The Philippines: Past and Present Volume II Part 10

Conditions in Butuan have improved far more slowly than in Bukidnon. The climate is less favourable. Bukidnon is a highland country with a white man's climate. The Agusan River valley is usually hot, and always damp. The town of Butuan was considered the worst misgoverned munic.i.p.ality in the Philippines on the date of its separation from Surigao, and it was certainly one of the filthiest. I have sunk to my knees in the mud of its streets. It is to-day a beautifully kept and sanitary place, and is certainly not misgoverned.

As I have already said, the Man.o.bo inhabitants of the wretched villages along the banks of the main Agusan River were a sickly, filthy, broken-spirited lot, besotted with vino and in danger of becoming victims of the opium habit. It is almost a physical impossibility completely to suppress the opium traffic because of the ease with which the drug is smuggled, but the vino traffic has been suppressed. The chief business on the Agusan River was formerly the transportation of vino up-stream. It is now the transportation down-stream of Manila hemp raised by the people of the valley.

The villages have been greatly improved and rendered reasonably sanitary. The best of them compare not unfavourably with some of the Bukidnon towns. The people improve, but radical improvement will not be in evidence until the next generation comes on.

Transportation facilities have been greatly increased by freeing several of the more important branches of the Agusan River from snags, and so opening them for launch navigation. Two good ca.n.a.ls have been cut through the swamps, and communication by launch has thus been opened with the upper Agusan valley.

There is an industrial school for Man.o.bo boys, and a number of the villages have primary schools.

Doubtless the most important single factor in improving the condition of the Man.o.bos has been the establishment of a series of government shops at which they can sell their products for a fair price, and buy what they need so cheaply that it almost seems to them as if they were receiving presents.

Governor Frederick Johnston, who is largely responsible for these improved conditions, laboured ceaselessly to bring them about. At the outset he had no launch transportation and lived for weeks at a time in native canoes or bancas. He was fearless and tireless. When the time came for him to take long overdue leave I had no competent person to put in his place, and in deference to my wishes he continued at his post for nearly two years. At the end of that time it was found that one of his legs, which had been injured on an early exploring expedition, had become cancerous, and that immediate amputation was necessary. This made it impossible for him to continue his work, and crippled him for life. He had borne his trouble uncomplainingly, and I had not even known of its existence. Although a man of mature years, he bravely entered upon the study of medicine, hoping to prepare himself for a useful life, but the operation had come too late. Cancer reappeared, and for a year he was dying by inches. In a way I am responsible for it. Do you think he laid it up against me? You shall judge for yourselves.

He used to write a copy-book hand. Just before leaving Manila I received from him an almost illegible letter in which he economized words as if composing a cablegram. It brought the tears to my eyes. He said:--

"I thank you for your slavery book just received. If strength is left me to read it, I shall read it though I do nothing else in this life.

"I have had letter in preparation to you since last June but I haven't strength to sit at the machine. I expect now to die before New Year.

"I have offered surgeons to take all chances, but they decline to operate, stating that they would consider operation deliberate murder.

"This is first letter I write since last September. If I do not get strength to finish typewritten letter I have given instructions it be sent when I am dead. I cannot write with pen; I have tried it.

"If you hear no more, please remember I never forgot you. Sorry you leave the Secretariat--so sorry I can't tell you.

"I am ready to die. I know that I have lived unselfishly for what I thought was right and good, and death is nothing. If this should be the last, then accept from the man that was always your man and will be your man until he dies, a last Good-by."

A few days later he went to his reward.

The loyalty of such a man is a precious possession.

The lot of the non-Christian tribes inhabiting the regularly organized provinces is not a happy one. The township government act is applicable to their settlements, and the provincial officers have the same powers and duties with reference to them as have the corresponding officers in the special government provinces. In both cases these powers are exercised subject to the approval of the secretary of the interior, but in providing for the government of non-Christians in Christian provinces, we overlooked one very essential detail. Neither the secretary of the interior nor any one else has authority to compel the governors or provincial boards of these provinces to act. They have discovered that efforts to improve the condition of the ignorant and primitive peoples intrusted to their charge can be very effectively nullified if they merely sit still and do nothing, and almost with one accord they have adopted this policy. Exception should be made in favour of North Ilocos, South Ilocos, Pangasinan, Ambos Camarines, Iloilo and Zambales. No other provinces have made any real effort to help their non-Christian population, and the funds set aside by law to be expended for this end simply go on acc.u.mulating in their respective treasuries, as I have managed to convince them that efforts to divert such funds to purposes not authorized by law will not prosper. The law should be so amended as to provide that if provincial boards fail to act, the secretary of the interior may do so.

The organization of the Moro Province was provided for by an act pa.s.sed on June 1, 1903. It is the largest single province in the Philippine Islands, including within its limits more than half of the great island of Mindanao with various small islands adjacent thereto, and Basilan, Jolo, Sia.s.si, Tawi Tawi, Sibutu, Cagayan de Jolo and the very numerous other small islands stretching between Mindanao and North Borneo. It is divided into five districts, each with a district governor. The province has a governor, a secretary, a treasurer, an attorney, an engineer and a superintendent of schools.

The four officials first named const.i.tute a legislative council the acts of which are subject to the approval of the Philippine Commission.

The province is allowed to expend the moneys accruing from the customs dues paid at Jolo and Zamboanga, which are ports of entry, but is not fully self-supporting. The insular government pays for the Philippine constabulary serving there. Until within a very short time the provincial officials have been almost exclusively officers of the army of the United States. In my opinion this arrangement has been a bad one, not because of the character of the men who have done the work, many of whom were of exceptional ability and were admirably fitted for the performance of the duties which fell to their lot, but because no one of them has retained a given office long enough to carry a policy through to its logical conclusion and get the results which might thus have been obtained. Indeed, the lack of a fixed policy, combined with some unnecessary and unjustifiable killing, explain, in my opinion, the fact that the results accomplished have come far short of what might have been expected when one considers the splendid body of men from which the provincial officials have been drawn.

Noteworthy public improvements have been made in places like Zamboanga and Jolo, but the country of the hill people, which ought to have been crisscrossed with trails long ere this, is still not opened up. Tribes like the Mandayas would, if given the opportunity, advance as rapidly as have the Bukidnons, but such opportunity has not been given to them to any considerable extent.

Having heard much of the Mandaya villages near Mati, I improved the opportunity to visit them in August, 1912, only to find to my amazement that the local constabulary officer, who ought to have been in the closest possible touch with these people, did not even know the way to their settlements. At another place where some 1400 hill people had been compelled to come down from their native mountains and settle in a village which could have been made a model of cleanliness, and should have been surrounded by rich cultivated fields, not half enough ground had been cleared to furnish food for the inhabitants, even under the most favourable circ.u.mstances. The houses were falling down; the streets were deep in mud; the garden patches were overgrown with weeds; more than half of the people had taken to the hills again in a search for food, and small blame to them! I found here as fine appearing a young constabulary officer as one could hope to meet, eating his heart out because he had nothing to do! Neither he nor any of his soldiers spoke the local dialect. He was supposed to be running a store, among other things, for the benefit of the hill people. I asked to see it, and it took him half an hour to find the key! In sixty minutes I could have set him work enough to keep him busy for three months. All that he needed was some one to direct him, but there was no one to do it. With the best intentions in the world he was using his soldiers to chase a lot of poor hill people back into a village where they ought never to have been asked to live. In other words, the Moro Province, having brought these people down and ordered them to settle on a site selected for them, had signally failed to back its own game. I myself would not think of trying to compel members of a wild tribe to live in any given place, unless it were necessary to do so in the interest of public order. Life in villages can, and should, be made so attractive to them that they will be glad to adopt it.

The Moros, with their fanatical religious beliefs and prejudices, present a very grave problem. Conditions have undoubtedly greatly improved in Davao, Cotabato and Zamboanga. I am not sufficiently familiar with affairs in the Lanao district to express an intelligent opinion concerning them. So far as concerns Jolo, it is my opinion that things have come to a bad pa.s.s there; that life and property are not as safe to-day as they were during the early days of the American occupation, and that we have progressed backward for some time. However, Jolo pirates have at least been pretty effectively kept off the sea, and that in itself is a very important result.

It is idle to suppose that the Moros can be subdued and made into decent citizens by throwing kisses at them. It was certain from the start that they would transgress. In my opinion, if we are to cure them of their evil tendencies, we must first warn them that they will be punished if they misbehave, and then make the warning come true. This has been done, but to another very important part of the programme which I deem essential to success, comparatively little attention seems to have been given. When people who have been punished for misbehavior have had enough they should be afforded a chance to quit, and indeed should be encouraged and helped to do so. No grudge should be borne for past misdeeds after the account has once been settled. Occasions have not been lacking in the Moro Province on which men have been treated with severity when they should have been treated with kindness.

In the Moro, native racial characteristics have been profoundly modified by religious beliefs. Men endowed with such magnificent courage as the Moro warriors often display certainly have their redeeming qualities. The same old policy that has won with the Ifugaos, Bontoc Igorots and Kalingas, and is winning with the wild Tingians and Ilongots, has been tried in dealing with the renegade Moros of Palawan with a considerable degree of success. It is my firm belief that it will work with the Moros of Mindanao, Basilan, Jolo and Tawi Tawi, but substantial and permanent progress cannot now be antic.i.p.ated for many years. The Moros must be given more than a square deal, or results will not differ essentially from those which have attended the efforts of j.a.pan to subdue the hill people of Northern Formosa, or those of the Dutch to subdue the Achinese.

Recently nearly all of the army officers holding positions in the Moro Province have been replaced by civilians. This is a move in the right direction; not, I repeat, because the men thus displaced are incapable of achieving success if given the opportunity, but because continuity of policy is absolutely essential to success and is impracticable if the men charged with carrying out that policy are to be constantly changed. The next governor of the Moro Province should be a civilian and should be selected with the greatest care. He should be able, energetic, fearless, tireless and young. He should be kept in office for twenty years if he will stay so long. The task which awaits him is real man's work.

CHAPTER XXIII

CORRIGENDA

I trust that the foregoing incomplete outline of what has been accomplished toward bettering the condition of the non-Christian tribes of the Philippines has at least sufficed to convey some idea of the nature of the task which has confronted us and of the spirit in which it has been approached. Before considering further the difficulties which have been successfully met and the problems which still remain unsettled, I will correct some of the numerous misstatements which have been made relative to the unimportance of the non-Christian tribes, the nature of the work done for them, and the motives of some of those who have engaged in it.

I once heard it said that the trouble with Blount's book was that it contained five thousand lies, that the correction of each would require, on the average, two pages of printed matter, and that no one would read the resulting series of volumes!

I have not counted the misstatements of this author. They are sufficiently numerous to make it impracticable to answer them all in detail. It is hard to know just what to do in such a case, as one must run the risk of giving undue importance to them by noticing them, or of creating the impression that they cannot be answered by ignoring them.

Under all the circ.u.mstances it has seemed to me well to reply somewhat fully to his more important allegations relative to non-Christian tribe matters, for the reason, among others, that many of his statements embody the more important claims of the Filipino politicians relative thereto; and to add that it would be equally easy to riddle his contentions relative to most other matters which he discusses. He says:--

"Professor Worcester of the Philippine Commission has for the last twelve years been the grand official digger-up of non-Christian tribes. He takes as much delight at the discovery of a new non-Christian tribe in some remote, newly penetrated mountain fastness, as the b.u.t.terfly catcher with the proverbial blue goggles does in the capture of a new kind of b.u.t.terfly." [31]

I have never had the good fortune to discover even one new tribe, the net result of my explorations and studies having been to reduce the number of such tribes claimed to inhabit the Philippines from eighty-two to twenty-seven, and to throw serious doubt on the validity of several of those which I still provisionally recognize. Blount adds:--

"Professor Worcester's greatest value to President Taft, and also the thing out of which has grown, most unfortunately, what seems to be a very cordial mutual hatred between him and the Filipinos, is his activities in the matter of discovering, getting acquainted with, cla.s.sifying, tabulating, enumerating, and otherwise preparing for salvation, the various non-Christian tribes." [32]

It is quite true that the Filipino politicians have bitterly resented my making known the facts relative to the existence of numerous uncivilized peoples in the islands, but to the charge that I hate the Filipinos I must enter an emphatic denial.

Fifteen years ago I expressed my opinion of them in the following words:--

"The civilized native is self-respecting and self-restrained to a remarkable degree. He is patient under misfortune, and forbearing under provocation. While it is stretching the truth to say that he never reveals anger, he certainly succeeds much better in controlling himself than does the average European. When he does give way to pa.s.sion, however, he is as likely as not to become for the moment a maniac, and to do some one a fatal injury.

"He is a kind father and a dutiful son. His aged relatives are never left in want, but are brought to his home, and are welcome to share the best that it affords to the end of their days.

"Among his fellows, he is genial and sociable. He loves to sing, dance, and make merry. He is a born musician, and considering the sort of instruments at his disposal, and especially the limited advantages which he has for perfecting himself in their use, his performances on them are often very remarkable.

"He is naturally fearless, and admires nothing so much as bravery in others. Under good officers he makes an excellent soldier, and he is ready to fight to the death for his honour or his home.

"With all their amiable qualities it is not to be denied that at present the civilized natives are utterly unfit for self-government. Their universal lack of education is in itself a difficulty that cannot be speedily overcome, and there is much truth in the statement of a priest who said of them that 'in many things they are big children who must be treated like little ones.'