UP Centennial Celebrations 1998

Seeing the Philippines Through the American Glass... Darkly

Do the Americans know about the Philippines? Are they aware of that brief period in their history dubbed "Philippine Insurrection" when between 200,000 and a million Filipinos died fighting for a newly achieved independence?

In a paper presented during the international conference on the Treaty of Paris, Prof. Sharon Delmendo said that Americans know very little about the Philippines. Few Americans are aware of the Filipino-American War where the atrocities committed by the US soldiers dwarfed those committed in the Vietnam War.

For these few Americans, says Delmendo, who teaches English at St. John Fisher College (Rochester, New York), it is best not to remember. "Why should we read about and remember our forefathers' sin?" is the usual reply of a white, male college student whenever he is asked to do research about the US acquisition of the Philippines.

The defensive reaction is not surprising. The annexation of the Philippines by the US was justified by President McKinley to be a "manifest destiny": to "civilize and liberate", to "educate and Christianize" this nation of 7,107 islands. This concept of "benevolent assimilation" would later find its way to official documents on the colonization of the country.

Even today, the US officially promotes manifest destiny as something beneficial to the Philippines. J. Brian Atwood, United States Assistance for International Development (USAID) head and personal representative of President Bill Clinton to the Luneta ceremony in commemoration of the 50th Anniversary of the "US Turn-Over" of the Philippines last July 4, 1996, said that "it was not America's manifest destiny to control but rather to liberate the Philippines." Interestingly, he added that the US has always been uncomfortable with the role of colonial power.

How did the the US government justify its war against the Philippines? Delmendo quoted Theodore Roosevelt as having said that "that which justified warfare against Sitting Bull also justified warfare against Aguinaldo...grant of self-government to the Philippines would be like granting self-government to an Apache reservation under some local chief." Rationalizing the brutalities associated with the war, Roosevelt was also quoted as saying that "to withdraw from the contest for civilization because of the fact that there are attendant cruelties is, in my opinion, utterly unworthy of a great people." Thus, the reconcentrado (concentration camps) and scorched-earth policies to cut off the links between the Filipino insurgents and the villagers. And the popularization of the old frontier adage modified by American soldiers: "The only good Filipino is a dead one."

But even after the Philippine-American War was declared over, with the capture of President Emilio Aguinaldo in Palanan, Isabela, the "insurgents" were not entirely contained and pacified. The fight for independence lost its appeal only among the ilustrados and not because the US troops had achieved a decisive victory.

A hundred years later, what is the American government's view of the Philippines?

The US speaks of the "centennial of official US-Philippine Relations" and glosses over the war that followed. Furthermore, when the Asian/Pacific Heritage Month was declared by President Bill Clinton on May 1998, the beginning of the Asian/Pacific-American relations, it would appear from the proclamation, was the immigration of Asians and Pacific islanders to America.

This ignores the fact that America first came to Asia (especially the Philippines), with the intent to colonize, before Asians were lured by poverty and a host of other reasons to America.

(AROrozco)

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