First election in Capiz

As we prepare to go to the polls on Monday to elect new local officials, congressmen and senators, I looked up many old books about the Philippines that I downloaded from Project Gutenberg to see what was said about the time the first election was held in the country during the American period. I have not seen anything written about the elections in Cebu. However, there was one for Capiz that I think is sufficient to give an idea what also happened in the rest of the country on that first election day. I got this from Mary H. Fee’s “A Woman’s Impressions of the Philippines.”

Fee was one of the pedagogues sent by the U.S. to teach young Filipinos in the new public school system opened by the Americans in the country. Assigned in Capiz, she wrote her impressions after returning to the US. On the first Philippine election that she observed in Capiz, she wrote:

“We had been in Capiz but a short time when talk of the coming election began to occupy both Americans and Filipinos. The Governor of the province at that time held his position by appointment from Mr. Taft, but provisions had been made by the Commission for an election at a specified time, which was then at hand. In view of the fact that it was the first election ever held in the province, we Americans expected to encounter much rejoicing over the newly acquired right, and a general outbreak of gratification. It made a barely perceptible ripple. The Filipinos had not gathered momentum enough under the new system to approach an election by the well-recognized channels. There were no speeches, no public gatherings, no processions, and, so far as the mass of the population were concerned, no interest whatsoever. There is not universal suffrage in the Philippines. The electors for the occasion were the concejales, or town councillors, of the towns in the province. On a given day they would assemble to cast their votes.

“Our appointed Governor was a candidate to succeed himself, and the only opponent of any importance was a local lawyer, named D—-. D—- was on very good terms with most of the Americans, who regarded him as something of an Americanista, but he was greatly hated by the prominent Filipino families in town, not only on the score of his suspected pro-American sentiment, but on account of certain meddlings of his in past time with _cacique_ power.

“A short time before the election the American community were thunderstruck on hearing that D—- had been arrested on a charge of murder. Our Supervisor–and, I believe, the Treasurer–offered to go on his bail. Then came a telegram from Judge Bates at Iloilo, denying bail. For a day or two telegrams flew back and forth, the Americans trying to secure the temporary release of the unfortunate lawyer but accomplishing nothing. D—- was kept practically incomunicado in the local calabozo. He insisted that there was a plot on foot to destroy him, and either he was much distressed or he pretended to be so. Then came an order to take him out to a small town in the interior whence the charge came. D—- declared that he should be killed on the way. The Americans finally prevailed upon an American inspector of constabulary to accompany the prisoner’s escort. The rainy season was in full force, and prisoner and escort had a bad time getting out to Maayon, the town aforementioned. Once there the charge broke down at once. It was based upon a statement made by an old woman that a spirit had appeared to her in a dream, and had accused D— of being the cause of its immaterial existence. The prisoner was almost immediately set at liberty. For reasons best known to himself, he found it inconvenient to return to Capiz and to renew his campaign for the governorship.

“By the fortuitous circumstance of the charge against D—-, our Governor, who professed a smiling ignorance of all the circumstances of the case, had been relieved of his only formidable rival, and he prepared to do the honors of Capiz to the concejales. He lived in the old palace of the Spanish governors, which had since come to serve as provincial capitol and gubernatorial residence. There was plenty of room in the fine old place, and the concejales found everything to their satisfaction. They had but to step out of their bedrooms to find themselves at the polls. Our Governor was elected almost unanimously, to succeed himself for two years.

“That was doing pretty well for a set of tyros at politics; but by the time the next election swung round, political feeling had awakened, there were wheels within wheels, and feeling was running explosively high. Political parties had crystallized into two bodies, known as Progresistas and Federalistas. The Progresistas were the anti-American party, pledged to every effort for immediate independence. The Federalistas were those who stood by the Taft administration, and talked of compromise in the present, and of independence at some distant day. Our Governor, who was again a candidate to succeed himself, was the Federalista head. The Federalistas accused the Progresistas of being ‘Aglipianos’–that is, schismatics from the Roman Church–and they hinted that Aglipianoism was more a political movement than it was a religious one. Each party professed itself sceptical of the good intentions of the other. Each was certain that the other would come to the polls with firearms and bolos. I began to worry about my desks, having promised to loan twenty-five nice new oak ones of the latest American pattern for the use of the concejales in making out their votes.”

According to Fee, the second election went off as calmly as a county fair though there was a complaint afterwards, and a long struggle about it which had to be decided by the Court of First Instance. This looks familiar now. Also, in our election these days the Catholic church is very vocal in its views and active in its interest to get elected certain types of candidates that it favors. What did Fee see in Capiz? She said “Apparently the Church was interested in the election, for every shovel-hatted padre in the district seemed to have come in for it.”

There you are, my friends, about our first election. As for the May 13 election ahead, let me just say: Think before you vote because who you vote for has, in many ways, the power to make the Filipino nation remain poor or become progressive.