings as a whole, probably reaching the conclusion that the independence of his people was constantly in his mind, but sober reason warned him to restrain his and their youthful impatience on the subject. In discussing Del Pilar and Rizal, it has already been pointed out how the former changed places with the younger man and became the more impatient of the two; and the connection of this growing impatience with the more violent nature of the Katipunan has been shown. So it is not enough to cite detached passages from Rizal or Del Pilar, for example, to prove either that they were just filibusters under cover of protestations or, on the contrary, that they never dreamed of independence.[126] The propagandists felt differently at different times, under the pressure sometimes of self-interest, influenced sometimes by momentary incidents or passions. It is plain that, with some of them at least, a new tone had been adopted toward Spain when, at the beginning of 1896, the manifesto of the Katipunan organ to the Filipinos bitterly exclaimed:
“At the end of three hundred years of slavery …, our people have done nothing but lament and ask a little consideration and a little clemency; but they have answered our lamentations with exile and imprisonment. For seven years in succession La Solidaridad voluntarily lent itself and exhausted its powers to obtain, not all that they ought to concede, but only just what of right is owing to us. And what has been the fruit of our effort unto fatigue and of our loyal faith? Deception, ridicule, death, and bitterness.
“Today, tired of lifting our hands in continual lamentation, we are at last ourselves; little by little our voice has lost its tone of melancholy gained in continual complaint; now … we raise our heads, so long accustomed to being bowed, and imbibe strength from the firm hope we possess by reason of the grandeur of our aim …. We can tell them bluntly that the phrase ‘Spain the Mother’ is nothing but just a bit of adulation, that it is not to be compared with the piece of cloth or rag by which it is enchained, which trails on the ground; that there is no such mother and no such child; that there is only a race that robs, a people that fattens on what is not its own, and a people that is weary of going, not merely ungorged, but unfed; that we have to put reliance in nothing but our own powers and in our defense of our own selves.”
Rizal put in the mouth of the old Filipino priest in El Filibusterismo (1891) the view of the thoughtful Filipino patriot, considering the social defects of his people: “We owe the ill that afflicts us to ourselves; let us not put the blame on anyone else. If Spain saw that we were less complaisant in the face of tyranny, and readier to strive and suffer for our rights, Spain would be the first to give us liberty …. But so long as the Filipino people has not sufficient vigor to proclaim, with erect front and bared breast, its right to the social life and to make that right good by sacrifice, with its own blood; so long as we see that our countrymen, though hearing in their private life the voice of shame and the clamors of conscience, yet in public life hold their peace or join the chorus about him who commits abuses and ridicules the victim of the abuse; so long as we see them shut themselves up to their own egotism and praise with forced smile the most iniquitous acts, while their eyes are begging a part of the booty of such acts, why should liberty be given to them? With Spain or without Spain, they would be always the same, and perhaps, perhaps, they would be worse. Of what use would be independence if the slaves of today would be the tyrants of tomorrow? And they would be so without doubt, for he loves tyranny who submits to it.”
Doubtless Rizal felt that his people had made progress toward social independence in the five years that followed, till the Katipunan outbreak came; but he condemned that beforehand as a foolish venture, and reprobated it as harmful to Filipino interests before his death. Though in a sense this was a movement for independence, we have seen that only vague ideas of a political organization were in the minds of the leaders, while the deluded masses who followed them with, for the most part, bolos only, had virtually no idea of such an organization, except that Filipinos should succeed Spaniards.[127] The prematurely commenced revolt, as it gained at the outset, some defensive advantages over the bad military organization of Spain, developed ideas and aspirations quite beyond the early crude dreams of its leaders; they were really surprised at their own (temporary) success, and emboldened thereby.[128] Even after the loss of Cavite, when the revolutionists were hemmed in and hiding in the Bulakan Mountains, they put forward, in an “Assembly” at Biak-na-bató, a more comprehensive and ambitious political program (a Filipino Republic, in short) than had ever before been drawn up by Filipinos.[129] We know also that no small part was played by the “reign of terror” in turning even the moderate Filipinos against Spanish rule as an entirety. We should be far from the truth if we should say that this Tagálog rebellion, and the demonstrations of sympathy with it in other provinces, brought the Filipino people together in a unanimous sentiment for independence. That it did greatly stimulate this feeling is certain. He would be a bold man who would now assert that independence was not the common aspiration, when outside pressure suddenly pricked the bubble of Spanish authority in 1898 and released the people for the free expression of their sentiments. But he is equally bold who asserts that the Filipino people had been suddenly and miraculously transformed into a real nation by these events, or that the Aguinaldo government had the support of or really represented the whole country, above all of the most sober-thinking Filipinos.
[1] Some credit should also be given to the Royal Philippine Company (Real Compañía de Filipinas), which, though unsuccessful financially, stimulated considerably the development of Philippine agriculture between 1790 and 1820, after which year it did little until its dissolution. [↑]
[2] Comyn’s Estado says that in 1810 the number of Spaniards, born in the Peninsula or elsewhere, and of Spanish mestizos, of both sexes and all ages, classes, and occupations, did not exceed 3,500 to 4,000. Diaz Arenas (Memorías históricas y estadísticas de Filipinas; Manila, 1850) quotes official figures showing 293 Spaniards settled in the provinces, outside of Manila and Tondo, in 1848; and he records 7,544 as the number of Spanish mestizos in the islands, including Tondo, as Manila province was then called. Cavada (Historia geográfica, geológica y estadística de Filipinas; Manila, 1876), taking his figures apparently from the governmental statistics as to houses and their occupants for 1870, gives for that year 3,823 Spaniards (all but 516 of them males) from the Peninsula, and 9,710 “Filipino-Spaniards,” the latter classification apparently including Spanish mestizos with such pure-blooded Spaniards as had been born in the Philippines. Among his Peninsular Spaniards would be included over 1,000 members of religious orders, an approximately equal number of soldiers, and the civil officials of Spanish blood (except a relatively small number born in the islands themselves, mostly in the minor categories of officials). J. F. del Pan (La poblacion de Filipinas; Manila, 1883), and F. Cañamaque (Las íslas Filipinas; Madrid, 1880) both report the parochial statistics of 1876 as showing the total of Spaniards, apart from members of the religious orders, the civil service, and the army and navy, to be 13,265; Cañamaque speaks of this latter class as “Spaniards without official character (Peninsulars and Filipinos),” and Del Pan calls them “persons not subject to the capitation-tax on account of being of the Spanish race.” At least some of the Spanish mestizos in the islands would appear to have been included in this total. A statistical résumé for 1898 (La Política de España en Filipinas, 1898, pp. 87–92) gives the number of Spaniards in the Philippines at the end of Spanish rule as 34,000 (of whom 5,800 are credited as officers and employees of governments, 3,800 as the normal number of Spaniards in army and navy, and 1,700 as of the clerical estate). These figures, like various other estimates in pamphlets of recent years, are considerably exaggerated; they are reconcilable only on the supposition that they include not only Spaniards of Philippine birth, but also Spanish mestizos. In 1903, only 3,888 Peninsular Spaniards were found in the archipelago. The census of 1896 would have shown separately Spaniards and Spanish mestizos; but it was not completed for all provinces, and has never been published. The foregoing estimates and figures do, however, show the great relative increase of Spaniards and Spanish influence in the Philippines in the latter part of the nineteenth century.
Apropos of Mr. LeRoy’s note the following is of interest as regards the population of the eighteenth century. “The number of Spaniards who are in the part of Manila not occupied by the friars is very inconsiderable; in 1767, they did not exceed eight hundred persons. It can be said that the friars are masters of the city, for all the houses, except perhaps five or six, belong to them. This makes a fine revenue for them, since the houses are very dear—from two hundred to four hundred piasters (one thousand to two thousand livres). They are still dearer in the suburb of Santa Cruz, where they are worth at least five hundred piasters, for it is there that all the foreign merchants from India or China lodge. Manila is still peopled by the Tagálogs, who are the natives at once of this city and of its bishopric; the Tagálogs serve the Spaniards as domestics, or live by some petty trade or occupation.” (Le Gentil, Voyage, ii, p. 104.)—Eds. [↑]
[3] “The Spanish-Filipino Bank, the oldest bank in the islands, was founded (1852) by an order of the Spanish government uniting the obras pías funds of the four orders of friars in the Philippines.” (Census of Philippine Islands, iv, p. 541).—Eds. [↑]