Republic of the Philippines

B

2

Open Trade and the New Filipino Elite

In the 19th century the Industrial Revolution transformed the world. Modern methods of production and transportation, notably sugar mills and steamships, opened the Philippines for economic development. British, French, Dutch, and North American traders began to demand Philippine agricultural products, including sugar, cigars, and abaca (Manila hemp). Sugar became the leading export crop. In 1834 Spain lifted restrictions on trade between foreign nations and the Philippines.

Chinese merchants in Manila helped to finance and shape the new export opportunities, often acting as intermediaries between foreign traders and local producers. In 1839 the colonial government issued a decree granting Chinese freedom of occupation and residence. Many Chinese emigrated to the Philippines after the Taiping Rebellion (1851-1864) in China. Aware of the political and social advantages enjoyed by Roman Catholics in the colony, many Chinese converted to Catholicism and married Filipina women. Their descendants, called mestizos (a Spanish term for racially mixed people), were readily accepted by society. Through the acquisition of land, they became an economically privileged class in the new cash-crop economy. These mestizos formed the major component of a new Filipino elite of planters, merchants, and civil servants.

C

Filipino Resistance to Colonial Rule

In 1863 the colonial government introduced a system of free primary-school education. Institutions of higher learning remained limited, however, and only a few admitted non-Spaniards. The new Filipino elite became known as ilustrados (Spanish for “the enlightened ones”) because they could afford higher education. Some ilustrados studied abroad in Spain.

By the second half of the 19th century the ilustrados had begun to agitate for reforms in both the civil and ecclesiastical establishments. In Spain the revolution of 1868 had produced a democratic constitution that provided for equality and civil and political rights. In the Philippines the ilustrados asked that these rights be extended to Filipinos. Filipino priests also agitated for reforms. They wanted the church to follow official Vatican policy, which dictated that religious orders would relinquish control to indigenous diocesan priests in places that had been successfully converted to Christianity. The Spanish friars in the Philippines held considerable power, forming what was called a friarocracy. They conducted many functions of government on the local level, controlled education at all levels, and were the largest landholders. They resented that their influence was being questioned by Filipino priests, and their response was increasingly racist. They successfully resisted the local movement to replace them.

---

---

C

1

Filipino Reformists

In 1872 the colonial government arrested hundreds of ilustrados and priests after an uprising by workers at the military fort of Cavite. Three Filipino priests were convicted of organizing the uprising and executed. This crackdown by the colonial authorities intensified the nationalist character of the reform movement. Filipino liberals who were sent into exile in Europe and ilustrados attending European universities formed the Propaganda Movement, using publications such as La Solidaridad (Solidarity) to call for social and political reform. The Filipino intellectuals Graciano López Jaena, M. H. del Pilar, and José Rizal were the foremost leaders of the movement. Rizal’s novels Noli Me Tangere (1886; Touch Me Not, translated 1961) and El Filibusterismo (1891; The Subversive, translated 1962) exposed to the world the injustices imposed on Filipinos under the colonial regime.

C

2

Katipunan Revolutionaries

By the time Rizal returned to Manila in 1892, it was apparent that Spain, itself in the throes of domestic unrest, was unwilling to undertake substantial colonial reforms. Considered a threat to the colonial regime, Rizal was arrested shortly after his return and sent into exile on Mindanao. Soon after Rizal’s exile, Andrés Bonifacio, a self-educated man of the urban working class, organized a secret society called Katipunan, short for Kataastaasan Kagalang-galang na Katipunan ng mga Anak ng Bayan (The Highest and Most Respectable Society of the Sons of the People). The Katipunan, which advocated revolution rather than reform, gained a popular base of support, with membership concentrated among urban and rural workers. Spanish officials discovered, through an informant parish priest, the existence of the Katipunan in August 1896. Bonifacio, realizing the Katipunan could no longer hide its activity, proclaimed the beginning of the revolution. Katipunan members first attacked Spanish military installations, and then the insurrection spread throughout the provinces of central Luzon. Rizal was arrested and convicted by a military tribunal on fabricated charges of involvement with the Katipunan. His execution by a firing squad on December 30 merely served to spread the revolt to the entire country. Rizal, as a martyr, became the ultimate symbol of Filipino nationalism.

Leadership of the Katipunan passed from Bonifacio to its most successful general, Emilio Aguinaldo, a former schoolteacher. A year of fighting between Katipunan forces, which used guerrilla tactics, and government troops ended in a negotiated truce, the Pact of Biac-na-bató, in 1897. In accordance with the pact, Aguinaldo and his staff went into voluntary exile in Hong Kong, while the Spanish authorities promised reforms within three years.

D

The Spanish-American War

In April 1898 war broke out between Spain and the United States over their competing imperialist interests in Cuba, then also a Spanish colony where an independence movement was taking place. In May U.S. Commodore (later Admiral) George Dewey commanded the Asiatic Squadron into Manila Bay, where it easily destroyed the antiquated Spanish fleet at anchor there. Lacking adequate ground troops, however, Dewey sent for Aguinaldo in Hong Kong and encouraged him to reactivate his rebel forces.

Aguinaldo believed the United States would help Filipinos achieve independence. He organized a revolutionary government that issued a declaration of independence on June 12, and his forces surrounded the Spanish garrison at Manila. By that time, Manila had become the focus of the Spanish-American War. Negotiations between U.S. military commanders and the Spanish governor resulted in a secret agreement to end the conflict in a mock battle, staged in August, in which Spanish forces surrendered control of Manila. The arrangement specifically excluded the Filipino nationalists. Aguinaldo had meanwhile established a capital at the Luzon city of Malolos, and in September his government convened a constituent assembly to draft a constitution.

Peace negotiations between Spain and the United States began in late September. By the Treaty of Paris, signed in December, Spain ceded the Philippines and other territories to the United States. In return, the United States gave Spain $20 million. United States president William McKinley then issued a proclamation declaring U.S. policy to be one of “benevolent assimilation.”

The Filipinos refused to recognize the transfer of sovereignty, however, and fighting broke out on February 4, 1899. More than 125,000 American soldiers eventually went into combat in the conflict known as the Philippine-American War. Filipino troops, who used tactics of guerrilla warfare, were of indeterminate numbers. United States forces soon secured major ports, lowland areas, and urban centers. Malolos fell to the United States in March 1899. With the capture of Aguinaldo in March 1901, organized Filipino resistance collapsed and the war ended. More than 4,000 American and 16,000 Filipino soldiers died in combat, while thousands of Filipino civilians died from the effects of the war, including famine and disease.

	More from Encarta
	•  Presidential Myths Quiz •  Coffee break: Recharge your brain