"The allegation is a most serious one and we think it desirable to meet the charge directly without hesitation by asserting that it is unqualifiedly false and that the accusations made in the report are not only not sustained, but cannot be sustained by any evidence tending to show that such a 'system' exists." The placing in quotation marks of a word not used by me fairly illustrates one of the typical methods of the Filipino politician, and for this reason alone I refer to it and to the following statements from the same editorial, which will serve a similar purpose:-- "There is a very serious aspect of this report of Commissioner Worcester's. If the system he speaks of exists and is known to him--indeed has been known to him for a long time--why did he never correct it? He says that the Philippine Assembly has blocked action. The truth is that he and his fellows had absolute power long before the Philippine Assembly ever came into existence. "... Mr. Worcester now practically admits that he knew of similar conditions elsewhere than among the Moros, but that he never had anything to say about them and allowed them to go on until, it would seem, he thought that he could make some political capital out of a controversy with the Philippine Assembly regarding anti-slavery legislation." It did not lie in my power to correct it. On the Philippine Commission rests the full responsibility for failure to enact anti-slavery legislation from the time when it first learned of the existence of this crime among the Filipinos until it passed its first act prohibiting and penalizing it on April 29, 1909. As I have already shown, the matter was dealt with, in 1903, by directing the inclusion of proper legislation in a proposed new Penal Code never completed. Valuable years were then lost in testing the adequacy of existing law, and when it proved inadequate further time was, in my opinion, needlessly wasted in drafting the necessary act. To this extent, and to this extent only, the commission shares responsibility for existing conditions. Since April 29, 1909, that responsibility has rested on the assembly alone. I have given two of the reasons for its refusal to act. There is another, but I should have hesitated to give it, as it would have been hard to prove, had not Speaker Osmeña furnished the necessary evidence. He is commonly considered to be the leading Filipino statesman of the day, so special importance attaches to his utterances and he, if any one, can speak with authority concerning the attitude of the assembly. The ominous rumble from the United States which reached these distant shores led him to give out a newspaper interview explaining the inactivity of that body. He said:--