Читать книгу The Philippine Islands - Ramon Reyes Lala - Страница 17

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In the early days of the colony there were, besides the Governor-General, the sub-governors, known as Encomiendoros, who rented their provinces at so much per annum, called Encomiendas, from the General Government. These Encomiendoros were usually men of wealth, that entered into politics as a speculation. More properly, I should say, as a peculation; for it became their policy to fleece the natives and to extort as much money as possible during the term of their incumbency. Few, indeed, left the scene of their civil brigandage without full coffers; and as enormous fortunes were to be made during a few years sojourn in the islands, no wonder that this office was eagerly sought after in Spain.

This imitation of the methods of the Roman tax-payers, however, became so demoralizing to the morale of the Spaniards themselves, and so ruinous to the colony and to the natives, that a more equitable policy was introduced. The Encomiendoros were succeeded by Judicial Governors, called Alcaldes, to whom was paid a small salary, from $300 upward a year, according to the prominence of the province.

This office, however, proved almost equally remunerative to the holders; for, by means of a Government license to trade, they were able to create, to their own advantage, monopolies in every line of industry, thus freezing out all competitors. Though each was responsible to the Central Government for the taxes of his provinces, yet this did not prevent the shrewd and unprincipled from finding profit here also. For, by a system of false weights and measures, the native, who, in lieu of silver, brought his produce in payment for taxes, was shamefully defrauded, the Alcalde sending the indebted amount to the Government storehouse and selling the rest to his own profit. In addition, many of these Alcaldes, by arbitrary decrees and despotic methods, conducted a system of public robbery that in a few years enriched them at the expense of the long-suffering natives; for them there was no redress, inasmuch as each Alcalde was also the head of the Legal Tribunal in his own province. These abuses, however, became so flagrant that the Alcaldes were finally forbidden to trade; but as this measure was not as effectual as had been expected, sweeping reforms were instituted.

To recount what these were; to mention in detail what malignant opposition was manifested by a large body of natives and resident Spaniards toward the purposed overthrow of the old system, would be only to reiterate well-known characteristics and abnormalities of the Spanish nature; placed, too, in but a slightly different setting.

I will merely add that these Alcaldes, these perpetrators and beneficiaries of wholesale misrule and dishonor, yielded finally to the reform-wave, and, accordingly, fell away before their own judicial perversion. And the new system, it must be confessed, is a great improvement upon the old.

But the evil wrought upon the Filipino mind and character was deep-planted. For, by the despotic and summary disposing of his labor and chattels, in the name of the King—abetted frequently, too, by seemingly supernatural means—respect for the Spaniard and the white man in general had fled, fear and distrust supplanting it.

A Street Scene in Albay.

In the new order of things—instituted by a decree from the Queen-Regent Maria Cristina, the 26th of February, 1886—18 Civil Governorships were created, and the Alcaldes’ functions were confined to their Judgeships. And thus the former frightful distortion of justice was overcome and banished.

So, too, under this law of 1886 each Civil Governor has a Secretary, who serves as a check upon his chief, if he be illegally inclined.

Accordingly, two new official safeguards were thus erected in the fabric of Colonial Administration in these 18 different provinces.