The Philippines: Past and Present (Volume 2 of 2)Worcester, Dean C. (Dean Conant)
History
The Philippines: Past and Present (Volume 2 of 2)
Worcester, Dean C. (Dean Conant)
Philippines; Philippines -- History -- 1898-1946
A hard half day's ride brought us back to Cagayan de Misamis, and
I sailed at once for Manila, leaving Lieutenant-Governor Lewis
to face his difficult task alone. As I had anticipated, trouble
promptly began. The wealthiest people of Cagayan had always lived
off the unfortunate Bukidnons, and had no intention of relaxing
their grip. I have deeply regretted that I did not myself visit the
remaining villages in the valley of the Cagayan River and explain to
their inhabitants the change in their fortunes. Agents of the Cagayan
caciques had been busy there while I was occupied on the other side
of the subprovince, and shortly after my arrival at Manila a telegram
was received from the provincial governor, saying that the Bukidnons
were asking for a brown governor, instead of a white one, and were
reported to be preparing ropes and poison with which to commit suicide.
Now these simple people of the hills had no intention of committing
suicide, nor did they want "a brown governor." Their petitions were
prepared by Cagayan caciques and they were forced to sign them.
In the part of the subprovince which I had visited the conspirators
against the new government made little headway. Nevertheless their
vicious activities continued, and later, on several occasions,
they succeeded in frightening the people of one or another of the
then rapidly growing towns so badly that they took to the hills, and
Mr. Lewis had to hunt them up and persuade them to come back again,
which he always succeeded in doing.
When I returned to inspect Bukidnon a year later, I found that a
marvellous change had already been brought about. Model villages had
taken the place of the ramshackle affairs which I had found on my first
visit. The houses were grouped around spacious plazas on which the
grass had been so carefully cut that they had already begun to look
like lawns. Streets were kept so clean that one could literally pick
up a dropped pin without the slightest difficulty. Where the streets
reached the open prairie, bars were provided to keep stray animals
out of town. Every yard was neatly fenced. All domestic animals were
properly confined if not out at pasture. Every village was perfectly
drained, the slope of the land being such that all drainage promptly
ran off onto the prairie. Yards were immaculately clean and were
planted with useful food-producing crops. Little cultivated fields
were already beginning to appear near the outskirts of the towns. This
latter change greatly delighted me. These poor, ignorant people had
always believed that the prairie soil was worthless for agricultural
purposes, and that in order to grow crops it was necessary for
them to go to the distant mountains, clear forest land and plant
it. Furthermore, they had been quite unable to break the prairie
sod and bring the underlying soil under cultivation with such simple
agricultural implements as they possessed.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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