The Philippine Islands Part 21

Some Governors with whom I am personally acquainted have, in spite of all discouragement, studied the wants of their provinces, but to no purpose. Their estimates for road-making and mending, bridge-building, and public works generally were shelved in Manila, whilst the local funds (_Fondos locales_), which ought to have been expended in the localities where they were collected, were seized by the authorities in the capital and applied to other purposes.

An annual statement of one province will be sufficient, as an example, to ill.u.s.trate the nature of this local tax:--

LOCAL FUNDS [103]--ALBAY PROVINCE

Provincial Revenue

P. cts. P. cts.

Stamps on Weights and Measures 2,490 00 Billiard Tax and Live Stock credentials 496 00 90% of fines for shirking forced labour 1,500 00 Tax in lieu of forced labour 85,209 00 Vehicle tax 4,000 00

93,695 00

Munic.i.p.al Revenue

Tax paid by sellers in the public market-place 7,050 00 Tax on slaughter of animals for food 12,098 00 Tax on local sales of hemp 40 00 90% of the Munic.i.p.al fines and tax on Chinese 554 00 10% on t.i.thes paid and house-property tax 380 00 10% on Industrial licences 5,710 00 10% on Alcohol licences 2,525 00

28,357 00 ======== == P122,052 00

In the same year this province contributed to the common funds of the Treasury a further sum of P133,009.

There was in each town another local tax called _Caja de Comunidad,_ contributed to by the townspeople to provide against any urgent necessity of the community, but it found its way to Manila and was misappropriated, like the _Fondos locales_.

There was not a peso at the disposal of the Provincial Governor for local improvements. If a bridge broke down so it remained for years, whilst thousands of travellers had to wade through the river unless a raft were put there at the expense of the very poorest people by order of the petty-governor of the nearest village. The "Tribunal,"

which served the double purpose of Town Hall and Dak Bungalow for wayfarers, was often a hut of bamboo and palm-leaves, whilst others, which had been decent buildings generations gone by, lapsed into a wretched state of dilapidation. In some villages there was no Tribunal at all, and the official business had to be transacted in the munic.i.p.al Governor's house. I first visited Calamba (La Laguna) in 1880, and for 14 years, to my knowledge, the headmen had to meet in a sugar-store in lieu of a Tribunal. In San Jose de Buenavista, the capital town of Antique Province, the Town Hall was commenced in good style and left half finished during 15 years. Either some one for pity's sake, or the headmen for their own convenience, went to the expense of thatching over half the unfinished structure, which was therefore saved from entire ruin, whilst all but the stone walls of the other half rotted away. So it continued until 1887, when the Government authorized a partial restoration of this building.

As to the roads connecting the villages, quite 20 per cent. of them serve only for travellers on foot, on horse or on buffalo back at any time, and in the wet season certainly 60 per cent, of all the Philippine highways are in too bad a state for any kind of pa.s.senger conveyance to pa.s.s with safety. In the wet season, many times I have made a sea journey in a prahu, simply because the highroad near the coast had become a mud-track, for want of macadamized stone and drainage, and only serviceable for transport by buffalo. In the dry season the sun mended the roads, and the traffic over the baked clods reduced them more or less to dust, so that vehicles could pa.s.s. Private property-owners expended much time and money in the preservation of public roads, although a curious law existed prohibiting repairs to highways by non-official persons.

Every male adult inhabitant (with certain specified exceptions) had to give the State fifteen days' labour per annum, or redeem that labour by payment. Of course thousands of the most needy cla.s.s preferred to give their fifteen days. This labour and the redemption-money were only theoretically employed in local improvements. This system was reformed in 1884 (_vide_ p. 224).

The Budget for 1888 showed the trivial sum of P120,000 to be used in road-making and mending in the whole Archipelago. It provided for a Chief Inspector of Public Works with a salary of P6,500, aided by a staff composed of 48 technical and 82 non-technical subordinates. As a matter of fact, the Provincial and District Governors often received intimation not to encourage the employment of labour for local improvements, but to press the labouring-cla.s.s to pay the redemption-tax to swell the central coffers, regardless of the corresponding misery, discomfort, and loss to trade in the interior. But labour at the Governor's disposal was not alone sufficient. There was no fund from which to defray the cost of materials; or, if these could be found without payment, some one must pay for the transport by buffaloes and carts and find the implements for the labourers' use. How could hands alone repair a bridge which had rotted away? To cut a log of wood for the public service would have necessitated communications with the Inspection of Woods and Forests and other centres and many months' delay.

The system of controlling the action of one public servant by appointing another under him to supervise his work has always found favour in Spain, and was adopted in this Colony. There were a great many Government employments of the kind which were merely sinecures. In many cases the pay was small, it is true, but the labour was often of proportionately smaller value than that pay. With very few exceptions, all the Government Offices in Manila were closed to the public during half the ordinary working-day,--the afternoon,--and many of the Civil Service officials made their appearance at their desks about ten o'clock in the morning, retiring shortly after mid-day, when they had smoked their habitual number of cigarettes.

The crowd of office-seekers were indifferent to the fact that the true source of national vigour is the spirit of individual self-dependence. Constant clamour for Government employment tends only to enfeeble individual effort, and destroys the stimulus, or what is of greater worth, the necessity of acting for one's self. The Spaniard (except the Basque and the Catalonian) looks to the Government for active and direct aid, as if the Public Treasury were a natural spring at the waters of which all temporal calamities could be washed away--all material wants supplied. He will tell you with pride rather than with abashment that he is an _empleado_--a State dependent.

National progress is but the aggregate of personal individual activity rightly directed, and a nation weakens as a whole as its component parts become dormant, or as the majority rely upon the efforts of the few. The spirit of Caesarism--"all for the people and nothing by them"--must tend not only to political slavery, but to a reduction in commercial prosperity, national power, and international influence. The Spaniards have indeed proved this fact. The best laws were never intended to provide for the people, but to regulate the conditions on which they could provide for themselves. The consumers of public wealth in Spain are far too numerous in proportion to the producers; hence not only is the State constantly pressed for funds, but the busy bees who form the nucleus of the nation's vitality are heavily taxed to provide for the dependent office-seeking drones. It is the fatal delusion that liberty and national welfare depend solely upon good government, instead of good government depending upon united and co-operative individual exertion, that has brought the Spanish nation to its present state of deplorable impotence.

The Government itself is but the official counterpart of the governed. By the aid of servile speculators, a man in political circles struggles to come to the front--to hold a portfolio in the ministry--if it only be for a session, when his pension for life is a.s.sured on his retirement. Merit and ability have little weight, and the proteges of the outgoing minister must make room for those of the next lucky ministerial pension-seeker, and so on successively. This Colony therefore became a lucrative hunting-ground at the disposal of the Madrid Cabinet wherein to satisfy the craving demands of their numerous partisans and friends. They were sent out with a salary and to make what they could,--at their own risk, of course,--like the country lad who was sent up to London with the injunction from his father, "Make money, honestly if you can, but make it."

From the Conquest up to 1844, when trading by officials was abolished, it was a matter of little public concern how Government servants made fortunes. Only when the jealousy of one urged him to denounce another was any inquiry inst.i.tuted so long as the official was careful not to embezzle or commit a direct fraud on the _Real Haber_ (the Treasury funds). When the _Real Haber_ was once covered, then all that could be got out of the Colony was for the benefit of the officials, great and small. In 1840, Eusebio Mazorca wrote as follows: [104]--"Each chief of a province is a real sultan, and when he has terminated his administration, all that is talked of in the capital is the thousands of pesos clear gain which he made in his Government."

Eusebio Mazorca further states: [105]--"The Governor receives payment of the tribute in rice-paddy, which he credits to the native at two reales in silver per caban. Then he pays this sum into the Royal Treasury in money, and sells the rice-paddy for private account at the current rate of six, eight or more reales in silver per caban, and this simple operation brings him 200 to 300 per cent. profit."

The same writer adds:--"Now quite recently the Interventor of Zamboanga is accused by the Governor of that place of having made some P15,000 to P16,000 solely by using false measures ... The same Interventor to whom I refer, is said to have made a fortune of P50,000 to P60,000, whilst his salary as second official in the Audit Department [106]

is P540 per annum." According to Zuniga, the salary of a professor of law with the rank of magistrate was P800 per annum.

Up to June, 1886, the provincial taxes being in the custody of the Administrator, the Judicial Governor had a percentage a.s.signed to him to induce him to control the Administrator's work. The Administrator himself had percentages, and the accounts of these two functionaries were checked by a third individual styled the "Interventor," whose duties appeared to be to intervene in the casting-up of his superiors'

figures. He was forbidden to reside with the Administrator. After the above date the payment of all these percentages ceased.

But for the peculations by Government officials from the highest circles downwards, the inhabitants of the Colony would doubtless have been a million or so richer per annum. One frequently heard of officials leaving for Spain with sums far exceeding the total emoluments they had received during their term of office. Some provincial employees acquired a pernicious habit of annexing what was not theirs by all manner of pretexts. To cite some instances: I knew a Governor of Negros Island who seldom saw a native pa.s.s the Government House with a good horse without begging it of him; thus, under fear of his avenging a refusal, his subjects furnished him little by little with a large stud, which he sold before he left, much to their disgust.

In another provincial capital there happened to be a native headman imprudently vain enough to carry a walking-stick with a chased gold-k.n.o.b handle studded with brilliants. It took the fancy of the Spanish Governor, who repeatedly expressed his admiration of it, hoping that the headman would make him a present of it. At length, when the Governor was relieved of his post, he called together the headmen to take formal leave of them, and at the close of a flattering speech, he said he would willingly hand over his official-stick as a remembrance of his command. In the hubbub of applause which followed, he added, "and I will retain a souvenir of my loyal subordinates." Suiting the action to the word, he s.n.a.t.c.hed the coveted stick out of the hand of the owner and kept it. A Gov.-General in my time enriched himself by peculation to such an extent that he was at his wits' end to know how to remit his ill-gotten gains clandestinely. Finally, he resolved to send an army Captain over to Hong-Kong with P35,000 to purchase a draft on Europe for him. The Captain went there, but he never returned.

There were about 725 towns and 23 missions in the Colony. Each town was locally governed by a native--in some cases a Spanish or Chinese half-caste--who was styled the petty-governor or _Gobernadorcillo_, whilst his popular t.i.tle was that of _Capitan_. This service was compulsory. The elections of _Gobernadorcillos_ and their subordinates took place every two years, the term of office counting from the July 1 following such elections. In the few towns where the _Gobernadorcillos_ were able to make considerable sums, the appointment was eagerly sought for, but as a rule it was considered an onerous task, and I know several who have paid bribes to the officials to rid them of it, under the pretext of ill-health, legal incapacity, and so on. The _Gobernadorcillo_ was supported by what was pompously termed a "ministry," composed of two lieutenants of the town, lieutenants of the wards, the chiefs of police, of plantations, and of live-stock.

The _Gobernadorcillo_ was nominally the delegate and practically the servant of his immediate chief, the Provincial Governor. He was the arbiter of local petty questions, and endeavoured to adjust them, but when they a.s.sumed a legal aspect, they were remitted to the local Justice of the Peace, who was directly subordinate to the Provincial Chief Judge. He was also responsible to the Administrator for the collection of taxes--to the Chief of the Civil Guard for the capture of criminals, and to the priest of his parish for the interests of the Church. His responsibility for the taxes to be collected sometimes brought him imprisonment, unless he succeeded in throwing the burden on the actual collectors--the _Cabezas de Barangay_.

The _Gobernadorcillo_ was often put to considerable expense in the course of his two years, in entertaining and supplying the wants of officials pa.s.sing through. To cover this outlay, the loss of his own time, the salaries of writers in the Town Hall, presents to his Spanish chiefs to secure their goodwill, and other calls upon his private income, he naturally had to exact funds from the townspeople. Legally, he could receive, if he chose (but few did), the munificent salary of P2 per month, and an allowance for clerks equal to about one-fifth of what he had to pay them. Some of these _Gobernadorcillos_ were well-to-do planters, and were anxious for the office, even if it cost them money, on account of the local prestige which the t.i.tle of "Capitan" gave them, but others were often so poor that if they had not pilfered, this compulsory service would have ruined them. However, a smart _Gobernadorcillo_ was rarely out of pocket by his service. One of the greatest hardships of his office was that he often had to abandon his plantation or other livelihood to go to the provincial capital at his own expense whenever he was cited there. Many of them who did not speak or understand Spanish had to pay and be at the mercy of a Secretary (_Directorcillo_), who was also a native.

When any question arose of general interest to the townspeople (such as a serious innovation in the existing law, or the annual feasts, or the antic.i.p.ated arrival of a very big official, etc.) the headmen (_princ.i.p.alia_) were cited to the Town Hall. They were also expected to a.s.semble there every Sunday and Great Feast Days (three-cross Saint days in the Calendar), to march thence in procession to the church to hear Ma.s.s, under certain penalties if they failed to attend. Each one carried his stick of authority; and the official dress was a short Eton jacket of black cloth over the shirt, the tail of which hung outside the trousers. Some _Gobernadorcillos_, imbued with a sense of the importance and solemnity of office, ordered a band to play lively dance music at the head of the _cortege_ to and from the church. After Ma.s.s they repaired to the convent, and on bended knee kissed the priest's hand. Town affairs were then discussed. Some present were chided, others were commended by their spiritual dictator.

In nearly every town the people were, and still are, divided into parties holding divergent views on town affairs, each group being ready to give the other a "stab in the back" when the opportunity offers, and not unfrequently these differences seriously affect the social relations of the individual members.

For the direct collection of taxes each township was sub-divided into groups of forty or fifty families called _Barangays_: each group had to pay taxes to its respective head, styled _Cabeza de Barangay_, who was responsible to the petty-governor, who in turn made the payment to the Provincial Administrator for remission to the Treasury (_Intendencia_) in Manila. This _Barangay chiefdom_ system took its origin from that established by the natives themselves prior to the Spanish conquest, and in some parts of the Colony the original t.i.tle of _datto_ was still applied to the chief. This position, hereditary among themselves, continued to be so for many years under Spanish rule, and was then considered an honourable distinction because it gave the heads of certain families a birthright importance in their cla.s.s. Later on they were chosen, like all the other native local authorities, every two years, but if they had anything to lose, they were invariably re-elected. In order to be ranked among the headmen of the town (the _princ.i.p.alia_), a _Barangay chief_ had to serve for ten years in that capacity unless he were, meanwhile, elected to a higher rank, such as lieutenant or _gobernadorcillo_. Everybody, therefore, shirked the repugnant obligations of a chiefdom, for the Government rarely recognized any bad debts in the collection of the taxes, until the chief had been made bankrupt and his goods and chattels sold to make good the sums which he could not collect from his group, whether it arose from their poverty, death, or from their having absconded. I have been present at auction sales of live-stock seized to supply taxes to the Government, which admitted no excuses or explanations. Many _Barangay chiefs_ went to prison through their inability or refusal to pay others' debts. On the other hand, there were among them some profligate characters who misappropriated the collected taxes, but the Government had really little right to complain, for the labour of tax-gathering was a _forced service_ without remuneration for expenses or loss of time incurred.

In many towns, villages, and hamlets there were posts of the Civil Guard established for the arrest of criminals and the maintenance of public order; moreover, there was in each town a body of guards called _Cuadrilleros_ for the defence of the town and the apprehension of bandits and criminals within the jurisdiction of the town only. The town and the wards together furnished these local guards, whose social position was one of the humblest and least enviable. There were frequent cases of _Cuadrilleros_ pa.s.sing over to a band of brigands. Some years ago the whole muster belonging to the town of Mauban (Tayabas) suddenly took to the mountains; on the other hand, many often rendered valuable aid to society, but their doubtful reliability vastly diminished their public utility.

From the time Philippine administration was first organized up to the year 1884, all the subdued natives paid tribute. Latterly it was fixed at one peso and ten cents per annum, and those who did not choose to work for the Government during forty days in the year, paid also a poll-tax (_fallas_) of P3 per annum. But, as a matter of fact, thousands were declared as workers who never did work, and whilst roads were in an abominable condition and public works abandoned, not much secret was made of the fact that a great portion of the poll-tax never reached the Treasury. These pilferings were known to the Spanish local authorities as _caidas_ or droppings; and in a certain province I met at table a provincial chief judge, the nephew of a general, and other persons who openly discussed the value of the different Provincial Governments (before 1884) in Luzon Island, on the basis of so much for salary and so much for fees and _caidas_.

However, although the tribute and _fallas_ system worked as well as any other would under the circ.u.mstances, for some reason, best known to the authorities, it was abolished. In lieu thereof a scheme was proposed, obliging _every civilized inhabitant_ of the Philippines, excepting only public servants, the clergy, and a few others, _to work for fifteen days per annum without the right of redeeming this obligation by payment_. Indeed, the decree to that effect was actually received in Manila from the Home Government, but it was so palpably ludicrous that the Gov.-General did not give it effect. He had sufficient common sense to foresee in its application the extinction of all European prestige and moral influence over the natives if Spanish and foreign gentlemen of good family were seen sweeping the streets, lighting the lamps, road-mending, guiding buffalo-carts loaded with stones, and so on. This measure, therefore, regarded by some as a practical joke, by others as the conception of a lunatic theorist--was withdrawn, or at least allowed to lapse.

Nevertheless, those in power were bent on reform, and the Peninsular system of a doc.u.ment of ident.i.ty (_Cedula personal_), which works well amongst Europeans, was then adopted for all civilized cla.s.ses and nationalities above the age of 18 years without exception, its possession being compulsory. The amount paid for this doc.u.ment, which was of nine cla.s.ses, [107] from P25 value downwards, varied according to the income of the holder or the cost of his trading-licences. Any person holding this doc.u.ment of a value under P3 1/2 was subject to fifteen days' forced labour per annum, or to pay 50 cents for each day he failed to work. The holder of a doc.u.ment of P3 1/2 or over paid also P1 1/2 "Munic.i.p.al Tax" in lieu of labour. The "_Cedula_"

thenceforth served as a pa.s.sport for travelling within the Archipelago, to be exhibited at any time on demand by the proper authority. No legal doc.u.ment was valid unless the interested parties had produced their _Cedulas_, the details of which were inscribed in the legal instrument. No pet.i.tions would be noticed, and very few transactions could be made in the Government offices without the presentation of this identification doc.u.ment. The decree relating to this reform, like most ambiguous Spanish edicts, set forth that any person was at liberty to take a higher-valued _Cedula_ than that corresponding to his position, without the right of any official to ask the reason why. This clause was prejudicial to the public welfare, because it enabled thousands of able-bodied natives to evade labour for public improvements of imperative necessity in the provinces. The public labour question was indeed altogether a farce, and simply afforded a pretext for levying a tax.

It would appear that whilst the total amount of taxation in Spanish times was not burdensome, the fiscal system was obviously defective.

The (American) Insular Government has continued the issue of the _Cedula_ on a reasonable plan which bears hard on no one. Forced labour is abolished; government work is paid for out of the taxes; and the uniform cost of the _Cedula_ is one peso for every male between the ages of 18 and 60 years.

In 1890 certain reforms were introduced into the townships, most of which were raised to the dignity of Munic.i.p.alities. The t.i.tles of _Gobernadorcillo_ and _Directorcillo_ (the words themselves in Spanish bear a sound of contempt) were changed to _Capitan Munic.i.p.al_ and _Secretario_ respectively (Munic.i.p.al Captain and Secretary) with nominally extended powers. For instance, the Munic.i.p.al Captains were empowered to disburse for public works, without appeal to Manila, a few hundred pesos in the year (to be drawn, in some cases, from empty public coffers, or private purses). The functions of the local Justices of the Peace were amplified and abused to such a degree that these officials became more the originators of strife than the guardians of peace. The old-established obligation to supply travellers, on payment therefor, with certain necessaries of life and means of transport was abolished.

Hitherto it had been the custom for a traveller on arriving at a town without knowing any one there, or without letters of introduction, to alight (by right) at the Tribunal, or Town Hall. Each such establishment had, or ought to have had, a tariff of necessary provisions and the means of travelling to the next town (such as ponies, gigs, hammocks, sedan-chairs, etc., according to the particular conditions of the locality). Each _Barangay_ or _Cabezeria_ furnished one _Cuadrillero_ (_vide_ pp. 223, 224) for the service of the Tribunal, so that the supply of baggage-carriers, bearers, etc., which one needed could not be refused on payment. The native official in charge of this service to travellers, and in control of the _Cuadrilleros_, was styled the _Alguacil_. Hence the Tribunal served the double purpose of Town Hall and casual ward for wayfarers. There were all sorts of Tribunales, from the well-built stone and wood house to the poverty-stricken bamboo shanty where one had to pa.s.s the night on the floor or on the table.

By decree of Gov.-General Weyler (1888-91) dated October 17, 1888, which came into force on January 1, 1889, the obligation of the Tribunal officials to supply provisions to travelling civilians had been already abolished, although, under both reforms, civilians could continue to take refuge at the Tribunal as theretofore. Notwithstanding the reform of 1890, until the American advent the European traveller found it no more difficult than before to procure _en route_ the requisite means for provincial travelling.

CHAPTER XIV

Spanish-Philippine Finances