13. • IN 1917 a mysterious informant named PEDRO CHUA wrote the
PHILIPPINE FREE PRESS alleging that the senior police were accepting
bribes from CHINESE GAMBLING houses in Binondo and Quiapo districts.
Demonstrating the power of MANILA’S leading weekly newspaper,
publication of CHUA’S letter sparked allegations that led eventually to “the
suicide of a police officer” after a series of sensational charges and
counter charges, the free press finally withdrew its initial allegations,
• But despite the FREE PRESS retreat, VICENTE SOTTO’S independent
insisted in the editorial cartoon, that CHUA’S charges are accurate. Such
allegations of Police corruption in gambling law enforcement were a
constant theme in cartoon throughout the American period.
• FERNANDO AMORSOLO, gives the illustration usual racist edge. While the
corrupt FILIPINO policeman is shown with normal features, the CHINESE
are caricatured as EMACIATED, leering creatures more rodent than
human.
15. As Manila’s population began to shoot up during
World War I, housing became scarce and rents
escalated. Rising rents combined with high food
prices to reduce the Manila working class to sudden
poverty.
Eventually the protests reached the Malacañang
Palace and Governor-General Francis B. Harrison
made a tentative move towards reform. In a letter
to the Director General of the Civil Service, the
Governor denounced “the rapacious demands of
the landloards.” He suggested passage of a bill
which set rents at 12% of assessed value of the
property.
16. • Harrison’s suggested reform was little more than a temporary
palliative. A more fundamental reform would have required
allocation of government revenues for public housing
constructions, something that even the liberal governor Harrison
never considered.
• Although collected from the all Filipinos, government taxes were
used to reward the Filipino elite for their loyalty. Lucrative
government appontments went to educated children of the elite.
• The cartoon’s caption, “New Bird of Prey,” is an allusion to the
most famous libel case in the history of the Philippine journalism.
In 1908 the nationalist weekly El Renacimiento published an
editorial titled AVES DE RAPINA (Birds of Prey) which attacked the
Philippine Commission’s Secretary if the Interior, Dean C.
Worcester, for abusing his office to exploit the country. Worcester
sued for libel and two years later, won a judgement of P60,000.00
against El Renacimiento, a colossal sum that force closure of the
paper and sale its assets.
18. • Like Many NATIONALISTS of his day, Vicente Sotto,
the publisher of The Independent, never missed a
chance to attach the Catholic Church. The Editorial
below his cartoon urged the government to
confiscate the large priest’s residence attached to
Santa Cruz parish church. The people should not be
made to share the painful congestion of Plaza Goiti
and Plaza Santa Cruz while a single priest sits midst
a sprawling residence.
• The question of church property was a particularly
sensitive one for nationalists. IN 1906 THE
PHILIPPINE SUPREME COURT had ruled that the
CATHOLIC CHURCH was the LEGAL owner of all
disputed properties.
20. BUILT ON A SWAMP and ringed with streams and ponds, Manila is a natural
breeding ground for malarial mosquitoes. During the 19th century, Spanish public
health procedures were grossly inadequate to the imperative of Manila's site, and
the Americans found the city a cesspool of ill health when they occupied it in 1898.
With their experience in tropical health gained in the Caribbean, Americans made
major advances in epidemic disease control during the first decade of their rule.
Through an arbitrary application of public health regulations, the Board of Health
brought tropical disease- malaria, small pox, cholera and plague- under control.
During the cholera epidemic of 1902-04, for example, 4,386 people died in Manila, a
mild toll compared to previous outbreaks in the late 19th century. Subsequent
outbreaks in 1905-06 were contained and by 1911 the disease had been
eradicated.
During the same period, construction of sewers and sanitary waterworks combined
with an activist public health program made the conquest of malaria in Manila a
colonial success story. The Board of Health distributed millions of doses of quinine
and eliminated mosquito breeding grounds by filling up the standing water holes,
such as the moats around Intramuros, or spraying them with petroleum. Houses
near swampy sites were relocated and the low ground filled.
By 1920, however, the Board of Health was resting on its laurels and the quality of
mosquito control was slipping dangerously. Under Governor-General Francis B.
Harrison's turned over to "Filipinization" program, the Board of health had been
22. • The Philippine Assembly Passed a law authorizing all
legislators, active or retired to bear firearms. The Manila
press was outraged, but the legislators ignored the
oppositions and promulgated the law over the screams of
protest.
• In its mocking editorial of February 1921, the Free Press
commented: “Now, they with our legislators and officals
able to strut around with a gun or two guns strapped about
their manly waists, they will have to be respected. Now
there will be no question as to who is running this show, no
affront to their personal disnity, no danger of being treated
just like ordinary people...”
• “Ngayon ang ating mga mambabatas ay nagmamalaking
naglalakad na may dala dalang isa at dalawang baril ay
kaylangan natin silang respetuhin. So wala ng mangyuyurak
sa kanilang dignidad, wala na rin ang pangambang pag
tratrato sa knila tulad ng isang ordinaryong tao lamang”.
24. • ANGERED BY TWO RECENT road accidents, the Free Press
denounces the proliferation of illegal taxis, called colorums. Instead
of paying the public utility fee to license a legal taxicab, automobile
owners were registering taxis as private vehicles and leasing them
to irresponsible drivers. With an estimated 300 colorum cabs
operating in Manila, fatal accidents were on the rise.
• One colorum cab had killed a policeman on Juan Luna Street.
Another speeding down Taft Avenue capsized, killing two American
sailors riding as passengers. Through the efforts of Rear Admiral
Kitelle, the driver of the latter car was sentenced to two years
imprisonment But the owner of the car went free. A Police
Department employee, the owner admitted that the taxi cost three
times more than his annual salary of P1,320, but denied leasing it
out as a taxi.
• With automobiles crowded into Manila's narrow streets in growing
numbers, and police failing to control traffic, the Free Press has
some gloomy thoughts: "With the police allowing these cars to
operate with immunity, and the Bureau of Public Works granting
drivers licenses to men with varied criminal records, even to
automobile drivers who have run down and killed people, the
26. • When manila emerged as the national center for
university education during the 1920, the annual
march ritual of the city wise student returning
home to his village was played out in barrios
across the archipelago. While still a student he
had to return to the village for summer holidays.
• Having survived the shock transition from country
to city, he could now return home, urbane and
smartly dressed, to reap the reward of
admiration and envy.
• He becomes a king in his own right, with all the
latest dress and fashion.
28. • When filipinos began winning civil service appointments after 1913, they faced serious
DISCRIMINATIONS IN BOTH WAGES AND POSTIONS.
• Since the Bureau of Education was the colony’s largest public employer, most Filipinos were
hired as school teachers. Although the qualifications are equal or better than those of the old
American teachers, the Filipinos confronted an intititutional racism which gave them lower
wages, larger classrooms and fewer privileges.
• An average Filipino teacher receives P1,080 a year while Americans who were only normal
graduates were paid P4,000
• There were other forms of discrimination as well. Americans tended to teach in elite
secondary schools while Filipinos are assigned to crowded primary classrooms in remote
villages.
• Ex. In 1916 only 9% Americans are primary teachers while 76% are secondary teachers.
• All Americans had a free summer holiday at BAGUIO where they “could forget all their
troubles, in healthful athletic sports, listen to inspiring discourses and above all else benefit
by open air life in temperate region.” while FILIPINO TEACHERS were left to sweat it out in
the lowlands.
• IN OTHER WORDS AMERICAN TEACHERS ARE SPOILED BRATS
30. • It satirized the rise of co-education at the UP campus at
ERMITA. The catholic universities remained segregated, but
UP following its American antecedents broke the norms
and pioneered in co-education
• Predicting the worst, the cartoons shows WILD COURTSHIP
SCENCES IN CLASS, another embraces, and the woman in
front row reads a love letter which was written in English.
Only the unattractive lady in the front row bother with the
Math lesson.
• AFTER THE CLASS comes the predictable. A couple steps
into a calesa together while the woman says brazenly to
Pasay and the man asks the driver to hang up a blind on
both sides that can only be imagined.
