Increasing Exploitation, Deepening Feudalism

Spain's Grip Tightens

The 19th century saw the intensification and ripening of the colonial and feudal system of exploitation.

The Spanish colonial government was compelled to draw more profits from its feudal base in the Philippines to make up for the decline of the galleon trade and to adjust to the increasing pressures and demands of capitalist countries. The British victory in the Seven Years’ War, the Napoleonic wars and French occupation of Spain, the expansionist maneuvers of the United States and the rise of national independence movements in Latin America, and the sharp struggle between the “liberal republicans” and “absolute monarchists” in Spain had the total effect of goading colonial Spain to exploit the Filipino people further.

Under the strain of increasing exploitation, the national and democratic aspirations of the broad masses of the people rose. As oppression was stepped up, the spirit of resistance among the ruled, especially the peasant masses, became heightened until the Philippine Revolution of 1896 broke out.

The Hacienda System

The fullest development of feudalism under Spanish colonial rule was made. The peasant masses were compelled not only to continue producing a surplus in staple crops to feed and keep the colonial and feudal parasites in comfort but also produce an ever-increasing amount of raw material crops for export to various capitalist countries. The large-scale cultivation of sugar, hemp, tobacco, coconut and the like in some areas in turn required the production of a bigger surplus in staple food crops in other areas in order to sustain the large numbers of people concentrated in the production of export crops. Rice was imported whenever a general shortage occurred.

Thus, the expansion of foreign trade made by the Spanish colonialists entailed the acceleration of domestic trade and the wearing-out of a self-sufficient natural economy towards a commodity economy. The exchange of agricultural products within the archipelago as well as the delivery of export crops to Manila and other trading ports and the provincial distribution of imported goods that served the wealthy, necessitated the improvement of transportation and communications.

The intensification of feudal exploitation included the adoption of the hated hacienda system, the rampant seizure of cultivated lands, the arbitrary raising of land rent and levies by both landlords and bureaucrats. The practice of monopoly, which meant dictated prices for the crops, further impoverished the peasants and enriched the bureaucrats. Landowning peasants either found themselves bankrupt or their lands arbitrarily included in the legal boundaries of large landlord estates. From 1803 to 1892, eighty-eight decrees were issued ostensibly to make landownership orderly but these merely legalized massive landgrabbing by the feudalists.

The Development of the Filipino Proletariat and Bourgeoisie

The Infrastructure Needs of Feudalism

The improvement of transportation and communications aggravated by feudal exploitation of the people. Exercising their colonial powers, the Spaniards ordered the people in increasing numbers to build roads, bridges and ports and paid them extremely low nominal wages. Big gangs of men were taken to distant places to work. At the same time, the improvement of transportation and communications paved the way for wider contacts among the exploited and oppressed people despite the rulers’ subjective wish to use these only for their own profit. Also the introduction of the steamship and the railroad in connection with foreign and domestic trade contribute a great deal to the formation of the Filipino proletariat.

It was in the 19th century that the embryo of the Filipino proletariat became distinct. It was composed of the workers at the railroad, ships, docks, sugar mills, tobacco and cigar and cigarette factories, printing shops, breweries, foundries, merchandising firms and the like. They emerged in the transition from a feudal to a semifeudal economy.

The Principalia and the Bourgeoisie

The economic prosperity enjoyed mainly by the colonial rulers was shared to some extent by the principalia, especially the gobernadorcillo. The local puppet chieftains either had landholdings of their own or become big leaseholders on the landed estates of friars or lay Spanish officials. They engaged in trade and bought more lands with their profits in order to engage further in trade. In Manila and other principal trading ports, a local comprador class emerged correspondent to the shipping, commercial and banking houses put up by foreign capitalist firms including American, British, German and French ones.

A nascent Filipino bourgeoisie became more and more distinct as agricultural production rose and as the volume of exports likewise did. The port of Manila was formally opened to non-Spanish foreign ships in 1834 although foreign trade with capitalist countries was actually started much earlier. From 1855 to 1873, six other ports throughout the archipelago were opened. In 1869, the opening of the Suez Canal shortened the distance between the Philippines and Europe and thus accelerated economic and political contracts between the two.

Two Movements of the Principalia

In the second half of the 19th century, the entry of native students into the Royal and Pontifical University of Santo Tomas and other colonial-clerical colleges became conspicuously large.

Though these natives could afford college education, they were still the object of racial discrimination by their Spanish classmates and friar mentors. They had to suffer the epithet of “monkey” as their parents were refered to as “beasts loaded with gold.” The creoles or mestizos were caught in the middle of a situation charged with the racial antagonism between the indios and the Spaniards.

This racial antagonism was nothing but a manifestation of the colonial relationship. Even among the Spaniards, there was the foolish distinction made between the Philippine-born Spaniards and the Spanish-born Spaniards, with the former being derisively called Filipinos by the latter.

The Secularization Movement

As more and more indios joined the ranks of the educated (or the ilustrados), there came a point when the colonial authorities were alarmed. They entertained fears that they would be taken to task on the basis of the colonial laws whose idealist rhetoric they did not all practice.

What appeared to the colonial rulers as the first systematized movement among the native ilustrados to attack the social and political supremacy of the Spaniards was the secularization movement within the clergy. The overwhelming majority of those who participated in this movement were indios and creoles and they demanded taking over the parishes held by the religious orders whose members were overwhelmingly Spanish.

When the Cavite Mutiny of 1872 occurred, Fathers Burgos, Gomez and Zamora who were the most outspoken leaders of the secularization movement were accused of conspiring to overthrow the Spanish colonial regime and they were garrotted. The mutiny was essentially an act of rebellion of the oppressed masses initiated by workers at the Cavite naval stockyard who were subjected to low wages and various forms of cruelty. Many of the rebellious workers and their genuine supporters were tortured and murdered.

The three clerics who were condemned by the Spanish governor-general and the friars pleaded their innocence until their end. The style of pleading political innocence characterized the ilustrados from then on.

Exploitation Under the Governor-General

Nevertheless, even as the yoke of colonial oppression was carried mainly by the toiling masses, the principalia also suffered political and economic oppression at the hands of the colonial tyrants.

The principalia joined in the exploitation of the toiling masses, but in turn it was subjected to certain oppressive demands made by the governor-general, the provincial governor, and the friars who increasingly reduced its share of exploitation.

These colonial tyrants arbitrarily increased the quota in tribute collection, the taxes for the privilege of engaging in commerce, the land rent on leaseholdings, the quota in agricultural production and interest on loans. Failure to keep up with ever-increasing levies resulted in bankruptcy especially among the cabezas de barangay.

The employment of civil guards for the confiscation of property and the enforcement of colonial laws became a common sight. Towards the end of the 19th century, the principalia became most offended when it was forcibly ejected from its leaseholds on friar lands because the friars preferred to turn over the management of their lands to various foreign corporations.

The extremely frequent change of governors-general in the Philippines during the 19th century reflected the sharp struggle between the “liberal republicans” and the “absolute monarchists” in Spain. This had the general effect of aggravating the Filipino people’s suffering. Every governor-general had to make the most of his average short term of a little over a year to enlarge the official as well as his personal treasury.

The Propaganda Movement

The ilustrados became increasingly dissatisfied with the colonial regime. Some of them fled to Spain, where they hoped to get higher education and get more sympathy from Spanish liberal circles for their limited cause of changing the colonial status of the Philippines to the status of a regular province of Spain. They were desirous of representation in the Spanish parliament and the enjoyment of civil rights under the Spanish Constitution.

In carrying out their reform movement, they established the newspaper La Solidaridad. It was the focus of activity for what would be called the Propaganda Movement, of which the chief propagandists were Dr. Jose Rizal, M.H. del Pilar, Graciano Lopez Jaena, and Antonio Luna.

The Propaganda Movement failed and was condemned as “subversive” and “heretical” by the colonial authorities. Trying to carry out propaganda work in the Philippines itself, Rizal organized the short-lived La Liga Filipina which called on the Filipino people to become a national community and yet failed to state categorically the need for revolutionary armed struggle to effect separation from Spain.

Putting his trust in the enemy, Rizal was subsequently arrested and exiled to Dapitan in 1892. When the Philippine Revolution of 1896 broke out, he was held culpable for it by the colonial tyrants, and yet he betrayed it by calling on the people to lay down their arms a few days before his execution.

The National Democratic Revolution of the Katipunan

The clear revolutionary call for separation from Spain was made by the Kataastaasang Kagalanggalang na Katipunan ng mga Anak ng Bayan. It was secretly founded in the proletarian district of Tondo by its leader Andres Bonifacio immediately after Rizal’s arrest in 1892.

In its first year, it was composed of only 200 members coming mainly from the toiling masses. In the next few years, it consciously recruited members who could start revolutionary struggle in various parts of the country so as to be able to wage a war of national liberation.

At the same time, it recruited its members mainly from the ranks of the oppressed masses to ensure the democratic character of the revolution. After its Cry of Pugad Lawin on August 23, 1896, signaling the start of armed warfare against the colonialists, its ranks swelled to several tens of thousands and rallied the entire Filipino people to rise in revolt.

Old-type National Democratic Revolution

The Philippine Revolution of 1896 was a national-democratic revolution of the old type. Though Bonifacio came from the working class, he was not in possession of proletarian ideology. The guiding ideology of the revolution was that of the liberal bourgeoisie. Its classic model was the French Revolution, and Bonifacio himself was inspired mainly by its ideas.

At any rate, the revolution asserted the sovereignty of the Filipino people, the protection and promotion of civil liberties, the confiscation of the friar estates, and the elimination of theocratic rule.

The Filipino People Betrayed by the Liberal Bourgeoisie

Aguinaldo's Usurping

At the Tejeros Convention of 1897, the ilustrados who were mostly from Cavite decided to form the revolutionary government to replace the Katipunan and elected Emilio Aguinaldo president, thus replacing Bonifacio as the leader of the revolution.

When an ilustrado strongly objected to Bonifacio’s election as minister of interior on the ground that he was of lowly origin and had no education as a lawyer, the latter declared the convention null and void in accordance with a previous agreement requiring respect for every decision made by the convention.

The convention manifested the class leadership of the liberal bourgeoisie and likewise the divisive effect of regionalism. The attempt of Bonifacio to form another revolutionary council led to his arrest and execution by the Aguinaldo leadership.

Failures of the Bourgeois Leadership

Within 1897, the revolutionary government suffered defeat after defeat. The ilustrados showed their inability to lead the revolution.

The liberal-bourgeois leadership finally succumbed to the offers of general amnesty by the colonial government through the mediation of the scoundrel Pedro Paterno. The Pact of Biak-na-Bato was signed to consummate the surrender of Aguinaldo and the payment of ₱400,000 as first installment to his council of leaders.

US Interests Sway the Ilustrados

While Aguinaldo was in exile in Hong Kong, U.S. agents approached him and proposed to him to take advantage of the imminent outbreak of the Spanish-American War. They pretended to help the Filipino people liberate themselves from the Spanish colonial rule.

The U.S. imperialists schemed to make use of Aguinaldo to facilitate their own seizure of the Philippines. Thus was Aguinaldo brought back to Cavite aboard an American cutter after Dewey’s naval squadron had sailed to Manila Bay to destroy the Spanish fleet.

The Revolutionary Struggle Succeeds...

Taking advantage of the Spanish-American War, the Filipino people intensified their revolutionary armed struggle against the Spanish colonial rule. Spanish power collapsed throughout the archipelago, except in Intramuros and a few negligible garrisons. Even the Filipino soldiers in the Spanish military service took the side of the Philippine Revolution.

A situation in May 1898 emerged in which the Filipino revolutionary forces encircled on land the Spanish colonial seat of power, Intramuros, and the U.S. naval fleet stood guard in Manila Bay. The Filipino revolutionaries took the policy of laying siege to starve the enemy into surrender while the imperialist navy waited for troop reinforcements from the United States.

...But the Victory is Stolen By U.S. Imperialism

On June 12, 1898, Aguinaldo made the Kawit proclamation of independence which carried the unfortunate qualification, “under the protection of the Mighty and Humane North American nation.” Unwittingly, he declared the so-called First Philippines Republic to be a mere protectorate of U.S. imperialism.

U.S. troop reinforcements started to arrive at the end of June. They were landed to take over under various pretexts positions occupied by the Filipino revolutionary forces in the encirclement of Intramuros. Position after position was relinquished to the U.S. imperialists by the weakling Aguinaldo until all the revolutionary forces were relegated to the background.