In 1898, and after almost 400 years of Spanish colonial abuse, Filipino revolutionaries proclaimed the independence of the Philippines in Kawit, Cavite, under the leadership of General Emilio Aguinaldo. Yesterday marked the 119th anniversary of the proclamation of Philippine independence from Spain.
History records the Philippine Republic under Aguinaldo as the first republic in Asia. Sadly, Aguinaldo’s republic was not only short-lived; it was plagued with controversy.
The republic was short-lived because while the Philippine revolution was taking place, the United States declared war on Spain, and won it. In the end, Spain lost to the Filipino revolutionaries, and to the Americans as well. However, instead of conceding defeat to the Filipinos, Madrid opted to sell the Philippine Islands and other Spanish territorial possessions in the Pacific and the Carribean to the Americans by way of the Treaty of Paris. That way, Spain avoided the embarrassment of yielding the islands to the Filipinos, and even made a lot of money in the end.
After buying the Philippine Islands from Spain, the United States decided to retain ownership of the archipelago, and proceeded to colonize the islands under a new political dispensation. The Filipino revolutionaries were declared counter-insurgents, and after winning the inevitable war against Aguinaldo’s forces, America’s hold on the Philippines was firmly sealed.
Most history textbooks end the narrative of this segment of Philippine history with the establishment of American colonial authority in the islands after the Philippine-American War. Many textbooks suggest that America stole the independence of the Filipinos from Spain.
A complete account of that period must include the fact that Germany and Russia also had their eyes set on the Philippine Islands at the time Spain was losing its fight with the Filipino revolutionaries. It just so happened that the United States declared war on Spain, and won that war with its naval muscle.
In other words, it is possible that if the United States did not enter the picture in 1898, Germany or Russia would have made imperial intrusions into the Philippine Islands, and any of them could have installed itself as the new colonial overlord in the archipelago.
At that time, both Germany and Russia were monarchies, and their governments had no tolerance for freedom, especially freedom among their colonial conquests. From the European perspective back then, colonial expansionism was all about business and profit, not freedom for other people.
In that sense, it may be argued that the Philippines was better off having the United States as its colonial adversary, instead of Germany or Russia. America espoused far more extensive liberalism than the Germany or Russia did, and if American colonial behavior in the Philippines during the first decade of the twentieth-century was objectionable, German or Russian rule in the islands at that time would have been far worse.
Under America, Filipinos were introduced to public, secular education, as epitomized by the establishment of the University of the Philippines. Through public education, many Filipinos were given a realistic chance at improving their lot, which was virtually impossible during the Spanish colonial period when education was accessible only to the wealthy and the well-connected. The Philippines under a colonial government operated by Germans or Russians would have only continued with the same, oppresive system employed by their fellow Europeans – the Spaniards.
The controversy that stalked Aguinaldo well into the decades after the Philippine Revolution of 1898 was the execution of Andres Bonifacio, the original leader of the Katipunan forces which overthrew the Spaniards. According to some history textbooks, Bonifacio was given a sham trial for alleged treason, found guilty, and was summarily executed in the mountains of Cavite. The controversy is that Aguinaldo is suspected of having a direct hand in the elimination of Bonifacio because the latter proved to be his competitor for the presidency in an independent Republic of the Philippines. It is also alleged that Aguinaldo could have stopped the execution of Bonifacio, but did not do so, or took his time on the matter.
Whatever participation Aguinaldo had in the execution of Bonifacio is not the concern of this essay. What must be emphasized is that Aguinaldo, a recruit to the Katipunan which was then headed by Bonifacio, was winning his battles against the Spaniards, while Bonifacio was not as successful. From the perspective of every soldier, war is about winning, not losing. Perhaps, the sentiment of the revolutionaries went with Aguinaldo for that reason.
Another controversy of the Revolution was the unceremonious capture of General Aguinaldo in Palanan, Isabela by American troops who were assisted by Filipinos from Macabebe, Pampanga. The participation of the Macabebes in the capture of Aguinaldo eventually encouraged many natives of Cavite to dislike anybody from Pampanga. While the animosity has dissipated through the decades, there are several native Caviteños who still harbor the resentment today.
What the history textbooks do not discuss is that even if the capture of Aguinaldo in Palanan had not taken place, the collapse of the Philippine Republic would have been inevitable. The revolutionaries did not have enough firearms and military hardware to fight the Americans. Moreover, the Americans were slowly succeeding in pacifying the islands through the free public schools they were introducing in the occupied territories.
With American colonial rule firmly in place in the Philippine Islands after a captured General Aguinaldo took his oath of allegiance to the United States, Filipinos inevitably embraced the new political order, but retained the old, deplorable social system obtaining in the islands during the Spanish colonial era. The rich Filipinos who kept close ties with the Spaniards were buttering up to the Americans, and oligarch families remained wealthy and exploited their close political ties with the leaders of the American colonial government.
The system eventually paved the way for a pro-American political elite that openly advocated independence from the United States for populist reasons, but who privately espoused a colonial dependence to America. Tsk, tsk, tsk.
