Part 28 (1/2)
As the population of the province was about 250,000, [421] a loss of $5,000,000 meant a loss of $20 per capita for the six months or so of reconcentration during which the farms were neglected. This would be equivalent to a loss of $1,800,000,000, in the same length of time to a country having a population of 90,000,000, which is the total population figure for the United States according to the Census of 1910.
It was in the latter part of October, 1903, I believe, that Ola finally surrendered with some five hundred or six hundred men. I was sent to Albay about the middle of November, to a.s.sist the regular judge of the district, Hon. Adam C. Carson, now one of the justices of the Supreme Court of the Philippines, in disposing of the case arising out of the Ola performances. Conditions at the time were also very much perturbed in various neighboring and other provinces, and the courts and constabulary were kept very busy.
An incident recurs to memory just here which ill.u.s.trates the state of public order. But before relating it a decent respect to the opinions of the reader requires me to state my own att.i.tude toward that whole situation at the time. I am perfectly clear in my own mind that as society stands at present, capital punishment is a necessary part of any sensible scheme for its protection. I have no compunction about hanging any man for the lawless taking of the life of another. We owe it to the community as a measure of protection to your life and mine and all others. So far as public order was concerned in the country now under consideration in 1903, the ”civil” government was simply a well-meaning sham, a military government with a civil name to it. When the constabulary would get in the various brigands, cut-throats, etc., who might be terrorizing a given district, some of them masquerading as patriots, others not even doing that, the courts would try them. None of the judges cared anything about any particular brigand in any given case except to find out how many, if any, murders, rapes, arsons, etc., he had committed during the particular reign of terror of which he had been a part. Wherever specific murders were proven, the punishment would always be ”a life for a life.” And you have no idea how absolutely wanton some of the murders were, and how cruelly some of the young women, daughters of the farmers, were maltreated after they were carried off to the mountains. I would hate to try to guess how much more of this sort of thing would have had to occur in Albay in 1903 than did occur, to have moved Governor Taft to deprive Albay of ”the protection of a benign civil government”--one of the pet expressions of contemporaneous official literature--and say the word to the army to take hold of the situation and give the people decent protection. But to come to the incident above broached. Shortly after I reached Albay, and set to work to hold Part II. of the district court, while my colleague, Judge Carson, held Part I. we had a call from a third judge, Judge Linebarger, of Chicago, who was on his way to some other perturbed region. I think that by that time, late in November, 1903, Governor Taft must have known he was soon to leave the Islands to become Secretary of War, and therefore was anxious to be able to make the best showing possible, in his farewell annual report as Governor, as to the ”tranquillity” conditions. At any rate Judge Linebarger came to see us, for a few hours, his s.h.i.+p having touched en route at the port near the provincial capital of Albay. Judge Carson had had a gallows erected near the public square of the town, for the execution of some brigand he had convicted, whether it was for maltreating some poor farmer's daughter until she died, or burying an American alive, or what, I do not now recollect. But in going around the town some one suggested, as we pa.s.sed this gallows, that we go up on it to get the view. So we went--the three of us. Then each looked at the other and all thought of the work ahead. Then Judge Carson smiled and dispelled the momentary sombreness by repeating with grim humor, an old Latin quotation he happened to remember from his college days at the University of Virginia: Haec olim meminisse juvabit (”It will be pleasant to remember these things hereafter”).
The Ola insurrection had continued from October, 1902, to October, 1903, without suspension of civil government. During that period the jail had been filled far beyond its reasonable capacity most of the time. It sometimes had contained many hundreds. As to the sanitary conditions, in pa.s.sing the jail building one day in company with one of the provincial officials, he remarked to me, nonchalantly: ”It's equivalent to a death sentence to put a man in that jail.” I afterwards found out that this was no joke. During most of my visit to the province I was too busy holding court and separating the sheep from the goats, to think much of anything else. But toward the close of the term, after Christmas, after Governor Taft had left the Islands and gone home to be Secretary of War, an incident happened that produced a profound impression on me, suggested a new view-point, and started troubled doubts as to whether the whole Benevolent a.s.similation business was not a mistake born of a union of avarice and piety in which avarice predominated--doubts which certain events of the following year, hereinafter related, converted in conviction that any decent kind of government of Filipinos by Filipinos would be better for all concerned than any government we could give them, hampered as we always will be by the ever-present necessity to argue that government against the consent of the governed is not altogether wrong, and that taxation without representation may be a blessing in disguise. The Yule-tide incident above alluded to was this. Most of the docket having been disposed of, and there being a lull between Christmas and New Year's day which afforded time for matters more or less perfunctory in their nature, the prosecuting attorney brought in rough drafts of two proposed orders for the court to sign. One was headed with a list of fifty-seven names, the other with a list of sixty-three names. Both orders recited that ”the foregoing” persons had died in the jail--all but one between May 20 and Dec. 3. 1903 (roughly six and one-half months) as will appear from an examination of the dates of death--and concluded by directing that the indictments be quashed. The writer was only holding an extraordinary term of court there in Albay, and was about to leave the province to take charge of another district to which Governor Taft had a.s.signed him before leaving the Islands. The newly appointed regular judge of the district, Judge Trent, now of the Philippine Supreme Court, was scheduled soon to arrive. Therefore the writer did not sign the proposed orders but kept them as legal curios. A correct translation of one of them appears below, followed by the list of names which headed the other (identical) order:
THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, PHILIPPINE ISLANDS, EIGHTH JUDICIAL DISTRICT
In the Court of First Instance of Albay
The United States against
Cornelio Rigorosa died December 3, 1903 Fabian Basques died September 25, 1903 Julian Nacion died October 14, 1903 Francisco Rigorosa died October 18, 1903 Anacleto Solano died November 25, 1903 Valentin Cesillano died November 6, 1903 Felix Sasutona died September 26, 1903 Marcelo de los Santos died June 3, 1903 Marcelo Patingo died November 15, 1903 Julian Raynante died September 7, 1903 Dionisio Carifiaga died October 4, 1903 Felipe Navor died September 17, 1903 Luis Nicol died November 23, 1903 Balbino Nicol died September 23, 1903 Damiano Nicol died November 23, 1903 Leoncio Salbaburo died November 20, 1903 Catalino Sideria died July 25, 1903 Marcelo Ariola died October 26, 1903 Francisco Cao died November 26, 1903 Martin Olaguer died November 13, 1903 Juan Neric died November 16, 1903 Eufemio Bere died November 21, 1903 Julian Sotero died October 30, 1902 Juan Payadan died September 10, 1903 Benedicto Milla died July 30, 1903 Placido Porlage died June 13, 1903 Gaudencio Oguita died October 11, 1903 Alberto Cabrera died September 8, 1903 Julian Payadan died August 4, 1903 Eusebio Payadan died August 10, 1903 Leonardo Rebusi died November 2, 1903 Julian Riobaldis died October 2, 1903 Victor Riobaldis died October 23, 1903 Mauricio Balbin died September 27, 1903 Tomas Rigador died July 23, 1903 Miguel de los Santos died July 28, 1903 Eustaquio Mapula died November 18, 1903 Eugenio Lomibao died November 1, 1903 Francisco Luna died August 7, 1903 Gregorio Sierte died October 31, 1903 Teodoro Patingo died November 21, 1903 Teodorico Tua died September 23, 1903 Ceferino Octia died November 10, 1903 Graciona Pamplona died September 12, 1903 Felipe Bonifacio died November 26, 1903 Baltazer Bundi died October 12, 1903 Julian Locot died October 13, 1903 Francisco de Punta died August 20, 1903 Pedro Madrid died August 24, 1903 Felipe Pusiquit died July 17, 1903 Rufo Mansalan died July 14, 1903 Ignacio t.i.tano died June 20, 1903 Alfonso Locot died June 29, 1903 Gil Locot died May 23, 1903 Regino Bitarra died September 7, 1903 Bonifacio Bo died August 2, 1903 Francisco de Belen died September 29, 1903
DECREE
The defendants above named, charged with divers crimes, having died in the provincial jail by reason of various ailments, upon various dates, according to official report of the jailer, it is
ORDERED BY THIS COURT, That the cases pending against the said deceased persons be, and the same are hereby, quashed, the costs to be charged against the government.
Judge of the Twelfth District acting in the Eighth.
Albay, December 28, 1903.
The foregoing order contains fifty-seven names. As already indicated, the second order was like the first. It contained the names of sixty-three other deceased prisoners, as follows, to wit:
Anacleto Avila died September 2, 1903 Gregorio Saquedo died July 21, 1903 Francisco Almonte died October 11, 1903 Faustino Sallao died October 9, 1903 Leocadio Pena died October 16, 1903 Juan Ranuco died October 16, 1903 Esteban de Lima died February 4, 1903 Estanislao Jacoba died October 7, 1903 Macario Ordiales died October 19, 1903 Laureano Ordiales died October 27, 1903 Reimundo Narito died October 4, 1903 Antonio Polvorido died September 12, 1903 Norverto Melgar died June 14, 1903 Bartolome Rico died November 8, 1903 Simon Ordiales died September 13, 1903 Candido Rosari died September 29, 1903 Saturnino Vuelvo died October 18, 1903 Vicente Belsaida died May 26, 1903 Felix Canaria died June 12, 1903 Pedro Cuya died July 26, 1903 Evaristo Dias died July 24, 1903 Felix Padre died July 8, 1903 Alberto Mantes died August 7, 1903 Joaquin Maamot died September 5, 1903 Santiago Cacero died May 28, 1903 Hilario Zalazar died July 26, 1903 Tomas Odsinada died October 1, 1903 Julian Oco died October 4, 1903 Julian Lontac died August 27, 1903 Ambrosio Rabosa died September 19, 1903 Mariano Garcia died September 12, 1903 Ramon Madrigalejo died August 19, 1903 Albino Oyardo died October 1, 1903 Felipe Rotarla died September 29, 1903 Urbano Saralde died October 5, 1903 Gil Mediavillo died June 13, 1903 Egidio Mediavillo died June 16, 1903 Mauricio Losano died October 5, 1903 Bernabe Carenan died September 27, 1903 Pedro Sagaysay died September 29, 1903 Laureano Ibo died August 5, 1903 Vicente Sanosing died July 17, 1903 Francisco Morante died June 10, 1903 Anatollo Sadullo died September 16, 1903 Lucio Rebeza died August 27, 1903 Eugenio Sanbuena died August 13, 1903 Nicolas Oberos died August 26, 1903 Eusebio Rambillo died September 13, 1903 Tomas Rempillo died August 19, 1903 Daniel Patasin died August 19, 1903 Ignacio Bundi died September 7, 1903 Juan Locot died May 23, 1903 Zacarias David Padilla died August 7, 1903 Juan Almazar died September 12, 1903 Rufino Quipi died June 13, 1903 Antonio Brio died June 13, 1903 Timoteo Enciso died September 12, 1903 Hilario Palaad died August 28, 1903 Ventura Prades died May 24, 1903 Alejandro Alevanto died May 22, 1903 Rufino Pelicia died May 20, 1903 Alejo Bruqueza died July 19, 1903 Prudencio Estrada died September 15, 1903
These lists were printed in an article by the author which appeared in the North American Review for January 18, 1907, which article was reprinted by Hon. James L. Slayden, of Texas, in the Congressional Record for February 12, 1907. There can be little doubt that President Taft saw the article, and that if it had contained any inaccuracies they would long since have been noticed. So that in the Albay jail in 1903 we had a sort of Andersonville prison, or Black Hole of Calcutta, on a small scale.
If the military authorities had had charge of the Albay insurrection and of the prisoners in the Albay jail in 1903, it is safe to say that the great majority of those who died would have lived. But to have ordered out the troops would have been to abandon the official fiction that there was peace.
Of Ola's five or six hundred men, Judge Carson and I, a.s.sisted by the chief prosecuting attorney of the government, Hon. James Ross, turned several hundred loose. Another large batch were disposed of under a vagrancy law, which allowed us to put them to work on the roads of the provinces for not exceeding two years, usually six to twelve months. Most of the remainder, a few score, we tried under the sedition law, and sent to Bilibid, the central penitentary at Manila, for terms commensurate with their individual conduct and deeds. The more serious cases were sent up for longer terms under the brigandage law. We indulged in no more maudlin sentiment about those precious scamps who had been degrading Filipino patriotism by occasionally invoking its name in the course of a long season of preying upon their respectable fellow-countrymen than Aguinaldo or Juan Cailles would have indulged. I am quite sure that either Aguinaldo or Juan Cailles would have made much shorter shrift of the whole bunch than Judge Carson and I did. It was only the men shown to have committed crimes usually punished capitally in this country that we sentenced to death--a dozen or more, all told. Ola was the star witness for the state. He held back nothing that would aid the prosecuting attorney to convict the men who had followed him for a year. He was given a sentence of thirty years (by Judge Carson), as a sort of expression of opinion of the most Christian att.i.tude possible concerning his real deserts, but his services as state's evidence ent.i.tled him to immunity, and for that very good and sufficient reason Judge Carson, Prosecuting Attorney Ross, and myself so recommended to the Governor.
Ola could read and write after a fas.h.i.+on, though he was quite an ignorant man. But to show what his control must have been over the rank and file of his men, let one incident suffice. On the boat going up to Manila from Albay, after the term of court was over, Ola was aboard, en route for the penitentiary. But, as he was a prospective recipient of executive clemency, though the guards kept an eye on him, he was allowed the freedom of the s.h.i.+p. One night on the voyage up, the weather being extremely warm, I left my stateroom sometime after midnight, carrying blanket and pillow, and went back to the storm steering-gear at the stern of the s.h.i.+p, to spend the rest of the night more comfortably. Waking sometime afterward for some una.s.signable cause, I realized that the crown of another head was tangent to the crown of my own, and occupying part of my pillow. It was Ola, the chief of the brigands. I raised up, shook the intruder, and said: ”h.e.l.lo, Ola, what are you doing here?” He wakened slowly. He had no idea of any first-cla.s.s pa.s.senger being back there, and had taken it for granted that I was one of the s.h.i.+p's crew, when he decided to share my pillow. As soon as he realized who I was, he sprang to his feet with profound and effusive apologies, and paced the deck until morning, perhaps thinking over the possible effect of the incident on my recommendation concerning himself.
After I had recovered the use of all my pillow I went back to sleep for a spell. About dawn I was wakened by some of the guards chattering. But I heard Ola, who had apparently been keeping watch over my august slumbers in the meantime, say in an imperious tone to the guards, his keepers, ”Hush, the judge is sleeping.” They looked at the brigand chief, and cowed, obeyed.
Ola was pardoned.