The Philippines: Past and Present Volume II Part 17

The existence of slavery in Misamis, a regularly organized province, had been disclosed at a still earlier date.

In May, 1902, its Filipino governor, Sr. Manuel Corrales, was asked to report, and did report, on slavery in that province, under the following circ.u.mstances:--

On May 2, 1902, General George W. Davis telegraphed the Adjutant-General, Manila:--

"Following telegram respectfully repeated: 'Zamboanga, May 1, 1902, via Malabang, to Wade. Commanding Officer, Misamis, reports April 30, that Presidente notified him that he was going to send armed party to capture two Moro slaves which have escaped from their Filipino master whose names were not given. Says there are many Filipinos who own slaves. Presidente was told that the troops had nothing to do with civilian affairs. I have no doubt but that the Filipinos on the north coast here have many slaves. At Butuan I saw one in November that had been recently purchased.'"

Governor-General Wright referred a copy of this telegram to Governor Corrales with an indors.e.m.e.nt--

"calling his attention to the within communication. Information is desired as to whether or not the within facts are true as stated, and also whether there are any persons held in involuntary servitude other than convicts within the province, and if so, that full particulars be given."

Governor Corrales himself has none too good a record in connection with the treatment accorded the non-Christians of his province, and would certainly not paint a darker picture than was called for by the facts, yet in his reply [69] he gives the names of six towns in which "one still finds a few slave servants, most of them acquired many years ago." He adds:--

"At the present time, there are but few sales of slaves proceeding from the mountain tribes, which are now relatively civilized. In Iligan and Misamis, I have heard that such sales were more frequent, for two reasons: (1) the Moro race is more despotic and more numerous; (2) the weekly market in Iligan gives them an opportunity to carry on that sort of business, although they have to do it by stealth, on account of the watchfulness of the authorities.

"I will call your attention to the fact that the slaves proceeding from the Moro district const.i.tute, in the Moro villages, an inferior social cla.s.s, the slave family, whose origin is due to the prisoners taken by the Dattos on their expeditions; when they are transferred to the Christians in Iligan or Misamis, because their masters wish to make money, or are hard pressed by the famines which are so frequent in the region of the Lanao, their condition is considerably improved by the good treatment and the better and more abundant food which they obtain in their new situation, by the mere fact that they live with a more civilized people.

"Those who come from the mountain tribes are not born slaves; with few exceptions, the chiefs and princ.i.p.al men of these tribes do not own slaves which they use for their service or for agricultural work, as the Moros do. Slaves are generally obtained in the following way:--

"It happens that a chief with bellicose and sanguinary instincts, who leads a nomad life and does not belong to the peaceful cla.s.s which is given to farm life, organizes a gang of men of his sort, makes incursions in the wildest parts of the woods and raids the lone huts inhabited by savage and nomad families; he kills by treachery the grown-up people and carries off the children, which he can easily master; he then sells them to the peaceful farm dwellers, who sell them in their turn to the Christian pueblos.

"As I have already said, such cases are happily rare. In Iligan and Misamis, which are far from the capital of the province, and therefore from the Court and the provincial authorities, the slaves have had less opportunity to claim their rights, and it is not astonishing that neither the slaves nor their masters have a true notion of what is meant by individual liberty, although the former are at least sure of their lives since they left the jurisdiction of the Moros, at whose absolute mercy they were, and are much better treated among the Christians.

"I intend taking all necessary measures within my jurisdiction in order to put an end to such a hateful trade, and wait for any further instructions which you may deem it convenient to give me."

Unfortunately neither the measures taken by Governor Corrales nor those adopted by his successors have sufficed to end this "hateful trade" in the province of Misamis.

In July of the present year, [70] a man accused of holding two Bukidnon children in slavery did not deny the charge, but set up the defence that he was a resident of Misamis, where there was no law against this crime. He had been proceeded against under an anti-slavery law pa.s.sed by the commission for the provinces under its exclusive jurisdiction, on the theory that he resided in Agusan. He won his case, proving that his house was about a hundred yards over the line.

The revelations contained in the reports above mentioned naturally called for action. Inspector Sorenson's report was referred to the commission with the following indors.e.m.e.nt:--

"Office of the Civil Governor, "Manila, August 13, 1903.

"The Senior Inspector of Constabulary in the Province of Isabela reports that there is quite a slave trade in the Cagayan Valley. The report of Sorenson, the Inspector, is submitted to the Commission and I suggest a reference to Commissioner Wright in order that he may include in the Criminal Code some clauses which will enable us to reach this abuse.

(Signed) "Wm. H. Taft, "Civil Governor."

The report was, by direction of the commission, referred to Commissioner Wright as suggested by Governor Taft for consideration in connection with a proposed new Criminal Code which was being prepared, under his general supervision, for enactment. An immense amount of work was necessary on this code, and it was never completed and enacted. Various matters needing attention have since been reached through the medium of special laws, and it is obvious that it was intended to pursue this course in this instance, as is shown by the fact that Governor Dichoso's reply was forwarded to General Wright on October 19, 1903, with the following indors.e.m.e.nt:--

[First Indors.e.m.e.nt]

"Executive Bureau, "Manila, October 19, 1903.

"Respectfully referred to the Secretary of Commerce and Police, for his information and consideration in connection with the proposed Act denouncing slavery and kidnapping and kindred offences as crimes.

(Signed) "Wm. H. Taft, "Civil Governor."

Why such an act was not drafted and pa.s.sed I do not know. I was then absent on leave, and did not even learn of the existence of any of the above-quoted doc.u.ments until years afterward. My personal attention was forcibly drawn to the existence of slavery outside of the Moro territory when I first inspected Nueva Vizcaya in 1905. The territory occupied by the Ifugaos, since separated as a sub-province of the Mountain Province, was then a part of Nueva Vizcaya, which had been organized as a province under a special act and was, in a way, subject to my executive control.

Its governor, Louis G. Knight, called my attention to the fact that Ifugao children were frequently enslaved by Filipinos of Nueva Vizcaya and Isabela. I asked him to get specific data so that we might prosecute the offenders. He soon sent to the Executive Secretary a report [71] which gave full details of a number of recent cases of the buying and selling of Ifugaos as slaves, contained a statement that Governor Knight, who was himself a lawyer, could "find nothing whatever in the penal code defining or punishing as a crime the buying or selling of human beings," and recommended that "this crime be defined and punished in the proposed new penal code."

The report was referred to me by the executive secretary on September 20, 1905, and on September 22 was by me forwarded to the Honourable Luke E. Wright, governor-general, with an indors.e.m.e.nt--

"inviting attention to the inclosed statements from the Governor of Nueva Vizcaya, relative to the traffic in Igorrote children in his province.

"The undersigned has reason to believe that Negrito children and children of other non-Christian tribes are occasionally bought and sold by civilized natives, and is strongly of the opinion that in case the Penal Code does not provide adequate punishment for such offences, it should be so amended as to make it possible to inflict severe penalties upon those who buy and sell human beings in this Archipelago.

(Signed) "Dean C. Worcester, "Secretary of the Interior."

The papers were referred by Governor-General Wright to the Attorney-General--

"for an opinion as to whether there is not some provision in the present Penal Code which will provide adequate punishment for such offences as are related herein."

The opinion of the Attorney-General rendered in response to this request [72] encouraged me to believe that something could be done under existing law.

I returned the papers, together with the opinion, to the governor of Nueva Vizcaya and three test suits were brought as promptly as possible.

One of them has become historic. It was brought against Tomas Cabanag, a well-known slave dealer who made a business of buying and selling Ifugao children. He was charged with illegal detention in connection with the admitted sale, by him, of an Ifugao girl named Gamaya. [73]

He was convicted in the Court of First Instance. I quote the following extract from the decision of the court:

"The Congress of the United States has declared that human slavery shall not exist in these islands and while no law, so far as I can discover, has yet been pa.s.sed either defining slavery in these islands or affixing a punishment for those who engage in this inhuman practice as dealers, buyers, sellers, or derivers, the facts established in this case show conclusively that the child Jimaya was by the defendant forcibly and by fraud, deceit and threats unlawfully deprived of her liberty and that his object and purpose was an unlawful and illegal one, to wit, the sale of the child for money into human slavery. This const.i.tutes the crime of Detencion ilegal defined and penalized by Article 481 of the Penal Code and this Court finds the defendant guilty as charged in the information."

The case was promptly appealed to the Supreme Court and was there lost on March 16, 1907.

Gamaya, a thirteen-year-old Ifugao girl, had been purchased from her mother for pigs, hens, rice and a cloak, under the absurd pretext that the object of the purchase was to keep her at home, where she would, of course, naturally have remained in any event. She was allowed to stay with her mother during a period of some three years. In this manner the purchaser was saved the cost of boarding her while she was growing up. Having now reached what the Igorots consider a marriageable age, she was sold to a man who was engaged in the business of buying in Nueva Vizcaya children to sell in the lowlands of Isabela; in other words, to a slave dealer. He sold her to an inhabitant of the town of Caoayan, in Isabela, who had instructed him to buy a girl. Caoayan is distant many days of hard overland travel from this girl's home. When taken there she was among an alien people of another tribe and another religion, and although, as stated by the Supreme Court, she was not kept under lock and key and although that court held that:--

"... There can be no unlawful detention under article 481 of the Penal Code without confinement or restraint of person, such as did not exist in the present case."