This edition is published by Papamoa Press www.pp-publishing.com
To join our mailing list for new titles or for issues with our books papamoapress@gmail.com
Or on Facebook
Text originally published in 1947 under the same title.
Papamoa Press 2018, all rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted by any means, electrical, mechanical or otherwise without the written permission of the copyright holder.
Publishers Note
Although in most cases we have retained the Authors original spelling and grammar to authentically reproduce the work of the Author and the original intent of such material, some additional notes and clarifications have been added for the modern readers benefit.
We have also made every effort to include all maps and illustrations of the original edition the limitations of formatting do not allow of including larger maps, we will upload as many of these maps as possible.
THE PHILIPPINE STORY
by
David Bernstein
INTRODUCTION
WHEN THE INDEPENDENCE of the Philippines was proclaimed in July, 1946, Americas experiment in the Pacific came out of the laboratory. For the first time in history, a great Western power had acquired a colony, made a promise of ultimate independence, assisted the inhabitants in learning the ways of self-government, and then kept the promise without bloodshed.
The experiment has not, of course, been perfect. It built upon many mistakes and perpetuated many injustices. It supported the principle of political independence but basically ignored the parallel need for economic independence. It permitted the sugar barons and the wealthy businessmen to prosper mightily while thousands of Filipino tenant farmers lived in virtual peonage. It maneuvered into power, as President of the independent Republic, a leader able and energetic but tainted by collaboration with the enemy during the war.
On the other hand, by 1941, it had raised the Philippine standard of living above any other in the Orient. It had taken a people crushed by three and a half centuries of Spanish rule and given them widespread literacy, improved public health, expanding prosperity, and cause for self-respect. To the Filipinos, with their mixed Malayan-Spanish heritage, the experiment brought an understanding of civil liberty, of fair play, free speech, political controversyideas still incomprehensible to most other Orientals. It had also given them a piece of the American legend of opportunity; the faith that a man born in a log cabin or a nipa shack can become president, professor, or sugar baron if only he tries hard enough. And the result is the closest thing to political democracy in the Orient.
This experiment was not quite out of the laboratory stage when World War II put it to a premature test. It emerged battered but triumphant. Alone among the colonial peoples of the Orient, the Filipinos had freely stood up to the Japanese, conducting enthusiastic guerrilla operations and harrying the enemy constantly and often effectively.
Most Filipinos who resisted the Japanese did so because they believed they were fighting for the United States. Fundamentally, perhaps, they were fighting for a pre-war status quo for stable government, material luxuries, libertarian ideas, expanding opportunitywhich they associated with American policy.
When Philippine liberation came, in 1944 and 1945, the experiment resumed. But it had been set back disastrously. The cities of the Philippines were almost entirely wiped out. Productive power was in ruins. Almost two-thirds of the total physical wealthexcepting only the land itselfwas gone. Everything was damaged or destroyed, not least the morale of the people. In such an atmosphere, Philippine independence became a reality.
During the war, the United States had made many promises to the Filipinos. Keep your courage up and stand firm, America said, for we shall redeem your freedom and restore all that has been destroyed. With liberation, the Filipinos sought fulfillment of these pledges. They have so far been put off with half-measures.
But half-measures will not rebuild an economy that is fully destroyed. By the end of 1946, almost two years after liberation and half a year after independence, Manila was still in ruins. There had been virtually no reconstruction. The economy of the country was still shattered. Of the great export crops, only copra was being shipped out in any important quantities. Money was pouring out of the country, non-productively, to buy staples like rice and even, ironically, sugar. The morale of the people was still low. It was now more dangerous to walk alone at night in downtown Manila than it had been two years ago. The people were too depressed to depend upon themselves for salvation.
And now, inevitably, they look to the United States for help, not only to meet the immediate emergency, but also for the long-run job of establishing an economy which will stand on its own feet. For answer, they have received a promise of war damage compensation and an offer of a free trade relationship which cannot be permanent.
It is not enough. If there is not more, there will be disaster in the islands. The carefully nurtured democratic system will die of malnutrition. The Filipinos will suffer from the dry rot of a colonial economy in which a few men may wax rich but the majority must live in sustained povertya colonial economy without even the protection of a mother country. And we may discover that our friends in the Philippines have become bitterly anti-American.
Through the years, America has won the affection of many Orientals because of our Philippine record. Now we are on the verge of emptying this reservoir of good will. If we do not help the Philippines to assume its rightful place in the world community, we shall surely destroy the faith of the submerged millions of the Far East. In a restless, suspicious peace, can we afford to lose more prestige than we have already lost?
Failure in the Philippines now will threaten Americas entire position in the Orient. It will weaken our defenses, before the world has succeeded in building a collective peace in which nations need not worry about their defenses. It will lay us open to one more point of attack by the Russians, who tactlessly keep rummaging through our dirty linen.
Failure to meet our responsibilities in the Philippines might be more than a question of national honor. It might conceivably be a matter of American dollarsand of American lives.
On the other hand, success in the Philippines will mean that a pattern of freedom has been clearly drawn for colonial peoples everywhere. Already, in Indonesia, a faltering attempt at imitation has begun. If the Philippine experiment works, the problem of the worlds subject peoples may well be settled peacefully.
This book is an attempt to analyze the background, failures, accomplishments, and implications of the experiment itself. Inevitably, it must coverhowever brieflythe economic background of the country, and something of its history. But its final focus is on the present crisis in Philippine-American relations, a crisis all the more dangerous because most Americans are not aware of its existence.
The truth about the Philippines is that we have not yet kept our promise to the Filipinosand that, for our own sake as much as theirs, we had better do so before it is too late.
