Taft Commission

The Taft Commission, also known as Second Philippine Commission, 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".

Background

The Second Philippine Commission (the Taft Commission), established by President William McKinley on March 16, 1900, and headed by William Howard Taft, was granted legislative as well as limited executive powers.Harvnb|Kalaw|1927|pp= [http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/pageviewer-idx?c=philamer&cc=philamer&idno=afj2233.0001.001&frm=frameset&view=image&seq=472 452-459] (Appendix F).] 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.Citation
url=http://www.loc.gov/rr/hispanic/1898/chronphil.html
title=Chronology for the Philippine Islands and Guam in the Spanish-American War
publisher=U.S. Library of Congress
accessdate=2008-02-16.] The 1901 municipal code provided for popularly elected presidents, vice presidents, 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 governors. cite web
url=http://countrystudies.us/philippines/16.htm
title=Philippines — United States rule
publisher=U.S. Library of Congress
accessdate=2007-08-20.]

Commission membership

President McKinley had declared in his message to Congress in December of 1899 that Philippine reconstruction should proceed by building up from the bottom. [Harvnb|Escalante|2007|p=103, citing quote in harvnb|Blount|1913|pp=288-289.] 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. [Harvnb|Escalante|2007|pp=103-106.]

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. [Delgado, along with 30 officers and 140 riflemen, surrendered on January 10, 1901. Trias and 200 of his followers did the same thing on March 15, 1901. Harvnb|Escalante|2007|p=109, citing Harvnb|Linn|2000|pp=215, 295.]

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:Harvnb|Escalante|2007|p=98, citing Harvnb|Willis|1905|p=54.]

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 54,000 students. [Harvnb|Escalante|2007|pp=99-100.]

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: [Harvnb|Escalante|2007|pp=100-101, citing Citation
title=1903 Census of the Philippine Islands
author=U.S. Bureau of Census
publisher=Government Printing Office
location=Washington
year=1905
Volume=III
page=640.]

:#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. [Harvnb|Escalante|2007|p=101.]

At the time Taft arrived in the Philippines, the student-teacher ratio was one teacher for 4,179 students. [Harvnb|Escalante|2007|p=142.] 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 [Harvnb|Escalante|2007|p=144, citing Harvnb|Willis|1905|pp=228-229.] ), etc. [Harvnb|Escalante|2007|pp=143-144] 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. [Harvnb|Escalante|2007|pp=144-145]

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. [Harvnb|Escalante|2007|p=145.]

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. [Harvnb|Escalante|2007|p=145-146.]

Friar lands

The instructions of President McKinley to the commission stipulated that it was their dutyto 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. [Harvnb|Escalante|2007|p=80.] 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." [Harvnb|Escalante|2007|pp=83-84.] 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. [Harvnb|Escalante|2007|pp=190-192.]

The Philippine Organic Act, enacted in July of 1902, authorized the insular government to purchase the friar lands, empowering it to issue bonds for the purpose. [Harvnb|Escalante|2007|pp=198-199.] Taft traveled to Rome in May of 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.Harvnb|Escalante|2007|pp=202-203 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 of 1903 by the insular government. [Harvnb|Escalante|2007|pp=221-226.]

ee also

*Philippine Commission
*First Philippine Commission
*Congress of the Philippines
*Senate of the Philippines
*House of Representatives of the Philippines

Notes

References

*Citation
last=Blitz
first=Amy
title=The Contested State: American Foreign Policy and Regime Change in the Philippines
publisher=Rowman & Littlefield
year=2000
isbn=0847699358
url=http://books.google.com.ph/books?id=n2rdOhMdCDEC.
*Citation
last=Escalante
first=Rene R.
title=The Philippine Career of William H. Taft, 1900-1903
publisher=New Day Publishers
year=2007
location=Quezon City, Philippines.
*Citation
last=Kalaw
first=Maximo M.
url=http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=philamer;idno=AFJ2233.0001.001
title=The development of Philippine politics
publisher=Oriental commercial
year=1927
accessdate=2008-01-21.
*Citation
last=Worcester
first=Dean Conant
title=The Philippines: Past and Present (vol. 1 of 2)
url=http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/12077
publisher=MacMillan
year=1914
isbn=141917715X
accessdate=2008-02-15.
*Citation
last=Worcester
first=Dean Conant
title=The Philippines: Past and Present
publisher=MacMillan
year=1930.

Further reading

Books

*Citation
last=Blount
first=James
title=American Occupation of the Philippines, 1898-1912
location=New York
publisher=G.P. Putnam's Sons
year=1913.
*Citation
last = Pobre
first = Cesar P.
title = Philippine Legislature 100 Years
id = ISBN 971-92245-0-9 .
*Citation
last=Forbes
first=William Cameron
title=The Philippine Islands
publisher=Harvard University Press
location=Massachusetts
year=1945.
*Citation
last1=Francisco
first1=Luzviminda
last2=Fast
first2=Jonathan
title=Conspiracy of Empire: Big Business, Corruption, and Politics for Imperialism in America, 1876-1907
location=Quezon City, Philippines
publisher=Foundation for Nationalist Studies
year=1985.
*Citation
last=Linn
first=Brian MacAllister
title=The Philippine War, 1899-1902
location=Kansas
publisher=University Press of Kansas
year=2000
url=http://books.google.com.ph/books?id=SNEIAAAACAAJ
isbn=0700609903.
*Citation
last=Leopold
first=Richard W.
title=Elihu Root and the Conservative Tradition
location=Boston
publisher=Little, Brown and Company
year=1954
url=http://books.google.com.ph/books?id=46CJHgAACAAJ.
*Citation
last=Willis
first=Henry Parker
title=Our Philippine Problem: A Study of American Colonial Policy
location=New York
publisher=Henry Holt and Company
year=1905
url=http://books.google.com.ph/books?id=ejHv1FgkZiMC.

Other items

*Philippine House of Representatives Congressional Library

External links

*Citation
title = The Presidents of the Senate of the Republic of the Philippines .
*Citation
url = http://www.senate.gov.ph/senators/senlist.htm
title = List of Senators
accessdate = 2006-09-16
publisher = Senate of the Philippines.
*Citation
url = http://www.lawphil.net
title = The LAWPH"i'L Project - Philippine Laws and Jurispudance Databank
accessdate = 2006-09-16
publisher = Arellano Law Foundation.
*Citation
url = http://www.filipiniana.net/read_content.jsp?filename=T00000000007&page=1&epage=1
title = Instructions of President McKinley to the Taft Commission, 7 April 1900.
accessdate = 2008-01-07
last = McKinley
first = William
publisher = In "Filipiniana.net online digital library".