In August of 1994, I, Lowell Noble, spent two weeks in the Philippines teaching Free Methodist pastors and students about social justice, the kingdom of God and community development. In preparation for the trip, I did some background reading on the history of the Philippines. I was shocked and shamed as I discovered how Americans had brutalized the Filipino people, using a vicious combination of ethnocentrism and oppression that was often wrapped in God and the American flag. This pattern reminds me of what Lee Harper, an Afro American woman, wrote of her home state of Mississippi: "For injustice ran deep and cloaked itself well among those things that appeared just."
Even though I was a college professor for much of my life, I was ignorant of our extensive mistreatment of the Filipino people. Previously I had been taught that we obtained the Philippines because we had defeated the Spanish during the Spanish-American War (1898), that we set up a school system and a public health system; after 50 years of doing good, we generously gave the Philippines their independence.
Upon reading The Philippine Reader, which consisted primarily of primary document, I discovered a trail of greed, imperialism, ethnocentrism and oppression of a scale and viciousness usually associated with a Hitler or a Stalin.
First, an excerpt from a speech given by President McKinley to Methodist church leaders in November 21, 1898. The Spanish had been defeated, largely by the Filipinos themselves and a last blow by the U.S. navy. McKinley's speech drips with religious piety and ethnocentrism to justify our conquest of the Philippines:
"When I next realized that the Philippines had dropped into our laps, I confess I did not know what to do with the. I sought counsel from all sides---Democrats as well as Republicans---but got little help. I thought first we would only takeManila; then Luzon; then the other islands perhaps also. I walked the floor of the White House night after night until midnight; and I am not ashamed to tell you, gentlemen, that I went down on my knees and prayed Almighty God for light and guidance more than one night. And one night late it came to me this way 1) that we could not give them back to Spain, 2) that we could not turn them over to France and Germany---our commercial rivals the Orient, 3) that we could not leave them to themselves---they were unfit for self-government---and they would soon have anarchy and misrule over there worse than Spain's was, and 4) that there was nothing left for us to do but to take them all, and to educate the Filipinos, and uplift and civilize and Christianize them, . . . And then I went to bed, and went to sleep, and slept soundly, and the next morning I sent for the chief engineer of the War Department, and I told him to put the Philippines on the map of the United States."
In January, 1900 Senator Beverage spoke about U.S. war aims: our desire for markets for our goods, our need for cheap raw materials and tropical crops, our desire for military bases in the Orient, the rivalry with other commercial European powers, and the doctrine of white Anglo-
Saxon supremacy.
From ethnocentrism to oppression. How devastating was the U.S. conquest of the Philippines? The editors of The Philippine Reader summarize the cost of the war in terms of lives lost as follows:
"How many Filipinos died resisting American aggression? It is doubtful if historians will ever agree on a figure that is anything more than a guess. The figure of 250,000 crops up in various works; one suspects it is chosen and repeated in ignorance. . . . Records of the killing were not kept and the Americans were anxious to suppress true awareness of the extent of the slaughter in order to avoid fueling domestic anti-imperialistic protest. How many died of disease and the effects of concentration camp life is even more difficult to assess. . . . General Bell, who, one imagines might be in as good a position to judge such matters as anyone, estimated in a New York Times interview that over 600,000 people in Luzon alone had been killed or had died of disease as a result of the war. The estimate, given in May, 1901, means that Bell did not include the effect of the Panay campaign, the Samar campaign, or his own bloodthirsty Batangas campaign (where at least 100,000 died), all of which occurred after his 1901 interview. Nor could it include the 'post-war' period, which saw the confinement if 300,000 in Albay, wanton slaughter in Mindanao, and astonishing death rates in Bilidid Prison, to name but three instances where killing continued.
"A million deaths? One does not happily contemplate such carnage of innocent people who fought with extraordinary bravery in a cause which was just but is now all but forgotten. Such an estimate, however, might conceivably err on the side of understatement. To again quote the anonymous U.S. congressman, "They never rebel in Luzon anymore because there isn't anyone left to rebel."
General Smith ordered his men to : "kill and burn, kill and burn; the more you kill and burn the more you please me. . . . no time to take prisoners." When asked to define the age limit for killing, Smith replied, "Everything over ten."
What has happened since the brutal U.S. conquest of the Philippines?
1. The U.S. government and business elite have allied themselves with the Filipino landowning edit and political elite with the result that landownership has become more and more concentrated in the hands of a few people and corporations. The number of landless peasants has increased.
2. The U.S. invested much more money in the rebuilding of Japan after World War II than it did in rebuilding the Philippines. The Filipino people were promised major assistance but our ally received only a small amount of money.
3. The U.S. supported a Jubilee type land reform or agrarian reform program in Japan, Korea, and Taiwan after World War II; this land reform provided the basis for strong and more equitable economic growth. Each of these three nations is now quite prosperous with the number of poor sharply reduced. The U.S. opposed similar reform in the Philippines; instead it helped crush legitimate attempts by peasants to regain control of their land.
4. U.S. multinational corporations use Filipino land to produce cheap food exports for the U.S.
The U.S. involvement in the Philippines is a sad and tragic story. Instead of making the Philippines safe for authentic democracy, the U.S. has made it safe for exploitation.
In my 1994 seminar on the island of Mindanao, I taught 14 pastors. Half of the Free Methodit pastors
in the Philippines are women; Rev. Nancy Pedrosa wrote: "The cry of every Filipino is 'We want change, we want change. The hurt, the agony, the oppression. What if you are around and have heard this agony, this pitiful voice of the poor Filipino masses; what will your answer be?"
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