The Story of the Philippines Part 10

What corresponds to his Cabinet, or Ministry, consists of

(a) The Archbishop of Manila and four Bishops, who administer ecclesiastical affairs in the five dioceses into which the islands are divided for this purpose; the appointment of parish priests and curates, however, is vested in the Governor-General. The various religious orders which exercise so large an influence in the politics and business of the islands, viz.: Augustinians, Dominicans, Recollects. Franciscans, Capuchins, Benedictines and Jesuits, are all under the management of the Bishops, subject to the supervision of the Pope, and the prerogatives of the King as Royal Patron, which prerogatives are exercised by the Governor-General as Viceroy.

(b) The High Court of Justice in Manila, which is the Court of Appeals in civil and governmental cases for all the islands. There are two princ.i.p.al criminal courts in Cebu and Vigan (northern Luzon) and appeal in criminal cases lies to these courts or to the High Court of Manila. In every Province there is a court of primary jurisdiction in both civil and criminal cases.

(c) The General, second in command, who is a General of Division in the Spanish army. He is the sub-inspector of all branches of the military service, is Military Governor of the Province and city of Manila and commands all the troops stationed therein, and in the absence or sickness of the Captain General he commands all the military forces in the islands.

(d) The General Commandant of Dock Yards and Squadron. This post is filled by a Vice Admiral in the Spanish navy, and he commands the naval forces, s.h.i.+ps and establishments in the islands.

(e) The Minister of Finance, or Intendente General de Hacienda, who is charged with the collection of customs and internal taxes, the expenditures of public money, and the audit and control of public accounts.

(f) The Minister of the Interior, or Director General of Civil Administration, who is charged with all public business relating to public instruction, charities, health, public works, forests, mines, agriculture, industry and commerce, posts and telegraphs and meteorology.

For the purpose of local administration the islands are divided into Provinces and Districts, cla.s.sified as follows:

19 Civil Governments.

24 Political-Military Governments.

23 Political-Military Commands.

15 Military Commands.

The most important of the Provinces are Manila, with a population of 400,238 (of which 10 per cent. are Chinese), and Cebu, with 501,076; and the least important districts are Balabas and Corregidor, with 420 and 320 respectively.

The governor or commandant has supreme control within his province or district of every branch of the public service, including the Courts of Justice, and each reports to the Governor General. The Guardia Civil or Gendarmerie, is subject only to his orders, and for arrests and imprisonment for political offenses, he is responsible, not to the law, but to the Governor General and the King.

The Civil Governments are governed by Civil Governors, of the rank in the Spanish Civil Service of Chiefs of Administration of the second cla.s.s. The Political Military Governments and Commands are in charges of military and naval officers of various grades, according to their size and importance; ranging from General of Division at Mindanao, Brigadier-Generals at Cebu and Iloilo, Captain in the navy at Paragua, down to Lieutenant at Balabas and Corregidor.

The Civil or Military Governor is a.s.sisted by a secretary, a judge, an administrator of finances, a postmaster and a captain of police.

The affairs of cities are managed by a council (Ayuntamiento) consisting of a president, a recorder (Sindico), one or more mayors (Alcaldo), six to ten aldermen (Regidores) and a secretary.

Outside of the cities each province or district is divided into a number of villages or parishes (Pueblos); the total number of these is 1,055; in each there is a parish priest, a munic.i.p.al captain, a justice of the peace, a school master and school mistress. The number of cities is very small, and the social life of the community depends almost wholly on the form of government of the Pueblos, or villages. In 1893 this was reorganized with the alleged intention of giving local self-government. The scheme is complicated and curious and only an outline of it can be given here. It is contained in full in the Royal Decree of May 19, 1893, a long doc.u.ment, supplemented by still longer regulations for carrying the same into effect.

In brief every Pueblo in which there are paid more than 1,000 Cedulas (poll tax) shall have a munic.i.p.al tribunal consisting of five members, by whom its local affairs and funds shall be managed. The members are a

Munic.i.p.al Captain.

Senior Lieutenant.

Lieutenant of Police.

Lieutenant of Agriculture.

Lieutenant of Cattle.

And the Village Priest is required to attend all the important meetings.

The Captain holds office for four years, and is eligible for indefinite re-election; the Lieutenants hold office for four years also, one-half of them going out of office every two years, and they are ineligible for re-election until two years after the expiration of their term. Both Captains and Lieutenants are elected, on a day designated by the Governor, and in presence of the village priest, and out going Captain, by the Princ.i.p.alia, or body of princ.i.p.al men of the village. The village is subdivided into Barangayes, or group of about 100 families each, and for each Barangay there is a Chief or Headman (Cabeza), who is appointed by the Governor, on the recommendation of the Munic.i.p.al Tribunal. The Princ.i.p.alia is made up of

Former Munic.i.p.al Captains.

Former Munic.i.p.al Lieutenants.

Former Gobernadorcilles.

Chiefs of Barangayes.

All inhabitants paying more than $50 annually in taxes.

The Princ.i.p.alia choose the 12 electors as follows:

6 from the Chiefs of Barangayes.

3 from Former Munic.i.p.al Captains.

3 from the largest taxpayers.

The electors hold office for six years, and one-third go out of office every two years.

The munic.i.p.al Captain must be a resident of the village, more than 25 years of age, read and speak Spanish and be a Chief of Barangay. While the Munic.i.p.al Tribunal nominally controls the local affairs, yet the Captain has the right to suspend all its acts which he considers against the public welfare, and report the matter to the Provincial Governor, who has power to rescind them; the Captain appoints all village employes, and removes them at will; he can also fine and punish them for petty offenses; he issues orders to the police and collects the taxes. He holds a commission as Delegate or Representative of the Governor General, and, in fact, he exercises within his little bailiwick the same supreme power that the governor exercises in the province, and the Governor General in the whole Archipelago.

In each province there is a Junta or Council, whose members.h.i.+p consists of

The Administrator of Finance.

Two Vicars.

The Public Physician.

The latter Four Members must be residents of the Capital of the Province, and they are elected by the Munic.i.p.al Captains, from a list of names submitted to them by the Junta with the approval of the Governor.

The functions of this Junta or Council are solely those of inspection and advice. It watches over affairs of the Munic.i.p.al Tribunals, and reports to the Governor its advice and recommendations concerning them. The Munic.i.p.al Captain is obliged to deposit the taxes in the Provincial Treasury, the keys of which are held by three members of the Council; he draws out the money in accordance with the munic.i.p.al budget, and his accounts must be approved by his lieutenants, countersigned by the village priest, pa.s.sed upon by the Provincial Council, and finally approved by the Governor.

The Governor has power to suspend the Munic.i.p.al Captain or any of his colleagues for a period of three months, and the Governor General can remove one or all of them from office at will; and "in extraordinary cases or for reasons of public tranquility, the Governor shall have power to decree, without any legal process, the abolition of the Munic.i.p.al Tribunals." (Article 45.)

In December, 1896, General Polavieja issued a decree, suspending the elections which were to take place that month for one-third of the munic.i.p.al electors, and directed the Governors of Provinces to send in names of persons suitable for appointment, together with the recommendations of the village priest in each case.

An examination of this unique scheme of village government shows that one-half of the electors are to be chosen from persons holding a subordinate office and appointed by the Governor; that the village priest must be present at all elections and important meetings; that the Captain has all the responsibility, and he must also be of the cla.s.s holding a subordinate office by appointment of the governor; that the acts of Munic.i.p.al Tribunal can be suspended by the Captain and rescinded by the Governor; and, finally, if the Munic.i.p.al Tribunal is offensive to the Governor General he can either remove its members and appoint others in their place or can abolish it altogether.

Such is the Spanish idea of self-government; the Minister of the Colonies, in submitting the decree to the Queen Regent, expatiated on its merits in giving the natives such full control of their local affairs, and expressed the confident belief that it would prove "most beneficent to these people whom Providence has confided to the generous sovereignty of the Spanish monarchs."

This scheme of government by Munic.i.p.al Tribunals was highly approved by the natives, except that feature of it which placed so much power in the hands of the Governor and Governor General. This, however, was the essence of the matter, from the Spanish standpoint, and these portions of the Decree were the ones most fully carried out. The natives complained, on the one hand, of the delay in putting the Decree into operation, and on the other hand that so much of it as was established was practically nullified by the action of the Governors. Seeing that the Tribunals had really no power, the members soon turned their sessions (which the Decree required to be secret) into political meetings in favor of the insurrection. So the whole project is thus far a failure: and the local administration is in considerable disorder, apart from that caused by the insurgents. In point of fact self-government and representation are unknown in these islands. The Archbishop and the four Bishops are appointed by the Pope; the Governor General, military and naval officers and all officials with a salary exceeding about $2.000 (silver) are appointed by the King or the Minister of the Colonies. Yet all the expenses are paid from the Philippine Treasury; the salaries of all officials, military, naval, civil and ecclesiastical, the expenses and pensions of the army, navy and church, the cost of the diplomatic and consular service in j.a.pan, China and Singapore, even a portion of the expenses of the Colonial office, Madrid, and of pensions paid to the descendants of Columbus--all come out of the taxes raised in the islands. The natives have no place in the government, except clerks in the public offices at Manila and the petty positions in the villages and the Ayentamientos of cities, where their powers and responsibilities, as we have seen, are at all times limited and subject to revocation whenever disapproved by the Governor.

Though the population of the islands is 40 per cent. of that of Spain, they have no representation in the Cortes.

There is a widespread report, almost universally believed by native Filipinos and by foreign merchants, and even acknowledged by many Spaniards, that pecuniary dishonesty and corruption exist throughout the whole body of Spanish office-holders, from the highest to the lowest. Forced contributions are said to be levied on the salaries of minor officials; the Regimental Paymasters and Commissaries are said to have sold part of the regimental stores for their own profit, the Collector of Customs and the Minister of Finance to have imposed or remitted fines at the Custom House and Internal Revenue Office, according to payment or non-payment of presents by merchants, the judges and court officials to have "borrowed" from attorneys large sums which are never paid, and even the Governor General is reported to have organized a regular system of smuggling in Mexican dollars, the importation of which was prohibited by law, on a fixed scale of payment to himself. The current report is that Weyler carried away over $1,000,000 as his savings during the three years from 1888 to 1891 that he held the office of Governor General, on a salary of $40,000 a year. Of the proof of these reports I have naturally no personal knowledge, but they are matters of common talk and belief, and they have been stated to me by responsible persons, who have long resided in the islands.

As above stated, the Governor General is supreme head of every branch of the public service, not excepting the Courts of Justice. How this power was exercised is shown in the hundreds of executions for alleged political offenses, which took place during the years 1895, 1896 and 1897, by the thousands deported to Mindanao and Fernando Po, and by the number of political prisoners in jail at the time of our entry into Manila. On the first examination which General McArthur, as Military Governor, made of the jail, about August 22nd, he released over 60 prisoners confined for alleged political offenses. One of them was a woman who had been imprisoned for eleven years, by order of the Governor General, but without any charges ever having been presented against her; another was a woman who had been in jail for three years on a vague charge, never formulated, of having carried a basket of cartridges to an insurgent.

The day of reckoning for three centuries of this sort of government came when Admiral Dewey destroyed the Spanish squadron on May 1st, 1898. An insurrection had been in progress from August, 1896, to December, 1897. Unable to suppress it the Government had made a written treaty with the insurgent leaders, paying them a large sum of money and promising to introduce various reforms on condition that they would leave the country. Hardly had the Spanish officials recovered from this when the appalling disaster of the destruction of their fleet occurred under their very eyes.