Ileto- Knowing America's Colony

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Knowing America's ColonyA Hundred Years from the PhilippineWar

Reynaldo C. IletoForeword by Belinda A. Aquino

Philippine StudiesOccasional Papers Series No. 13


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Copyright1999

Center for Philippine StudiesSchool of Hawaiian, Asian and Pacific StudiesUniversity of Hawai'i at Manoa

CoverGraphics and CPS Logo: CORKYTRINIDADLayout Design: CLEMENC. MONTEROComputerWork: MARISSA C. GARCIA

AMELIA LIWAGAN-BELLOPrinted by: HAWAll CORRECfIONAL INDUSTRIES


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ContentsForeword

Lecture 1The Philippine Revolutionof 1896and US. Colonial Education

Lecture 2Knowledge and Padfication:The Philippine-American WaxLecture 3Orientalism and the Study of Philippine

Politics

References

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ForewordIn Fall 1997the Department of History, University of Hawai'iat Manoa, invited Prof. ReynaldoC. I1eto, prominentFilipino historian,

to be the holder of the John A. Burns Distinguished Visiting Chair inHistory. His appoinlmentwas supported by theUniversity'sCenter forPhilippine Studies, Center for Southeast Asian Studies and AsianStudies Program of the School of Hawaiian, Asian and Padfic Studies.TheBums Chair is a prestigious institutionon campuswhich is namedafter the late Governor John A. Burns of the State of Hawai'i, and hasbeen in existence since 1974. Governor Burns was best known forrevolutionizing Hawai'i politicsby expanding the participation of thevarious underrepresented ethnic minorities in the affairs of the state.He was a US. mainland "haole" raised in the working class disbict ofKaIihi in Honolulu, who started his public career as a policeman.Hisexperiences on the Honolulu police force brought him in contact withall the ethnic groups thatmade up Hawai'i's multicultural sodety. Hehad a deep sense of the importance of history in the development of thelarger Hawai'i community. During his many years as Governor, Bumsalso promoted the growth and development of the University ofHawai1i as a major center of learning in the whole Pacific region. TheUniversity Medical School is also named after him.

Professor I1eto, Reader in History and Convener of theGradu-ate Program in Southeast Asian Studies at the Australian NationalUniversity inCanberra, is one of the most distinguished and accomplished Philippine historians in the world. A product ofCornell University, where he obtained his PhD in Southeast Asian history, and theAteneo de Manila University (B.A. Humanities, eum laude), he hastaught at the University of the Philippines, De La Salle University inManila and JamesCook University in Queensland, Australia. In 1992 hewas a Senior Research Scholar at theCenter for Southeast Asian Studies,KyotoUniversity. He isthe author of several major works on sodal andcultural history, including the higWy acclaimed Pasyan and Revolution:Papular Movements in the PhilIppines, 1840-1910. The bookwas hailed asa landmark contribution to the existing scholarship on Philippinehistory. His latest book, Filipinos and Their Revolutian: Event, Dis


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Professor Heto has received several distinguished awards including theOhiraMemorialFoundation Prize for scholarship on Japanand the Pacific in 1986 and the Harry Benda Prize in Southeast AsianStudies in 1985. He also held the Tafiada Distinguished ProfessorialChair in History, De La Salle University, in 1984-85. He has writtensome of the most critical and provocative pieces on Philippine localhistory, popular movements, revolution and nationalism.

The following volume puts together the three lectures Professor I1eto delivered in Hawai 'i dur ing h is t erm as the Bums ChairVisiting Professor. It is a mnsttimely publication in light ofthe variousactivities both in the Phi lippines and internationally marking thecentennial of the declaration ofPhilippine independence from Spain in1898 and related events. The lectures, which are interrelated, analyzemore deeply the fateful events in the country at the tum of thecenturywhich marked the high point ofPhilippine nationalism. Professor lletoalso critiques with reason and careful reflection some of the majorworks on Philippine history and social science, which have made asignificant impact on current thinking on the nature of Philippinecontemporary society.

The first lecture explores the Philippine revolutionary years,particularly 1896-98, and their role in shaping the development ofthemodern Filipino "nation-state." There can be no doubt, Helo argues,that the events of that revolutionary period "form the core of anymodem Philippine history." He analyzes with penetrating insight twocolonial textbooks, written by David Barrows and Conrado Benitez,which had served as "canons" of Philippine history in the early stagesof nationhood.

The second lecture moves into the arena of the PhilippineAmerican War and explores the critical events of 1899-1903, particularly the U.S. "pacification efforts" and the role ofthe "ilustrados" inpromoting the ideals, e.g., proper citizenship, of the modern "democratic state." He also focuses in this lecture on "diSciplinary strategies"behind the American pacification and colonization efforts.

The third lecture is a provocative analysis of "Orientalism"and Philippinepolitics. Here lleto argues that even in this era a centuryafter 1898, there persists an "American colonial discourse" in currentknowledge on Philippine society as manifested in such award-Winningbooks suchas Stanley Karnow's In Our Image: America '5 Empire in thePhilippines. lleto also critiques the worksof othercontemporary authorson Philippine history and politics.iv


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We would like to thank Shiro Saito, former Philippinebibliography specialist at the Hamilton Library, University of Hawai'i, whomade a generous donation to theCenter for Philippine Studies upon hisretirement. His generosity has enabled us to resurrect our OccasionalPapers Series, which hasbeenmoribund for some time because of lackof funds. It is hoped that we can continue to put ou t truly outstandingworks of Philippine specialists in the years to come.

We also extend our special appreciation and thanks to MarissaC. Garcia, Oemen C.Montero and AmeliaLiwagan-Bello for attendingto the various computer-relatedand otherproduction matters involvedin pulling ou t this publication.

Inquiries regarding submission of articles or manuscripts forpublication in the Occasional Papers Series may be directed to Centerfor PhilippineStudies, University ofHawai'i at Manoa, 1890 East-WestRoad, Honolulu, HI 96822, Phone: (808) 956-2686, Fax: (808) 956-2682,E-mail: [email protected].

Belinda A. AquinoEditor, Philippine Studies Occasional Papers Series andDirector, Center for Philippine StudiesUniversity of Hawai1i at Manoa

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LECTURE 1

The Philippine Revolution of 1896and u.s. Colonial EducationW hen the appointment to theJolmA. Bums Chair in theHistoryDepartment arrived, I naturallybegan towonderwho thismanBumswas. I thought Burnsmust have been a successful land developer, or

even a pineapple magnate whose family endowed a Chair to tum itswealth into something honorable and worth remembering. When Iarrived here atmidnight, some twomonths ago, one of the first thingsI asked a colleague who had metme at the airport was:who was JolmBums?The unwavering reply was: "Oh, JackBums! Why, he revolutionized politics here inHawai'i. Brought theDemocrats to power forthe first time. If not for him, Ben Cayetano (a Filipino-American)wouldn't be governor today."

Iwanted to know more about this revolutionary JackBurns,particularly about his connection with Filipinos. While leafing throughsome transcripts of interviews with Governor Bums in 1975, I cameacross a revealing detail: an admission that one of his formativeexperiences as a 10year-old - an experience that helped push him intopolitics later on - was that ofseeing striking Filipino laborers literallyspilling over into his backyard in 1919 or 1920:

...that stuckwithme. These guys were all kicked offthe plantation. Lucky they had thisbig Spanish-Americanwar veteran[s] lot... , right in the back of our homewherewelived [in Kalihi) ... It was a big empty space, and these guysmoved inand I think they moved into the Spanish AmericanWar veteranshall, Or something like that.. I remember momgoing over there in a social way ...My mother handed themout a little bit. (Burns, tape 1, p. 10)It was mere coincidence I suppose, but the FilipinO laborers hadtaken refuge in a hall for veterans of the Spanish-American War, also

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called the Philippine insurrection or the Philippine-American warwhen the U.S. decided to occupy the country by force in 1899. MotherBurns' generosity towards the strikers in 1919 prefigured her son'scampaign to harness the energies of the Filipinos, togetherwith theJapanese, Chinese, Hawaiians, and other marginalized groups, in theelections of the50s and 60s. In the crucial election of1970, the Filipinoswould respond by voting JackBums back into office with a margin oftwo toone.Filipinos who know even the slightest bit about their history

are familiar with the word "revolution. As Luis Teodoro shows in hisvolume on Filipinos in Hawai'i, even the plantation workers who cameearlier in this century brought with them memories or stories of thosemomentous years, 18%-1901, when thePhilippineswas in revolutionary turmoil. Rizal Day, commemorating the execution of the nationalistagitator Jose Rizal on December 30, 1896, used to be the biggestcelebration in the plantation camps. Whether or not the I1ocanos,Visayans or Tagalogs understood its significance, the word "revolution, or at least "revolt, would not have been alien to their discourse.This, labor organizers likePablO Manlapit knew when they let loosetheir oratory to urge laborers to unionize and join strikes in the 20s and30s. Manlapit had finished his intermediate grades in the Philippinesbefore corning to Hawai'i in 1910. He knew his Philippine history. Butwhat kind of Philippine history was it, and how did the revolutionfigure in it?

In this lecture, Iwant to explore how the history of the revolutionary years, particularly 1896-98, became the origin myth of thepresent Filipino nation-state. There can be no doubt that the events setin t ra in by the upris ing against Spain in 1896 form the core of anymodem Philippine history. TheRevolution removed theSpanishChurchfrom its central position in society and politics, and generated a new setof events and characters - now called "national heroes" - that hasserved as the charter of the present nation state. Thus the importance ofthe centennial celebrations that began in 1996 and culminate in June1998, a hundred years after the declaration of independence from Spainand the birth of the nation-state.

As the story goes, soon after birth, the fledgling nation had toundergo "tutelage

nunder surrogate father America. The events of1896-98 were accordingly recast by the colonial education system toserve its nation-buildinggoals. I wonder towhat extent Filipinos todaycontinue to reproduce certain meanings of the Revolution that in fact

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originated in American-era textbooks. Two high school history textbooks appear to have been particularly influential during this period.David Barrows, an Americancolonial educator, published AHistory ofthe Philippines in 1905.Testimony to itsimportance was itsreappearancein a new edition as late as 1924. Soon afterwards, in 1926, a Filipinonationalist educator named ConeadoBenitez published his History ofthe Philippines, which continued tobe set as a high school text throughthe 1950s.

I realize that there were competing textbooks from othersectors, such as the private schools. In fact, Barrows in his 1907 editionrefers to heavy criticism of his first edition by the Catholic church;although he refused to budge from his interpretations. It is fair to saythat the official textbooks for public school use were much moreinfluential than their rivals in shaping Filipino consciousness throughthis crucial period of nation-slate formation. This paper thus focuses onthe Barrows and Benitez texts.

Barrows wrote to fill the need for a basic textbook for use in thenew public high school system. Since he wasDirector of Education forthe Philippines from 1903 to 1909, his textbook is obviously tied to theAmerican colonial project. And when one considers that the text wasread by Filipinopublic high school students - thefuture professionalsand politicians of the country - for at least two decades, its impactcannot be overstated.

As far as I know, this was the first time that an Englishlanguage textbook located the events of1896-98 within a broad narrative sweep.And it is hardly surprising that themetanarrative, the overarching story, is that ofProgress; in fact, thechapteris titled "Progressand Revolution, 1837-1897.' "The rebellion of 1896, asserts Barrows,would not have happened wereit not for "the great mistake committedby the Spaniards' in blocking "the further progress of the nativepopulation.'TheSpanish friars are singled out as being "the center ofopposition to the general enlightenment of the race... Resentmentagainst the friars, however, is said to have begun at the higher levels ofindio society. To Barrows the actual uprising by the Katipunan secretsociety was the outcome ofa trickle down process: "the ideas which hadbeen been agitated [sic] by the wealthy and educated Filipinos hadworked their way down to the poor and humble classes. They were nowshared by peasant and fishennan ..."This view is consistent with theaccepted periodization of events as an upper-class reform movement(1870s--1880s) which influenced and was succeeded by a mass move-

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ment with separatist goals (1892ff). The events of18% are narrated asfollows:

...there now grew up and gradually spread, until ithad its branches and members in all the provinces surrounding Manila, a secret association composed largely of theuneducated classes, whose object was independenc of Spain,and whose members, having little to lose, were willing torisk all. This was the society which has since become famousunder the name of "Katipunan." This secret organizationwas Oganized in Manila about 1892. Its president and founderwas Andres Bonifacio. Its objects were frankly to expel thefriars, and, if possible, to destroy the Spanishgoverrunent.(Barrows, 282)Hits objective was to expel the enemies of progress (the friars)

then the Katipunan was more a successor of the ilustrado Reform orPropaganda movement rather than being truly "popular." What isthesignificance of this emplotmentof late nineteenth century events, thisstructuring of the revolution'smemories by a colonial writer?Barrows states in the introduction to the 1924 edition that he

wrote the book "for Filipino students seeking information no t only oftheir own race and island home bu t of the place ofthat racein the historyof the Far East and of Europe." The book would also reveal "howprogress and struggle elsewhere affected the human spirit on the shoresof Luzon and the Bisayas. " It is quite clear from this and other statements that Filipinos were being educated to think of themselves asbelonging toa race that has its own place- not justa habitat, or"islandhome," but a place in a racial hierarchy. Students were to locate theposition of the Filipino race in an evolutionary ladder that featured themostadvanced(or European) at the top to themost primitive (as foundin areas like "the Far East") at the bottom.

According to Barrows, a race can only progress if it has ahistory. But not jus t any kind of history will do. "The white, orEuropean, race is above all others, the great historical race," Barrowsasserts, because it was the first to experience the transition from themedieval to themodern age. It was inEurope that religion gave way toscience, feudal loyalties gave way to national allegiances, and powerfulstates emerged with the consent of the governed.The secularstate, asthe highest expression of the "human spirit," wasbornin Europe, andthe process of this historicallransitionwas to be the template for the restof world history.4


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The discourse of race is thus intimately linked to discourse ofProgress, specifically the development of "the human spirit, anallusion to Hegel. Barrows wants his Filipino readers to reflect upon"how progress and struggle elsewhere" affected the human spirit ontheir soil. The rebellion of 1896, like just about everything else thatBarrows finds worthmentioning about the Philippine past, is an effect,a following up, a repetition, of happenings elsewhere, and this "elsewhere" is Europe. For Barrows and other textbook writers- bothAmerican and Filipino- whofollowed them, Europe isthe subject ofall histories. I would argue that the history of the 18%-98 revolution,insofar as i t has been instilled in the public through the colonialeducational system and its Filipino successor, is itself still largelyframed by themetanarrative ofEuropean history.

To put i t another way, the history of the Philippines constructedby Barrows is, to echoDipeshChakrabarty's parallel observations on Indian historiography, a history of the "already-happened."Late 19th and early 20th century Philippine history is a repetition orreplay of European history in an Oriental selling. The Orient, theEast,is imagined as a placewhere, in termsof world history, limehad stoodstill. In classic Orientalist fashion, the Philippineswasmade a site of theexotic, despotic, and childlike; it was the negative opposite of postEnlightenment Europe. But Barrowsalso recognized what would havebeen obvious to the Americans: that the Philippines occupied a spedalplace in the otherwise "same"Orient. As an old, Christianized Spanishcolony it had a headstartin the race for Progress. Thus Barrows figuresit as theinitial site for the replay ofEuropean history, in the hope thatthe whole of the Orientwould be incorporated into this process.

The ilustrados - educated, HispanizedFilipino childrenof theEnlightenment - had been arguing this since the 1880s. Barrows,however, was uniquely empowered to write into an official textbook theliberal interpretation ofPhilippine history and, aswell, admitAmericainto the process. The Spanishperiod, he wrote, had already raised theFilipino race to a reasonably high level of civilization, but the liberalenlightenment vanguard of the world spiritwasblocked from enteringthe Philippines by conservativeSpain. So Europe's enlightenment hadin the end to be transported to theOrient via America:

The modern ideas of liberty, equality, fraternity,and democracy ... having done their work in America andEurope, are here at work in the Philippines today. It remainsto be seen whether a society can be rebuilt here on theseprinciples, and whether Asia too will be reformed undertheir influence. (Barrows, 232) 5


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Given the Europeanmaster-narrative outlined above, certainfeatures of the textbook respresentation of the 1896 Revolution arebetter understood. I f late-eighteenthcentury European history was torepeat itself in the Philippines a hundred years later, then Philippinesociety in the 19th century would have had to be const ructed asmedieval, or feudal. This is precisely what Barrows does.

Writ ing just a few years after the U.S. takeover, Barrowsdescribes the Filipino race as still being family and communally oriented. There is no sense of belonging to a state or acting for" thepublicgood." Religion still holds a powerful grip over society. Social ties arebased onmaster-serf relations. Leaders act out ofprivate/family ratherthan public interests. Warfare and violence are endemic, often conducted in an uncivilized manner. Above all, people, even leaders, areruled by their passions ratherthan by reason.

Some of you here will have heard this refrain before. In 1926Stanley Porteus and MarjorieBabcock published Tenrperamentand Race,a book that portrays Filipinos as "highly emotional, impulsive andalmost explosive in temperament." I t concludes that "the Filipinosrepresent a fine example of a race in an adolescent stage ofdevelopment."Thiswas based on a study emerging from thePsychological andPsychopathic Clinic of the University ofHawai'i, and contributed toanti-Filipino prejudice becoming "quasi respectable" in this territory.Of course, any society, Filipino, American, certainly Australian (frommy experience) can exhibit so-called "adolescent" features

even today. The effect of Barrows' characterization, or caricaturing, isthat it enabled the Philippines to be slotted into the category"feudal"oc "medieval." And any society that was labelled in no uncertain termsas medieval in the context of world history could not be anything butflawed, lacking, and inadequate. Conclusion: this race could not possibly act on its own; it needed superior guidance or tutelage.

Barrows' view of Filipino society facilitated his interpretationof the 1896 Revolution as somehow lacking and inadequate. Barrowsacknowledged that the revolution, being a trickle-down effect of theilustrado Propaganda movement, was an expression of visions of freedom, justice, and equality. But these were raw, untamed visions,contrasted with the "ideal life for man ... found only in governedsociety, where there is order and protection, and where there alsoshould be freedom of opportunity." The Katipunan revolt was deemedinadequatebecause it manifestated the untamed violence of the "un-6


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educated classes" whowere governed by passions rather than reason.Moreover, being a secret associationwith strange rituals the Katipunandid not appear to be leading towards a state and a proper citizenry. Itwas only when Emilio Aguinaldo, a local mayor of merchant background, captured theleadership in 1897that themovementbegan toevolve towards a nation-state.

Notwithstanding his approval of AgUinaldo's rise to powerand declaration of independence from Spain, Barrows asserts that thebudding republic of 1898was bound to fall to the Americans. Why?Because, he says, the state was weak and Filipino society was stillfeudal; Filipinos still lacked "political experience and social self controL" Ignoring the U.S. army's own excesses, Barrows criticizesAgUinaldo's army for conducting irregular warfare which sometimesfeatured the letting loose of "the very worst passions" in men. In anycase, thewarwithAmericawas only a great big misunderstanding, helaments. If only Filipinos realized sooner that only with Americanguidance could they enter the modem era, theywouldn't have resistedthe takeover.

Barrows' History of the Philippines exhibits the first textbookemplotment of Philippine history along the medieval-to-modem axisor time-line. It is, in effect, a narrative of transition that makes the readersee failure, or at least lack and inadequacy, in the thoughts and actionsof Filipinos, until their race has become fully hitched onto the bandwagon of European history. In textbooks of this genre Americantutelage, or fatherhood, or big brotherhood fits in naturally, leadingFilipinosout of the medieval age through the development of amodemstate peopled bymodem individuals, or citizens whose passions havebeen subordinated to reason. Neither of these - a modern state ormodem citizens - are said to havebeen generated by the Philippinerevolutions of 1896 and 1898.

In 1926, a Filipino-authored history textbook appeared andshortly displaced Barrows' text in the schools. Conrado Benitez hadbeen an instructori n history and government at the Philippine NormalSchool before becoming Head of the Department of Economics andDean of the College ofUberal Arts of the University of the Philippines(U.P.). His History of the Philippines was adopted by the Board ofTextsof the Philippine-American government for use in public schools. Theforeword was written by no less than U.P. president and nationalistwriter, Rafael Palma.

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It should come as no surprise that Benitez's textbook buildsupon the chronological framework established by Barrows. After all,Benitez himself says, he was a product of the American educationalsystem; unlikeh is Hispanized father, he learned his history in English.It should not comeas a surprise, either, that thediscourses of "progess"and "race" dominate the Benitez textbook. The first few pages confidently announce that the spirit of Progress had at last taken root in theOrient. Amap fronting thefirst pageshows what Benitez proudly calls"the central position of the Philippines in relation to neighboringislands and to Asia" - from being a great commercial market and agreat religious center in the past, it now is the nerve center of the spiritof democracy and progress in Asia. The map reflects the Americaneducated Filipinos' consciousness of their country's new positioning inHis to ry which, as I have argued, i s really European history as itmarched on to the Orient.

Benitez also reflects the Filipino internalizationof the discourseof Race. No one then dared to deny that theMalay/Filipino race wasstill down there among the less developed (or primitive) races ofmankind. But now Benitez can confidently announce that the "futurefaced by the Malay race is not a hopelessfuture... the Filipinos, unlikesome other peoples, are not disappearing as a race." Why? Reflectingrecent trendsin ethnology, Benitezpoints to the "mental adaptability"of the Filipino. a trait "which characterizes all progressive peoples[and] isevident from thesuccess he has had in absorbing and assimilating the useful elemenls of foreign cultures with which he has come incontact. Whereas Barrows stressed the Filipinos' shortcomings anddeficiendes as a race, Benitez argued for the dynamism of that race asit was confronted with external challenges. It really is a minor difference, however. Both authors agree that Filipinos had to grow up andmature as a people in order to become part of World History. It is justthat for B eni tez, F il ip in os w er e a ll ow ed a more act ive role in t heprocess.

50 what does the 1896 Revolution look like in this earliestFilipino-authored textbook? As in Barrows' pioneering work, theRevolut ion is a replay of European history. The ideas of Locke,Montesquieu, and Rousseau which underpinned the French andAmerican revolutions, trigger a similar set of events in the Philippines ahundred years later:

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On the whole, the specific reforms which the pro-paganda at home and abroad aimed. to attain were, in truth,no other than the legitimate demands of a people growinginto social and political maturity and imbibing liberal ideas


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The image here is a biologicalone: the Filipinos as a child growsand matures whilst fed with liberal nourishment from Europe andAmerica. The transition from medieval tomodem would have beengradual and peaceful, except that Spainfailed to continue the nurturing. The friars in particular, saysBenitez, fought "to keep the Filipinosin theMiddleAges. The wheelsof Progresswouldhave come to a haltif Andres Bonifacio and the Katipunan had not given the cart ofProgress a big push.

Reflecting some new research by Epifanio de los Santos, Benitezsays a lot more about Bonifacio than Barrows does. We are told, forexample, that the "first cry of rebellion" was held at a place "nowmarked with the Balintawakmonument.' Nevertheless, the maincompliment that he can render to the Katipunan's founder is that he"was imbued with the ideal of the French Revolution. n Bonifacio isgiven some sort of recognition because he sparksa set of events whichreally is a replay or rerunof a revolution against the feudal order thattook place inEurope some one hundred years earlier.Buthe falls shortofbecoming a hero in the world historical slage. For the replay of theFrench revolution in the Philippine context has a downside to it. AsBarrows had pointed out earlier, the French Revolution brought themodem era to France, but only after "thebloody acts of the years from1793 to 1795,' the years ofanarchy brought about by theunruly Frenchmasses. Similarly, the Bonifacio-led uprising of 18% in Benitez's textbook is made to signify a moment of disorder and chaos in the steadymarch ofPhilippine Progress.So while Benitez acknowledges the spiritof the French revolution working inBonifacio's activities, he also keepsthese events at a distance. The Philippine revolution in this 1926 highschool textbook becomes ano!her sign ofFilipino lack and inadequacy.

On the subject of the Revolution-as-anarchy, Benitez openlytakes his cue from another American scholar, James leRoy. In 1907,LeRoy argued that Bonifacio's "ideas of reform" came from readingSpanish works about the French Revolution. More than that, Bonifacio"imbibed also a notion!hat the me!hods of the mob in Paris' were bestsuited for !he Filipino situation. Based on all the evidence hewas ableto secure, LeRoy saw "a socialistic character" in the Katipunan's"propaganda from below," for this contained II an element of resent-ment toward !he wealthy, upper-class Filipinos, the landed proprietorsin general, aswell as toward the friar landlords and !he whole fabric ofgovernment and society resting on them." The Katipunan, however,like the mob during the French Revolution, was to LeRoy and hisprotegeBenitez, a sign of political immaturity, where passions rather

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than reason and the rule of law prevailed. Katipunan leaders aredescribed as filled with self-importance, with "grandiloquent" (butpresumably empty) thoughts, "who led their humble followers in thetowns aroundManila most affected by the propaganda to indulge infutile and ridiculous dreams of a coming millennium..... LeRoy sumsup the Katipunan revolt as follows:

Though in a sense thiswas amovement for inde-pendence, we have seen that only vague ideasof a politicalorganization were in the minds of the leaders, while thedeluded masses who followed them... had virtually no ideaof such an organizationexcept that Filipinos should succeedSpaniards. (LeRoy, 2ffi)There are twoways we can read these descriptions by LeRoy:first, that theKatipunanwas a socialistic threat from below thatneededto be contained and second, thatthe behaviorof theKatipuneros ratherparadoxicallybetrayed theirimmature, medieval character.Benitez, in orderperhapsnolto agilate FilipinOstudents (sincein the 1920s the seeds of socialism and Bolshevismwere already beingsown in central Luzon), doesnot repeatLeRoy's characterization of theKatipunan as fundamentally subversive. What he does is shift the topicto Jose Rizal. Rizal was the most accomplished of the 19th centuryFilipino ilustrados, a medical doctor whose two novels are read andadmired up to today. Benitez portrays him as the "chiefspokesman ofthe sterner judgment of the saner element among the people." Bonifacio,implicitly, heads the less rational, more fanatical, elemen!. And whereasBonifacio's Katipunan revolt of 1896 revolution is seen as local, Rizal'sexecution in December of that year is seen as an event of nationalsignificance. Rizal, then, appears in Benitez's 1926 textbook as a more

effective, more advanced, agent of the world historical spiri!. To himgoes the honor of being a world historical figure.In the context of themedieval-to-modem transition narrative,the struggle in early 1897over the leadership of the revolution has aninevitable textbook ending.An angry and emotional Bonifacio insistson preserving the secretsociety, while the cooland calculatingAguinaldowants to combine all revolutionary factions into a government. Reasonagain triumphs over emotion. Furthermore, suggests Benitez, isn'tAguinaldo's goal not the first step towardsslate formation, and is notthe state the highest manifestation of the World Spirit?Of course, almost all textbooks of the American era repeat thefollOWing sentence from Aguinaldo's manifesto of October 31, 1896:

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following sentence from Aguinaldo's manifesto ofOctober 31, 1896:"the form ofgovernment will be similar to that of the United States ofAmerica, based essentially on the most strict principles of Liberty,Fraternity, and Equality." Aguinaldo, as a sign ofthe modern, as thelink between two crucial periods in the transition narrative, has toprevail in the power struggle against Bonifacio. He then goes on toproclaim the first Filipino republic in June 1898, and leads the FilipinoArmy against the American invasion forces the following year.

It would appear that by late 1898 the Philippines has finallybeenadmitted into History. But in American...ra textbooks, theRepublic of1898 cannotpossibly be the high point that it has oome to be today.Benitez, likeBarrows before him, posits a gap between the nation-statedreams ofthe likes ofAgUinaldo and the persistence of feudalism. TheFilipinos, after all, are still in a stage of adolescence, unable to implement, nay even comprehend, the workings of amodem nation state.U.S. tutelage has to follow. So why the war that cost the lives ofthousands of American soldiers, and hundreds of thousands of Filipinos? Such horrifying statistics are, of course, censored in both theBenitez and Barrows textbooks. Instead, the Philippine-American Waris portrayed as some kind of unfortunate misunderstanding. WhenAguinaldo and his generals finally realize that they can pursue theirgoals "with the aid of the United States' they lay down their arms inorder to begin "a new type of struggle within thebounds of law andorder."

Moving within the bounds 0/1= and order, or acquiring sternerjudgment and sanity: this is the organizing principle behind the textbooknarratives of1896 to 1901. Bonifacio's revolution of 1896 signifiesanarchy, thus the deep desire to contain it within the transition narrative and exorcise its threatening features. 1901 signifies order; after all,it is the beginning of the American new era.In the conduding paragraph of his 1926 textbook, Benitezagain reminds the reader that the FilipinOS are not a dying race. Far fromit, this "people" isdestined to be an agent ofHistory, "destined to carryon as an independent democracy in the Far East the political idealismofAmerica- her greatest contribution to human progress..." Filipinostudents in the mid-1920s were encouraged to think that theirs was adynamic race that, having become part of the great chain of modernity

emanating from post-enlightenment Europe and extending throughAmerica, would now carry the light to the medieval lands ofthe Orient.To a great extent this pride in being the bridge between East

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experienced the granting of independence in 1946 after the trauma ofthe Japanese occupation. Benitez disseminates and evokes this "feeling' among the young postwargeneration through a major revision ofhis textbook in 1954. The inaugural speech of Manuel Roxas, firstpresident of the postwar republic, thus features prominently in part sixof this edition.Our independent nation state, he says, is th e fruit of

... the westward surge of the pioneers of liberty.They planted its seeds in this land ... seeds which bear todaytheir richest fruit.. So as we embraceournational freedom,wemust see in it, as otherpeoples of the world do, not alone theproduct of our struggles and strivings,not a10nethe altruismofAmerica, but also thefinaJ product if the world's age-


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ally preached these things is beside thepoint Thesekey texts of the 18%revolution are made to serve as charters of the state and its citizens.Again the 18% revolution's ambiguous and threatening features aresuppressed. This reading of the Decalogue and Kartilyo enables Benitezto accomplish the previously impossible feat of conflating Bonifacioand Rizal. Says he, "both the Katipunan and Rizal believed in anintensive campaign of re-education ofthe people for civic purposes."

The great pains taken to harness the revolution for civic pur-poses reflects the importance of state building in the progress of theworld historical spirit. But in this 1954 textbook it also betrays anxieliesabout threats to the unity ofthe new Filipinonation. .tate.The strongesthint ofthisis in the chapter on "problems of peace and order," wherefor the first time Communismis mentioned. Benitez refers to theHuksas originally an agrarian movement influenced by Communism, whichcame "from the outside" via Soviet Russia and China. Such internalproblems reflect a troubled world which

...seems to be dividing itselfmore and more intotwo opposing camps - on the one side, the countries defending the right to live a free, democratic life under constitutional processesof government; on theother, the countriesunder the iron heel ofCommunism, determined to imposeon the rest of the world their autocratic systemof government in which no freedom of any kind is accorded theindividual. (Benitez, 1954, 499)As noted earlier, Benitez, in the tradition of Barrows, constructed a Philippine history that makes a necessity of theSpanish andAmerican interventions which brought thePhilippines into line with

Europe's history, the history of the world spirit. But the march ofProgress just happened to split into two ranks. History was alsomarching toa different tune, composed by Marx and Lenin bu t reallya variationon Hegel's.The Philippinesgets caught in between two rivalmetanarratives of Progress. Clearly Benitez is on the side of "the FreeWorld" porlraying his country in no uncertain termsas the torchbearerof democracy against the forces of totalitarianism. This is the specifiCcontext in which the Philippines figures, as stated earlier, as the bridgebetween East and West.

Try as hard as he might, though, Benitezwas unable to fullyharness theRevolution of 18% to his cause.On page494, in describingthe PhilippineArmy's campaignagainst "armed dissidents,"hewrites:

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Butlhe [dissidents] had the advantage of surpriseand, in some cases, of half-hearted supportof those in ruralsectionswho lived in terror of the Huks. The depredationscame to a head with the simultaneous and well-preparedattacks on August 26, 1950. timed to coincide with thehistorical "Cry of Balintawak" Day ...Somehow theHuk (People's liberation Army) "enemy," too,was reading thehislOl}'of the18%Revolution [i.e., theCry ofBalinlawakj

in a way tha t would legitimize and inspire its own revolutionaryactivities. The socialistic and subversive Katipunan alluded to withconcern byLeRoy, watered down by Barrows, and censored by Benitez,appears in the form of the Huks to haunt this textbook of 1954.Benitez's reference to the Huk appropriation of the "Cry ofBalintawak" is a reminder that other narratives of the 18%Revolutioncontinued to thrive outside of the public school system After all, there

were still a lot of Katipuneros and Filipino-American war veteransaround until the 1940s and eve.n 50s. And therewere other forms inwhich "unofficial" memories could circulate, such as literature anddrama in the vernacular and popular religious cults incorporatingheroes of the revolution into their pantheons. Rizal could be hailed asa martyr for the revolutionary cause and a Christ-figure, rather than thepacifist educatorthat official textbooksmade himout to be. Labor andpeasant unions certainly took a different view ofBonifacio, constructing him as themodel of theman of action, thevoice of the masses, ratherthan as an incompetent leader or a liberal democrat.

The state- colonial or nationalist - certainly has had a stakein the reproduction of certain meanings of the revolution that served tounderwrite it. If Bonifacio and Rizal can both, together, be seen ascrucial to the birthing process of themodern Philippine nation-slale,then there is no problem. A govemment-sponsored event such as thecentennial celebration is a good example of the state's interest inpromoting certainmeanings of 1896-98.

Benitez's 1954 textbook, however nationalist, epitomizes thetame, civics-oriented, colonial-vintage representations of 18%. Thesuppression of theCommunist-ledHuk rebellion, however, led radicalintellectuals to concentrate on revamping the histories taught in thepublic school system. And so from the late-1950s on Benitez's andsimilar liberal textbooks had to compete with, and eve.ntually yield to,more radical intepretations of the events of 1896-98: Bonifacio-centered, anti-ilustrado, and class struggle-oriented. Teodoro Agoncillo's14


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Revolt of the Masses (1957) became a new master-text of the revolution,later fine-tuned by theMarxist RenatoConstantino.The new readings of the 18%-98 Revolution and its transmis

sion to a generat ion of students in the 1960s and early 70s, gavehistorical depth to studentparticipation in the so-called FirstQuarterStocm of 1970. It is striking how somany of the students saw themselvesas latter day Andres Bonifacios, youth organizations such as theKabalaang Makabayan as latter-day Katipunans, and anti-Marcos/antiU.S. rallies as replays ofthe Cry of Pugad Lawin and/or Balintawak.

Above all, theinterpretation of the 1896 Revolution as a "revoltof the masses" facilitated among the studentry the spread of newappeals for joining with the farmers and the working classes and, later,fomenting "People Power." Naturally, AmadoGuerrero saw his newCommunist Party as continuing the "unfinished revolution" of 1896.Ferdinand Marcos himself joined the fray by hooking his own Democratic Revolution of 1972on to the 1896 Revolution - but not before hehad proscribed Bonifacio and negated the Revolution's supposedlyanarchic tendencies. In the end Marcosmodeled himself after Aguinaldothe general and the statesman, and even to his dying days in Hawai 'jhe dreamt of returning to the Philippines to continue his revolution.

By way of recapitulating, let me return to the figure that I beganthis talk with: Jack Bums, the man who revolutionized Hawai'i'spolitics. I wonder what Bums would have thought of the Philippinehistories I have discussed.I'm pretty sure tha t Bums, the sympathizer of the ILWU(International Longshoremen's andWarehousemen's Union), wouldhave understoodwhy Bonifacio theTagalog warehouseman did what

he did: recruiting Katipunan members among the workers ofManila,fanning their resentments against the Spanish guardians of the OldOrder. Mass organizationwas necessary for change, Bums believed.And he spoke, as well, offreeing ordinary workers from what he called"the hegemony" ofthe Big Five (Bums, tape 3, p. 6). He is said tohave"held the union in high regard for its part in overturning the feudaleconomic system which had prevailed in Hawai'i before World WarII." (Coffman, 76)

Bums alleged in One of his early campaigns that the Republicans wanted to keep power out of the hands of "an unruly mass ofnatives and Orientals." (Fuchs, 332) Acutely sensitive to the Orientalism15


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underpinning the exclusion ofAsians andHawaiians from mainstreampolitical life, Burns advocated their empowerment. [n this light hewould certainly have appreciated Barrows' attempt to instill racialpride in being Filipino, and Benitez's celebration of the FilipinO renaissance in the Orient. He would also have understood why Benitezharnessed the history of the 1896 revolution to serve the cause ofcitizenship in the independent, postwar nation slate. After all, Burnswas also"first and foremost the politician of first-class citizenship...This was the real point of th e consensus. (Coffman, 28) Everyone,regardless of racial background, was entitled to participatein American political life.

In line with our rereading ofBarrowsand Benitez, we shouldalso stress that these textbook historians' taming of the volatile eventsof18%-98, in order to turn a see-saw story of revolutionary violenceand upheaval into a seamless narrative of progress and modernity,would have met Burn's approval, too. Despite his association withsomemembers of the radical Left, which earnedhim the nickname "theman with the red socks" among McCarthyite journalists, he was forconsensus and the incorporation ofmarginalizedgroups into the widerbody politic. When asked if there was such a single idea as reform, orchange, that his party propaganda clearly got across to the voters, hereplied: UGh, yeah. We wanted revolution by evolution, and that cameacross... " (Burns, tape 10, p. 3)

For in the final analYSiS, Burns thought and spoke within thesame discursive framework as his political counterparts in the Philippines. He saw Hawai1i, too, as hooked onto the Euro-American narrative of the march of Progress. After all, before the Agents of Historyreached the Philippines, they had swept throughHawai'i first, eventually rewriting its history to conform to the dominant melanarrative.This is thecontext in whichwe might situate thebookswhichBurns wasfond of. He told his interviewer:

...1 [ike particularly a lot of romantic books, theidealistic books of the British. .. I like historical novels. I usedtoread a lot of those and that's another thing that I thinkcontributed. Funny thing for a high school kid I got fouryearsof history. No repeats. Greek and right on down theline. [To the) Modern, etc... (Burns, lape 1, pp. 15-16)Burnsparticularly liked to read aboutgreat menwho changedthe course ofhistory. And within that grand saga of historical change,

he located Hawai'j and his own role in changing it. He, too, was anagent ofHistory.16


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One feature of HistOty (with a capital H) is its repression ofthose narratives and other elements that it cannot incorporate into itssweep and steady march forward. One question that emergesfrom thispaper is whether, or how, we can effectively break away from thediscourseof Progress, Enlightenment, and HistOl}' that has framed thenarratives of the past - particularlythePhilippine Revolution - sincethe beginning of this century.Have Filipino textbook histories reallycared to listen to radically different interpretations of18%? Or do theystill cling to Barrows' viewofhistory as, in essence, the work ofReason,to be based solely on "reliable" written documents, and looking to themodern nation-state as its end-point? Unless we interrogate ou r traditional ideas ofhistory, a legacyof the 19thcentury, and write against thegrain of the Enlightenment, all histories of the 1896-98 Philippinerevolution are bound to be variations on a European theme.

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18


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about to place independencewithin our reach." An American squad-ron would soon arrive to bring arms for the revolutionists: "Therewhereyou see theAmerican flag flying, assemble in numbers; they areou r redeemers." The destruclion of the Spanish fleet was Widelyregarded as an omenportending the demise ofSpanishrule.Backed, atleast temporarily, by U.s. power, Filipino forces enthusiastically laidsiege to Spanish garrisons and convents and proclaimed a new era inliberated towns. For a couple ofweeks, at least, many Filipinos experienced being the masters of their own destinies.

Aguinaldo's proclamation of independence, however, wasnot about theblissful fruits ofanned struggle. It was about the fonna-lion of a nation-state that would take itsplace in the family of nations.I t sought to reconcile all citizens of the republic whether they hadparticipated in the redemptive process, waited in the sidelines, or evenaided the Spanish forces. Old social and economic hierarchieswere tobe maintained.There were understandable reasons for such pragma-tism. Th e revolution, after all, d id not extinguish earlier modes ofassociation such as between Spanish priests and their flock and between landlord and tenant. Powerful families controlled many districts, even provinces. Arguably, the new nation could not survivewithout the talents and resources of the wealthy and educated. But tomany, these practical considerationswere beside the point. Separationfrom Mother Spainwas a traumatic event that, it was felt, should haveled to a truly new community of Mother Filipinas' children. Thecondition of Kalayaan (liberty) under the new mother had brought forthexpectations ofthe good lifefor all which the first Filipino republicwashard pressed to fulfill.

Critics of AgUinaldo's government who fall back on stockrepresentations of native corruption, personal rivalry, caciquism, andineptness should remember, however, that the first feFublic had predous little time to set itsown house in order. Almostfrom the day itwasborn, it had to deal with threats of annexationby the United States. InDecember 1898, ignoring the Filipino nationalist damor for recognition, the U.S. purchased the Philippines from Spain for 20 milliondollars. In February of the following year theU.s. occupation began inthe face of massive resistance which was then called "the Philippineinsurrection," or "the great misunderstanding" (to paraphrase Barrows).

It was a greatmisunderstanding to the Americans because theyclaimed to have warred with thebest of intentions. PresidentMcKinley20


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announced that he had no choice bu t "t o educate the Filipinos, anduplift and civilize and Christianize them, and by God's grace do th every best we could by them .." His instructions to the FirstPhilippineCommission of 1899were that Filipinos wereto be treated aswayward"Orphans of the Pacific." As Vicente Rafael puts it, they were cut offfrom theirSpanish fathers - meaning theSpanish state - and desiredby other Europeanpowers.They would now be adopted and protectedby America as "Father." Colonization would neither be exploitativeno r enslaving, but would mean cultivating "the felicity and perfectionof the Philippine people" through the "uninterrupted devotion" tothose "noble ideals which constitute the higher civilization of man-kind." The head of theCommission, Cornell professorJacob Schurman,rationalized the taking of the islands as an act of nurturing the Philippines, here figured as new-born "daughter," into an A m e r i c a n ~ s t y J edemocracy:

The destinyof the Philippine Islands... was not to bea State or a territory ... buta daughter republicof ours - anewbirthof liberty on the other side of the Pacific... (whichwould stand as amonument of progress and) Ita beacon ofhope toall the oppressed and benighted millions" ofAsia.The idea that an Americanized Philippineswould be the vanguard of Euro-Americanprogress in Asia was thus already presentin1899. But why were Filipinos rejecting the precious gifts of "liberty"

and "progress?" "Why these hostilities?," the SchurmanCommissionasked, "What do the bestFilipinos wan!?" Bywanting independence,saidSchurman, they appear to have misinterpreted "thepure aims andpurposes of the American government and people" and instead altacked U.S. forces. It was a misunderstanding, due to the incapacity ofFilipinOS to immediately recognize a higher purpose in the entry oftheAmericans. Filipinos resistingthe takeover were thus viewed as unreasonable, "errant children" who needed to be taught theright altitudes.McKinley declared that the Filipinos needed to be disciplined "withfirmness ifneed be, but without severity as far asmay be possible." TheU.S.must "maintain the strong arm of authority to repress disturbancesand to overcome all obstacles to the bestowal of the blessing of a goodand stablegovernmentupon the people of the Philippine Islands underthe free /lag of the United States."The "measured use offorce" was tomake the Filipinos submit to the rule of the American father, underwhose gUidance they would learn how to be more civilized, demo-cratic, and thus be ready forindependence.

This ideology of "benevolent assimilation," of what Rafael21


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calls colonialism a s " w hi te fathering," helped to assuage U.S. guiltabout the violenceof the takeover. Half a million Filipinolives werelostor unaccounted for. Torture wa s regularly used, reconcentration an dscorched earth policies a pp li ed t o wa r ds t he end. B ut t he rhetoricalways was that this wa s a necessary an d measured use of force for ahigher purpose. American troops practiced, said Secretary of StateElihu Root, "self-control, patience, [and) magnanimity." All this violence, in any case, wa s par! of a transitional stage to self-rule - "selfrule" in this context ultimately meaning, to cite Rafael again, th emastery of self, the colonizing or moldingof the selfso that itconformsto the standards set by the discipliningFather. Anotherway of puttingit is that measured violence wa s deemed n ee de d t o w ea n Filipinochildren away from the influence of their female nurturers- motherFilipinas, Mother Mary, grandmother Spain - all signs of thepremodern, the rule of passions, emotions, and religion, rather than themodem, "male" rationality represented by stepfather America, fondlyaddressed as Uncle Sam. The goal of American colonial rule w as t h eformation of a modern, democratic, an d patriarchal slate, later to beh an de d o ve r t o the now-developed alter-egos of th e white colonialfathers: th e Filipino "littlebrown brothers" as they would be fondlyaddressed.

No w ifthe U.s. were to successfully behave as an authoritarianfather wanting to discipline an d mold its children, the first thing itha dto do was towatch over them as a strictparent By knowing what theyw er e u p to through continuous an d discrete observation, problemscould be identified an d the appropriatedisciplinarymeasures appliedwhereneeded. In otherwords, th e most effective tool of th e policy ofbenevolent assimilation wa s intimate an d continuous surveillance. Inthis lecture I explore three ways in which colonial surveillance wa sdeployed in th e course of th e w ar a nd it s immediate aftermath. Iexamine, first, th e establishment of protected zones or th ereconcentration of populations in late 1901 to 1902; second, diseasecontrol an d sanitation in the context of the cholera epidemic of 19021903; and third, the making ofa censusin 1903-1905.These events werepar! an d parcel of "the Philippine-American war." Conquest involvedthe imagining of an d desire for an altered social order in the newpossessions. To implement these dreams it wa s necessary to deploytechniques of knowing, ordering and disciplining- the basic tools ofpacification.

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Forging the Ideal Society, 1899-1902American officials were almost totally ignorant of the Philippines even while theTreaty of Pariswasbeing signed inDecember 1898.They tried reading up extensively on British Malaya hoping to findgUidance onhow to run their similar tropical colony. But this literature

proved next to useless. TheAmericans found that, with a few exceptions, the Philippines had no sultans, no "hereditary chieftains orrulers,"no "established sovereign to whom the people owed andrecognized allegiance." With Spanish sovereignty now gone, thereappeared to be "no constituted authorities, no natural leaders, who[could] speak for the inhabitants of the archipelago." So the Americansfelt early on that there could be problems because there was no oneimmediatelyapparent throughwhom they could rule- tha t is, no onethroughwhom they could channel theirgift of civilization.Of coursethey refused to recognize the Filipino republic's claims to sovereignty.

SinceAmerican knowledge of the structure ofPhilippine society was practically nil in 1898, an effective policy of "pacification"could not be implemented. To rectify this, in mid-1899 the SchurmanCommission interviewed dozens of Philippine-bornwitnesses of the"respectable and influential" class -lawyers , doctors, merchants,planters, and engineers. These ilustrailoswho lived in Manila wereasked: What sort of social order existed? Why had there been awidespread rebellion against Spain? How could the present insurrection be dismantled?The Commissionwas presented with a picture of a fractiousbut peace-loving society that was being terrorized or seduced intofighting the U.s. forces by a small group ofmiddle-class revolutionariesdriven notby reason but personal ambitions. The Commission thus concluded that "themassesof the Filipino people, including practically all

who are educated or who possess property, have no desire for anindependent and sovereign Philippine state." Two key ingredients ofamodern state were deemed lacking: a true p u b l i c ~ i r i t e d leadership,and a people conscious of its nationality and sovereign rights. The civilandmililaly authoritiescould then claim to befilling this lack as agentsof development (Le., fatherhood) and thus proceed legitimately withsuppressing the revolutionary forces.

Rereading the early Philippine Commission reports, one isstruck by the extent to which American knowledge of the Philippineswas almost totally shaped by their contact with the witnesses who

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testifiedbefore theSdtunnanCommission.These were members of theilustrado elite, some of whom had earlier served in the revolutionarygovernment. According to NormanOwen, ilustrado power wasbasedon wealth, education, and a personal following. Americans saw theilustrados as mirror-images of their rational and liberal selves; theilustrados were also for the most partChinese or European mestizos-a racial mix which suited the Americans even beller. But it was assumed, also, that the ilustrados were linked to the so-called "ignorant"masses. The Ialler, of course, were never consultedby the Commission.The "symbiotic relation" established as early as 1899 between ilustradosand American officials is seen by Owen as the precursor to the patronclient ordering of colonial society: the Americans would be at the apexof a pyramidal structure of person-to-person ties reaching down, viathe ilustrados and other elites, to the village and the ordinary lao.

The statements of the ilustrados during theinterviews of1899provided theUS. commissionerswith a rough outline of a social orderthat hadtheglimmerings of a hierarchy. The picturewas that of eithera two or three-tiered society. Some informants simplymade a distinction between the "wealthy and intelligent" class which wanted peace,and the "poor and ignorant" mass, some of whom had been deceivedinto resisting the Americans. Others spoke of a third, intermediate,dass, composed of derks and writers from whose ranks the agitatorscame. Most spoke of the passivity of the masses, their willingness tofollow the wishes of those in power.To the Americans, il was enough tluzta leading class could be identified, through whose collaboration the colonial system could be established.

What emergedwas a representation of Philippine society thatreflected the desiresof both the Americans and the ilustrados. This wasnot necessarily how thingsreally were. A careful reading of the interviews shows that the iluslrados had few ties left with their originalvillages; there was no claim on their part to having actual influence overany constituency. The American interviewers, generally, were the oneswho suggested that this elite should goout and influence the masses toaccept America's good intentions. The ilustrados for their part simplyrepeated over and over again that lhosewho had rational!tJf;ulties wouldbe obeyed.The flip side to the ilustrados' insistence on their right to lead,was their anxiety about their future. They were preoccupiedwith theirproblems: very often they talked about bandits or religious fanaticswho menaced their towns.They spoke disparagingly of the peoplewho

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made upAguinaldo's anny, calling them banditsor vagabonds. Thereare copious references to the anarchic situation (as they saw andperhaps experienced it) brought about by the uprising against Spainand, now, the warwith the U.S. Wealth and education they had, butnonetheless their positions in society, outside of Manila, either hadnever existed, had crumbled during the past war, or were beingthreatened by the revolutionists and the ignorant, misguided rabble.

To understand the anxieties of the ilustrados, and to understandas wellwhy theAmericanshad problems "pacifying" the rural areas,a brief excursion into theSpanish colonial era is necessary. The town orpueblo dUringSpanish rulehad never been much of a stable entity in thefirst place. Almost as soon as the missionary established his churchcenter and persuaded or coerced converts to live within hearing distanceof the bells, other centersappeared in thehills beyond the Spanishdomain. These were controlled by figures variously referred to inSpanish records as bandits, fanatics, sorcerers, rebels, vagabonds orsimply indocumenb:ldo (the undocumented).

In many towns distant fromManila and other colonial strongholds, theparish priest(most likely a Spaniard) was the sole representative ofboth political and ecclesiastical authority. Not a few observerswere surprised athow towns could be kept orderly by a single person.The fact is, however, that the parish priestcould notsee much beyondthe center. There was an almost unhindered circulation of peoplebetween the colonial pueblo and other centers in the peripheries. Villagerswere continually leaving their domiciles, some simply to livein the"boondocks," others specifically to journey to pilgrimage sites where"unapproved" rituals were conducted and where assertions againstauthority often originated.

The principal{a or gentry which lived in the town center had alot of influence over ordinary farmers and villagers, but it cannot besaid that the rest of the populace naturally, and in a stable fashion,aligned themselves with these elite families. Followersabandoned theirbosses with impunity, gravitating towards other leaders or simplyheading for the hills. The elected town mayor derived much of hisprestige from sharing the samepersonal qualities as the bandit chief, hisshadowy "other."What gave cohesion to the town at certain periods ofcrisis was the experience of reacting to threats and attacks from theoutside.

The picture of rural society presented by the ilustrados to theSchurman Commission in 1899 contained these dissonant and contra-25


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dictory elements. But, generally, the ilustTados imagined that if thesituation were tobecome "normalized, JJ a socialorderwould emergein which they, the richand educated, would be the natural leaders. TheAmericans, on the other hand, ignored otherpossiblerepresentationsof society and jumped at the opportunity to rule through this elite.Theyfelt an affinity for the iIustTados not justbecause the latter wantedpeaceand the protection of individual and property rights, bu t because theywere mostly mJJstizos. On racial grounds the Americans felt they couldbe entrusted with a rational implementation of colonial policy. Theunlettered indios, on the other hand, were seen tobe largely governedby "impressionsof the sense and the imagination"; they were likenedto "young children."

In the spiritof establishing what the Filipinos really wanted (asarticulated by their ilustTado informants), U.S. Army volunteers incaptured territory quickly organized town administrations, established schools and implemented sanitation programs. Indeed, theirefforts seemed to be met with success.But by the following year (1900),there was more and more talk of the "duplicity" of the native. Whatfrustrated the Americans most were the lack of fit between FilipinOappearance and intention, the switchingof identities, and the hazinessof what lay beyond the garrisoned town-eenters. The only people theycould deal with, and talk toin Spanish, were thefewprincipa1eswhohadproclaimed themselves Americanis!as.The fact is, physically controlling the town centersmeant verylittle. Take the district ofTiaong in the southernTagalog region whosehistory Ihave studied in some detail Its pdllaciOn had always been run

down in the nineteenth century. Rather than being the "heart" of thepueblo it was really just the place where people congregated for Sundaymass orto do theirmarketing. Whatever transpired in the surroundingbarrios and on Mount Banahaw in the distance was never of muchconcern to the few Spanish officials, unless a "disturbance" was reported. The Filipino mayor and other notables owned houses near thechurch, but really preferred to live in their more substantial dwellingsin the barrios. It is not surprising, then, that despite the area having beenofficially declared "pacified" by the U.S. Army in 1901, and electionsheld in July, the revolutionary movement there remained as strong asever.

Eventually the U.S. Army command realized that much ofwhat they thought was pacified U.S. territory really continued to becontrolled by shadow guerilla governments. Typically they called26


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Tiaong a "criminal community," where "every form of perfidy, du plicity and crookednessthat could possibly exist anywherewas found...Th e culprits, as far as theAmericanswere concemed, were theprindpales,th e rich an d educated, o f t he t ow ns f ro m whose r a nk s t h e ilustradoscame. In fact, in some key regionsof the "pacified" islands the Americans were diSCOVering that th e gentry class wa s no t properly respondi ng t o t he colonial blueprint for an ordered society. Some ha d abandoned their oath of allegiance to the U.S. an d were leading hostile forcesagainst th e government. M os t w e re suspected o f a t least aiding th eguerrillas. But because th e principalfa elite were deemed t o b e the key tocontrolling the whole of society- a conclusion derived from the1899interviews - great efforts were m a de t o buttress th e influence of th e"genuine" pro-Americans among them, an d to apply surveillance overth e rest.

The extent of American frustration over the situation in someareas is illustrated in Brig. Gen. J. Franklin Bell's address to the officersof hisbrigade (which wasbased in Southwestern Luzon). From the verystart of BeWs address, tenns such as "arrogant, n "conceited, "pre_sumptuous, " "ungrateful," "unscrupulous, " "cunning," and" ag-gressive" are routinely used to describe the enemy's character. Theenemy's exact oppositesare the Americans soldiers wh o are describedin Bell's account as being fair, trusting, gentle, benevolent, full offorbearance, "cool," and "collected" in manner.

This wa s December 1901, an d General Bell wa s essentializingth e Filipino e ne my i n o rd er t o justify the hard-line methods he wa sabout to implement. ButBell was careful to identify tw o different typeswithin that overall mass of Filipinos exhibiting the general characteristics of emotional immaturity an d Oriental cunning. On one hand werethose wh o dominated (Le., th e prindpales) an d t h e r e st wh o blindlyfollowed. Th e key to success in the w a r w a s getting the principalfa eliteinto line:

...the peopleof Batangas can have peacewheneverthey wantit, and itshould be ourmission to make them wantit as soon as we can by legitimatemethods.It is not possible to convince these irreconcilableand unsophisticated people by kindness and benevolencealone that you are right and they are wrong, nor could youlikewise convince the ignorant tilo that what you advise him

to do isbest and whathis priJU:ipaleordas him to do is wrong,because the only argument the majority of either class canunderstand and appreciate is oneof physical force.27


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To successfully deal with the commonpeople) theheadmen, the leaden;, theprincipales are the oneswe need toinfluence. The common hombre is dominated body and soulbyhismaster, the principaIe.He is simply a blind tool, a poordown-trodden ignoramus,whodoesnot know what is goodfor him and cannot believe an American. You can nomoreinfluence him bybenevolent persuasion than you can fly. Heis going to dowhateverhe is told to do by hismaster or hisleaders, because he is incapable of doing anything else.

Therefore, to succeed inour purpose, wemust m:Uceit to thE interest i f his /


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limited by the only language they could use to communicate with theirinfonnants: Spanish. They were limited by their own cultural assumptions about what "leadership" entailed and meant. And they couldonly gain an image of the social order refracted through this principal{a/ilustrado class.

Anny intelligence gathering had the effect of reducing thecommon soldier or subaltern to a passive subject, bound by debt, fearor other "traditional" ties of their social betters.The reduction ofenemyresistance to such essentials is due to the principaUa having been theprimary target of U.S. Army action in the first place. Only the principalesspeak. The behavior of the subalterns is encoded in terms of eliteconstructions of their relationship, not tomention the "feudalism" thattheAmericans assumed was at the coreof Philippine society. There arein fact other documents- Tagalog proclamations and letters, and evencertain enigmatic statements in interrogation reports - that indicatehow little debt and fear seemed to matter compared with somethingcalled, vaguely, "morale" specially, but not exclusively, imbuedby thelanguage and presence of the chief. And the assumption that despOtismbasically framed social relationships is belied by the remarkable fluidity o f the structure of the guerrilla annies. Groups were constantlyscattering, fading away, then reconstituting, perhapsaround anotherleader with superior abilities. The fluidity of the structure of theguerrilla armies irked the pacification authoritieswho sought to identify stable leader-follower clustersso as to be able to take action againstthem

Instead ofa simple society ofbigmen and little people, whatthe u.s. Anny faced was a complex scene of competing definitions ofproper leadership, as well as a multiplicity of sites where this wasmanifested. In the Tiaong district, many peasants joined the religiopolitical movement called "Colorum" which was also adamantlyopposed to American rule. But because this fell outside the scope ofgentry leadership, itwas labeled "fanaticism." When General Bell inlate 1901 unleashed the full force of the U.s. army and gathered thepopulace into "protected zones," many peasant soldiers abandonedtheir surrendering gentry officers in order to continue the resistanceunder non-gentry leadership. But because the latter fell outside the u.s.Anny's definition of proper Filipino leadership, it was named "banditry."

The context ofGeneral Bell'sstatements I quoted above was theU.S. Anny's decision to finnly resolve the stalemate caused by "Orien-

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tal duplicity" and the isolation of the garrisoned centers. Increasinglythe majority of soldiers in the district grew disenchanted with policiesbased only on benevolence and agreed withCapt. Jordan that, "Thisbusiness of fighting and civilizing and educating at the same timedoesn'tmix very well. Peace is needed first." (Unn, 128)The Iynchpinof the new policy implemented in December 1901 was to gather uppeople in the barrios into "protected zones," a typical euphemism ofthis period of scorched-earth tactics. Thestated aimwas to deprive theenemy of food and other forms ofsustenance, as well as to "protect"peace-loving villagers from guerrilla depredations. Glenn May estimates that malnutrition, poor sanitary conditions, disease and demoralizationmay have cost as many as 11,000Filipino lives in the "pro-tected zones" of Batangas province alone, and made the populationsusceptible to the cholera epidemic of1902. (Linn, 155)My point is notto dwell on the injustice and cruelty ofthat policy, but to underline itseffects on the construction and surveillance of colonial society. Theestablishment of protected zones (also referred to as concentrationcamps)was a way of "fixing" space, establishing boundaries, preventing themovement ofpeople in and out, enabling their surveillance, andinducing them to want and to do what the occupation army wanted.

The "protected zones" were no other than the town centers.Formerly ambiguous and largely empty of power, the town centersbecame forcibly transformed into real centers of power. The hub of atypical "protected zone"was the church and U.S. garrison. From thechurch tower (which usually was clearly visible from all comers of atown) one had a panoramic viewof thesurroundingstreets and houses.Andwhatdid one see?The "protected zone," a compact, bounded andfully controlled version of the town itself. It was a mirror held up totownspeople, a display of what they would be - orderly, visible,disciplined - when they stopped fighting and went along with theoccupation army's ideology of benevolent assimilation.

On each of the streets surrounding the center a barrio wasrelocated, properly labeled and all.Thegap between town and counlJyside, center and periphery, known and unknown, was for the timebeing collapsed.The Americans could stroll about the town like touristsand view, as well as count and document, thewhole population streetby street. Within the bounded confines, they began to establish dependency relations by distributing food and other necessities. They penetrated into individual houses and tents in the name of hygiene andsanitation. And they could be seen as well by "ordinary" Filipinoswithout the distortions of genlJy mediation. As Bell put it, "Hundreds30


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of people have been brought into intimate contact with Americans,whom they had never seenor known before, and as a consequence noone will aga in be able to mislead them as to the real character ofAmericans."

Within the zones the principales were interrogated and sortedout. No neutrality or ambiguity was permitted: one had to demonstratethrough deeds (like bringing in an insurgent from the field or leadingan auxiliary force) that he was a "friend" of the Americans. InTiaong,practically everyone was implicated in the guerrilla movement, andhundreds were sent off to exile and hard labor in the Malagi islandprison camp. Furthermore, within the zones gentry privileges weresuspended; everyonewas deemed equal before the eyesof the colonialpower.This period can be regarded as a transitional phase in a ri te ofpassage, where a perverse form of communitas reigns prior to entry intoanother ordered phase of existence. The principaJes, who were beingcarefully observed by theAmerican officers, would emerge from all thisproperly constituted into leading citizens of the new colonial era; theirlocal factions would be made to feed into the democratic electoralprocess.

Meanwhile, having consolidated the town centers, the U.S.forces proceeded to make their presence felt throughout the country-side. General Bell's account is worth quoting in full, for it seems tocapture the exhilaration that the U.S. Army must have felt in finallybeing able to penetrate every nook and cranny of a formerly resistantand intractable domain. The discourse of penetration, and of filling inthe void, is unmistakable:

...We have pursued them ever since with relentlesspersistence. Not waiting for them to come out of hiding, wehave penetrated into the heart of every mountain range,searching every ravine and mountain top. We have foundtheir barracks and hiddensupplies in the most unexpectedand remote hiding places... At the timeofMalvar's surrenderwe hadeverymountain range in thebrigade full of troops...(Bell, in Wheaton, 13-14)The saturationof the countrysidewithUS. troops and selectedcontingents of Filipinos led by loyal principales, after this countryside

had been largely emptied of people through the hamletting program,was tantamount to a reconstitution of that disbict in America's image,a reconstitution around a privileged center called "the town.n This isonewaywe might read General BeU's "satisfaction of realizing that the

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most determined, ignorantand persistent enemy of good order hadbeenliterally and unequivocally thrashed into unconditional submission toproperly CQIIstituted authority."

The "protec ted zones" policy worked. Massive burning offood stocks outside the zones led to hungry guerrillas turning them-selves in.Prindpaks from the town centers, including some ex-guerrillaofficers, "responded" toUS.Army pressureand helped to round upthe rest as a preconditionfor the lifting of the hamletting policy.This isnot to say that resistance, passive or active, was finished once and forall. But since most of the guerrilla forces by 1903were led by blacksmiths, woodcutters, peasants and the like, they were naturally quitealien to the colonial orderingof societywhere only town-basedprindpalesand ilustrados were considered rational-enough to lead. So these diehard revolutionaries (the best known being Macario Sakay, a barberand stage actor by profeSSion) were treated as mere bandits andpunished without leniency.Other fonns of association and "traditionalbehavior" weremarginalized.Hdeemed to be potentially subversive,such as those religious cultswhich worshipped nationalist heroes, theywere infiltrated and disarmed by the center.The Philippine-AmericanWar officially ended with the surrender of General Miguel Malvar(Aguinaldo'ssuccessor) on April 16, 1902.Sanitation and Pacification,1902-1903

Therewas another factor that inducedMalvar to surrender: theappearance in his area of cholera. Cholera had arrived in Manila inMarch through a shipment of infected vegetables fromHongkong. Itsrapid spread allover the archipelago was greatly facilitated by th emovement ofAmerican troops and the failure to police quarantine linesin rural areas. When it hit the "protected zones" of Southwestern Luzonin April, th e villagerswere trapped in unsanitary, crowded quartersthat soon became death camps. Hurriedly, bu t too late for some towns,General Bell rescinded the hamIetting policy and Malvar soon surrendered.

Colonial textbook histories locate the 1902-03 cholera epi-demic in sections often called "progress and sanitation in theNew Era."The apparentvictory Over the cholera is assimilated into the universalhistory of medical progress originating in Europe. Forgotten are it soriginalmoorings in a colonialwa r and pacification campaign. ironically, Philippine nationalist historiography reproduced this myth bylocating the 1899-1902 war of resistance and th e 1902-04 cholera32


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epidemic in two distinct series. The former is a moment in the epicstruggle for independence from colonial rule, the latter a Philippinechapterof the saga of scientific progress. According toTeodoroAgoncilloin his 1970s textbook,

Before 1900, ravages of cholera, smallpox, dysentery, malaria tuberculoois, and otherdeadly diseases plaguedthe people... When the Americans came, they immediatelyset to work to minimize the spread of diseases and to im-prove, on the otherhand, the healthof the people.The task in educating the people on the "elemenlaty principles

of hygiene and sanitation" was difficult, continues Agoncillo, becausethe Filipinoswere

superstition-ridden and ignorant of the strangepower of the minutegerms to cause deadly diseases, [and]werenot easily oonvinced by the efficacy ofmedicalmethodsin combating the causeof death from various sickness. Theearly Americans, then, were up against afonnidable wall ofignorance and superstition... (Agoncillo andGuerrero, 425-26)The origins of this discourse can be traced back to the veryarchitects of the anti-cholera campaigns: the Secretary of the Interior,

DeanWorcester, and the Commissioner of Public Health, Dr. VielorHeiser. Worcester sensed that the rumor-mongering and the popularresistance to his policies were really extensions of the war, but byhooking his health policy to the discourseof progress, all of the oonlraryvoiceswere identified with forces of backwardness and superstition.Furthenoore, the epidemic set the scene for another round of "fathering, " anotherchapter of "benevolent assimilation" as suggested by oneveteranarmy surgeon who wrote: "the sanilaty work of combating thisdisease among an ignorant and suspicious people, impoverished bywar, locusts and rinderpest and embittered by conquest was an extremely difficult task, calling formuch patience, tact and firmness, thebrunt of which fell on the Army."

The wa r did not in fact end with Malvar' s surrender. Thediscourse of "pacification" simplygave way to the discourse of "genowarfare.' We can regard the military surgeons as the next wave of"pacifiers" after the Cavalry officers and combat troops of the earlierperiod. In fact, American cavalrymen and soldiers were recruited byWorcester to serve as crackofficersof his sanitationbrigades.The image

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of the oonquering soldier became quickly transfonned into that of thecrusading sanitation inspector. Butjust as guerrilla warfare frustratedthe "benevolent" policies of the army, so were the sanitation cam-paigns metwith various kinds of resistance on the part of the populace.This was the scene of another war, a "combat zone" of disputes overpower and definitions of illness and treatment, involving Americanmilitary surgeons, Filipino physicians, parish priests, the prindpales,stricken townspeople, and alternative curers in the fringesof the towns.

Dominating this battle zone was the stern figure of the U.S.army surgeon, lessopen than the regular military officers to compromise with the local elite. As one Captain C. de Mey put it, their job wasideally "to rule with a rod of steel." A health officer "should be thecommanding officer of a city when that city is threatened with or has anepidemic, and must be left free to act acoording to his judgment." In thecontext of an epidemic the surgeon displaces the military commanderas the enforcerof discipline.

Search and surveillanoe operations were of particular importance in this wa r against the concealment of cholera cases. For thispurpose, Worcester organized platoonsof inspectors led by surgeonsfrom the Anny Volunteer brigades. Initially, most of the inspectorswere Filipinos. But they were soon relieved owing to their ineffectiveness. Americans of all kinds were enlisted: clerks, schoolteachers,polioemen, and ex-soldiers. Among them were some 'who had slightregard for thenatives and who enforced the already distasteful regulation in an unwarranted mannerJ increasing the popular opposition.IfSeveral of them were killed as a result. The issue here was that of thewanton entry into family homes by the inspectors in order to flush outooncealed victims. Thiswas tantamount to extending the "hamlelling"policy, which authorized the penetration of houses, to all towns af-fected by the cholera.

Various oombat zones canbe identified in what we may call the"sanitation war. If Prominent among them was the issue of confine-ment. Strict confinementwas premised on the notion then prevalent inAmerican medicine that disease was a purely biological and physicalentity, a foreign agent, which must be excised from the healthy parts ofsociety. The Filipino public, however, generally refused to dissociatethe cholera from the network of social relationships in which it ap-peared; how could a victim not be attended to by family? Rumors,concealment, and evasions were various modes of resistance to animposed definition of sickness and treatment. The conflict became sointense that as a concession to the "ignorant classes" tents werepitched34


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on thegrounds of cholera hospitals to acconunodate relatives or friendsof patients. Once or twice daily they were allowed to visit the wards.FilipinO doctors were also allowed in to practice their "mixed treatments" which involved keeping thepatient in a familiar and reassuringenvironment, where his morale as well as body was attended to.

Sometime in mid-May, the removal of contacts to detentioncamps was finally stopped in Manila since this measure only madeconcealment of cases the rule. On the first of July, even detention inhouses was scrapped. In Batangas and Laguna, General Bell abolishedforcible detention on May 23. Henceforth, people were to be isolated intheirhouses, overwhich municipal authorities were to placeguards-not Tagalog guards bu t Filipino scouts recruited from other ethnicgroups.

Another combat zone involved the buming ofhouses. Duringthe first few weeks of the epidemic in Manila, not only were membersof a stricken household sent off to detention camp, but theirhouse itselfwasburned down if it happened tobe ofnipa palmconstruction. Sincethe cholera germ lay in the filth and vermin associated with infected"native dwelling,' these had to be destroyed, germs and all. In thetowns of Southwestern Luzon under General Bell's control) therewould havebeen quite a few medical officers like the onewho wrote,"I wentnext to Cavite, wherecases had occurred in a populous marketplace. The market was burned down. Result, no morecholera for morethan two months. " Since the burning of whole barrios outside theprotected zones during Bell's military offensive had already createdmass resentment against the U.s. Army, well-meaning anti-cholerameasures such as burning cannot havebeen accepted passively. Therecan be no doubt that the threat of burning figured largely in theconcealment of more than fifty percent of cholera cases in the region.

Army surgeons and their inspectors policed mainly the towncenters, while in the outlying villages either a vigorous local-led campaign was carried out, or the epidemicwas simply allowed torun itscourse.Thus, in the barrios concealmentwas a simplematter. Relatives,neighbors, and children visited the sickor the dead withoutconstraints.Some came to pay their respects, to join in the feast called katapusan;othersjustwanted to see what the dying and thedead looked like, andcholera victims were a horrible sight. The same utter disregard forprohibitionswas reported in towns all over the Philippines. "They haveno fear of anything," sighed a frustrated teacher in the Visayas. AtIbaan, Batangas, infected houses were required to display a red lIag,

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"but thenativesgave no heed to thiswarning and to them the presenceof the flag was seemingly only a kind of a joke.' Americans andeducated Filipinos saw this as a sign of fatalism and ignorance.On theotherhand, i t can be read as an insistencethat death and dying remaina social event.One effect of the cholera war was the convergence in altitudestowards sanitationby American surgeons and local principaJes, some ofwhomwere Spanish-trainedmedicos and pharmacists. Being the traditional agents of disease control, locaIIy run boards of health invariablycollidedwith the Americanmilitary surgeons during the early stages ofthe epidemic.Their lethargy under U.S. supervision can be explained

by the fact that the revolution was not yet over for most of them;memories of the guerrillawar lingered; their traditional dominanceover the town centers was threatened by a still-unfamiliar, colonialruler. Eventually, however, strict surveillanceby U.s. Army

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