Taft Commission
Encyclopedia
The Taft Commission, also known as Second Philippine Commission (Filipino
: Ikalawang Komisyon ng Pilipinas) was established by United States President William McKinley
on March 16, 1900. The Commission was the legislature of the Philippines
, then known as the Philippine Islands under the sovereign control of the United States
during the Philippine-American War
. After the passage of the Philippine Organic Act
in 1902, the Commission functioned as the one House of a bicameral legislature until it was supplanted in 1916 by an elected legislature established in 1916 by the Philippine Autonomy Act
. William Howard Taft
was the first head of the Philippine Commission, a post he filled between March 16, 1900 and September 1, 1901. Taft then succeeded himself as commission head, while concurrently serving as Civil Governor until January 31, 1904. The Philippine Commission was subsequently headed by a number of persons, but is often mentioned informally and collectively as the "Taft Commission".
on March 16, 1900, and headed by William Howard Taft
, was granted legislative as well as limited executive powers. Between September 1900 and August 1902, it issued 499 laws, established a judicial system
, including a Supreme Court
, drew up a legal code
to replace antiquated Spanish ordinances and organized a civil service
. The 1901 municipal code provided for popularly elected president
s, vice president
s, and councilors to serve on municipal
boards. The municipal board members were responsible for collecting taxes, maintaining municipal properties, and undertaking necessary construction projects; they also elected provincial
governor
s.
specifies that the U.S. Congress exercises legislative power. Since the Philippines was in a state of war, however, the Executive Branch ran affairs there without much congressional intervention. President McKinley's instruction to the Philippine Commission in April 1900 directed that, "... Beginning with the 1 day of September, 1900, the authority to exercise that part of the power of government in the Philippine Islands which is of legislative nature, is to be transferred from the Military Governor to this commission." The instruction also gave the Commission the power to appoint to officers under the judicial, educational, and civil service systems and in the municipal and departmental governments. The instruction charged the Commission, "... In all the forms of government and administrative provisions which they are authorized to proscribe, the Commission should bear in mind that the government which they are establishing is designed not for our satisfaction, or for the expression of our theoretical views, but for the happiness, peace and prosperity of the people of the Philippine islands, and measures adopted should be made to conform to their customs, their habits, and even their prejudices, to the fullest extent consistent with the accomplishment of just and effective government.".
In a statement published on September 1, 1900, the commissioners announced the holding of public meetings every Wednesday and Friday to give interested parties the opportunity to comment and make suggestions on proposed legislative matters. The open sessions were mainly conducted in English and Spanish. As the Americans became familiar with Spanish, the commissioners allowed their guests to use the language of their choice. William Forbes
, later Governor General of the Philippines, wrote that he could not remember any instance where a commissioner protested because he could not understand an issue on linguistic grounds.
filed a bill giving unprecedented powers to the executive branch in the development of colonial policy in the Philippines. The Democrats
ferociously attacked the bill, resurrecting antiimperialist arguments they had employed at the time of the Treaty of Paris
. By February 1900, a filibuster was in full cry, with the Democrats determined to curb the powers of the Philippine Commission and reserve for Congress the right to grant franchises and sell lands in the Philippines. The Spooner bill was rejected on September 1, 1900, but McKinley nevertheless granted the Taft commission legislative powers. Republican
, and legislators repackaged it as an amendment to it to the 1901 Army Appropriation Bill, the passage of which was assured because no sane lawmaker would dare risk denying funds to the army in time of war. The passage of the Spooner amendment was a significant milestone in the development of U.S.–Philippine policy because it allowed the President to govern the Philippines by authority of Congress and not by his wartime authority as Commander in Chief.
, classified as follows:
The fact that seventy-five percent of the laws promulgated were related to the reorganization of the national and local governments clearly shows that the establishment of the foundation for colonial rule was the primary concern of the Commission during the first year of the Taft era. Following the advice of McKinley to start at the bottom and gradually move upward, over seventy percent of the laws dealt with local government and the bureaucracy; with more than half of these being acts extending the provision of the Provincial Government Act to the different provinces. Others were acts establishing municipalities, and the rest concerned the local police.
The thirty-three appropriations laws passed were appropriations to pay certain expenses not covered by the General Appropriations Act, including salaries of government employees, burial benefits for victims of the war, funds for the construction of roads and bridges, and other miscellaneous expenses.
President McKinley had declared in his message to Congress in December 1899 that Philippine reconstruction should proceed by building up from the bottom. McKinley's instruction to the Commission stressed that the establishment of civilian government should start from the smallest unit of political organization and gradually move towards Manila. In compliance with this, on January 31, 1901 the Commission enacted Act No. 82, a Municipal Code to guide the formation and management of towns, and six days later passed Act No. 83, a Provincial Government Act which dealt with the procedure for the creation of provincial governments.
In some instances, the Commission doled out government offices to persuade leaders of the resistance movement to give up the fight. General Martin Delgado, for example, was appointed governor of Iloilo
and similar moves were done in Cavite, Bulucan, and Laguna with the appointment of Mariano Trias, Pablo Tecson, and Juan Cailles, respectively.
Commissioner Bernard Moses, who had been an educator at the University of California
, worked with Captain Albert Todd and Dr. Fred Atkinson
to draft Act No. 74, also known as the Education Act of 1901. The act was largely based on a report which Todd submitted to the Commission on April 17, 1900. Some of the recommendations in the Todd Report were:
On January 21, 1901, the commission enacted Act No. 74, establishing the Department of Public Instruction.Section one of the act provided that primary instruction should be free of charge and open to all Filipinos. Commissioner Bernard Moses became Secretary of Public Instruction and Dr. Atkinson became General Superintendent of Public Instruction. Atkinson was tasked to put up a school in every pueblo and empowered to fix the salaries of teachers, formulate curricula, purchase school supplies, construct school buildings, and disburse the funds of the Department. A Superior Advisory Board assisted Atkinson in policy making concerning educational needs and the condition of the islands. Act 74 divided the archipelago into divisions composed of school districts and ordered the creation of Normal and a Trade schools in Manila and a School of Agriculture in Negros.
At the time Taft arrived in the Philippines, the student-teacher ratio was one teacher for 4,179 students. Section 15 of Act 74 empowered the general superintendent to import 1,000 teachers from the U.S. The first batch of 48 American teachers arrived in June 1901.The second batch of 509 teachers (386 men and 141 women, accompanied by 4 nurses, 13 spouses) arrived in August, and became known as the Thomasites
, after the USS Thomas
, one of the ships which transported them.
From the very start, serious problems threatened the success of the educational program. Problems encountered included opposition from Catholic
clerics, language difficulties, health problems and difficulty in adjusting to the tropical climate, financial problems brought on by delayed salary payments, lack of school buildings (many of the 2,167 primary schools existing before the war had either been destroyed or pressed into use by the army as barracks, prisons, or hospitals), etc. Cultural values which had developed under Spanish rule also posed a severe hindrance. The Thomasites had a difficult time convincing their students to give more importance to activities that developed critical thinking than to those which simply required rote memorization, or that coming an hour late or being absent to attend a town fiesta was a big shortcoming.
Another problem encountered was difficulty in promoting equality among the students, as children of wealthy families thought they were entitled to special privileges. Some wealthy parents openly opposed the American educational system because of the insecurities it created. For them, education was a privilege of their class and should not be extended to the common people. They believed that general education would create an imbalance in the country's workforce, with the labor market having a surplus of people seeking white-collars and a shortage of people willing to engage in manual work. To address this concern, education officials propagated the trade and agricultural schools, explaining that graduates of these schools were at a par with those earning degrees from the normal school and universities.
As the years went by, the Thomasites won the respect and admiration not only of their students but also of their parents. The parents admired the way the American teachers treated their children and managed classroom activities. Specifically, they lauded the abolition of corporal punishment
. The Thomasites' friendliness, informality, and approachability were admired by many Filipinos, who still remembered bad experiences with the aristocratic Spanish.
The Philippine Organic Act, enacted in July 1902, authorized the insular government to purchase the friar lands, empowering it to issue bonds for the purpose. Taft traveled to Rome in May 1902, meeting with Pope Leo XIII
and proposing to buy the lands. The Pope promised to study the issue and expressed support for the American pacification program. On November 18, 1902, Papal representative Jean Baptiste Guidi arrived in Manila to negotiate the sale of the lands. Taft commissioned a survey to determine their market value, and a purchase price of $7,239,784.66 was paid in December 1903 by the insular government. The holdings amounted to some 166000 hectares (410,194.6 acre), of which one-half was in the vicinity of Manila. The land was eventually resold to Filipinos, some of them tenants but the majority of them estate owners.
Filipino language
This move has drawn much criticism from other regional groups.In 1987, a new constitution introduced many provisions for the language.Article XIV, Section 6, omits any mention of Tagalog as the basis for Filipino, and states that:...
: Ikalawang Komisyon ng Pilipinas) was established by United States President William McKinley
William McKinley
William McKinley, Jr. was the 25th President of the United States . He is best known for winning fiercely fought elections, while supporting the gold standard and high tariffs; he succeeded in forging a Republican coalition that for the most part dominated national politics until the 1930s...
on March 16, 1900. The Commission was the legislature of the Philippines
Philippines
The Philippines , officially known as the Republic of the Philippines , is a country in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Taiwan. West across the South China Sea sits Vietnam...
, then known as the Philippine Islands under the sovereign control of the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
during the Philippine-American War
Philippine-American War
The Philippine–American War, also known as the Philippine War of Independence or the Philippine Insurrection , was an armed conflict between a group of Filipino revolutionaries and the United States which arose from the struggle of the First Philippine Republic to gain independence following...
. After the passage of the Philippine Organic Act
Philippine Organic Act (1902)
The Philippine Organic Act, popularly known as the Philippine Bill of 1902 and sometimes known as the Cooper Act after its author Henry A. Cooper, was the first organic law for the Philippines enacted by the United States Congress during the American Colonial Period in the Philippines...
in 1902, the Commission functioned as the one House of a bicameral legislature until it was supplanted in 1916 by an elected legislature established in 1916 by the Philippine Autonomy Act
Jones Law (Philippines)
The Jones Law or the Act of Congress of August 29, 1916, also known as the Philippine Autonomy Act of 1916, replaced the Philippine Organic Act of 1902 that earlier served as a constitution for the Philippine Islands. The Philippines was ceded by Spain to the United States in 1898 and a civil...
. William Howard Taft
William Howard Taft
William Howard Taft was the 27th President of the United States and later the tenth Chief Justice of the United States...
was the first head of the Philippine Commission, a post he filled between March 16, 1900 and September 1, 1901. Taft then succeeded himself as commission head, while concurrently serving as Civil Governor until January 31, 1904. The Philippine Commission was subsequently headed by a number of persons, but is often mentioned informally and collectively as the "Taft Commission".
Background
The Second Philippine Commission (the Taft Commission), established by President William McKinleyWilliam McKinley
William McKinley, Jr. was the 25th President of the United States . He is best known for winning fiercely fought elections, while supporting the gold standard and high tariffs; he succeeded in forging a Republican coalition that for the most part dominated national politics until the 1930s...
on March 16, 1900, and headed by William Howard Taft
William Howard Taft
William Howard Taft was the 27th President of the United States and later the tenth Chief Justice of the United States...
, was granted legislative as well as limited executive powers. Between September 1900 and August 1902, it issued 499 laws, established a judicial system
Judiciary
The judiciary is the system of courts that interprets and applies the law in the name of the state. The judiciary also provides a mechanism for the resolution of disputes...
, including a Supreme Court
Supreme court
A supreme court is the highest court within the hierarchy of many legal jurisdictions. Other descriptions for such courts include court of last resort, instance court, judgment court, high court, or apex court...
, drew up a legal code
Legal code
A legal code is a body of law written by a governmental body, such as a U.S. state, a Canadian Province or German Bundesland or a municipality...
to replace antiquated Spanish ordinances and organized a civil service
Civil service
The term civil service has two distinct meanings:* A branch of governmental service in which individuals are employed on the basis of professional merit as proven by competitive examinations....
. The 1901 municipal code provided for popularly elected president
President
A president is a leader of an organization, company, trade union, university, or country.Etymologically, a president is one who presides, who sits in leadership...
s, vice president
Vice president
A vice president is an officer in government or business who is below a president in rank. The name comes from the Latin vice meaning 'in place of'. In some countries, the vice president is called the deputy president...
s, and councilors to serve on municipal
Township
The word township is used to refer to different kinds of settlements in different countries. Township is generally associated with an urban area. However there are many exceptions to this rule. In Australia, the United States, and Canada, they may be settlements too small to be considered urban...
boards. The municipal board members were responsible for collecting taxes, maintaining municipal properties, and undertaking necessary construction projects; they also elected provincial
Province
A province is a territorial unit, almost always an administrative division, within a country or state.-Etymology:The English word "province" is attested since about 1330 and derives from the 13th-century Old French "province," which itself comes from the Latin word "provincia," which referred to...
governor
Governor
A governor is a governing official, usually the executive of a non-sovereign level of government, ranking under the head of state...
s.
Commission membership
| Original members | Period of service |
|---|---|
| William Howard Taft | March 16, 1900 – January 31, 1904 |
| Henry Clay Ide Henry Clay Ide Henry Clay Ide was a U.S. judge, colonial Commissioner, ambassador, and Governor-General.- Early life, States Attorney, Senator, and Presidential Commissioner to Samoa :... |
March 16, 1900 – September 19, 1906 |
| Luke Edward Wright Luke Edward Wright Luke Edward Wright was a United States political figure. He served as Governor-General of the Philippines between 1904 and 1906 and also as Secretary of War from 1908 to 1909.-Biography:... |
March 16, 1900 – March 30, 1906 |
| Dean Conant Worcester Dean Conant Worcester Dean Conant Worcester, D.Sc., F.R.G.S. was an American zoologist, public official, and authority on the Philippines, born at Thetford, Vermont, and educated at the University of Michigan .... |
March 16, 1900 – September 15, 1913 |
| Bernard Moses | March 16, 1900 – December 31, 1902 |
| Subsequent Members | Period of service |
| Benito Legarda | September 1, 1901 – October 31, 1907 |
| Trinidad Pablo de Tavera | September 1, 1901 – February, 1909 |
| Jose Luzurriaga | September 1, 1901 – October 27, 1913 |
| James Smith | January 1, 1903 – November 10, 1909 |
| William Cameron Forbes | June 5, 1904 – September 1, 1913 |
| W. Morgan Schuster | September 26, 1906 – February 28, 1909 |
| Gregorio Araneta | February 25, 1909 – October 27, 1913 |
| Newton Gilbert | July 6, 1908 – December 1, 1913 |
| Rafael Palma | July 6, 1908 – October 16, 1916 |
| Juan Sumulong | March 1, 1909 – October 26, 1913 |
| Frank Branagan | March 2, 1909 – October 26, 1913 |
| Charles Burke Elliott | February 14, 1910 – February 1, 1913 |
| Francis Burton Harrison | September 2, 1913 – October 16, 1916 |
| Victorino Mapa | October 27, 1913 – October 16, 1916 |
| Jaime de Veyra | October 27, 1913 – April 7, 1916 |
| Vincente Iluste | October 27, 1913 – October 16, 1916 |
| Vincente Singson Encarnacion | October 27, 1913 – October 16, 1916 |
| Henderson Martin | November 29, 1913 – October 16, 1916 |
| Clinton Riggs Clinton L. Riggs Clinton Levering Riggs was an American businessman, government official, military officer, and lacrosse coach. He served as the Adjutant-General of the Maryland National Guard and the Secretary of Commerce and Police of the Philippine Commission from 1913 to 1915... |
November 29, 1913 – October 31, 1915 |
| Eugene Reed | May 24, 1916 – October 16, 1916 |
| Wilford Denison | January 27, 1914 – March 31, 1916 |
Background
Article 1, Section 1 of the United States ConstitutionUnited States Constitution
The Constitution of the United States is the supreme law of the United States of America. It is the framework for the organization of the United States government and for the relationship of the federal government with the states, citizens, and all people within the United States.The first three...
specifies that the U.S. Congress exercises legislative power. Since the Philippines was in a state of war, however, the Executive Branch ran affairs there without much congressional intervention. President McKinley's instruction to the Philippine Commission in April 1900 directed that, "... Beginning with the 1 day of September, 1900, the authority to exercise that part of the power of government in the Philippine Islands which is of legislative nature, is to be transferred from the Military Governor to this commission." The instruction also gave the Commission the power to appoint to officers under the judicial, educational, and civil service systems and in the municipal and departmental governments. The instruction charged the Commission, "... In all the forms of government and administrative provisions which they are authorized to proscribe, the Commission should bear in mind that the government which they are establishing is designed not for our satisfaction, or for the expression of our theoretical views, but for the happiness, peace and prosperity of the people of the Philippine islands, and measures adopted should be made to conform to their customs, their habits, and even their prejudices, to the fullest extent consistent with the accomplishment of just and effective government.".
In a statement published on September 1, 1900, the commissioners announced the holding of public meetings every Wednesday and Friday to give interested parties the opportunity to comment and make suggestions on proposed legislative matters. The open sessions were mainly conducted in English and Spanish. As the Americans became familiar with Spanish, the commissioners allowed their guests to use the language of their choice. William Forbes
William Forbes
Sir William Forbes, 6th Baronet was a Scottish banker, born in Edinburgh to Sir William Forbes, 5th Baronet, and Christian Forbes. On 20 September 1770 he married Elizabeth Hay , daughter of Sir James Hay of Haystoun, 4th Baronet of Smithfield and Dorriel Campbell...
, later Governor General of the Philippines, wrote that he could not remember any instance where a commissioner protested because he could not understand an issue on linguistic grounds.
The Spooner Amendment (U.S.)
A few months before the inauguration of Taft as Governor General, Senator John SpoonerJohn Coit Spooner
John Coit Spooner was a Republican politician and lawyer from Wisconsin. He served in the United States Senate from 1885 to 1891 and from 1897 to 1907.-Biography:...
filed a bill giving unprecedented powers to the executive branch in the development of colonial policy in the Philippines. The Democrats
Democratic Party (United States)
The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...
ferociously attacked the bill, resurrecting antiimperialist arguments they had employed at the time of the Treaty of Paris
Treaty of Paris (1898)
The Treaty of Paris of 1898 was signed on December 10, 1898, at the end of the Spanish-American War, and came into effect on April 11, 1899, when the ratifications were exchanged....
. By February 1900, a filibuster was in full cry, with the Democrats determined to curb the powers of the Philippine Commission and reserve for Congress the right to grant franchises and sell lands in the Philippines. The Spooner bill was rejected on September 1, 1900, but McKinley nevertheless granted the Taft commission legislative powers. Republican
Republican Party (United States)
The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the GOP . The party's platform generally reflects American conservatism in the U.S...
, and legislators repackaged it as an amendment to it to the 1901 Army Appropriation Bill, the passage of which was assured because no sane lawmaker would dare risk denying funds to the army in time of war. The passage of the Spooner amendment was a significant milestone in the development of U.S.–Philippine policy because it allowed the President to govern the Philippines by authority of Congress and not by his wartime authority as Commander in Chief.
The Philippine Organic Act (U.S.)
The Philippine Organic Act of July 1902 established the Insular Government of the Philippine Islands (1902-1935). (The term "insular" refers to an unincorporated territory.) The act provided that future appointments of the civil governor, vice-governor, members the Philippine Commission, and heads of Executive Departments shall be made by the President, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate. The act also provided for the establishment of a bicameral legislature composed of a lower house, the Philippine Assembly, which would be popularly elected, and an upper house consisting of the Philippine Commission. The two houses would share legislative powers, although the upper house alone would pass laws relating to the Moros and other non-Christian peoples. The act also provided for extending the United States Bill of Rights to Filipinos and sending two Filipino resident commissioners to Washington to attend sessions of the United States Congress. On July 30, 1907, the first elections for the assembly were held, and the legislature opened its first session on October 16, 1907.Legislation
The Taft Commission promulgated a total of 157 laws between September 1900 and July 4, 1901, when Taft became Civil GovernorGovernor-General of the Philippines
The Governor-General of the Philippines was the title of the government executive during the colonial period of the Philippines, governed mainly by Spain and the United States, and briefly by Great Britain, from 1565 to 1935....
, classified as follows:
| Classification | Quantity | Percent |
|---|---|---|
| Local Government | 46 | 29.30 |
| Reorganization of Government Agencies | 40 | 25.48 |
| Appropriations for Government Expenditures | 33 | 21.02 |
| Judicial Reforms | 12 | 7.65 |
| Economic and Tariff | 9 | 5.73 |
| Public Works Projects | 7 | 4.46 |
| Public Health | 4 | 2.55 |
| Anti-Sedition | 2 | 1.27 |
| Church | 2 | 1.27 |
| Education | 2 | 1.27 |
| Totals | 157 | 100.00 |
The fact that seventy-five percent of the laws promulgated were related to the reorganization of the national and local governments clearly shows that the establishment of the foundation for colonial rule was the primary concern of the Commission during the first year of the Taft era. Following the advice of McKinley to start at the bottom and gradually move upward, over seventy percent of the laws dealt with local government and the bureaucracy; with more than half of these being acts extending the provision of the Provincial Government Act to the different provinces. Others were acts establishing municipalities, and the rest concerned the local police.
The thirty-three appropriations laws passed were appropriations to pay certain expenses not covered by the General Appropriations Act, including salaries of government employees, burial benefits for victims of the war, funds for the construction of roads and bridges, and other miscellaneous expenses.
Reorganization of Local Government Units
The Commission created and reorganized government offices, including the following:| Act | Office |
|---|---|
| Act No. 7 | Bureau of Statistics |
| Act No. 16 | Bureau of Forestry |
| Act No. 17 | Bureau of Mining |
| Act No. 20 | Office of the Auditor |
| Act No. 46 | Inspectors of Customs |
| Act No. 157 | Board of Health |
President McKinley had declared in his message to Congress in December 1899 that Philippine reconstruction should proceed by building up from the bottom. McKinley's instruction to the Commission stressed that the establishment of civilian government should start from the smallest unit of political organization and gradually move towards Manila. In compliance with this, on January 31, 1901 the Commission enacted Act No. 82, a Municipal Code to guide the formation and management of towns, and six days later passed Act No. 83, a Provincial Government Act which dealt with the procedure for the creation of provincial governments.
In some instances, the Commission doled out government offices to persuade leaders of the resistance movement to give up the fight. General Martin Delgado, for example, was appointed governor of Iloilo
Iloilo
Iloilo is a province of the Philippines located in the Western Visayas region. Iloilo occupies the southeast portion of Panay Island and is bordered by Antique Province to the west and Capiz Province and the Jintotolo Channel to the north. Just off Iloilo's southeast coast is Guimaras Province,...
and similar moves were done in Cavite, Bulucan, and Laguna with the appointment of Mariano Trias, Pablo Tecson, and Juan Cailles, respectively.
| Name | Position under the Aguinaldo Administration |
Position under the Taft Administration |
|---|---|---|
| Cayetano Arellano | Secretary of State | Chief Justice |
| Victorino Mapa | Counselor of the Revolutionary Government | Associate Justice |
| T.H. Pardo de Tavera | Assistant Secretary of State | Commissioner |
| Benito Lagarda | Vice President of the Malalos Congress | Commissioner |
| Jose Lezuriaga | President of the Reverend Congress of Panay | Commissioner |
| Felipe Buencamino | Secretary of State | Civil Service Board |
| Felix Roxas | Member of the Filipino Junta in Paris | Governor of Batangas |
| Ignacio Villamor | Malolos Congress delegate | Judge |
| Gregorio Araneta | Secretary of Justice | Solicitor General |
| Martin Delgado | Commanding General od Panay | Governor of Iloilo |
| Ambrosio Flores | Assistant Secretary of War | Governor of Rizal |
| Mariano Trias | Secretary of War | Governor of Cavite |
| Jose Serapio | Colonel of the Revolutionary Army | Governor of Bulacan |
| Gracio Gonzaga | Secretary of the Interior | Governor of Cagayan |
| Arsenio Cruz Herrera | Assistant Secretary of Interior | President of the Municipal Board of Manila |
| Jose Alejandrino | General of the Revolutionary Army | City Engineer of Manila |
| Modesto Reyes | Member of the Filipino Junta in Paris | City Attorney of Manila |
| Daniel Triona | Secretary of War | Provincial Secretary of Cavite |
| Mariano Cunanan | Major in the Revolutionary Army | Principal Secretary of Pampanga |
| Mariano Crisostomo | Malolos Congress Delegate | Provincial Fiscal of Bulacan |
The Civil Service Act
The first major legislation passed by the commission was Act No. 5, the Civil Service Act, enacted on September 19, 1900. From the passage of this act until the departure of Taft from the Philippines, the number of Americans and Filipinos applying to serve the government continued to increase, as follows:| Period covered | Examined | Passed | Appointed | Percentage appointed |
||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| English | Spanish | English | Spanish | English | Spanish | English | Spanish | |
| Up to July 2, 1901 | 550 | 821 | 314 | 383 | 126 | 157 | 23 | 19 |
| July 3, 1901 – September 30, 1901 |
154 | 259 | 68 | 79 | 89 | 75 | 58 | 29 |
| October 1, 1901 – September 30, 1902 |
1,267 | 2,072 | 794 | 916 | 558 | 515 | 44 | 25 |
| October 1, 1902 – September 30, 1903 |
1,248 | 3,105 | 828 | 1,633 | 579 | 820 | 46 | 27 |
| Totals | 3,219 | 6,167 | 2,004 | 3,011 | 1,352 | 1,567 | 42.00 | 25.41 |
The Education Act of 1901
General Elwell Otis had taken the initiative on September 1, 1898 of establishing a public school system, organizing seven schools in Manila. While war was raging, American soldiers took time out to organize schools, and to teach classes. When General MacArthur assumed command, he continued the public education project and increased its budget. When the Taft Commission arrived in Manila, the Army had organized 39 schools in Manila with a daily attendance of between 4,500 and 5,000 students.Commissioner Bernard Moses, who had been an educator at the University of California
University of California
The University of California is a public university system in the U.S. state of California. Under the California Master Plan for Higher Education, the University of California is a part of the state's three-tier public higher education system, which also includes the California State University...
, worked with Captain Albert Todd and Dr. Fred Atkinson
Fred Atkinson
Fred Atkinson was an American Director of Education in the Philippines from 1900 up to 1902. During his time, he gave emphasis in providing Filipinos with vocational training.- References :...
to draft Act No. 74, also known as the Education Act of 1901. The act was largely based on a report which Todd submitted to the Commission on April 17, 1900. Some of the recommendations in the Todd Report were:
- That a comprehensive modern school system for the teaching of elementary English be inaugurated at the earliest possibler moment.
- That industrial schools for manual training be established as soon as a fair knowledge of English has been acquired.
- That all schools under government control be conducted in the English language so far as in any way practicable, and that the use of Spanish and the dialects be only for a period of transition.
- That English teachers, well trained in primary instruction, be brought over from the U.S. in sufficient numbers to take charge of the schools of the larger towns at least.
- That a well-equipped normal school be established for instructing natives to be teachers of English.
- That in the larger towns a portion, at least, of the school house must be made of modern structure, plainly but well and properly equipped.
- That the school supported by the Government be absolutely divorced from the Church. If the natives desire schools in which religious instruction is to be given, that they furnish the entire support for the same from private sources, but attendance from the latter schools shall not excuse the children from attendance at the public school where English is taught. In addition, the Parochial Church school, if such are maintained, shall be required to be equal in character of general instruction to the public school.
On January 21, 1901, the commission enacted Act No. 74, establishing the Department of Public Instruction.Section one of the act provided that primary instruction should be free of charge and open to all Filipinos. Commissioner Bernard Moses became Secretary of Public Instruction and Dr. Atkinson became General Superintendent of Public Instruction. Atkinson was tasked to put up a school in every pueblo and empowered to fix the salaries of teachers, formulate curricula, purchase school supplies, construct school buildings, and disburse the funds of the Department. A Superior Advisory Board assisted Atkinson in policy making concerning educational needs and the condition of the islands. Act 74 divided the archipelago into divisions composed of school districts and ordered the creation of Normal and a Trade schools in Manila and a School of Agriculture in Negros.
At the time Taft arrived in the Philippines, the student-teacher ratio was one teacher for 4,179 students. Section 15 of Act 74 empowered the general superintendent to import 1,000 teachers from the U.S. The first batch of 48 American teachers arrived in June 1901.The second batch of 509 teachers (386 men and 141 women, accompanied by 4 nurses, 13 spouses) arrived in August, and became known as the Thomasites
Thomasites
The Thomasites is a group of about five hundred pioneer American teachers sent by the U.S. government to the Philippines in August 1901.-Foundation, purpose and etymology:...
, after the USS Thomas
USS Thomas (1894)
USAT Thomas was a United States Army transport ship, launched as the SS Persia in 1894, having been built for the Hamburg America Line's service to New York. She was bought by the Atlantic Transport Line in 1897 because she was "practically a sister" to other Massachusetts class of ships already...
, one of the ships which transported them.
From the very start, serious problems threatened the success of the educational program. Problems encountered included opposition from Catholic
Catholic
The word catholic comes from the Greek phrase , meaning "on the whole," "according to the whole" or "in general", and is a combination of the Greek words meaning "about" and meaning "whole"...
clerics, language difficulties, health problems and difficulty in adjusting to the tropical climate, financial problems brought on by delayed salary payments, lack of school buildings (many of the 2,167 primary schools existing before the war had either been destroyed or pressed into use by the army as barracks, prisons, or hospitals), etc. Cultural values which had developed under Spanish rule also posed a severe hindrance. The Thomasites had a difficult time convincing their students to give more importance to activities that developed critical thinking than to those which simply required rote memorization, or that coming an hour late or being absent to attend a town fiesta was a big shortcoming.
Another problem encountered was difficulty in promoting equality among the students, as children of wealthy families thought they were entitled to special privileges. Some wealthy parents openly opposed the American educational system because of the insecurities it created. For them, education was a privilege of their class and should not be extended to the common people. They believed that general education would create an imbalance in the country's workforce, with the labor market having a surplus of people seeking white-collars and a shortage of people willing to engage in manual work. To address this concern, education officials propagated the trade and agricultural schools, explaining that graduates of these schools were at a par with those earning degrees from the normal school and universities.
As the years went by, the Thomasites won the respect and admiration not only of their students but also of their parents. The parents admired the way the American teachers treated their children and managed classroom activities. Specifically, they lauded the abolition of corporal punishment
Corporal punishment
Corporal punishment is a form of physical punishment that involves the deliberate infliction of pain as retribution for an offence, or for the purpose of disciplining or reforming a wrongdoer, or to deter attitudes or behaviour deemed unacceptable...
. The Thomasites' friendliness, informality, and approachability were admired by many Filipinos, who still remembered bad experiences with the aristocratic Spanish.
Friar lands
The instructions of President McKinley to the commission stipulated that it was their duty to make a thorough investigation into the titles of large tracts of land held or claimed by individuals or by religious orders. The commission conducted a series of public hearings into the matter beginning on July 31, 1900 and lasting until November. On November 30, 1900, a 604 page report submitted by the commission discussed the friar lands in detail, recommending that "... the insular government buy the large haciendas of the friars and sell them out as small holdings to the present tenants." In 1902, testifying in the U.S. before the House Committee on Insular Affairs, Taft repeated this recommendation, appraising the market value of the friar lands as between $2,500,000 to $7,000,000 in gold, and proposing that the insular government be allowed to float bonds for the purchase of the lands and use the proceeds from the sale of the lands to settle the bonds.The Philippine Organic Act, enacted in July 1902, authorized the insular government to purchase the friar lands, empowering it to issue bonds for the purpose. Taft traveled to Rome in May 1902, meeting with Pope Leo XIII
Pope Leo XIII
Pope Leo XIII , born Vincenzo Gioacchino Raffaele Luigi Pecci to an Italian comital family, was the 256th Pope of the Roman Catholic Church, reigning from 1878 to 1903...
and proposing to buy the lands. The Pope promised to study the issue and expressed support for the American pacification program. On November 18, 1902, Papal representative Jean Baptiste Guidi arrived in Manila to negotiate the sale of the lands. Taft commissioned a survey to determine their market value, and a purchase price of $7,239,784.66 was paid in December 1903 by the insular government. The holdings amounted to some 166000 hectares (410,194.6 acre), of which one-half was in the vicinity of Manila. The land was eventually resold to Filipinos, some of them tenants but the majority of them estate owners.
See also
- Philippine CommissionPhilippine CommissionThe Philippine Commission was a body appointed by the President of the United States to exercise legislative and limited executive powers in the Philippines. It was first appointed by President William McKinley in 1901. Beginning in 1907, it acted as the upper house of a bicameral Philippine...
- First Philippine Commission
- Congress of the PhilippinesCongress of the PhilippinesThe Congress of the Philippines is the national legislature of the Republic of the Philippines. It is a bicameral body consisting of the Senate , and the House of Representatives although commonly in the Philippines the term congress refers to the latter.The Senate is composed of 24 senators half...
- Senate of the PhilippinesSenate of the PhilippinesThe Senate of the Philippines is the upper chamber of the bicameral legislature of the Philippines, the Congress of the Philippines...
- House of Representatives of the PhilippinesHouse of Representatives of the PhilippinesThe House of Representatives of the Philippines is the lower chamber of the...