The old Spanish road system was quite extensive and very well planned, but the amount of really good construction was very limited. The system of maintenance was faulty, and the abandonment of maintenance during the insurrection against Spain and the war with the United States resulted in the almost complete destruction of many roads which were in fairly good condition at the time public order became seriously disturbed. The total value of Spanish work on existing roads is estimated at $1,800,000. The total value of all American work up to June 30, 1911, is estimated at $6,100,000. The imperative need of better highways throughout the islands was brought home by the difficulties encountered by the army during the insurrection, and the first act of the Philippine Commission, passed on the twelfth day after the commission became the legislative body of the islands, appropriated $1,000,000 ($2,000,000 Mexican) for the construction and repair of highways and bridges. Much of this money was very advantageously expended by the military, who contributed a large amount of transportation free of cost. Unfortunately, while the necessity for roads was at this time fully appreciated, there was failure to appreciate the extraordinary rapidity with which tropical rains and vegetation destroy good roads in the Philippines. We further failed to appreciate the absolute indifference of the Filipinos themselves as to whether roads once built are or are not maintained. One of the first large pieces of work undertaken was a road from Calamba on the Laguna de Bay to Lipa, an important town in the province of Batangas, and thence to the town of Batangas itself. This road ran for its entire extent through a rich agricultural district. I passed over it when the dirt work had all been completed, and when all but two short stretches were surfaced. I certainly had vigorously impressed upon me the necessity of surfacing. Over that portion of the road which had been so treated an automobile could have been driven at sixty miles an hour. Over the remainder of it, built by the same engineer, shaped up in the same way, and as good a dirt road as could be constructed, four mules could not haul the ambulance in which we were riding without our assistance. We had to get out and literally put our shoulders to the wheel, or tug at the spokes, in order to enable the faithful beasts to extricate the ambulance from the morasses into which the two unsurfaced stretches had been converted. Needless to say, the surfacing was completed as soon as possible, and then came what the Filipinos call a great desengaño. [177] I venture to say that from the time the road was finished until it was completely destroyed there was never a shovelful of dirt nor a basketful of gravel placed upon it. In 1908 I attempted to drive over it in one of the two-wheeled rigs known as carromatas, which will go almost anywhere. I was upset twice in as many miles and gave up the attempt.