- Critical Asian Studies

Transcription

Back issues of BCAS publications published on this site are
intended for non-commercial use only. Photographs and
other graphics that appear in articles are expressly not to be
reproduced other than for personal use. All rights reserved.
CONTENTS
Vol. 22, No. 4: October–December 1990
“The Philippines”
•
Stephen R. Shalom - Securing the US-Philippines Military Bases
Agreement of 1947
• Brenda Stoltzfus and Saundra Sturdevant - The Sale of Sexual Labor
in the Philippines: Marlyn’s Story
• Stephen R. Shalom - Promoting Ferdinand Marcos
• Mark Selden, Gerundio Dagoob, and Nita Mahinay - Interview with
Philippine Sugar Workers
• David Hyndman and Levita Duhaylungsod - The Development Saga
of the Tasaday: Gentle Yesterday, Hoax Today, Exploited Forever?
• Philip Hirsch - Marginal People on Marginal Land / A Review
Essay
• Kenyalang - Are Not Religion and Politics the Same Thing? / A
Review Essay
• Charles W. Lindsey - Unequal Alliance: The World Bank, The
International Monetary Fund, and the Philippines / A Review
• Charles W. Lindsey - European Companies in the Philippines / A
Review
BCAS/Critical Asian Studies
www.bcasnet.org
CCAS Statement of Purpose
Critical Asian Studies continues to be inspired by the statement of purpose
formulated in 1969 by its parent organization, the Committee of Concerned
Asian Scholars (CCAS). CCAS ceased to exist as an organization in 1979,
but the BCAS board decided in 1993 that the CCAS Statement of Purpose
should be published in our journal at least once a year.
We first came together in opposition to the brutal aggression of
the United States in Vietnam and to the complicity or silence of
our profession with regard to that policy. Those in the field of
Asian studies bear responsibility for the consequences of their
research and the political posture of their profession. We are
concerned about the present unwillingness of specialists to speak
out against the implications of an Asian policy committed to ensuring American domination of much of Asia. We reject the legitimacy of this aim, and attempt to change this policy. We
recognize that the present structure of the profession has often
perverted scholarship and alienated many people in the field.
The Committee of Concerned Asian Scholars seeks to develop a
humane and knowledgeable understanding of Asian societies
and their efforts to maintain cultural integrity and to confront
such problems as poverty, oppression, and imperialism. We realize that to be students of other peoples, we must first understand
our relations to them.
CCAS wishes to create alternatives to the prevailing trends in
scholarship on Asia, which too often spring from a parochial
cultural perspective and serve selfish interests and expansionism. Our organization is designed to function as a catalyst, a
communications network for both Asian and Western scholars, a
provider of central resources for local chapters, and a community for the development of anti-imperialist research.
Passed, 28–30 March 1969
Boston, Massachusetts
Vol. 22, No.4 / Oct.-Dec. 1990 The Philippines Contents Stephen R. Shalom
3
Securing the U.S.-Philippine Military Bases Agreement of 1947 Brenda Stoltzfus and Saundra Sturdevant
13
The Sale of Sexual Labor in the Philippines: Marlyn's Story / photo essay Stephen R. Shalom
20
Promoting Ferdinand Marcos
Mark Selden, Gerundio Dagoob,
and Nita Mahinay
28
Intetview with Philippine Sugar Workers
David Hyndman and Levita Duhaylungsod
38
The Development Saga of the Tasaday: Gentle Yesterday, Hoax Today, Exploited Forever? Philip Hirsch
55
Marginal People on Marginal Land; Southeast Asian Tribal
Groups and Ethnic Minorities: Prospects for the Eighties
and Beyond, by Cultural Survival, Inc.; Natives ofSarawak:
Survival in Borneo's Vanishing Forests, by Evelyne Hong;
The Hmong ofThailand: Opium People of the Golden
Triangle, by Nicholas Tapp; On the Road to Tribal
Extinction: DepopUlation, Deculturation, and Adaptive
Well-Being among the Batak of the Philippines, by James F.
Eder; Land Rights Now: The Aboriginal Fightfor Land
in Australia, by the International Working Group
for Indigenous Affairs / review essay
Kenyalang
60
"Are Not Religion and Politics the Same Thing?";
Saving China: Canadian Missionaries in the Middle
Kingdom, 1888-1959, by Alwyn J. Austin; Protestant
Missionaries in the Philippines 1898-1916: An Inquiry
into the American Colonial Mentality, by Kenton J. Clymer;
The Anglican Church in Borneo, 1848-1962,
by Brian Taylor / review essay
Charles W. Lindsey
67
Unequal Alliance: The World Bank, the International
Monetary Fund, and the Philippines, by Robin Broad / review
Charles W. Lindsey
71
European Companies in the Philippines, by the Catholic Institute for International Relations / review 72
List of Books to Review 73
Index for Volume 22 (1990) The photo on the front cover is of Smoky Mountain children at work.
Established communities ofpeople live on Smoky Mountain, a huge gar
On the back cover Lobo and T'bolifriends are reading the 1972 Na
bage dump serving Metro Manila. Scavenging the garbage is a
tional Geographic that fourteen years earlier featured him and others
livelihood for these people, many of whom have left the impoverished
as "Stone Age Men of the Philippines." Although some continue to
central islands south and east of Luzon in search ofa better life. This
maintain that the Tasaday people are genuine relics ofthe past who have
special BCAS issue on the Philippines explores a variety ofways poor
simply progressed rapidly since they were first contacted by the outside
Filipinos are trying to survive, with a photo essay on the sale ofsexual
world in 1971, David Hyndman and Levita Duhaylungsod's article in
labor around U.S. bases·on Luzon, an interview with sugar workers on
this issue ofBCAS shows them to be T'boli and Manobo tribespeople
Negros, an article on the Tasaday hoax on Mindanao, and a review
who posed as cave dwellers in a hoax that victimized them while fool
essay dealing with the Batak people on Palawan. This photo is by and
ing most ofthe world. Photo by Judith Moses in South Cotabato, Min
courtesy ofSaundra Sturdevant, 1989.
danao, Philippines, in 1986, courtesy ofJudith Moses.
© BCAS. All rights reserved. For non-commercial use only. www.bcasnet.org
(J
10"
1 5'
,•
Luzon Strait
Contributors <7
The Phili pines
1.1._
D
• Sabuy.n
Fuga/s/and_
miles
Gerundio Dagoob became a sugar worker at the age of nine and
has been organizing workers for fifteen years. He is now deputy
secretary-general of the Philippine National Federation of Sugar
Workers.
.,~;)~ -~~ ~~
0
Levita Duhaylungsod teaches in the Department of Agricultural
Education and Rural Studies at the College of Agriculture,
University of the Philippines at Los Banos College, Laguna,
Philippines. She specializes in the political economy of the
southern Tagalog region, and is also professionally committed
to the rights of indigenous peoples throughout the Philippines.
Philip Hirsch teaches geography at the University of Sydney in
Sydney, Australia.
David Hyndman teaches in the Department of Anthropology and
Sociology at the University of Queensland in St. Lucia,
Australia. He specializes in the political ecology of indigenous
peoples in Asia and the Pacific, especially in Melanesia and the
Philippines.
'Tar,acf
M~= :-' B~:~:a~~~"
,0
SEA
f-46''-----:?---OI<''''91'P''.
~
.....
~
.:t
A..
.:::,
o
~
MI.
Nalib
I
Balaa:
Subic Sa
~
0
---+--=---,-1
\
~\-('""1""',- - - • Ouezon City
* Manila •
.~\~.I> ••
~v~e.i\J
MINDORO. ' .
'"
.\:
.
~(\\
~
O· ~ Sibuyan ~~
• ':.'
••••• SAMAR
'1.... MA~SBATE •
...
PANAY'
~IOilO Bacolod
':t
z
Legaspi
•
.~.
:::
" •
()
/1
~
' " .:
SanP9dro
Bay
f~cloban'
/l U \ • Burauen
CEB,utJ. (LErTE'"
Marcene
Kenyalang is a student of Southeast Asian current affairs.
Charles W Lindsey teaches economics at Trinity College in
Hartford, Connecticut, U.S.A. He does research on the political
economy of the Philippines and Southeast Asia.
Nita Mahinay became a sugar worker at the age of seven or eight
and is now a member of the external affairs team of the nation
al staff of the Philippine sugar workers' union.
Mark Selden teaches sociology at the State University of New
York at Binghamton, New York, U.S.A. His recent books
include The Atomic Bomb: Voices from Hiroshima and
Nagasaki with Kyoko Selden, and Chinese Village, Socialist
State with Ed Friedman and Paul Pickowicz.
Stephen R. Shalom teaches political science at William Paterson
College in Wayne, New Jersey, U.S.A. He is the coeditor with
Daniel B. Schirmer of The Philippine Reader (Boston: South
End,1987).
Brenda Stoltzfus worked in the Philippines for five years with
Buklod as a volunteer for the Mennonite Central Committee.
Her interviews and translations of the women's life herstories
form the text of the book Let the Good Times Roll: The Sale of
Women's Sexual Labor around U.S. Military Bases in the Philip
pines, Okinawa and the Southern Part ofKorea.
Saundra Sturdevant is a historian and photographer and former
ly Quaker International Affairs Representative in East Asia. Her
photographs of the bar areas, womc::n at home and at work, and
in the provinces where they came from will be found in Let the
Good Times Roll.
CELEBES
SEA
1
5~
•
,
:
"
-----"-'--'
This map ofthe Philippines is from Sterling Seagrave's The Marcos
Dynasty (New York, NY: Harper and Row, I 988) , opposite p.I, and
it is reprinted here with the permission of Harper and Row.
The Bulletin is indexed or abstracted in The Alternative Press
Index, The Left Index, International Development Index, Inter
national Development Abstracts, Sage Abstracts, Social
Science Citation Index, Bibliography of Asian Studies, IBZ
(International Bibliographie der Zeitschriften Literatur), IBR
(International Bibliography ofBook Reviews), Political Science
Abstracts, Historical Abstracts, and America: History and Life.
Back issues and photocopies of out-of-print back issues are
available from BCAS. Microfilms of all back issues are available
from University Microfilms International (300 N. Zeeb Road,
Ann Arbor, MI 48106, U.S.A., phone: U.S., 800-521-0600);
Canada, 800-343-5299).
2
© BCAS. All rights reserved. For non-commercial
use only. www.bcasnet.org
Securing the U.S.-Philippine
Military Bases Agreement of 1947
by Stephen R. Shalom!
Negotiations are currently underway on a new military
bases agreement between the United States and the Philippines.
The present agreement, which expires in 1991, was originally
signed in 1947, and although the world is very different today
from what it was just after World War II, a look back at how the
United States secured base rights some four decades ago
provides many insights into the current U.S. effort to obtain a
new agreement.
The issue of military bases was a crucial one in the Philip
pines even before World War II. In 1933 the U.S. Congress
responding to Depression-era protectionist sentiment, hostility
to Filipino immigration, and isolationism-passed the Hare
Hawes-Cutting (HHC) Act that provided for Philippine inde
pendence after a ten-year commonwealth period. Sections
5 and 10 of this act gave the U.S. president unilateral authority
within two years of Philippine independence to retain military
and naval bases for the United States. (In the jargon of the day,
"military" included the army and the air force, but not the navy.)
Lame-duck president Herbert Hoover vetoed the bill, but Con
gress passed it over his veto.
The HHC Act specified that it would take effect only if ap
proved by the Philippine legislature. That body, however,
rejected the act, and chief among its objections was the provi
sion on military and naval bases. The sincerity of the act's op
ponents is difficult to gauge. Manuel Quezon, the senate
president who led the "Antis," had a long history of opposing
Philippine independence in private while proclaiming his undy
ing commitment to independence in public, a stance common to
the Philippine elite, who greatly benefited from colonial trade
relations. Two of Quezon's leading political rivals-Sergio
Osmefia and Manuel Roxas-were the Philippine politicians
credited with securing U.S. passage of the HHC Act, and Quezon
1. I would like to thank Henry Gerald P. Ysaac, Jr., for invaluable re
search assistance.
may well have objected to the act simply because he could not
claim the credit for himselC Be that as it may, the Antis
denounced the bases provisions as denying the Philippines
genuine independence, and their criticisms touched a responsive
chord among informed Filipinos.
Quezon explained that his opposition to the HHC Act did
not mean that he was "absolutely and unqualifiedly opposed to
all kinds of United States reservations in the Philippine Islands
after independence shall have been granted. But it does mean
that I will never give my consent to any law that gives this dis
cretionary power to the President of the United States."3 On other
occasions, he indicated that he objected to military (as opposed
to naval) bases with or without Philippine consent; thus on the
eve of Pearl Harbor he cabled a U.S. newspaper: "It is not true
that I have ever objected to having American naval stations in
the Philippines after independence. All I wanted was that their
establishment should be with the consent of the Government of
the Philippines. I did object to military reservations and still do
object now because your having military reservations
everywhere in the Philippines after independence would in ef
fect nullify independence."4
When the Philippine legislature turned down the HHC Act,
Quezon traveled to Washington to try to obtain an improved
independence bill. The Philippine leader spoke to the new U.S.
president, Franklin Roosevelt, who, according to Quezon,
agreed with him that a country could not be truly independent
2. See Theodore Friend, Between Two Empires: The Ordeal of the
Philippines, 1929-1946 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1965),
pp.109-35.
3. Quezon statement, 5 July 1933, Manuel L. Quezon Papers, series 8,
box 60, National Library, Manila. (Papers hereafter referred to as
Quezon Papers.)
4. Quezon to William Philip Simms, Scripps-Howard Newspapers, 4
Dec. 1941, Quezon Papers, series 5, box 114.
3
U.S. president Roosevelt signing the Tydings-McDuffie Act in /934. This act granted the Philippines inde
pendence but left an opening for u.s. bases to remain there. Manuel Quezon is at Roosevelt's left. and
Manuel Roxas is third from the right in the rear. This photo and the third and the fourth ones in this article
are from the U.S. National Archives, courtesy ofStephen Shalom.
with foreign military bases on its soil.s In March 1934 a new bill
was passed by the U.S. Congress. the Tydings-McDuffie Act.
more or less identical to the earlier independence act except that
it stated that the United States would have no military bases in
the Philippines after independence. but that naval reservations
held by the United States would be retained until negotiations
between Washington and Manila within two years of inde
pendence settled all questions relating to such facilities.
The Tydings-McDuffie Act did not offer the Philippines the
"real and complete" independence that Quezon claimed for it.6
given that the failure of postindependence negotiations to reach
agreement on naval bases would leave the United States in
possession of any naval reservations previously retained. Never
theless. the Philippine legislature accepted the act. and a Philip
pine commonwealth was soon inaugurated. with Quezon as its
president and independence scheduled to follow a decade hence.
Before that date was reached. however. the Japanese
invaded the Philippines. During the course of the war. U.S.
policy makers determined that the United States would emerge
as the dominant world power and that a network of bases would
be needed for the United States to enforce its preeminent
position.
Quezon, in exile in Washington, saw an opportunity to hitch
his fortunes to the rising U.S. star. At the end of 1942. in a draft
memorandum to Undersecretary of State Sumner Welles.
Quezon wrote: "I am ready to be on record as advocating that
the United States assume leadership and full responsibility for
the maintenance of peace in the Pacific in the years to come after
the war." Other nations may try to interfere with U.S. rights and
markets in Asia, as Japan did in China, Quezon advised, and the
United States would have to be strong in order to serve notice
that such interference "will meet instant and effective punish
ment." Quezon noted that he favored the establishment of an in
ternational police force. but only if "Uncle Sam were. in effect.
the Chief of Police." The United States. he asserted, should have
air and naval bases in the Philippines "from where you can strike
against any country that may try to impinge on your rights." And.
to be secure in the Philippines. the United States should take all
the Japanese-mandated islands. 7
Now there is nothing wrong when someone changes his or
her mind, and certainly the devastation of World War II changed
a lot of minds on a lot of questions relating to war and peace.
5. Manuel Quezon, The Good Fight (New York: D. Appleton-Century
Co., 1946 [reprint Manila: Cacho Hermanos, Inc., 1985]), p. 151.
6. "Press Statement of Senate President Manuel L. Quezon," Wash
ington, D.C., 22 Mar. 1934, Quezon Papers, series 8, box 67.
7. Quezon to Sumner Welles, undated draft, in Nov. 1942 folder, Quezon
Papers, series 5, box 116.
4
Quezon claimed that the war had taught
everyone the lesson that the only security
"PIOSE BASES
for small nations was foreign military
W',-L pROT6c;..r (,AS,
bases. Other approaches to national
£R. 'MfiAN YOU,
defense, such as neutralization or
civilian-based defense, were purportedly
FRoM E.'/.-reRNAL A.~RSSSION
refuted by the Philippines' own ex
perience, for, according to Quezon, his
country had sought to follow a defense
policy before the war based on that of
Switzerland, with grim results. In fact,
however, Philippine prewar defense
policy departed from the Swiss approach
in many crucial respects, most notably in
that the Philippines housed foreign
military bases with offensive potential
while it was supposedly seeking
neutralization. 8 That the United States
Who actually benefits from the U.S. bases in the Philippines? Some feel that rather than
had rushed massive amounts of military
advancing national security and peace they imperil the peoples of both the Philippines
equipment to its bases in the Philippines
and the United States. Magnetsfor nuclear holocaust, they serve only the interests of u.s.
in the six months before Pearl Harbor to
investors and the Philippine elite. This cartoon and the above sentiments were part ofan
no avail or that the impregnable British
editorial in the Philippine Human Rights UPDATE (Manila. the Philippines), vol. 3. no.
base at Singapore was quickly overrun by
8 (15 April-14 May 1988) and are reproduced here courtesy of the Philippine Human
the Japanese Imperial Army might have
Rights UPDATE.
suggested that foreign bases were hardly
a guarantee against invasion and con
quest.
To Quezon there were surely other considerations leading
United States and the Philippines following the war, Quezon
him to favor U.S. bases aside from reasons of national security.
wrote Roosevelt, "should be as close, if not closer" than before;
By tying Philippine fortunes to those of the United States,
this would be important for peace and "also necessary in the in
Quezon hoped to obtain a continuation of the trade relations that
terest of occidental civilization and occidental influence in the
Far East."ll
had proved so profitable to the Philippine elite: U.S. bases in the
Philippines, Quezon wrote Welles, "must of necessity require
In May 1943 Quezon formally called for the conclusion of
a tentative bases agreement between the United States and the
that in our trade relations you place the Philippines in at least the
Philippines. This might seem, he wrote, as though it violated the
same plane as you would place, say, Cuba.""
Apologists for the Philippine upper class always refer to the
spirit of the United Nations, with nations making private agree
colonial trade relationship with the United States as being of
ments behind the backs of other countries; but since the Philip
benefit to the entire Philippine people. The facts, however, were
pines was not yet independent, there was no legal reason why
quite the opposite. A U.S. Department of Agriculture expert, for
the United States and the Philippines could not agree as to their
future relationship. 12 Filipinos, opined Quezon, would be glad to
example, reported in 1939 that "Sugar favors may be injuring
the Philippines far more than they help them. First, they have
offer bases to the United States at no cost for fifty years. 13
taken much of the best land out of the production of rice (almost
In June 1944 the U.S. Congress passed Joint Resolution 93
the sole food) and put it into an export commodity which benefits
authorizing the U.S. president to negotiate with Philippine
the people only through beggarly wages ....We are increasing
authorities and then, at his own discretion, to retain naval, air,
the wealth of a handful of people by tens of millions a year." U.S.
and army bases in the Philippines. The resolution was endorsed
trade policy "has enriched a few hundred, or at most a few
by Quezon and his vice-president in exile, Sergio Osmefia,14 and
thousand, people beyond any wealth enjoyed in the Orient. "10
signed by Roosevelt. Some members of Congress had favored
Independence threatened to disrupt this trade bonanza for
the Philippine elite: U.S. military bases in the Philippines after
the war would serve to bind Washington to those in the Philip
pines who provided the bases. The relationship between the
11. Quezon to Franklin D. Roosevelt, 26 Oct. 1943, Quezon Papers,
series 5, box 118.
12. Quezon, draft of memo,S May 1943, Quezon Papers, series 5, box
117.
8. For further discussion, see Stephen R. Shalom, "The Implications of
the Philippine Pre-War Experience for Peace Research," Journal of
Peace Research, vol. 25, no. 3 (1988).
13. Quezon, "Some recommendations on the Dec. 41 proclamation of
the U.S. President to the Filipino People," 29 Apr. 1943, Quezon Pa
pers, series 8, box 99.
9. Quezon to Welles (see note 6 above).
14. U.S. Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United States,
1945 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1969), vol.
6, p. 1204. (Series hereafter cited as Foreign Relations plus the year,
volume, and page number.)
10. Frederic C. Howe to Francis B. Sayre, 16 May 1939, p. 4, U.S. Na
tional Archives, Record Group 126, Independence, Political, 1940 file.
(Records hereafter cited as Records 126.)
5
u.s.
president Truman, Philippine president Osmeila, and U.S. high commissioner to the Philippines Paul McNutt
in Washington in 1945. Osmeila supported U.S. rights to bases in his country by backing them publicly and by sign
ing a secret agreement.
deleting the requirement for negotiations, but Secretary of War
Stimson, formerly high commissioner to the Philippines, dis
suaded them, confiding that while the requirement "to us is
meaningless," since the U.S. president had the authority to ac
quire whatever bases he wanted, negotiations were to the
Filipino a great source of face and courtesy.IS Either way,
however, the joint resolution was overkill: There was no need to
leave final authority in the hands of the U.S. president because
Quezon and Osmefia had frequently assured U.S. officials that
"the United States may confidently expect from us full coopera
tion" in obtaining bases. 16
This, indeed, was the pattern throughout the years of
colonial rule: Whatever their public stance, Quezon and Osmefia
had privately assured the United States of their cooperation and
they had delivered on their assurances: from 1907 when Osmefia
and Quezon got the Philippine National Assembly as its first of
ficial act to express its gratitude to the United States,l7 to
Quezon's private offer in 1909 to approve any legislative
15. Telephone conversation, Henry L. Stimson and James W.
Wadsworth, 13 June 1944, Stimson Papers, Yale University, box 172.
16. Sergio Osmeiia, "Philippine-American Collaboration in War and
Peace," speech delivered 2 Jan. 1944, in Quezon Papers, series 8, box
104.
17. Peter W. Stanley, A Nation in the Making: The Philippines and the
United States, 1899-1921 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press,
1974), pp. 135-36.
measure the U.S. wanted,IS to Quezon's protection of U.S. inter
ests during the commonwealth period. 19 In return for this service
to U.S. interests, Quezon, Osmefia, and the other elite politicians
were able to use their public positions for the aggrandizement of
themselves and their class, while the majority of the population
remained unrepresented and impoverished. 20
During World War II the Japanese occupied the Philippines,
and most of the Philippine elite shifted their allegiance to Tokyo,
at least as long as it seemed that the Japanese might win." The
U.S. military reconquered the islands beginning in October
1944, and by the end of the fighting the country lay in ruins. In
1945 the commonwealth government was reestablished under
18. W. Cameron Forbes to William H. Taft, 13 Nov. 1909, W. Cameron
Forbes Papers, Harvard University, fms am 1366.1, vol. 1.
19. R.R. Ely, "Memorandum on Protection of American Interests in the
Philippines during and subsequent to the Commonwealth Period," 8
Feb. 1938, Records 126, box 45, File: Protection of American Interests
in Phil[ippines]-1944.
20. Joseph Ralston Hayden refers to the have-nots in Philippine society
as the unrepresented minority (The Philippines: A Study in National
Development [New York: Macmillan, 1942], pp. 376-400), but even if
one assumes that the right to vote was enough to assure representation,
the Philippine constitution restricted suffrage to those able to read and
write, a skill held by only 48 percent of the population over ten years of
age in 1939 (Hayden, p. 204).
21. See David J. Steinberg Philippine Collaboration in World War /I
(Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1967) for details.
6
the leadership of Sergio Osmefia, who had succeeded to the
presidency upon Quezon's death in August 1944. At U.S. insis
tence, the prewar Congress was called into session even though
many of its members were awaiting trial for collaboration.
Manuel Roxas, who had served the Japanese in a number of
capacities, was elected senate president. With a selflessness
characteristic of the elite, one of the Congress's first acts was to
vote its members three years' back pay, even though the only ser
vice many had performed during the occupation was collabora
tion with the Japanese; low-level government employees, on the
other hand, were only to receive three months' back pay.22
On 28 July 1945 this Congress voted unanimously in favor
of a resolution authorizing the Philippine president to negotiate
with the U.S. chief executive to establish military bases in the
Philippines. 23 The representatives were eager to erase any doubts
there might be regarding their loyalty to the cause of the United
States. Said the resolution's sponsor, "The United Nations ... [has]
a formula for the perpetuation of peace, but to me .. .I would rather
put my whole faith in the United States of America because I am
convinced that it is the only nation that has proven that it is the true
lover of freedom, unselfish and ready to give to others their right
to be free, and to respect that freedom once that freedom is granted
by her."24 Another noted that there was no reason to worry that
foreign bases might detract from Philippine sovereignty, as proven
by the examples of British bases in Egypt and U.S. bases in
Panama."
Before this authorization by the prewar Congress, however,
a secret agreement was signed in Washington in May 1945 be
tween Osmefia and Truman, secret from the people of the United
States and the Philippines, and secret as well from the Philippine
Congress. 26 The U.S. government sought to keep it secret until
after the Military Bases Agreement was signed in 1947.27
In April the State Department had privately advised that it
anticipated no objections to U.S. bases from the commonwealth
government, given the fact that Quezon and Osmefia had ap
proved in advance the joint resolution of the U.S. Congress. "If
this assumption is correct," the State Department continued, "it
would probably not be advisable to suggest a quid pro quo in
connection with negotiations on this subject. Such a course could
be left to be utilized later if any serious opposition should arise
on the part of Philippine officials."28
Some U.S. officials, like Senator Millard Tydings, wanted
the United States to finalize a bases agreement with the Philip
pines before independence since there was no guarantee that
Osmefia would maintain his support for the bases once U.S.
sovereignty was withdrawn. Secretary of State Edward R.
22. See the sources cited in Stephen R. Shalom, The United States and
the Philippines: A Study (~f Neocolonialism (Philadelphia: Institute for
the Study of Human Issues, 1981), p. 196, n. 63.
23. The text is given in the Philippine Congressional Record, House of
Representatives, 15 June 1945, p. 16.
24. Philippine Congo Rec., HR, 15 June 1945, p. 16.
25. Philippine Congo Rec., HR, 14 June 1945, pp. 12-13.
26. Roxas message, Philippine Congo Rec., Senate, 17 Mar. 1947, p.
169.
27. Foreign Relations 1946. vol. 8, p. 926-99.
28. Foreign Relations 1945. vol. 6, p. 1204.
Stettinius, Jr., on the other hand, was convinced that Osmefia's
commitment to the bases was firm,z9 and on 22 April he reported
to the White House that in a conversation the day before Osmefia
had definitely and specifically stated that whatever suggestions
the United States had regarding bases would be agreeable to
him.30 Stettinius was right. The War and Navy departments drew
up a "Preliminary Statement of Principles" pertaining to U.S.
bases in the Philippines, and on 14 May Osmefia and Truman
signed it. 31
A comparison of the Philippine military bases
agreement and the status of forces agreements
reached with the NATO allies "provides ample
evidence that Filipinos were justified in their belief
that they received unequal treatment from the
United States."
The statement of principles gave the United States the right,
pending development of a detailed plan, to retain all military
bases it held under the commonwealth or developed during the
course of the war, and the right to acquire any additional sites it
might need. Movement between the bases was to be unrestricted,
and the number of personnel assigned was to be unlimited. No
other nation was to be permitted to obtain base rights in the
Philippines without prior agreement of both the U.S. and Philip
pine governments. In October 1945, the United States indicated
that it was not yet prepared to negotiate on the details of a bases
agreement, but the War and Navy departments believed that the
secret agreement "adequately safeguards U.S. Military interests"
in the meantime. 32
In April 1946 a presidential election was held in the Philip
pines between Osmefia and Manuel Roxas. As was typical in
Philippine politics, both candidates were part of the rapacious
prewar elite. A prominent politician, Roxas had also been a
lawyer tied to some of the wealthiest individuals in the country.
His papers reveal that on at least one occasion he bought "several
thousand" shares of stock on the basis of insider information and
passed on the information to a rich client. Jl In 1933 both Roxas
and Osmefia had urged Philippine acceptance of the Hare
Hawes-Cutting Act that gave the United States the right to retain
whatever bases it wanted, and now in 1946 both again endorsed
29. William E. Berry, Jr., U.S. Bases in the Philippines: The Evolution
of the Special Relationship (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1989), p. 14.
30. Foreign Relations 1945. vol. 6, p. 1204, n. 39; see also p. 1199.
31. Foreign Relations 1945. vol. 6, pp. 1208-9.
32. Foreign Relations 1945. vol. 6, p. 1211.
33. Roxas to Cesar Ledesma, 20 July 1936, Manuel Roxas Papers, Na
tional Library, Manila, series 1, box 1. (Papers hereafter cited as Roxas
Papers.)
7
u.s. bases in the Philippines. Osmei'ia's platfonn declared that
his party favored U.S. bases as a means to "keep alive the inter
est of this great nation in our land after independence.,,34
Roxas won the election and promptly assured U.S. officials
that they could write their own ticket as to the size and location
ofmilitary bases. 35 But when the United States presented its draft
of a proposed bases agreement, even Roxas had to balk. Roxas
had no objection to many of the extraordinary demands: that the
United States would acquire the bases for ninety-nine years (ar
ticle 29),'6 that Clark Air Base alone was to cover 130,000 acres,
that the city of Olongapo was to be totally part of Subic Naval
Base, that U.S. authority would extend to the "vicinity of the
bases" (article 3),37 that the United States would be pennitted to
use public utilities and all other facilities under conditions no
worse than those applicable to the Philippine anned forces (ar
ticle 7), that the Philippines could not give third nations base
rights without U.S. approval (article 25), or that Filipinos were
to be pennitted to volunteer to serve in the U.S. anned forces (ar
ticle 27). But on two matters Roxas felt politically unable to ac
cept the U.S. position.
What mattered to the elite was that the United States
would give them access to its high-priced sugar
market and the military aid to make sure they didn't
have to share with the majority ofFilipinos the im
mense wealth this access created.
First, the United States was insisting on having extensive
military facilities within Manila, which would not only interfere
with the growth of the city, but also inevitably lead to serious
friction between U.S. soldiers and local citizens. Already in the
aftermath of the war, U.S. military personnel stationed in the
capital city had been involved in many altercations with
Filipinos.3s Second, the criminal jurisdiction provisions pro
posed by the United States were essentially a revival of ex
traterritoriality, giving the United States authority over all
offenses committed by members of the U.S. anned forces re
gardless of who the victim was and whether the offense was com
34. Berry, U.S. Bases, p. 14.
35. R.B.W[arren, U.S. Army], Memorandum for the Record, 12 May
1946, U.S. National Archives, Modem Military Records, record group
319, ABC 686 Phil (8 Nov. 1943), sec. I-C. (Records hereafter cited as
Records 319.)
36. The U.S. demand for a ninety-nine-year term was actually quite
modest compared to what the navy really wanted: "perpetual rights."
Foreign Relations 1945, vol. 6, p. 1205.
37. Berry (U.S. Bases, p. 128, n. 142) notes that the agreement gave im
plicit authority to the United States to conduct operations outside the
bases.
mitted on or off base, on or off duty.39
Washington was eager to conclude the bases agreement be
fore the date set for Philippine independence, 4 July 1946. But
these two issues could not be easily resolved, and the Roxas ad
ministration was overwhelmed with other work, particularly the
task of securing congressional approval on the U.S.-Philippine
Trade Agreement, which, if not passed before independence,
would need a two-thirds vote as a treaty, instead of a simple
majority.40
Talks continued after 4 July, but then Roxas faced an even
more pressing legislative challenge: obtaining an affinnative
vote in the Congress on an amendment to the Philippine Con
stitution to allow U.S. citizens special investment rights in the
newly independent nation. The Philippine public was enraged
by this so called "parity" amendment, and particularly resented
the fact that the U.S. Congress had expressly made rehabilitation
funds partly dependent on Philippine acceptance of "parity."
Roxas found that he had to expend a tremendous amount of
political capital to get this amendment through the Congress, and
indeed it would not have passed without blatant illegal
maneuvering by Roxas's supporters in the House and Senate.4I
In this situation, Roxas decided that in order to protect him
self politically he needed to get the Senate involved in the bases
issue, and he appointed a negotiating committee that included a
bipartisan group of senators. 42 Moreover, he decided that he
would not submit the bases agreement to the Senate in Septem
ber, but rather wait until the following session. U.S. ambassador
Paul V. McNutt reported from Manila that for Roxas to have tried
to rush a bases agreement through would smack of coercion
"which he could ill afford after" the "parity" battle."
The War Department, however, was growing impatient,
and proposed using U.S. aid as leverage. The State Department,
which frankly viewed the military's demands as excessive and
Philippine objections as having considerable merit, recom
mended against using ongoing loan negotiations or other aid as
explicit pressure. 44 A few months earlier, however, McNutt, in
recommending favorable U.S. action on Roxas's loan request,
had already made the implicit link clear: The loan should be
38. Roxas got a letter from one Filipino complaining about the behavior
of U.S. GIs, but particularly black GIs. Justo N. Lopez to Roxas, 7 Oct.
46, Roxas Papers series 1, box 26. For documentation on U.S.-Filipino
incidents, see Violet E. Wurfel, "American Implementation of Philip
pine Independence" (Ph.D. diss., University ofVirginia, 1951), pp. 245
48.
39. U.S. Department of State, Office of Public Affairs, Division of His
torical Policy Research, "The Negotiation of the United States-Philip
pines Military Bases Agreement of 1947," Research Project no. 319,
Feb. 1953, confidential (declassified), appendix B, contains the various
drafts of the bases agreement. (Document hereafter cited as Department
of State, "Negotiation.")
40. Department of State, "Negotiation," p. 40. On the passage of the
trade agreement, see Stephen R. Shalom, "Philippine Acceptance of the
Bell Trade Act of 1946: A Study of Manipulatory Democracy," Pacific
Historical Review, vol. 49, no. 3 (Aug. 1980).
41. See Shalom, "Acceptance of the Bell Trade Act."
42. Dept. of State, "Negotiation," p. 42.
43. Foreign Relations 1946, vol. 8, p. 920.
8
The U.S. attack aircraft carrier Midway at Subic Bay in 1945. The United States has been able to maintain a major military
presence in the Philippines for almost a century.
approved, McNutt argued, because "Roxas has indicated by
word and deed his desire to follow [the] American pattern of
government and retain closest ties with us in all matters includ
ing military bases deemed essential to mutual security but in
volving great political risks on Roxas['s] part."45 (Although in
theory the loan, like other U.S. aid, could be used for improving
the lot of the impoverished majority, in practice it went to fur
ther enrich the elite-which only served to tie the elite more
closely to the United States.),6
Roxas, too, well appreciated the implicit link between U.S.
aid and cooperation on the bases. As he informed his ambassador
in Washington: "My own fundamental attitude is that the bases
are desirable from a Filipino viewpoint, both for the sake of
security and for the sake of furnishing [aJ link between the
United States and the Philippines. Nor am I unaware of the
material benefits in the form of dollar expenditures and em
ployment. ..." "But even more important" than previous Philip
pine commitments and "the desirability of security attained
through the existence of bases, is the maintenance of intimate
and collaborative Philippine-American relations." The basic ob
jectives of the foreign policy of the Philippines, said Roxas, "are
the protection of our national sovereignty and the maintenance
of strong and indissoluble ties of friendship and cooperation for
mutual interest, with the United States."4'
These priorities in Philippine foreign policy were clearly
illustrated the next month when the Philippine delegate to the
United Nations, Carlos P. Romulo, informed Roxas that the
United States seemed intent on keeping the Japanese Mandated
Islands as its own strategic territories, in contradiction to the
principles of the world body. Romulo indicated that his own view
was that for the Philippines to support the United States in this
would be a reversal of Manila's well-known position in favor of
self-determination, but since he had been directed to follow U.S.
policy, he awaited further instructions. 4K Roxas replied that the
Philippines should follow the United States, since that country
46. Thus, while "the standard of living of the mass of people has not
reached the pre-war level," the "profits of businessmen and the incomes
oflarge land owners have risen considerably." Foreign Relations 1950,
vol. 6, pp. 1514-20, paragraph 19.
47. Roxas to J. M. Elizalde, 30 Oct. 46, Roxas Papers, series I, subseries
B, box 5.
48. Romulo to Roxas, 13 Nov 46, Roxas Papers, series 1. box 27.
9
maligning the nature of our relationship with the United States."
Such bases, he noted, were "politically unpalatable," "strategi
cally unnecessary," and a "source of fear that in case of a war,
the national capital will be subjected to attack and destruction. "52
In the face of Philippine resistance, which Washington ad
mitted was "understandable," the State Department urged the
War and Navy departments to reconsider their military needs in
the Philippines. Given the U.S. determination to garrison Japan
and Korea as well as Europe, the War Department concluded it
could ill afford to construct new army bases in the Philippines
outside of Manila. Accordingly, the U.S. government decided to
seek only navy and air force bases in the Philippines, thus
eliminating the need for facilities within the capital city.53
Negotiations continued on the issue of criminal jurisdic
tion, and agreement was reached in late February 1947; the final
resolution, in the words of a U.S. military specialist on the Philip
pine bases, "went a long way" in meeting the U.S. military's de
mands. 54 A comparison of the Philippine military bases
agreement and the status-of-forces agreements reached with the
NATO allies "provides ample evidence that Filipinos were jus
tified in their belief that they received unequal treatment from
the United States.""
Will rights to the bases continue in exchange for rent, trade, and aid
from the United States? "The ongoing bases review will test the Cory
government's true colors. Will it uphold the national interest, or will
it bow to the U.S. government's whims, proving that it isjust another
puppet regime?" This cartoon and the above quote are from the
Philippine Human Rights UPDATE, vol. 3, no. 8 (15 April-14 June
1988), and are reproduced here courtesy of the Philippine Human
Rights UPDATE.
had no aggressive or imperialist designs and U.S. control of the
islands would help Philippine security. Roxas instructed Romulo
more generally that, "I wish especially to be consulted on mat
ters where your opinion is contrary to American policy in view
[of] pending negotiations on vital matters with American
government. ,..9
Roxas still resisted U.S. bases within the capital city. He
told McNutt that even though he might agree to some bases in
the Manila area, the Congress would never do SO.50 Indeed, Mc
Nutt reported a "growing impression in articulate Philippine
circles that [the] U.S. is demanding base rights and other special
privileges and that [the] Philippine Government is yielding, al
though unwillingly, to U.S. demands."51 Roxas summarized for
his ambassador to Washington the objections to bases in the capi
tal: They would be a "constant source of friction" and a "con
venient object of attack by individuals and groups interested in
49. Roxas to Romulo, 16 Nov 46, Roxas Papers, series 1, box 27; Roxas
to Romulo, 4 Dec. 46, Roxas Papers, series 1, box 28; Roxas to Romulo,
5 Dec. 1946, Roxas Papers, series 1, subseries B, box 10.
50. Dept. of State, "Negotiation," p. 52.
Other nations may try to interfere with V.S. rights
and markets in Asia, as Japan did in China, Que
zon advised, and the V nited States would have to be
strong in order to serve notice that such inter
ference "will meet instant and effective punish
ment."
Late in the negotiations a new issue was introduced by the
U.S. Navy, which insisted on a clause stating that title to all real
property on naval reservations should be held by the United
States. The Philippine negotiators objected to such a clause, and
so the State Department proposed that the agreement not men
tion title rights to property, but that instead an exchange of notes
would provide for subsequent negotiations regarding these
rights. The text of the notes was to be kept secret until after the
bases agreement was approved by the Philippine Congress. 56
52. Roxas to Elizalde, 30 Oct. 46, Roxas Papers, series I, subseries B,
box 5.
56. Acheson to U.S. Embassy, Manila, no. 301, 12 Mar. 1947,
811.24596/3-1247; McNutt to Secretary of State, no. 430,13 Mar. 1947,
811.24596/3-1347, both in U.S . National Archives, Diplomatic
Records. (Records hereafter cited as Diplomatic Records.)
10
One final snag held up dle signing of the bases agreement:
U.S. approval of military assistance to the Philippines. Though
there was no explicit quid pro quo, the relation between the bases
agreement and U.S. military assistance was obvious to all. On
the U.S. side, "negotiations for concluding a U.S.-Philippine
military assistance agreement have been held in abeyance by the
State Department pending outcome" of the bases talks. 57 On the
Philippine side, the deputy chief of staff privately advised: "We
feel and know that strategic-economic position and policy of the
United States, especially as regards to oil, demand that she main
tain military, naval and air bases in the Philippines, which is the
key to the great oil reserves of the Indies." He urged Roxas "to
use the base talks as the bargaining instrument it really is in get
ting the military assistance we actually need and want, for use
as we want it, and under the terms we wish to impose.,,58 Roxas
at first refused to sign the bases agreement until the military as
sistance agreement was approved, and only relented when Mc
Nutt assured him of his continued support on the military aid
pact.59
That Philippine officials were willing to use the bases as a
bargaining instrument demonstrates that they did not consider
the military bases essential to their security; after all, in 1947
there was no plausible external threat to the Philippines. The
military assistance Philippine leaders sought in return for giving
the United States base rights was, like the free trade relations, a
benefit to the elite, not to the Philippine population as a whole.
The military aid was to be used against the internal threat to the
status quo, coming primarily from the radicalized peasantry of
Central Luzon. No one at this time was trying to overthrow the
government, but the effort by the elite to restore by force and ter
ror its prewar domination of the countryside that had been dis
rupted by the Japanese occupation was provoking peasant
resistance. ro A small-scale ci viI war was thus raging in the provin
ces of Central Luzon, and U.S. military aid would help the elite
maintain its power. As Roxas told U.S. charge d'affaires
Nathaniel Davis, the Philippines wanted U.S. military aid "not
only for a short, limited period but for as long as American
military and naval bases are maintained in the Philippines"61
which is to say, for ninety-nine years.
Roxas signed the bases agreement on 14 March, declaring
that on every major matter the essential interests of the United
States and the Philippines were "identical."62 Three days later
Roxas submitted the agreement to the Senate for its approval. He
told the senators that U.S. policy toward the Philippines had been
57. Joint Staff Planners, JPS 822/1, 31 Jan. 1947, Records 319, ABC
686 Phil (8 Nov. 1943), sec I-D, Appendix "B," p. 9.
58. Brigadier General Calixto Duque, Deputy Chief of Staff, to Quirino,
24 Feb. 1947, Elpidio Quirino Papers, Ayala Museum, Manila, Pre
Presidential Papers, U.S.-RP Military Agreements 1946-Mar. 48
folder. Duque is reporting to Quirino what he earlier told Roxas.
59. McNutt to Secretary of State, no. 444, 14 Mar. 1947, Diplomatic
Records, 811.24596/3-1447.
60. See Benedict J. Kerkvliet, The Huk Rebellion (Berkeley: University
of California Press, 1977).
61. Roxas to Nathaniel P. Davis, Acting Ambassador, Apr. 1947 Roxas
Papers, series I, subseries B, box 4.
"high-minded," and that the U.S. negotiators had met every
Philippine objection on the bases "either totally or by a
reasonable compromise." He praised the United States for agree
ing with his insistence that there be no bases in Manila. Resi
dents of areas where there were to be bases, he reported, had been
consulted and favored the presence of the facilities, and, in fact,
"the residents of a number of areas which the American Army
and Navy are abandoning as military installations have peti
tioned the Governmentto induce the U.S. Army and Navy to stay
on." The fundamental purpose of the bases, he asserted, was the
protection of the Philippines. By this agreement, "We have
defined the community of interests which will bind our two
peoples for almost a century.',"3
Most members of the Senate shared Roxas' s effusive view
of the United States. Senator Pedro C. Hernaez admitted that if
one were to examine the bases agreement article by article, one
might conclude that the United States would abuse the Philip
pines. Nevertheless, he claimed, "if we examine the events and
historical record of our country under American rule, we can
conclude with certainty that there is no reason that could justify
these fears about the future."64 To Hernaez and most of his elite
colleagues, the belief in U.S. benevolence was not dampened by
the facts, that for example the United States had tied rehabilita
tion funds to Philippine acceptance of special rights for U.S. in
vestors, that the trade act gave the U.S. president control over
Philippine currency,65 or that the United States had insisted upon
and obtained criminal jurisdiction rights for its military person
nel that would be unacceptable to any independent nation. What
mattered to the elite was that the United States would give them
access to its high-priced sugar market and the military aid to
make sure they didn't have to share with the majority ofFilipinos
the immense wealth this access created.
Supporting the bases served a further objective of the elite.
So many of them had collaborated in one way or another with
the Japanese that endorsing the bases would be a way of affirm
ing their loyalty to the United States. Unfortunately, for many
Filipinos the problem with collaboration was disloyalty to the
United States, the colonial ruler, rather than to the self-deter
mination of the Philippines,"" and so the way to clear one's
reputation was to pledge allegiance to the United States, even at
the expense of Philippine sovereignty. Better a puppet of the
United States than of another country like Japan, Senator Her
naez declared in supporting the U.S. bases. 67
A few senators raised sharp objections to the bases pact.
Tomas Confesor declared that the bases were "established here
by the United States, not so much for the benefit of the Philip
pines as for their own." He warned his colleagues that "We are
within the orbit of expansion of the American empire. Imperi
alism is not yet dead." "Parity" and the bases agreement,
63. Philippine Congo Rec., Senate, 17 Mar. 1947, pp. 168-72.
64. Philippine Congo Rec., Senate, 26 Mar. 1947, p. 236.
65. On trade act provisions, see Shalom, United States and the Philip
pines, pp. 43-51.
66. See Renato and Letizia R. Constantino, The Philippines: The Con
tinuing Past (Quezon City: Foundation for Nationalist Studies, 1978),
pp.I06-131.
II
Confesor charged, "complement one another. In the first, we de
liver into the hands of the nationals of the United States the
natural resources of the country. In the second, we relinquish our
sovereign rights over practically every portion of the Philippines,
to the end that the United States may properly protect the invest
ments of her citizens in this country. "68
Senator Alejo Mabanag stated: "Fundamentally and in
principle, I am opposed to the establishment of bases in our
country because it constitutes an encroachment on our
sovereignty. Not only that, while years ago military bases were
considered good defenses, [in] this age of the atomic bomb, such
bases are no longer sufficient defense. On the contrary, they are
an invitation to attack.''''9
These minority views were to no avail. On 26 March the
Senate approved the bases treaty by a vote of eighteen in favor
and none opposed.70 Even Confesor voted yes. 71 Three senators
were recorded as absent for the vote, presumably as a small
protest. Three other senators had been barred from the body on
the grounds of vote fraud, a concocted charge engineered by the
Roxas forces back in September to ensure the passage of the
"parity" amendment. 72 Their votes were neither counted nor
recorded.
In the United States, the administration decided to consider
the bases pact an executive agreement, thus requiring no Senate
approval. There is no reason to expect, however, that the Senate
would have voted any differently from the way it had on the Joint
Resolution of 1944; there was a consensus of Democrats and
RepUblicans favoring the bases, and favoring as well the active
foreign policy that the bases would facilitate.
The Military Bases Agreement was thus approved in both
countries, and it has been in effect ever since. The specific provi
sions of the agreement have undergone considerable modifica
tion, most notably in that the term of the agreement was
shortened to run until 1991 instead of 2046. Most of the
revisions, however, have been purely cosmetic, and the central
U.S. concern-to be unhampered in its military operations from
the bases-has never been threatened.
The Philippine elite, whatever their doubts about the agree
ment, opted for the U.S. alliance in 1947, for it assured them of
the continued economic, military, and political support that
would enable them to maintain their power and privilege.
Washington had to resort to some explicit leverage and the oc
casional secret understanding, but by and large it could count on
the pressure implicit in its relationship with the Philippine elite
to secure its bases.
II, giving the United States tremendous influence in the country.
Moreover, the class system remains intact, and the rich who still
run the country are as dependent as ever upon the economic and
military backing of the United States; thus, despite their protes
tations to the contrary, most of them will be inclined to give
Washington what it wants on the bases. In 1947 public opinion
prevented the Philippine government from pernlitting military
bases in Manila, but otherwise was irrelevant. Whether the much
stronger popular movement for Philippine sovereignty today can
prevent the elite from signing a new bases agreement with Wash
ington will be the crucial question for 1991.
Negotiations for a new military bases agreement began in
1990. The Philippines has changed a great deal since 1947:
Popular revulsion at nuclear weapons has become widespread,
and nationalism is a powerful public force. But the economic
situation is as desperate today as it was at the end of World War
Berry, U.S. Bases, p. 36, says Confesor was absent, but the Con
gressional Record has him voting yes, with explanation.
In recent years there have been not only more street protests against
the U.S. bases in the Philippines but also substantial opposition from
establishment politicians in and out ofthe Philippine Congress. This
photo is by Robert Gumbert and isfromJoseph Collins's The Philip
pines: Fire on the Rim (San Francisco, CA: The Institute for Food
and Development Policy, 1989), p. 238. It is reproduced here cour
tesy ofRobert Gumbert and the Institute for Food and Development
72. See Shalom, "Acceptance of the Bell Trade Act."
Policy.
70. Philippine Congo Rec., Senate, 26 Mar. 1947, pp, 243-44.
n.
12
*
The Sale of Sexual Labor in the Philippines: Marlyn's Story Introduction and Translation by Brenda Stoltzfus *
Photography by Saundra Sturdevant
Introduction
Marlyn is one of thousands of women who sell their sexual
labor in the clubs of Olongapo City. The customers are U.S.
military personnel from Subic Naval Base. The naval base has
occupied land and water in the Philippines since the turn of the
century when the United States acquired the Philippines from
Spain during the Spanish-American War. Subic is the largest
U.S. naval base west of Hawaii and provides ship repair and
R & R (Rest and Recreation) for the U.S. seventh fleet.
With the establishment of the base, Olongapo changed from
a small fishing village to a base town, attracting businessmen
who saw the opportunity for earning dollars and poor people
from the provinces who hoped for a way out of their poverty.
Olongapo is economically dependent on the base, with large
numbers working in the R & R industry, which consists of bars,
massage parlors, restaurants, hotels, and souvenir and tailor
shops. It was during the Vietnam War that Olongapo became a
city. It now has a population of around 250,000.
Olongapo's official city records show that there are no pros
titutes in the city. In fact, prostitution is illegal in the Philippines.
However, there are approximately 10,000 registered hospitality
women-a tenn that covers hostesses, entertainers, go-go dan
cers, and waitresses. It is a euphemism for prostitute or for the
sale of sexual labor. In addition, it is estimated that there are ap
proximately another 10,000 women who work in the Olongapo
area and are unregistered. According to Philippine law, since
hospitality women are registered workers, they are entitled to
receive a minimum wage and maternity benefits. However, in
practice, unless a woman goes out on bar fines, she earns almost
nothing.
A cashier may earn P600 (U.S.$30) per month and a go-go
dancer P20-P40 (U.S.$1-2) per night. Wages for entertainers or
waitresses are low or nonexistent. The women earn money from
commissions on ladies' drinks and from bar fines. A lady's drink
is the drink a customer buys for a woman in a bar when he wants
her to sit and talk with him. A bar fine is the amount he pays to
the bar to take her out for a short time or overnight. In each case,
she receives a commission of half, or more often, less than half
of the price he pays. Bar fines vary from bar to bar, ranging
anywhere from 'P250 (U.S.$13) to PIOOO (U.S.$50). Those
who sell their sexual labor outside the bar system are illegal and
subject to arrest and imprisonment.
Most of the women in the clubs of Olongapo come from
poor provinces such as Samar and Leyte. Problems of poverty in
these areas stem from massive logging, land ownership in the
hands of a small elite, poor government services, and a high de
gree of militarization. Rural to urban migration is high, and
young women in particular leave for Manila in search of work
at very young ages, generally working as maids first and later
finding their way to Olongapo.
Education levels of the women are low, usually elementary
level, making it difficult to find work other than as maids or in
the clubs. They regularly send money home to support their
families and put younger siblings, especially brothers, through
schooL They often go to Olongapo under the illusion that they
can work as waitresses or cashiers and earn decent wages. Once
in the clubs, they are pressured into selling their sexual labor
either out of financial difficulties or fear of losing their jobs if
they refuse.
Olongapo is a mix of young women from the provinces
trying to earn enough money to support themselves, their
children, and their families elsewhere ...and of young American
men who are part of the U.S. military, often due to lack of
employment in the United States, and who are taught to be
patriotic and mistrusting of their host culture. The following
excerpts from Marlyn's life herstory and photographs give a
glimpse of the lives of the women and the subculture of Olongapo.
* This story and photos are part of a book in process: Let the Good
Times Roll: The Sale of Women's Sexual Labor Around U.S. Military
Bases in the Philippines, Okinawa and the Southern Part ofKorea. The
book visually and through life herstories in the women's words docu
ments the lives of women who sell their sexual labor in these three
countries.
13
Marlyn's Story: The Only Work I Know Marlyn in her home in Olongapo
My mother died giving birth to me. My brothers and sisters
and I did not live together. We are four, two girls and two boys
but they say we have siblings outside the family who were born
to other women. I was the one who was always separated from
them because I was the youngest. My aunt breast-fed me since
she also had a child who was only a month older than I was.
My two brothers worked as shoe shine boys and sold
newspapers. They sold newspapers at dawn, went to school for
a half day in the morning, and shined shoes in the afternoon.
When I was seven years old I went to Davao. My aunt sent
me to school. They wanted me to study Chinese in the morning
and English in the afternoon. I am stupid in English. I am also
stupid in Chinese. I had no interest in studying. I wanted to have
a business. I reasoned that since I was a woman, after I finished
my studies I would get married and only be in the house. If that
happens, you don't use the studies. My eldest sister was able to
start college, but where did she end up? She got married to a bus
driver in Manila. She was in the second semester of nursing when
she stopped.
14
A village in Samar, where many ofthe club women come from
At the age of eleven, I thought I wanted to live on my own
and take care of myself. We had a neighbor whose sibling needed
a babysitter. She put me on a boat and gave me transportation
money to Iloilo where they lived.
The woman had a brother in Manila. I knew their work was
holding seminars on creative thinking. They knew how to
meditate and hypnotize. The brother seemed to be the top per
son in their group.
Once he came to Iloilo. He said he wasn't feeling well and
stayed at the house while the others were gone. We were alone
at the house except for a houseboy who washed, cooked, and
cleaned. I was twelve at the time. The brother said to me, "Come
here. Come inside." When I entered his room he said, "Give me
a massage." While I was giving him a massage, he said, "Look
into my eyes." It must have been a long time, maybe two and a
half hours, but that's all I remember. I looked into his eyes while
I gave him a massage. Suddenly, I don't know, something hap
pened. What I remember is leaving the room. I went straight to
the toilet to pee. I had a lot of pain and wondered why there was
blood. That's when I was surprised.
I can't really say I was raped because there were only two
of us in the room, and it is only rape if you fight back. It was as
if I was hypnotized, and he had sex with me. It was like I was
not in myself or in my body and he forced me.
I decided to run away because he might come back and do
the same thing again. A friend of mine, who was also a maid,
helped me nm away. I was able to find a nice family where I
worked for more than a year taking care of a seven-year-old
child.
The family took a vacation in a fishing area of Iloilo. It was
there I learned to know the man who became my husband. We
lived together for five years but never married because his
mother did not like me. We had three children.
My husband had ajob in Manila. After the birth of my third
child, I went to Manila. I went to where my husband worked, but
he was no longer there. His relatives said he had gone with a
woman from Mabini (the tourist area of Manila where women
sell their sexual labor) to her province in Leyte. My mind was
confused. What could I do? I had three children. The youngest
was newborn and still nursing. I did not know ofany work I could
do. I left the three children with my husband's sister in Manila
and went to see my cousin in Angeles.
My cousin and her husband sold vegetables in the market.
Their life was difficult, and they were poor. They lived with her
husband's parents. Since I had not finished high school, only
elementary, I went to work in a club.
I went to work in a small club near the gate. I lived at the
club, and the room and food were free. That was in 1976. After
about a month, I was scared. The women were always positive
on their VD smears (women are required to have VD smears at
a social hygiene clinic every other week). We only had one
toilet and one bed. They say VD can spread easily from sharing
a toilet. I moved to a bar for Filipino customers.
15
Good times rolling at a Subic Bay club
I thought it would be better in Pangasinan-more money.
In Pangasinan, when there was a storm, a male pimp took about
five or six women and brought us to a barrio, a village on the
coast. During storms, there were Japanese ships seeking shelter
in a protected area just off the coast. They were logging ships
coming from places in Mindanao.
Once on board, the papasan distributed us to the men. A lot
depended on how lucky you were with the customer. He might
give you whatever you wanted from his things in his cabin. He
might give you a watch, jewelry, a cassette, or sometimes
clothes. Ten percent of what you earned went to the pimp.
In a club in Pangasinan, I learned to know the Filipino who
became my second husband. He was kind to me, very kind.
However, what I did not like and one of the reasons I ran away
again was that he did not treat my children the same. He loved
his children with me more than my other children.
I left my husband in 1984. I drank poison before I went to
work in a club again. I was tired of that work. I had started work
ing in a club in 1976. I had been many places. I did not want to
go back. I wanted to kill myself.
I went to work in Olongapo. I am tired of working in a club.
The work in clubs is difficult. You are always losing money now.
I cannot get customers unless I am drunk because I am embar
rassed and ashamed. It is good that I have stopped using drugs.
Before, I used drugs so that I would not care what I did. I learned
to use drugs in the clubs in Manila and Olongapo.
With Americans it is difficult. I have only an elementary
education, so naturally, if I am drunk, my English is better. If I
am not drunk, it seems as if my English is not right. If! am drunk,
I don't care what I say in English.
16
On her day offAdora and her son,Joey. and daughter. Burnadette. visiting
the club where she works
17 © BCAS. All rights reserved. For non-commercial
.1'
Women with their passbooks waitingjor'VD smears at the social hygiene
clinic in Olongapo. Bawal ang Tamad sa Olongapo means "Laziness is
Prohibited in Olongapo."
18
Marla at work
I cannot say the work in the bar is bad. I think the Americans
are taking advantage of the women. There are many children of
Americans who take no notice of those children. While they are
here, they love you very much. Then they return to the States and
you are forgotten. They take no more notice of you. They might
support you for one year, but they tire of that and see someone
new in the States.
What I feel about myself in this work is that I seem small.
Before I returned to the club, I seemed to have changed. When
I returned to the work, I saw the sacrifice and difficulty of the
women like myself. I felt smaller toward myself, not like those
who have been able to finish their education and can get other,
work. The only work I know for women without an education is
this because if you are a maid, the pay is too low. Most of the
women who work in the clubs have no educatIOn.
19
Olongapo,
the Philippines
*
Promoting Ferdinand Marcos by Stephen R. Shalom
Introduction
One of the ironies of the neocolonial relationship between
the United States and the Philippines is that leaders in Manila
are as dependent on Washington for their power as they are on
any of the sectors of the Philippine population. No ruler of the
Philippines was more aware of this than Ferdinand Marcos
during his more than two decades in power.
The chief means by which Marcos secured the backing of
Washington was by serving U.S. political, economic, and mili
tary interests. Examples are legion: Marcos sent a military civic
action group to Vietnam-breaking his own campaign
promise-to help lend an international cover to the U.S. war on
that country. I When the Reagan White House needed to disguise
secret weapons transfers to Iran, Marcos's chief of staff provided
some of the false documents. 2 After declaring martial law in
1972, Marcos nullified a ruling by the Philippine Supreme Court
that had threatened the rights of U.S. investors. 3 And throughout
his rule Marcos permitted the United States unhampered access
to two huge military bases-Subic Naval Base and Clark Air
Base.·
1. See W. Scott Thompson, Unequal Partners: Philippine and Thai
Relations with the United States. 1965-1975 (Lexington, MA: Lex
ingtoIiBooks, 1975), pp. 75-100; U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Com
mittee. subcommittee on U.S. Security Agreements and Commitments
Abroad, United States Security Agreements and Commitments Abroad:
The Republic of the Philippines, Hearings, part I, Sept.-Oct. 1969,
pp. 253-304, 355-62; "Marcos on Vietnam," Philippines Free Press,
5 Feb. 1966, p. 3, reprinted from 5 June 1965.
2. "Marcos Aide is Linked to Arms Sales to Iran," New York Times, 12
Dec. 1986, p. 1:15.
3. Stephen Rosskamm Shalom, The United States and the Philippines:
A Study of Neocolonialism (Philadelphia: Institute for the Study of
Human Issues, 1981),pp. 169, 176; JoseM.Aruego.Philippine Govern
ment in Action and the Philippine Constitution (Manila: University
Book Supply, 1982), pp. 336-37.
4. On the amendments to the U.S.-Philippine Military Bases Agreement
But serving U.S. interests was not always so easy for Mar
cos. His greed and corruption alienated local business interests
as well as many foreign investors. His human rights abuses
troubled liberal members of the U.S. Congress. And his repres
sion fueled the Communist insurgency, while pushing the mid
dle class and the church towards the left, causing officials in
Washington to worry that Marcos might drag U.S. interests down
with him.' Accordingly, Marcos needed other means of building
his support in the United States, and he pursued a variety oftac
tics intended to bolster his standing with U.S. politicians, to
neutralize his Filipino critics in the United States, and to enhance
his image among attentive members of the U.S. public.
To cement his relationship with the White House, re
gardless of who inhabited it, the Philippine dictator authorized
(illegal) campaign contributions to both Ronald Reagan and
Jimmy Carter in 1980, as well as to other influential members of
Congress.6 To deal with his exiled Filipino opponents, Marcos
had his agents operating in the United States-with the
knowledge of U.S. officials, according to a Senate report-in
filtrating and monitoring exile organizations.' Former Marcos
negotiated under Marcos. see William E. Berry, Jr., U.S. Bases in the
Philippines: The Evolution of the Special Relationship (Boulder, CO:
Westview Press, 1989), pp. 131-305.
5. The clearest statement of this concern is the November 1984 Nation
al Security Study Directive, leaked to the press in March 1985. See
Philippine News (San Francisco), 3-9 Apr. 1985, for the text.
6. Jeff Gerth, "Plan for Contributions to Reagan and Carter Found in
Marcos Files," New York Times, 19 Mar. 1986, pp. AI,AI0; Washington
Post, 19 Mar. 86, pp. AI,A23.
7. Fred Poole and Max Vanzi, Revolution in the Philippines (New York:
McGraw Hill, 1984), pp. 269-71, citing a classified 1979 report
prepared by Mike Glennon, counsel to the U.S. Senate Committee on
Government Operations; Bernard Gwertzman, "Filipinos in U.S. Were
Harassed, Ex-aides Assert," New York Times, 26 Aug. 1983,pp.AI,A4;
Associated Press (AP), "Marcos Is Said to Admitto Spy Activity in U.S.;
20 aide Primitivo Mijares
defected in 1975 and testified
before the U.S. Congress
regarding the corrupt prac
tices of his boss; in 1977,
Mijares mysteriously disap
peared.' On 1 June 1981 Mar
cos had two outspoken
Filipino-American labor ac
tivists murdered in their union
hall in Seattle. 9
Many of Marcos's
image-enhancing tactics were
unsuccessful. In 1977 he of
fered $1.5 million to the
Fletcher School of Law and
Diplomacy at Tufts Univer
sity to establish a Ferdinand
E. Marcos Chair of East Asian
and Pacific Studies. Despite
Although the documents reproduced here make it clear that the position 0/ the Marcos regime was that
protest by students and facul
the Philippines had/ew problems, in/act many Filipinos and Westerners disagreed. As a result various
ty, Tufts jumped at the offer,
kinds o/propaganda campaigns were implemented at home and abroad, including the one pointed out in
even presenting a citation for
this article-the Philippine government sponsoring public appearances by a pro-Marcos U.S. academic.
humanitarianism to Imelda
Cartoon
from and courtesy o/Voices (Hong Kong), vol. 8, no. 4 (Nov.-Dec. 1984).
Marcos. But after several
Asian specialists reportedly
declined appointment to the
visit to the United States. 13 And in 1985 lobbyist Paul Manafort
chair, Marcos failed to pay up and the position was never filled. 10
In another public relations maneuver, Imelda Marcos's Cultural
well-connected to the Republican Party and the Reagan ad
ministration-was hired by a Philippine business association
Center of the Philippines signed a contract with the Opera Com
pany of Boston. Critics charged that the arrangement was help
that essentially fronted for Marcos. This latter contract was
dropped only when the White House withdrew its support from
ing to legitimize a repressive regime, and they organized
the Philippine dictator in late February 1986. 14
picketing and mock performances outside the opera house. Al
though the contract was originally reported to be for five years,
Recently another Marcos administration propaganda effort
the Opera Company quietly allowed the contract to expire the
has come to light: a campaign to sponsor talks by right-wing U.S.
academics in support of the Marcos government. The campaign
next year."
In 1977 the Philippine government hired Doremus and
did not get very far, but it tells us something about the role of at
least some U.S. scholars in promoting the Philippine dictatorship.
Company, a U.S. public relations finn, to promote the Marcos
When Marcos fled from Manila in February 1986, among
regime in the United States. 12 In 1982, public relations consultant
John McHugh Stuart was retained to boost Marcos during a state
the files he left behind were those of his private think tank, the
President's Center for Special Studies (PCSS), headed by Adrian
Cristobal. President Aquino appointed Randolf David, director
of the Third World Studies Center at the Universi ty of the Philip
pines and a leading progressive academic, to supervise the clos
4 Agencies Reportedly Watched Opposition," Washington Post, 16 July
ing down of the PCSS. David's deputy in this task was Alex
1986,p.AI9.
Magno, a University of the Philippines political scientist. In sift
8. See Steve Psinakis, Two 'Terrorists' Meet (San Francisco: Alchemy
ing through PCSS papers, Magno came across a series of docu
Books, 1981), pp. 186-205. For Mijares's indictment of the Marcos
ments describing an information campaign conducted by the
regime, see his The Conjugal Dictatorship (San Francisco: Union
Philippine Consulate in Honolulu and recommending a more ex
Square, 1986) and his testimony in U.S. House Committee on Interna
tensive campaign using "American conservative elements, par
tional Relations,Human Rights in South Korea and the Philippines: Im
ticularlyacademicians."
plications/or U.S. Policy, Hearings, 1975.
9. "Marcos's Estate and His Widow Are Held Liable in 2 U.S. Killings,"
New York Times, 17 Dec. 1989, p. A36.
10. Tufts Observer, 28 Oct. 1977; Joel Lefkowitz, "In Whose Interest?
"More Nations Seek a P-R Polish on Their U.S. Image," New York
Foreign Grants and the American University," Politics and Education,
Times, 6 Aug. 1978, p. F3.
March-April 1978, pp. 2-3; AP, ''Tufts University Branch Cancels a
Marcos Chair," New York Times, 14 Jan. 1981. p. A17.
13. Greg Goldin, "The Toughest Accounts," Mother Jones, Jan. 1983,
p.29.
11. "Opera Group Ends Philippines Project," New York Times, 30 Oct.
1983, p. 64.
14. "Firm Registering as Lobbyist for Group Linked to Marcos," New
York Times, 22 Nov. 1985, p. A10; Patrick E. Tyler, "Lobbyists Drop
12. Fox Butterfield, "Jailed Foe of Marcos Allowed to Speak on
Philippine Contract," Washington Post, 25 Feb. 1986, p. A12.
Television," New York Times, II March 1978, p. 1:3; David M. Sloan,
21
These documents were made available to the Bulletin of
Concerned Asian Scholars, and the Bulletin sent a copy of the
main document to its author, Raul Ch. Rabe, the then Philippine
consul general in Honolulu, now an official with the Philippine
Department of Foreign Affairs in Manila, inviting his comment.
Rabe could not confirm that the document was in fact the final
version that he sent, but he did not dispute its authenticity. Both
the document and Rabe's recent letter are printed below.
The document indicates that the consulate sponsored a trip
to Hawaii for A. James Gregor, a professor of political science
at the University of California at Berkeley. Gregor's early writ
ing dealt with fascism and race. He wrote articles critical of
school desegregation and served as an officer of the International
Association for the Advancement of Ethnology and Eugenics, an
organization committed to "restoring freedom of inquiry" to
areas such as race and race relations that had been compromised
by "extraneous political and philosophical predispositions."15
More recently, Gregor has concentrated his scholarly attention
on Asian affairs. He has conducted research for the Internation
al Security Council,16 joins in Council manifestos,l1 and sits on
the editorial board of the Council's journal, Global Affairs. The
Council is part of the empire of Sun Myung Moon, an empire
considered dangerous even by many conservatives. IS Moon's
Unification Church is, for example, possibly the only religious
organization in the world to own an arms factory.19
Among Gregor's work has been some specific writing on
the Philippines and in support of the U.S. bases there.'o In 1984
Gregor wrote a thin volume for the right-wing Ethics and Public
Policy Center entitled Crisis in the Philippines: A Threat to U.S.
Interests. Much of his thesis was heaven-sent for Marcos; for ex
ample, he asserted that "it is most implausible that the Marcos
government, or anyone responsible to that government, was
directly involved" in the assassination of Benigno Aquino
(p. 58). But most welcome from the point of view of the Marcos
regime was Gregor's argument that the United States should
withhold support from Marcos's noncommunist opposition since
the latter were hostile to U.S. interests. 21 It was this message that
the Philippine Consulate in Honolulu hoped to promote by spon
soring Gregor's trip to Hawaii.
Former consul general Rabe now explains his proposed
propaganda campaign as motivated by fear that the communists
would come to power. But why, then, try to arrange a propaganda
program aimed at helping Marcos vis-a-vis the noncommunist
opposition? Right-wing dictators, of course, have always sought
to justify their continued rule by warning that they represented
the only alternative to communism. As these documents show,
Rabe tried to assist Marcos in making this case, and Gregor
helped provide the academic rationalization.
Document 1:
Letter from Consul General Raul Ch. Rabe
to the Minister of Foreign Affairs in Manila
Consulate General of the Philippines
Honolulu, Hawaii
I April 1985
No. HO-66/85
Subject: Consulate Information Campaign
The Honorable
The Minister for Foreign Affairs
Manila
SIR:
I have the honor to report that the Consulate was able to
conduct an information campaign in Honolulu from 22 to 26
March 1985 which, from all indications, was highly successful
15. See I. A. Newby, Challenge to the Court: Social Scientists and the
Defense of Segregation. 1954-1966 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State
University Press, 1969), for documentation and for a vituperative
response by Gregor.
16. Security Policy in East Asia: A Politico-Military Assessment: 1988
(New York: International Security Council, 1988).
17. See, for example, Glohal Affairs, vol. 3, no. 2 (Spring 1988),
pp.213-21.
18. T. Harvey Holt, "A View of the Moonrise," Conservative Digest,
Jan.-Feb. 1989.
22
in presenting to the Hawaiian public the other side to what op
position groups and the American liberal press are saying about
the Philippine situation.
A key factor in the Consulate's information drive was the
participation of Professor A. James Gregor, professor of politi
cal science at the University of California (Berkeley) and prin
cipal researcher for the university's Institute of International
Studies. The Consulate was able to arrange a free Philippine Air
Lines ticket for Professor Greg9r from San Francisco to
Honolulu and back. The only expense we had to meet was Prof.
Gregor's hotel expenses which we were able to cover from our
normal budget.
19. U.S. House Committee on International Relations, subcommittee on
International Organizations, Investigation {~f Korean-American Rela
tions, Report, 31 Oct. 1978.
20. E.g., Jose P. Magno, Jr., and A. James Gregor. "Insurgency and
Counterinsurgency in the Philippines." Asian Survey, vol. 26, no. 5
(May 1986); A. James Gregor and Virgilio Aganon, The Philippine
Bases: U.S. Security at Risk (Washington, D.C.: Ethics and Public
Policy Center, 1987). For an exchange between Gregor and the author
on the U.S. bases, see Pilipinas, no. 11 (Fall 1988).
21. Actually, anti-Americanism was growing among many in the
moderate opposition precisely because ofthe U.S. embrace of Marcos.
Thus, among the anti-Marcos figures who signed a statement in 1984
22
In the short period that he was in Honolulu, Prof. Gregor:
a) spoke on 22 March 1985 before the Pacific and Asian
Affairs Council at the Kahala Hilton Hotel (the audience
was composed of top business executives, state and city of
ficials, academicians, and other prominent Honolulu resi
dents);
b) appeared same day, on Honolulu's Public Service
Television (Channel 11) program "Dialog" together with
Consul General R. Rabe and oppositionists, Fr. John
Doherti' and Heherson "Sonny" Alvarez 24 of NAM and
the MFP (a video tape of the program is enclosed);
c) was featured in an article entitled "It's a mistake for U.S.
to back anti-Marcos forces, professor says," which ap
peared in the 24 March 1985 issue of the Sunday Star-Bul
letin & Advertiser (side by side with an article featuring
Heherson Alvarez). Copies of the articles are also enclosed;
and
d) was interviewed on radio station KGU on 25 March
1985. 25
In his speech at the Pacific and Asian Affairs Council, Prof.
Gregor outlined the importance of the U.S. bases in the Philip
pines, particularly the Subic Naval Base, to U.S. strategic and
national security interests. As the opposition groups in the Philip
pines have become outspokenly anti-American and are almost
unanimous in being "anti-U.S. bases," he said it would be a mis
take for the United States to support them. He pointed out that
should the opposition groups gain control in the Philippines, they
will not, as many American analysts believe, "lapse back into
broadly democratic and pro-American postures." The gist of
Prof. Gregor's remarks are contained in the attached Sunday
Star-Bulletin and Advertiser news clipping. 26
condemning the U.S. bases, many have by now dropped their opposi
tion to the U.S. facilities: among them Corazon Aquino, Raul
Manglapus, and Ramon Mitra.
22. The footnotes accompanying this document were added by Stephen
R. Shalom. -ED.
23. John F. Doherty, an American Jesuit priest, who had taught and
served as Vice President at Ateneo de Manila University. A critic of the
Marcos government, Doherty was denied re-entry to the Philippines for
"highly confidential reasons" that the Philippine Immigration Commis
sioner was "not at liberty to divulge." (Quoted in Belinda A. Aquino,
ed., Cronies and Enemies: The Current Philippine Scene [Philippine
Studies Occasional Paper no. 5, Philippine Studies Program, Center for
Asian and Pacific Studies, University of Hawaii, Honolulu, August
1982], p. v.) Doherty is the author of, among other works, "Who Con
trols the Philippine Economy: Some Need Not Try as Hard as Others,"
in Aquino, Cronies and Enemies; and The Philippine Urban Poor
(philippine Studies Occasional Paper no. 8, Philippine Studies Program,
Center for Asian and Pacific Studies, University of Hawaii, Honolulu,
1985).
24. A leader of the anti-Marcos exile organization Movement for a Free
Philippines; Alvarez later served in Aquino's cabinet as land reform min
ister and then was elected to a seat in the Senate.
25. Gregor was interviewed by conservative talk show host Bill
Maniaci.
26. Not printed here. For Gregor's argument, see his Crisis in the Philip
pines: A Threat to U.S. Interests (Washington, DC: Ethics and Public
Policy Center, 1984).
During the TV debate, Fr. Doherty and Mr. Alvarez dwelt
on the usual themes of the opposition such as corruption in
government, mismanaged economy, human rights abuses and
the growth of the NPA. 27 They also called for a cessation of U.S.
assistance to the Philippines. Prof. Gregor and Consul General
Rabe were, on the other hand, able to bring out the following
points, among others:
a) The Philippines has political and economic institutions
which are strong and stable, enabling the country to
weather the current crisis;
b) We are setting our financial house in order, our exports
are rebounding, and the President is in control and has fully
recovered from what ailed him last December 1984;
I have the honor to report that the Consulate was
able to conduct an information campaign in
Honolulu from 22 to 26 March 1985 which,from
all indications, was highly successful in presenting
to the Hawaiian public the other side to what op
position groups and the American liberal press are
saying about the Philippine situation.
c) The opposition, in trying to gain power, should not
demand the ouster of the President because this is contrary
to the democratic process of electing our leaders;
d) The opposition has become basically anti-American
which is shown by their almost unanimous demand for the
abrogation of the treaty covering the U.S. bases in the
Philippines;
e) We are implementing a mix of socio-economic programs
as well as military secure and hold operations against the
NPA. The Pentagon projections that the NPA will reach the
capability to hold government forces to a "standstill" in five
years time was clarified as being based on the assumption
that nothing is done by the government side between now
and five years hence;
f) Allegations of human rights abuses are being investi
gated but many of them are undocumented or purely hear
say;28
27. New People's Army, the military arm of the Communist Party of the
Philippines.
28. On the contrary, the abuses were well-documented. See, among
other sources, Amnesty International USA, Disappearances: A
Workbook (New York: 1981); Amnesty International, Report ofan Am
nesty International Mission to the Republic of the Philippines. 11-28
November 1981 (London: 1982); International Commission of Jurists,
The Philippines: Human Rights After Martial Law (Geneva: 1984);
Lawyers Committee for Human Rights, "Salvaging" Democracy:
Human Rights in the Philippines (New York: Dec. 1985).
Marcos ordered the building of this immense concrete sculpture of
himselfin Luzon. As this sculpture suggests, Marcos often seemed to
be succeeding in his attempt to seem larger than life. Photo by and
courtesy of Wayne Source, 1.B. Pictures.
g) There is freedom of press in the Philippines;29
h) Corruption in the Philippines is not more than what ex
ists in similar developing countries-in fact no American
company operating in the Philippines has been investigated
by the U.S. Government for payments of bribes or commis
sions to any Philippine official;
i) Amendment 6 is merely a "stand-by" power and if one
were to closely examine the constitutions and laws of
Southeast Asian countries, one will find that most have a
form of "emergency power" for the head of government as
they operate under a "climate of crisis."30
During his radio interview, Prof. Gregor expanded on his
proposition that since the "moderate" opposition in the Philip
pines has adopted a position inimical to U.S. interests, they are
not really "moderate" and should not be supported.
29. The U.S. State Department, in its extremely favorable discussion of
human rights in the Philippines, noted that "Constitutional guarantees
of freedom of speech and press are abridged in practice." Dept. of State,
Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 1985, Joint Commit
tee Print, 99th Cong., 2d sess., Feb. 1986, p. 856.
30. Amendment 6 to the 1973 Philippine Constitution, approved in a
staged plebiscite, gave the president the power to rule by decree when
ever "in the judgment of the President" there existed a "grave emergen
cy or a threat or imminence thereof." According to the U.S. State
Department's tepid human rights report for 1985: "The President pos
sesses extraordinary powers to issue decrees which have the force of
law unless overturned by the National Assembly [which Marcos con
trolled]. While described in the Constitution as being subject to exer
cise only in emergency situations or in instances where the National
Observations and Recommendations
The Philippine Government has suffered from a negative
image in the United States principally because critical reports by
the "liberal" press, and constant propaganda of oppositionists,
have not been countered effectively.
There have been various explanations as to why this has
been the case. The barrage of negative reports has been over
whelming. Our foreign service establishments and the Office of
Media Affairs, on the other hand, have been hampered by a lack
of logistics. Our personnel abroad are also working from an in
nate disadvantage-as employees of the Philippine Gov
ernment, their statements are naturally taken as self-serving and
lacking in credibility. In tum, because of this realization, many
ofour personnel have not been too eager to appear in mass media,
particularly in debates with the opposition.
Recent developments in the Philippines however have re
sulted in an opportunity for us to wage a counter-propaganda
campaign in the United States. Because of the anti-U.S. bases
position taken by the major opposition groups in the Philippines,
as well as the growing strength of the NPA movement, conser
vative elements in the United States are beginning to be more
willing to speak out and be heard on Philippine issues. Because
they are conservative in their political outlook, they view the
Philippine Government from a broader perspective, i.e., its stand
against communism, its generally pro-West stance, and the com
patibility of its interests with U.S. strategic interests in Asia.
Among these conservative elements are a number of American
academicians, including, in particular Prof. Gregor, who are
beginning to write and speak on the Philippine situation from an
angle that is generally favorable to the Philippine Government.
Thus, the opportunity to use them for our benefit has arisen.
To take advantage of this opportunity, the Consulate invited
Prof. Gregor to come to Hawaii for a counter-propaganda
program. As was shown by our experience, an American speak
ing out in favor of the Philippine Government rates high
credibility not only because he is viewed as a free agent but be
cause he is also able to put things in the American perspective.
Most of all, if he is a conservative American (as in the case of
Prof. Gregor), his ability to identify U.S. interests with Philip
pine Government interests makes him a particularly effective
spokesman for us even if we may not agree with him on every
point. The result of our efforts was quite favorable, eliciting
statements from the Filipino community that, at last, the other
side of the coin has been heard.
If' is for the foregoing reasons that the Consulate rec
ommends to the Ministry to favorably take up with the Office of
Media Affairs a program of utilizing American conservative ele
ments, particularly academicians, in a counter-propaganda cam
paign to be waged in the United States. In this connection, I am
also enclosing a copy of the concept paper prepared by Mr. A.
Balmaceda, Information Officer in this Consulate, outlining just
such a program.32 This concept paper has already been sent to
Assembly is unable to act promptly, these powers, in practice, frequent
ly have been used by the President to legislate widely, particularly in
the economic sphere." Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for
1985, pp. 860-61.
31. Original says "If."
32. Although not printed here, copies of this three-page document and
24
Minister G. Cendana of the Office of Media Affairs. As can be
seen in the proposal, this program can be carried out with a mini
mum of expenditures. It should also be implemented as soon as
possible for obvious reasons.
In addition to Prof. Gregor, other conservative academi
cians (mentioned by Prof. Gregor) who could be tapped to help
in the program are:
a) Mr. Peter Duignan Director of International Studies Hoover Institute" b) Mr. Ramon Myers
Georgetown Center of International Strategic Studies34
Georgetown University, Washington, D.C.
c) Mr. Richard Allen
Heritage Foundation, Washington, D.C. 3s d) Mr. Carl Jackson University of California, Berkeley'6 As additional inputs to the concept paper on our media
program, the Consulate would like to add the following rec
ommendations in the implementation of the program by our
foreign service establishments in the United States:
a) Aside from maximizing the "exposure" of the American
"consultant" who joins our program, arrangements should
be made for face-to-face discussions, preferably on
television, with representatives of the opposition. Our past
reluctance to debate with the opposition has unduly given
the impression to many people that the Philippine Govern
ment position is untenable or difficult to justify;
b) While Philippine embassy and/or consulate officials
should join in these face-to-face discussions, the scenario
adopted in Honolulu may be considered for "maximum ef
fect," i.e., by prior agreement, Prof. Gregor was given every
opportunity to argue and defend our positions with the Con
sul General playing a less aggressive role. In this way, the
credibility of our arguments was enhanced.
c) The concept paper mentions the possibility of a
"stipend" being paid to "consultants" in addition to their
travel and lodging expenses. This appears to be a must con
sidering that our program will take them away from home
and their usual work. However, I am certain this can be
negotiated to a "modest" level. This aspect should also be
kept highly confidential. In Honolulu, Prof. Gregor was
asked on two occasions as to who was paying for his trip
in an obvious attempt to downgrade his credibility.37
Feedback on developments in this project would be highly
appreciated.
Very truly yours,
[unsigned]
RAUL CH. RABE
Consul General
Document 2: Letter from Raul Ch. Rabe to Bill Doub of the Bulletin ofConcerned Asian Scholars Department of Foreign Affairs, Manila
Office of American Affairs
10 July 1990
Dear Mr. Doub,'"
Thank you for your letter of 12 June 1990 and the op
portunity to comment on a document concerning an information
two others-a request for Gregor's airfare and a description of his visit
to Hawaii-are in the possession of BCAS.
33. The Hoover Institution on War, Revolution, and Peace (Stanford,
CA).
34. Center for Strategic and International Studies.
35. Reagan's national security adviser from 1981 to 82, then an inter
national business consultant and senior Republican foreign policy ad
viser; he became head of the Asian Studies Center of the Heritage
Foundation in 1982.
36. Karl D. Jackson. Jackson was a colleague of Gregor's at Berkeley,
specializing on Southeast Asia. He served in the Defense Department
in the early 1980s, and in 1986 was named deputy assistant secretary of
defense for East Asia and Pacific affairs. In Congressional testimony on
the Philippines in December 1987, Jackson defended Aquino's record
campaign of the Philippine Consulate General in Honolulu in
March 1985 concerning the Philippine situation then.
The information campaign did take place and I had caused
a report to be prepared on it. The copy which you have sent to
me of the report is unsigned and I am therefore unable to con
firm if this was the version that finally was sent to the Ministry
of Foreign Affairs in Manila under my signature.
in responding to the challenge of military rebellion: "Since the attempted
coup [of August 1987], she has removed two cabinet members;
proposed and subsequently signed the military pay raise; proposed an
increase in the defense budget; visited military camps in the provinc;es;
ruled out peace negotiations with the communists; supported military
backed citizen self-defense groups; and requested expedited deliveries
of military equipment from the U.S." (Statement before the Subcom
mittee on Asian and Pacific Affairs, House Committee on Foreign Af
fairs, 2 Dec. 1987.) Jackson is currently serving as special assistant to
the president for national security affairs in the White House.
37. An individual present at Gregor's Hawaii talks reports that Gregor
publicly acknowledged that his trip had been paid for.
38. Bill Doub, managing editor, Bulletin o/Concerned Asian Scholars.
25
The consulate had undertaken the infonnation campaign as
part of our regular functions. At that time Filipinos had begun to
despair about the future of the country, the perception being that
the communists were about to take over. Mr. Marcos was still in
power but rumors were already circulating about a possible
"snap" election. I invited Professor A. James Gregor of U.C.,
Berkeley, to come to Honolulu for a series of speaking engage
ments. In the course of his visit, we discussed how important it
would be for the American public to see both sides of the picture
on the Philippines. He suggested that the Office of Media Affairs
of the Philippine government invite conservative U.S.
academicians to speak out their views on the Philippine situation
which, Mr. Gregor said, would be broader in perspective and
would be generally favorable. He mentioned the names of U.S.
academicians whom he described as conservatives.
I sent a report and a recommendation to the Ministry of
Foreign Affairs. However, I never received a feedback on it. I
assumed that the report went the way of many of our commu
nications-seen by desk officers and filed away. I did not follow
it up, realizing that Manila would listen more to the Philippine
Embassy in Washington, D.C. than to a mere Consulate on mat
ters involving information policy in the U.S. I do not recall Mr.
Gregor participating in other speaking engagements upon the in
vitation of either the Philippine Embassy in Washington, D.C. or
the other Philippine Consulates in the U.S. I also assumed that
the conservative academicians named by Prof. Gregor were
never approached. The Marcos administration did undertake an
active information campaign in the U.S. centered on a Philippine
information team in New York and I recall it also hired a PR firm
in Washington, D.C. 39 However, as I was in Honolulu then, I can
not really comment on these two matters.
Official communications are not meant for publications. If
you should decide to publish the document in your possession,
unsigned as it is, then I would appreciate it if you could also pub
lish this letter.
Very truly yours,
[signed]
Raul Ch. Rabe
39. See the introduction above.
*
FACTS AND OPINION ABOUT BCAS NEEDED! Attention all readers of BCAS and past members and
supporters of the Committee of Concerned Asian Scholars:
Paddy Tsurumi and Joe Moore are doing a study of the history of BCAS, CCAS, and the Japanese journal
AMPO, and they need facts and opinions from all sources as soon as possible. *
Please write:
E. Patricia Tsurumi History Department University of Victoria Post Office Box 1700 Victoria, British Columbia V8W 2Y2 Canada *Any materials that are lent to us will be handled with loving care and will be returned as quickly as possible to their owners in the
condition in which we received them.
26
PUSSYCAT III
Who are the faceless and voiceless women who sell
their sexual labor to U.S. military in Olongapo, the
base town adjacent to Subic Naval Base?
The women who sell their sexual labor in Olongapo,
Philippines, are not faceless and voiceless. Each
woman has a herstory, comes from someplace, is part
of a family and usually has children to care for.
''Tight Pussy" is not what the Philippines is all about.
A woman's identity cannot be encapsulated in the
term, "Little Brown Fucking Machine" (LBFM).
PUSSYCAT m is the story about Olongapo ... the
provinces ... women's lives in their own words ... im
ages ... music by Inang Laya and Joey Ayala.
PUSSYCAT I and II are clubs in Olongapo. Some of
the women in the slide show have worked at Pussycat
I. Others have been banned from these clubs for their
organizing work.
The slide show was originally produced for BUKLOD Center by Brenda Stoltzfus and Saundra Sturdevant with a grant
from The Other Side. Brenda Stoltzfus worked in the Philippines for five years with Buklod as a volunteer for Mennonite
Central Committee. Saundra Sturdevant is a photographer and historian. She is a former Quaker International Affairs
Representative in Hong Kong for the American Friends Service Committee. This slide show is related to their work in
progress, Let the Good Times Roll, a book of photographs and life herstories about the sale of women's sexual labor outside
U.S. bases in the Philippines, Okinawa and the southern part of Korea.
Bl.JKLOD is a center in Olongapo working toward the empowerment of women who work in the clubs through education
and building strong relationships between and with the women. It is a joint project of Gabriela and National Council of
Churches in the Philippines and was founded in February 1987. Four of Buklod's full-time staff are women who used to
work in the clubs.
ORDER FORM
III
CY§§Y~~I
is
is now available in video, VHS or Beta.
The video
fyom the sl ide sho'....
As a yeSIJ 1 t, the qlJa 1 i ty of
the
made
imagt:;?<;;
is not as
go(::.d
as
the orig.i.nal :--.lide sh,:,w.
We
rec':'IOHlend
·the
slide show for use in classroom and commurlity and the
"for
~;rnall
groups.
The
CClst
.:,"r the v.ide()
is
$40.00
video
includi.ng
postage. Outside the U.S.,add $10.00 foy postage.
We are ~]so able to reprod'Jce the video in the E'Jropean
PAL and SECAM.
Please inquire about cost.
systems
ORDER FORM
Please send ____ copies of PUSSYCAT III SLIDE SHOW @$200.00 per
copy, postage included.
1f outside the United States, add $10.00
foY
postage.
Each oyder includes cassette
tape,
bYOctlure of
translations of songs on the tape and a study guide.
Please send ____ copies of PUSSYCAT III VIDEO @$40.DO per
capy,
postage
in~luded.
If outside the U.S., add $10.00 for
postage.
Each order includes a by,~chuye of trarlslatio'1S of songs on the
video and a study guide.
NAME ______________________________________________________________ _
ADDRESS _____________________________________________________________ _
Make
chec~
payable to:
Brenda
Stoltzfu~,
726 Gllman,
Berkeley, CA
94710 USi\
27
Interview with Philippine Sugar Workers by Mark Selden, Gerundio Dagoob, and Nita Mahinay
Introduction
Negros, the fourth largest island of the Philippines with a
population of 1.2 million people, accounts for two-thirds of the
nation's sugar production. Two-thirds of the land is planted in
sugar, and in July the deep green sugar stalks, towering nearly
ten feet tall, dominate the countryside. In this beautiful landscape
it is easy to lose sight of the poverty that coexists with, indeed
gives rise to, great sugar wealth. The heart of the problem is the
concentration of land in the hands of the few, particularly the 2
percent of households whose haciendas of 100 or more hectares
account for 39 percent of the land. The overwhelming majority
of Negrenses are landless sugar workers.
The following interview on sugar and sugar workers in
Negros was conducted on 22 July 1989 in Bacolod City with two
organizers who have worked with the sugar workers forthe past
fifteen years. Gerundio Dagoob is deputy secretary-general and
a member of the committee on external affairs of the National
Federation of Sugar Workers-Food and General Trades
(NFSW). Nita Mahinay is a member of the external affairs team
of the national staff, former director of the education and publi
cation department, and the mother of five children.
The Political Economy of Sugar in Negros
Mark Selden (MS): Let's begin with the history of sugar and
the sugar industry that dominates the economy of Negros.
Gerundio Dagoob (GD): Sugar was introduced in Negros in the
late nineteenth century by a British merchant. Since 1952 the
Philippine government has given priority to sugar, relying on in
come assured by the U.S. quota. Since that time, despite the sugar
boom that made it the number one dollar earner of the country,
the sugar workers have suffered. In the rural areas, in most of the
plantations, the people have enjoyed none of the benefits of sugar
wealth. Their children have not gone to school; they live in ex
treme poverty, suffer rampant malnutrition, and lack medicine.
Only the landlords have benefited from government promotion
of the sugar industry. Historically, the sugar industry has
neglected the right of the sugar workers, especially the sakadas
(migrant workers), who are treated as second-class citizens in
this society.
MS: What is the structure of ownership in the sugar industry in
Negros?
Nita Mahinay (NM): Before the advent of the sugar industry,
the small peasants of Negros owned parcels of land on which
they produced enough food for themselves. When the United
States occupied Negros in 1898 the people fought for as long as
six months with no food coming in. This means that at that time
they had sufficient food to feed themselves. Only after sugar
came to dominate the rural economy was land ownership con
centrated in the hands of a few. During the Marcos regime the
few rich families further concentrated their ownership of the
land.
MS: Negros has many haciendas of 50-100 hectares, as well as
some larger ones, including a few of several thousand hectares.
There are only 15,000 sugar planters in Negros. Sixty percent of
the land is in 25-50 hectare haciendas, what we call medium
sized haciendas. Another 30 percent is in farms ranging from 5
to 25 hectares. Fifty-six percent of the farms are from 1 to 5 hec
tares, but these account for just 9 percent of the private land.
GD: The total population is ].2 million, and 90 percent of the
people are involved, directly or indirectly, in sugar. The sugar
workers number 250-300,000 in Negros, compared to a nation
al total of 450-500,000 sugar workers. The sugar workers are
landless workers. The small peasants with 12 hectares are a
separate group, though they include some who go to work as
laborers. Tenant farmers are yet another group. Nowadays, most
of the 250-300,000 sugar workers are permanent workers living
in the haciendas.
The Livelihood of Sugar Workers
The sugar workers live within the hacienda. Living condi
tions are poor, and the workers remain heavily dependent on the
owners. The workers are given no hospitalization. Especially
since the 1989 sugar crisis, the hacienda owners have ceased to
provide funds to build or repair the workers' houses. Most of the
children finish only pr!mary school (four years); only 30 percent
finish elementary school (six years), and less than 5 percent
finish high school.
28
NM: The sugar workers are barely surviving because of the
miserable wages they receive in relation to the prices of basic
commodities. For example, rice, the staple food, now costs 9-10
pesos per kilo, and a family of six needs at least three kilos or
four kilos a day. So with an average income of 24.50 pesos per
day, we cannot imagine how even the rice needs of the family
can be met. And then there is nothing left for a balanced diet.
Many workers fill their stomachs with cereals because they can't
afford proteins and vitamin-rich foods. So malnutrition and
tuberculosis are rampant. Many die without seeing a doctor.
They have no resources for education or health, and many are
deeply in debt because they are not working daily. In the sugar
industry the mills operate only six months, so workers are idle
half the year.
MS: The average daily wage for a sugar worker is 24.50 pesos.
But the official minimum wage is 42.50 pesos, scheduled to rise
to 73.50 pesos shortly. Please explain this situation.
NM: Until last May, the mandated minimum wage was 42 to 48
pesos per day. But due to the workers' national action, it was in
creased to 73.50 per day. Ofcourse the mandated minimum wage
still lags behind what is required for a Philippine family of six
just to eat three times a day. According to Negros governor Lac
son, a family of six needs 90 pesos a day to meet basic require
ments, and the government economic development agency put
the poverty line at 180 pesos per day based on current commodity
prices. The survey we recently conducted shows that workers are
actually receiving wages of only 24 pesos per day. The lowest
that workers are receiving is 8 pesos for children and women and
22-48 pesos for men, varying according to location. Our survey
showed that households receive an average of 35-40 pesos a
day-but only when work is available. So there is the second
problem of unemployment and underemployment. This figure of
35-40 pesos is sharply reduced by the fact that there are long
periods in which there is no income. In Negros sugar workers
work 170 to 180 days a year. But people still have to eat whether
they are working or not.
The main point about workers' living standards is that they
have never shared in the prosperity of the sugar industry. Al
though recently sugar prices recovered from 120 pesos per picul
A fifteen-year-old mother with her two children in the housing
providedfor sugar workers at the San Antonio Hacienda in Negros
in 1989. Living conditions on the hacienda are generally poor, and
only 4 percent of the children of sugar workers finish high school.
All the photos accompanying this article are by and courtesy of
Mark Selden, and all except the ones of the interviewees and the
governor were taken at the San Antonio Hacienda in the summer of
1989.
29
threat of the workers' union, and with some haciendas threatened by the rebels, rest houses have been abandoned. Still there are big houses for the overseers in the hacienda. The contrast be
tween the living standards of the overseers and those of the workers is very great. MS: What about the owner? NM: The owner's home is always in the city. They own homes in Bacolod, in Manila, and at beach resorts in many places. Organizing Sugar Workers
MS: When were the earliest efforts made to organize the sugar
workers?
GD: Before World War II there was a strike by the Union Obrero
Pilipinas involving an American firm, a logging concession, and
five sugar mills in Negros. From 1950 there was a national union
involving the sugar workers, but it did not organize hacienda
workers. Its strength was in the mills. So in 1971 we began to
organize the haciendas.
Gerundio Dagoob, who is interviewed here, became a sugar worker
at the age ofnine. He has been organizing sugar workersfor fifteen
years and is now deputy secretary-general of the national sugar
workers' union. This photo and the next were taken in Baeolod in
July 1989.
Iabout 132 Ibs.1 to 550-600 pesos, the lot of the sugar workers
remains miserable.
MS: What was the impact of the 1985 to 1989 drop in world
sugar prices?
NM: The problems of unemployment and underemployment
were serious. Many planters could not sustain the level of labor,
so many workers were displaced. Haciendas that had 100 work
ers would absorb only 40 or 50. In one hacienda the labor budget
was cut from 50,000 pesos to just 4,000 pesos, so people were
left to live on that. Sometimes workers worked from 6 A.M. to
5 P.M., and still got only 15 or 20 pesos. So poverty and hunger
increased.
MS: What do sugar workers do when the mills shut down during
the off-season?
NM: Some go to the sea to find shellfish, some cut trees to sell
as firewood. Some find loading jobs. But work is minimal. Most
of their time is idle, spent in sports competitions and so on to
pass the time and forget their situation. Some workers help the
peasants with their harvest. And some plant root crops on the
hacienda boundaries. Congresswoman Hortensio Stark, who
owns a hacienda in Southern Negros, recently said that the
workers can no longer cultivate plots because once they have a
source of food, there will be no labor available to plant and har
vest sugar.
MS: Could you please describe a contemporary hacienda?
NM: With the advent of mechanization the owners have con
centrated the workers in one place on the hacienda; they are no
longer scattered throughout as in the past. In some haciendas they
uprooted all the houses and brought them into a small concentra
tion and then fenced it in. A guard oversees everyone who comes
in and out in order to prevent the workers from organizing.
On a hacienda of 100 hectares there would be 200-300
workers, normally concentrated around the bodega (warehouse
for fertilizer and machinery) and the house ofthe overseer. Tradi
tionall y, the planter had a big rest house. But now, because of the
In the countryside we organize women together
with men where both work and have a vote in certi
fication elections. Once women organize, the ef
fects spillover into other areas. Thus they question
men running the family-the feudal influence
and move to share housework.
We faced many difficulties in raising the consciousness of
the workers. This is sometimes very difficult because of their
feudal mentality. They fear the landlord. In the hacienda the
landlord designates one overseer, and for every 20 or 25 hectares
there is a timekeeper, that is, a supervisor, and also the watcher
of the properties ....These constitute management, and all
policies from the absentee landlords are disseminated through
them. Through our program we raise the awareness of the
workers so that they know their rights. And the landlords are very
afraid of the unions, because once there are unions it affects their
profit. They must then comply with minimum wages and benefits
that are stipulated in the laws.,
MS: When did you first hear about the sugar workers' union?
GD: In 1973. I had been working in the cane fields since I was
nine years old and going to elementary school, and I continued
working while attending high school and eventually college. I
was very sympathetic because I was involved in the student
movement in 1968-69. At that time I sympathized with the
workers who could not find work in nearby haciendas because
the planters blacklisted them once it was known that they had
joined the union. I was a union organizer from 1974 to 1987.
MS: What was the union's strategy in its early organizing
drives?
GD: The workers in that hacienda were not given the minimum
wage and benefits. They needed medicine and hospitalization
but received no help from the owners. So they consulted people
30
in the urban areas and were referred to me. I advised them that
they needed a union-at that time I was a supervisor in an ap
pliance center in Bacolod. When I was in college I had worked
in a factory, and I had also organized a union.
MS: A union organizer in San Antonio hacienda told me how he
became an organizer. Three or four years ago when he was a high
school student working on the hacienda, he attended a land
reform meeting in the city and the overseer saw him. Realizing
that he was pro-union, they kicked him out of the hacienda. He
had to flee. That was the start of his work as an organizer. In the
early seventies it must have been far more difficult. How did you
deal with repression in the early stages?
GD: In the early stages of organizing most of the workers feared
the hacienda management, but there was minimal harassment.
from the military at that time. They didn't intervene. We used
clandestine methods to educate people about their rights and win
over the workers. Once the majority are organized, they can
resist harassment.
We locate those who are most vocal or are most discon
tented with management, who are clamoring that they have not
received their salaries, or who complain that the hacienda is not
complying with the labor laws. There are people on the hacien
da who are very conscious of their legal rights. We contact them
and ask about others who are willing to join them. Sometimes
we meet outside the hacienda, for example in the house of a
worker. When we have confidence that a majority are ready to
join, we call for a certification election.
MS: In the seventies did you usually face a yellow union [a union
controlled by the employer], or did most haciendas have no or
ganization at all?
GD: In some haciendas there are yellow unions, as a result of
landlord tactics, but sometimes there are no organizations of any
kind. Sometimes there is a yellow union without the knowledge
of the workers. Sometimes they have the workers sign a paper
on payday, and the workers who are illiterate simply sign be
cause they are used to signing on payday. They never know that
the paper they signed is a certification for a certain
union....These papers would then be presented by the landlords
during hearings. But we have experience. When we file a peti
tion for certification, we are very sure that more than 50 percent
of the workers are behind the union.
MS: Could you describe how a specific hacienda was organized
and what tactics were needed to counter the activities of the
owner?
GD: Well, in 1976 we organized a hacienda that was owned by
a despotic planter. We organized the seventy workers, some sixty
families, clandestinely. After five months they understood the
importance of unionism and their rights. So we filed for a cer
tification election. We had successfully organized the workers,
mobilizing them in rallies and in a protest. For example, they
presented a petition to Monsignor Fortich, the bishop, opposing
President Marcos's repression of the workers.
MS: What forms did landlord repression take?
GD: There was one hacienda in which the overseer reported to
the landowner that we were organizing. The next day the land
owner sent some policemen. So I was informed by the workers
not to go to that hacienda temporarily because I was the target
of the police.
NM: I have worked as a member of the area organizing commit
tee in the far north of Negros. I was born in Escalante. I worked
in the parish office while studying in a nearby college until be
coming a full-time member of the NFSW organizing committee.
Nita Mahinay, who is interviewed in this article, was also a sugar
worker from an early age and has heen an organizer for fifteen
years. A member of the external affairs staff of the national sugar
workers' union, she is the mother offive children.
That was 1975 and we were organizing several haciendas. We
once narrowly escaped from an overseer who, according to the
workers, was rushing with a pistol to shoot us. We were about to
eat our meal. At thattime we were distributing leaflets and educa
tional material to the hacienda workers when one or two workers
reported to the overseer that we were in the hacienda. So we had
to rush to the district office to escape.
MS: Did you grow up on the hacienda?
NM: I grew up in a sugar worker family, working in the hacien
da from age seven or eight. I continued working while in school
during weekends and in the summer, along with my father and
mother. But our lives were not that miserable because we were
tenants on one hectare ofland. Because we could not live on that
land alone as tenants, we also worked in the hacienda. But then
my father could not support us all because there were many in
the family-I have two brothers and one sister ahead of me, and
they were only able to finish the second grade, and one the third
grade. Only I have been able to do two years of college. I was
very receptive to the concerns of the poor because I came from
such a family. I heard about the sugar workers coming into the
parish office to seek help because they were harassed by the
military, and I was so attracted by it that I attended a seminar.
There were so many people, 100 or 150 people meeting in a
parish church. I was amazed. Why were they so interested? They
told me their stories. That was the beginning of my involvement.
I decided to stop school and leave my parish job to work with
NFSW.
MS: What is the nature of the work for a woman organizer?
NM: I was very observant of the role of women in the union.
Many women were involved in organizing in 1977. I observed
that it was not just male workers who organized. In the union
31
structure women were also elected to local office as secretary
treasurer, some even vice-president, if they had leadership poten
tial. So I see no hindrance to women getting involved. But women have less time than their husbands because beside work
ing in the field they are tied up with their children. MS: You had no children at that time? NM: I got married in 1977. I could still manage to work even after I had children. In late 1979 I was stationed in the office doing some technical work for the organizing committee. In the countryside we organize women together with men
where both work and have a vote in certification elections. Once
women organize, the effects spill over into other areas. Thus they
question men running the family-the feudal influence-and
move to share housework.
In NFSW more than half the national staff are women, but
the number of rural organizers is smaller because of the difficul
ties for women with children. NFSW has no separate women's
division, but this year, recognizing that women have special
problems, we will organize this division. There is already a
Philippine organization of women workers that includes sugar
workers, but our union has not previously had a separate or
ganizational structure for women.
MS: Please tell us more about organizing in the hacienda.
NM: We worked as an organizing committee. There were four
of us in the committee and we were assigned ten to fifteen
haciendas to organize. So we made collective programs of ac
tion for one month, gleaned from the overall committee's three
to six-month organizing program. Usually we conduct a
preliminary investigation before entering the hacienda to know
the basic problems of the people there and the character of the
hacendero [the owner]. We usually get our information from ad
jacent haciendas where we have already made contact. We then
use relatives or friends on the hacienda to do the initial inves
tigation. Only when we have a basic grasp of the economic and
political situation are we warranted to go to the hacienda and
meet some contact people. Our initial investigation includes in
quiries about the potential leaders on the hacienda, who the
workers traditionally look to, and the basic characteristics ofthat
person.lt'smost fortunate when we have a relative on the hacien
da. Then we can make contact and stay for two or three weeks,
moving in and out. The immediate response of the hacienda is
to kick out and isolate workers who are said to be organizing.
Usua II y the leaders of the union are targeted. And since we can
not immediately answer for the loss of jobs that these leaders are
facing, we always try to avoid such a situation.
Where there is no union there is no security. Before they
could just say "You cannot work anymore." You could be told
that you cannot even stay on this land anymore. So you could be
The local union leader ofthe San Antonio Hacienda. Such leaders
are sometimes singled out and laid offby hacienda owners.
The hacienda captain or foreman. in charge of assign·
ing workers on behalf ofhacienda owners
32
isolated among the workers and given no work. And you would
receive no rice rations. Or if you got jobs, there would be very
few of them, and they would be the most difficult. So we divulge
the tmion's existence only when it is strong-when we have
capable leaders, have prioritized the demands, and mobilized the
WQd.ers. We make contingency plans; for example, if two or
three leaders are laid off, the workers must be aware enough to
support their leaders while they are jobless. So that is how we
can maifttain the organization. Even if you have 90 percent of
the worktlrs organized, the management may not hesitate to dis
miss the officers who are leading the union. So the workers must
be strong, ready to support their leaders financially and morally.
The usual effect of layoffs is to mobilize our organizers. If these
leaders are laid off and their commitment to serve the workers is
already that strong, they will commit themselves to working fu11
time for the union, not just this hacienda but for others as well.
The battle of the workers against the planters starts when the
workers file a certification petition. That is when the workers an
nounce to the planters that we are organized and are willing and
ready to face you to arrange the terms of employment on the
hacienda.
GD: The hacienda can't then easily dismiss the workers because
there is an agreement. It provides that any action taken by
management against the workers, even if they have committed
negligence, insubordination, or any other crime against manage
ment, should be adjudicated. There is security oftenure. In most
of our experience, when such problems arise, because of the
union, even if the worker is terminated, a certain amount is paid
by the hacienda.
NM: But the hacendero doesn't stop there. He tries to organize
a percentage of the workers, those who are basically opportunis
tic, or whose consciousness is more tied up with the feudal lords.
So not only members but even some leaders are offered money
and better jobs to organize against the workers.
MS: What is the size and overall strength of NFSW?
~M: At present we have an 80,000-strong organization in
Negros, including both Negros Occidental and Oriental. Our
original expansion areas include Leyte, Cebu, Tamar, Iloilo, and
a portion of southern Luwn-so altogether we have 120,000
workers. Considering that in Negros alone there are 250
300,000 sugar workers, we see that much remains to be done.
Not only are many organized by yellow unions, but the majority
are still not organized at all.
NFSW finds it relatively easy to organize in the
countryside, but it is much harder in the sugar factories where
there may be 300 workers, and sometimes several thousand
workers. Consequently, just three out of eighteen factories in
Negros have been organized.
MS: It appears that the large haciendas are the most difficult to
organize.
NM: For very large haciendas with 200, 500, and even 700 hec
tares, for example the haciendas of the Benedictos and the
Cojuangcos, our first difficulty is the very strong militarization.
These haciendas have private military detachments stationed in
the hacienda itself. They have very powerful guns. They not only
take care of the hacienda, but also patrol neighboring haciendas
to assure that nobody approaches the workers. In general, once
the hacienda has more than 100 hectares, there will be a military
detachment, so it is very hard. The workers are vulnerable, and
some not only work in the fields but also serve as private guns
of the hacienda boss. So they do intelligence work against the
entrance of the unions.
GovernorLacson ofNegros, a shipping haron and close ally ofCory
Aquino. He and Aquillo have failed to listen to the demands of the
sugar workers for basic human rights and have linked the sugar
workers' union with the guerrilla New People's Army. This photo
was taken in Bacolod ill July 1989.
GD: In these big haciendas most of the workers are transient.
They are hired only when they are needed. They live outside the
hacienda and are transported during working hours.
Counterinsurgency and Civil War in Negros
MS: Let's talk about the relationship between organizing and the
ci viI war in Negros that is right now generating tens of thousands
of refugees and causing many deaths.
GD: Concerning the systematic repression of the workers, we
seek to expose the actions of the government, the military, and
the landlords. Last year there was massive intimidation of our
members, and there were threats that leaders would be salvaged
[murdered]. In Tamar, for example, rangers committed massive
violations of human rights, including massacres. So the people
were afraid. They went to the mayor and requested a certificate
indicating that they were good citizens. Whenever such requests
are made the press reports that many guerri !las have surrendered.
About 300 people made such requests. They were given an am
nesty form. So there was massive government propaganda that
thousands of NPA [members of the New People's Army] had
surrendered, but in fact it was simply people requesting govern
ment protection for their rights. The government says that there
33
Sugar workers' children. Thousands of people. sugar workers and children among them. have
been forced out of their homes by the government's large-scale counterinsurgency campaigns.
are only 800 guerrillas on Negros. But people ask. then how
come more than 20.000 have surrendered? For soldiers it means
a promotion if they can report that many have surrendered.
MS: The governments of Aquino and Negros governor Lacson
have declared all-out mobilization to crush the guerrillas, and
conducted large counterinsurgency campaigns in Negros in the
spring and summer of 1989. They have also declared that the
NFSW is associated with the NPA. How does this affect your
work?
NM: There is a massive propaganda attack mounted against the
NFSW. The government will fail in its counterinsurgency
program if it doesn't listen to the basic demands of the sugar
workers to respect trade union demands and human rights. If the
workers see that their demands for basic human rights are ig
nored by the government, they will say that there is no recourse
but to take up arms. Because we are being killed for just raising
our voices. We want a living wage. We want land for our sur
vival and for a decent living. If we are salvaged or arrested, the
only recourse is to go to the hills. For us, we do our best to show
the workers the wisdom of the collective effort in genuine
unionism. If the government does not listen to worker demands
for unions and human rights, then it will backfire.
MS: According to Philippine and international press reports, be
tween May and July 1989 more than 30,000 people have been
forced out of their homes as a result of large-scale government
counterinsurgency campaigns. This is the largest group of inter
nal migrants-that is, forced refugees driven from their homes
in decades. Several thousand such refugees are presently
camping out in the church center in Bacolod.
GD: Most of these refugees are peasants from the hinterlands.
The relief efforts are mainly organized by church leaders. They
are not directly connected with the sugar workers. But sugar
workers are also victimized because ofthe massive military cam
paign. Most of those evacuated are women and children. And
many who have died are children. We believe that it is simply
ordinary peasants who are the victims of the military operations.
not the NPA. We ask that Amnesty International and other sym
pathetic groups investigate massive human rights violations in
the Philippines. These violations should be considered by the
United Nations. A big problem is that the military still does not
accept civilian authority. So for Negros, we believe that the
moral sup.port of NGOs [nongovernmental organizations] and
our international solidarity partners is important for helping us.
MS: Please tell us more about the package of demands that
NFSW brings to management.
GD: First, there is union recognition. Second, there is the
grievance procedure. Third, there are economic demands, par
ticularly wages and hours. Eight hours a day of work, and man
agement must comply with the national minimum wage,
including across-the-board increases in line with the new mini
mum. Then benefits such as hospitalization, prehospitalization,
and dependent benefits. The minimum is sometimes a 50 percent
hospitalization grant. Incentive pay, that is, vacation of five to
fifteen days. Sick leave and maternity leave. Retirement
benefits: Fifteen to thirty days' wages for each year of service.
Transportation--<>n payday or Sunday when people must go to
market they may be taken in a truck or tractor. There is also a
farm lot or backyard garden to be established cooperatively. We
also demand security of tenure. Once we obtain bargaining
rights, then we must negotiate all these demands.
MS: None of your demands involve any role in organizing the
production process.
GD: Administration is the prerogative of management. If we
challenged it, the management would no longer exist; the union
would then have taken over all administration.
NM: But the union, in demanding security of tenure, has a say
in hiring new workers on the hacienda. The union must be con
sulted concerning who is to be hired. The management must con
sult the union, and we believe that union members must be hired
first when there is a job shortage.
34
The Cooperative Farm-Lot Program
MS: NFSW has initiated a cooperative farm-lot program. What
are its implications for the future of the sugar workers?
NM: The basic idea of the cooperative farm lots is to strengthen
the workers' organization through their joint economic en
deavors to achieve food self-reliance. If we encourage individual
farm lots, that defeats the very purpose of the sugar workers to
build organizational strength. In individual undertakings, one
will be competing with another, and the sense of cooperation and
mutual concern cannot be felt. Then individualism will thrive.
We began the cooperative farm-lot program in 1985. It
drew inspiration from worker initiatives in the 1970s when
workers occupied vacant lands on the haciendas in order to feed
themselves. Since they could not hold and cultivate the land in
dividually, they relied on their organized efforts, from planting
to harvesting.
We call it the Bayanihan system in which all help one
another. It is not restricted to farming. For example, if a family
wishes to transfer to another area, its house need not be de
stroyed. Together people can dismantle and carry it to the new
area. The basic organizing principle rests on that experience.
They cannot win any long-term gains as individuals. So that is
our inspiration. Of course the hold of the feudal lords and the in
fluence of dependency is in the minds of the workers. But with
the union they can break that dependency. Of course it is a
process of instilling in them the wisdom of collective effort, and
the wisdom of deciding for themselves and no longer depending
on the landlord. For example, in some areas where we cannot
easily unite all the workers to undertake collective farm lots, we
just see to it that the majority opt for cooperatives, and for those
who can't join, we see that they attend seminars. It is vital to con
vince these people that those who are organized cooperatively
have real advantages in terms of cohesiveness and productivity.
We emphasize that cooperation can maximize yields and mini
mize costs.
GD: It is very hard to achieve success when there are individual
owners on one side and cooperatives on the other; this paralyzes
the farm-lot cooperatives. You can make a very good plan, as in
Hacienda San Antonio where you visited, setting aside a portion
for pasture, and a portion for vermiculture [raising earthworms
for such purposes as improving the soil and feeding poultry and
fish], another for pOUltry, and for vegetables, so that you can di
versify. But for an individual, it is very hard to diversify. So we
encourage all to join the cooperative.
MS: There seem to be two related principles behind the coopera
tive farm-lot program. One is to break the pattern of monocul
ture and to allow farm workers to enjoy the basis for
~lf-sufficiency. A second aspect is to build the cooperative
consciousness and institutions that could form a bridge toward a
different type of social order. Let's talk further about the subsis
tence situation that confronts sugar workers.
NM: The farm-lot program so far has only helped a small
minority. To date we have only 500-700 cooperative units, very
small units, some numbering twenty families with only one or
two hectares, so their earnings are minimal. We are trying to ac
quire ownership of foreclosed land over fifteen years. But in
most haciendas the workers are tied up completely by the
hacendero. They depend on him for rice rations as well as for
jobs. They have no access to land except for a very small plot,
perhaps ten by twelve feet for feeding their entire family.
In many haciendas we have yet to see if the cooperative
Bullock pulling a cart. The union 'sfarm-lot program at San Antonio
has enabled former sugar workers there to become small land
owners with shares in a cooperative.
farm lots can be self-reliant and technically and financially sound. Once they can stand on their own and achieve self
reliance, it is their responsibility to replenish the union's funds so that others can be helped. MS: Tell us more about the farm-lot program at San Antonio, which has had perhaps the fullest development of 8.J1Y thus far. NM: Here we have an unusual case-not of cooperative farm lots supplementing hacienda work but of farmers working foreclosed land on which there is no longer a hacienda or hacendero. These forty-nine households are no longer sugar workers. They own their own land and are paying off the bank. MS: So they are small owners with each household having a share in the cooperative. These households, with NFSW assis
tance, are growing rice, corn, vegetables, and herbal medicines. They do vermiculture and have ducks, pigs, carabao [water buf
faloes], a few tractors ...and a basketball court. GD: They also have 30 hectares of sugar, which is difficult to convert to food crops because the soil is depleted of nitrogen. They can eventually convert it into an organic farm, but it re
quires time, and they also need a cash crop. Of course they need technical assistance, particularly com
ing out ofthe feudal structure. And they face the problem ofever
expanding families while the land cannot expand. That is one
reason for cooperation. Because if it is individual, once children
35
A homemade basketball court outside the houses offormer sugar workers who are now small
landowners. Besides growing some sugar as a cash crop. these households raise a variety of
food crops and have farm animals and a few tractors.
grow up and marry, they will have to go out to the hacienda to work. But with their collective efforts they can make plans to ac
commodate their children and create other projects through diversification. NM: In trying to help them diversify and increase productivity, we stationed one full-time agriculturalist. The whole of the near
north area which includes the San Antonio hacienda and the cooperati ve farm lot has two full-time NFSW agriculturalists sta
tioned there. So we are confident that they can tackle the job. On the management side we have to insure the basic prin
ciples of collective leadership and self-reliance. The area or
ganizing committee of NFSW handles problems of leadership
and training.
MS: Your long-range program envisages transformation of the
hacienda structure through land reform. The farm lots constitute
a step in that direction.
NM: We view the farm-lot program as a step toward land reform.
General land reform is based on self-reliance and self-sufficien
cy. We begin by redistribution of vacant, foreclosed, and aban
doned land. With our limited organizational capacity, this is all
we can take on at the present time. In cases where the hacendero
cannot pay workers back wages, the land should become part of
the leg.itimate payment. The basic demand is for the sugar
planters to apportion the land among the workers ....But that
will take years to accomplish. In the meantime, we look to our
farm-lot program to inspire and organize workers and build or
ganizational strength toward achieving land reform.
MS: Thank you for speaking with us.
Bacolod, the Philippines
22 July 1989
CRITICAL DECADE
Prospects for Democracy
in the Philippines in the 1990's
Edited by Dolores Flamiano
and Donald Goertzen
Contributors include Gemma Nemenzo,
Alex Esclamado, Walden Bello, Alfred
McCoy, Rodel Rodis and many more.
"/ found Critical Decade the most illuminating
and challenging inquiry into Filipino politics in
the post-Marcos era yet available . .. the very
intensity of discussion in Critical Decade makes
one believe that the left will eventually prevail
in the Philippines."
Richard A. Palk. Professor of International Law. Princeton University "... Essential reading for a~e interested in
understanding the Philippines today."
Phil Bronstein. Journalist
The San Francisco Examiner
Available from: The I)hllipplne Resource Center,
P.O. Box 400')0, lIerkeley, CA 94704 (415) 548-2546.
$10 + $1.50 for postage and handling
*
36
MMANTlI
THE U.S. MIUTARY lASES IN THE PHIUfflNES
"Gace .,. Danger 01 US antelWftlon In 1M lid WOfid aM,..... am.
~ .. __ ... ceW WK,
ogeti.w lQ .......... aIM"'" WCXW. us bu.a iII. .....
.... Ie....,art . . . ~:i= tiIM 1M ......
rrc. ViaMa to 1M ...... Gulf. To...-:t'" - - .
. . 'Be
• • ,11
iI·,,·,..., Mw . . .
w......... ill 1M P",ir",u iIIalf. .educe Co6d WOI TenaIoM In AlIa • 1M Jlaclllc
'I1It ...... hal iMiClltd t.hIl it is WlwiWllc 10 ~_ .-y ••• in,1ul ClIdNdu ill US aili&ary MralItA ill Alia ... eM PIcl&,
. . . . lielli&' "''''''*w _ 1M ,.n 01_ 5o¥iet u.... A
01 US bc.w to- die Phjlippirw wwW . . . _ _
c.w w....... ill . . JqieL w""""
Remove a Cause of Sexual ExploItatIon WAen hues place First World soldiers amidst impoverished 1'hiId Wodd 1)O"=1'Ii,;OI, tM IGC:UIi COS" IIC h.i&h. 1M pnIIf&it'*-.
fill women and children is widespread uound the bues, and AIDS hu been inlNduced in.to the PItilippineI.
Help Create a Peace Dividend
1M rllROval of buCi and troops from the Pacific would ill the loRa-rua free billionI of doUan to ICI'VC . . . . . n.- III JM.c ....
.. support multilateral efforts to meet urlen1 problema in the Third World. In 1991 the pn:acnt acretlllCllt covcriDt US bMes ill rAe
JWlippinel expires. Ne&otiations arc underway. If you alrM that withdrawal of the buoI w~d beat JCn'C the inten»ts olpeace
ad dcmecracy, pleue contact the Philippine Bases Network.
~-------------------------------------
I 0 Piease send more information about U.S. bases in the Philippines.
I Enclosed is $2 to help with posta&e and handling.
10 Enclosed
I
is my contribution of OS500 OS125 OS6O
0
S35
0 $ _ to support the Philippine Bases Network.
I Make check. payable 10 Foreign Bile. Projed/PBN. Tax-deductible conlribuIlion. of SSO or more, up 10 limiu allowed by law, can be made payable 10 MiS
Name - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Address _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __
City/State1Zip _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __
Organization (optional) _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __
•
Return to .
I
I
~~~~~~. _______________ ~~~~p~~~:~?~,~~v::n..:..~~2~_~
BCASBOOKS
Over the years BeAS has also published a number of books, two of which are currently available
through M.E. Sharpe, Inc., 80 Business Park Dr., Armonk, NY 10504, U.S.A. Please add $2.00 for postage
and handling (for up to three books). For orders from the United Kingdom, Europe, the Middle East, and
Africa: Eurospan, 3 Henrietta St., London WC2E 8LU, England. These books are:
Contemporary Chinese Literature: An Anthology of Post-Mao Fiction and Poetry, edited by
Michael S. Duke for BCAS, 1985. 137 pp.; paper, $14.95, and cloth, $35.00.
This anthology introduces readers to contemporary Chinese literature through excellent translations
of important examples in poetry and prose of the genre called "critical realism."
The Other Japan: Postwar Realities, edited by E. Patricia Tsurumi for BCAS, February 1988.
163 pp.; paper, $14.95, and cloth, $29.95.
This collection is a mixture of Western critical scholarship and Japanese voices telling their own
stories, covering Japan's atomic bomb legacy and the struggles of women, farmers, and workers in
post-World War II Japan.
37 The Development Saga of the Tasaday: Gentle Yesterday, Hoax Today, Exploited Forever? In the 1970s the Tasaday captured popular and
anthropological imagination as the archetypal hunter-gatherers
of the twentieth century. Although Manuel Elizalde, Jr., was
portrayed as discoverer and savior of the Tasaday, as the head
of the Philippines Presidential Assistance on National Minorities
(PANAMIN), he actually created "Tasaday consciousness."
After the initial avalanche of international interest, the Tasaday
have been reported as living quietly in a vast protected zone
created by PANAMIN and Marcos. Rather, they lived in T'boli
communities because they are indigenous T'boli people who
have suffered PANAMIN-abused militarization and economic
development by invasion of their lands and resources. FoUowing
the assassination ofBenigno Aquino in 1983, Elizalde was among
the first of the Marcos cronies to flee the Philippines.
In response to mounting public awareness of the hoax
exposed through national and international media, the
University of the Philippines sponsored the International
Conference on the Tasaday Controversy in 1986, and the
Philippine Congress held an inquiry in 1987. International
debates have since been hosted by the International Con
gress of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences in 1988
and the American Anthropological Association in 1989.
Meanwhile, Elizalde returned to the Philippines in August
1987 and started manipulating his Tasaday creation again.
Continuing exploitation of those who posed as the Tasaday
has, unfortunately, bypassed the important struggle of the
T'boli for indigenous rights to their ancestral domain and
self-determination.
by David Hyndman and Levita Duhaylungsod*
Introduction
The Tasaday first came to international attention in 1971
when Manuel Elizalde, Jr., the head of the Philippines Presiden
tial Assistance on National Minorities (PANAMIN), announced
discovery of a cave-dwelling, Stone Age people in South
Cotabato Province in Mindanao (figures 1 and 2). Elizalde'
found it remarkable "that this vast and undulating sea of tropi
cal rainforest could be inhabited by man." As the press in the
Philippines picked up on the story, American reporter John
Nance' began a campaign to establish the Tasaday as the greatest
discovery of the century in anthropology. From the pages of the
*This paper is an expanded version of a paper presented to the Fifth Con
ference on Hunting and Gathering Societies, held in Darwin, Australia,
in August 1988. The original paper has been supplemented with findings
obtained during two weeks of fieldwork in Maitum, South Cotabato, the
Philippines, in February 1989. Much has come to light since then, and
the authors are covering this in an article they are writing for a forthcom
ing book edited by Thomas N. Headland, The Tasaday Controversy: An
Assessment ofthe Evidence (Washington, D.C.: American Anthropologi
cal Association [AAAJ). See also Gerald Berreman, "The Incredible
Tasaday: Deconstructing the Myth of a 'Stone Age' People," Cultural
Survival Quarterly (Cambridge, MA, U.S.A.), vol. 15, no. 1 (Jan. 1991),
pp.I-38.
National Geographic, MacLeish and Launois 3 captured inter
national attention when they described descending with Elizalde
in a helicopter over this expansive rain forest and finding near
ly naked people who "stepped out of the Stone Age into the year
1971 A.D."
Evidence now indicates that "Tasaday consciousness" was
created, and the gentle, cave-dwelling, Stone Age hunter
gatherers who swept academia and media alike were actually
local T'boli and Manobo peoples. In recent years several inves
tigative teams have traveled to the fabled Tasaday caves region,
including a Philippine congressional committee and in
ternational media. The disturbing consequence of this attention
is continuing exploitation of those T'boli who posed as Tasaday,
threats to the personal safety of other T'boli who appeared as
1. M. Elizalde, The Tasaday Forest People: A Data Paper on a Newly
Discovered Food Gathering and Stone Tool Using Manobo Group in the
Mountains of South Cotabato, Mindanao, Philippines (Washington,
D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Center for Short-Lived Phenomena, 1971).
2. J. Nance, "The Tasadays," Manila Times, 8-12 June 1972.
3. K. MacLeish and J. Launois, "The Tasadays: Stone Age Cavemen of
Mindanao," National Geographic, no. 142 (Aug. 1972), pp. 219-49.
38
128<!,,"
.'
®C'OTABATO CITY
NORTH COTABATO
I
i
i
i
~--------------------------------+-----~
Lake.J!U~~an
I
-.
tJ
','
Digo.
.
DA VAO GULF
i
e"-'-'-'- _._._...;
Koronadal
\.
<;..,
" \ SOU THe 0 TAB A T ~
'-'- _._. _._._.-.;
~"
B'I.·( • Ubo
"
/'
.i
Tboli
".
• Kem3to
TASADAY
.... -.
t;"0
'- .
-
~t"
~
~
Lake Sebu\:f T'boli
'"
t.J
~
SON
t.J
....
....
f.(.
t.J
~
~
<:}o Figure 1. Location ofthe T' boli and other indigenous peoples ofSouth Cotabato in Mindanao, the southernmost ofthe larger
islands ofthe Philippines. (After Fernandez and Lynch, 1972-seefootnotes 23 and 36.)
o
124 33
I
Figure 2. Location ofthe alleged Tasaday in the mountains ofSouth Cotabato. (After Fernandez and Lynch, 1972.)
39
--
GENERATIONS OF TASADAY MALES AND ASCENDANTS
10.
2nd
lnl
4th
LfGf.ND
CAl'l'rALS _
for
~
__
it_'ies .... lor ptooe .c ............ of _
;;z
t o.c.....I
M..,.ic4 to
<1>....,II1II_
"'M.!eII)
I
/
/',
'\
~
2_.U4oq .... S-"
/', R-.....
SiIIIioI
\'
/',
I
2F_ _ (.......' .......... 1tiIIt Figure 3. Genealogy of the twenty-six people originally identified as the Tasaday. (After Fernandez and
Lynch,1972.)
Tasaday witnesses, and intimidation of Filipino scholars and
journalists exposing the hoax.
In tracing the development saga of the Tasaday, we show
that in the 1970s the controversy involved interpretation of data
offered by the observers and in the 1980s shifted to whether the
data was fabricated or not. In the process of this debate these
people have been victims of protagonist and antagonist alike.
More fundamentally and profoundly, they are human beings who
deserve to be respected and treated with dignity. We sincerely
believe that bringing the plight of these people to the attention
of the international community of anthropologists and other con
cerned scholars of Asia will provide some measure of security,
and we hope such exposure will assist in preventing any further
exploitation.
The issue of the Tasaday goes beyond mere anthropological
discourse because it cannot "be pronounced outside of its his
torical and cultural context:" In this paper we show that
"Tasadayity,,5 is inextricably bound up with the larger frame
work of political realities that indigenous peoples in the Philip
pines have historically been subjected to. The Tasaday story is a
4. J. Dumont, "The Tasaday, Which and Whose? Toward the Political
Economy of an Ethnographic Sign," Cultural Anthropology, no. 3
(1988), p. 273.
5. Ibid., p. 266.
hoax, but the indigenous people involved are real, and their ex
ploi tation has become one of the reasons why indigenous peoples
in the Philippines are now struggling to retain or regain their
land, resources, and self-determination.
Gentle Yesterday
Elizalde received his PANAMIN appointment in 1967 and
set up the PANAMIN Foundation as a nonprofit fund-raising
corporation. 6 In 1971 Robert Fox, the senior anthropologist in
the Philippines, was research head of PANAMIN. The greatest
anthropological discovery of the century was quietly brought to
the attention of the scientific community in the Philippines, os
tensibly because Elizalde wanted to protect the paleolithic
Tasaday from outside intruders.' Another anthropologist, Frank
Lynch, gave direction to PANAMlN's Tasaday Area Research
Program in cooperation with the Ateneo Institute of Philippine
Culture. s Robert Fox, in company with Frank Lynch and Teodoro
L1amzon, were the first anthropologists to visit the Tasaday.
6. SeeJ. Rocamora, "The Political Uses of PAN AMIN ," Southeast Asia
Chronicle. no. 67 (Oct. 1979), p. 12.
7. See D. Baradas, "Preface," Philippine Sociolollical Review, no. 20
(1972), p. 277.
8. Ibid., p. 277.
In 1986 Tom Jarriel of ABC News and Lolo, Lobo, Natek, Adog, Gintui, and the latter two's
cousin Biking discussing the 1972 National Geographic article that fourteen years earlier
presented the Tasadayas "Stone Age Men of the Philippines." Lolo. Lobo. and Natek are
brothers. as are Adog and Gintui. and as young boys they were apparently convincingly primi
tive as they ran and climbed around the caves their families were pretending to inhabit. Lobo
was featured on the front cover of the National Geographic and described on its pages as wild
and animal-like: "Young Lubu scampers through the forest. climbing vines and slender trunks
with the ease ofthe monkey. .. Lubu. a graceful boy ofabout /0. skipped down the stream bed
like a water spider. long hair flying. long legs leaping. small feet sure and deft on the rounded
stones. Whenever he came to rest he squatted, settling down in afluid motion that blended with
his last leap. Cats and monkeys move like that. Most people don't." This picture is by and cour
tesy ofJudith Moses, taken in South Cotabato, Mindanao, Philippines, in 1986.
Tasaday to Elizalde, who regularly swooped down in the
PANAMIN helicopter on nearby T'holi communities, where he
was known by his nickname "Manda. ,012 Elizalde had a treetop
helicopter pad erected near the Tasaday caves, monitored access
by outsiders, and although he may have cautioned that scientific
studies should not jeopardize the Tasaday's long-sheltered life
style, an international media carnival ensued.
The Tasaday were immediately filmed by a National
Geographic team, with Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS,
from the United States) screening their documentary "The Last
Tribes of Mindanao" on 12 January 1972. Within a month of
Elizalde breaking the story, he created a PANAMIN Foundation
in the United States and persuaded celebrities like Charles
Lindbergh and John Rockefeller IV to be incorporators. 13
Lindbergh became involved in the Tasaday study, toted around
a machine gun at the ready and revealed his motivation, and
probably that of the other observers, in his statement "What still
puzzles me is they [the Tasaday] lack a sense of adventure."l4
Based on a few hours' observations and working through inter
preters, they concluded that the Tasaday, whose total population
numbered only twenty-six men, women, and children (figure 3),
could be descendants of original food-gatherer peoples who had
only recently experienced contact with the outside world. 9 After
a few months Lynch and LlamzonIO published brief notes saying
that the Tasaday had no hunting or tools other than digging sticks,
stone scrapers, hammers, and axes, and only gathered from the
nearby stream and forest.
The Manobo man Dafal supposedly ran across the Tasaday
in 1967 while on a hunting expedition. He apparently introduced
them to metal blades, spears, traps, natek (Caryota palm starch)
extraction technology, and hunting animals larger than frogs. II
Most importantly, Dafal passed on the information of the
9. See R. Fox, "Time Catches Up with the Tasaday," The Asian, Oct.
1971, pp. 24-30; and F. Lynch and T. Llarnzon, "The Blit Manobo and
the Tasaday," Philippine Sociological Review, no. 19 (Jan.-Apr. 1971),
pp.91-93.
10. Ibid., pp. 91-93.
12. Rocarnora, "The Political Uses of PANAMIN."
11. See D. Yen, "The Ethnobotany of the Tasaday: Ill, Notes on the
Subsistence System," in Further Studies on the Tasaday, PANAMIN
Foundation Research Series no. 2., ed. D. Yen and 1. Nance (Makati,
Rizal, the Philippines: PANAMIN, 1976), pp. 159-83.
13. See 1. Malayang, "Brutalizing Findings on the Gentle Tasadays,"
Mr. & Ms., special edition, 23-29 May 1986, pp. 11-12, 14-16.
14. N. Klein, "Review of The Gentle Tasaday, by 1. Nance," Journal
ofAmerican Folklore, no. 91 (1978), p. 976.
41
PANAMIN distributed food, clothing, and tools and con
tinually intruded into the lives of the Tasaday with radios, lights,
and generators. The PANAMIN helicopter was continually shut
tling in outsiders. Exclusive rights were offered by Elizalde, and
the NBC television network paid $50,000 to shoot their feature
film screened in America as "Cave People of the Philippines. "15
John Nance l6 supported the authenticity of the Tasaday in a series
of articles appearing in the Manila Times between 8 and 12 June
1972. He sensationalized his experiences with a living Stone Age
people who foretold the coming of "Momo Dakal Diwita
Tasaday," "god" to the Tasaday and personified in Elizalde. By
selectively inviting media and scientific representatives,
Elizalde created worldwide fame for a contemporary group of
hunter-gatherers, like no others in the world because they were
a gentle, cave-dwelling people recently out of the Stone Age. 17
What Iten andLozano documented was long-stand
ing PANAMIN manipulation oflocal Manobo and
T' boli peoples who were first made to live in caves
in 1971 in order to create a false image of cave
dwelling, Stone Age people.
Tasaday ethnography all comes from a group of
PANAMIN-related researchers. As an archaeologist, Fox l8 im
mediately recognized the possibility that if the pre-Dafal
Tasaday were so primitive to have had no knowledge of bow and
arrow, farming, cloth, or metal, then they could be related to the
archaeological culture he had excavated at Tabon in Palawan, an
island in the southwestern Philippines. The linguist Llamzon l9
concluded that the Tasaday spoke a Malayo-Polynesian lan
guage sharing an 80 percent cognate vocabulary with the neigh
boring Blit Manobo and had a common ancestor with them some
twenty-five to thirty generations ago. Llamzon based his claim
on a lexico-statistical formula of a presumed 20 percent loss of
nonculturally specific vocabulary, * and Fox20 used this evidence
to conclude that the Tasaday are a real people who have been iso
lated geographically and culturally for around 2,000 years.
15. See C. Adler, "The Tasaday Hoax: The Never Ending Scandal,"
Paper presented to The 1986 International Conference on the Tasaday
Controversy and Other Urgent Anthropological Issues (Quezon City:
Philippine Social Science Center, 1986).
16. Nance, "The Tasadays."
17. MacLeish and Launois, "The Tasadays: Stone Age Cavemen."
18. Fox, "Time Catches Up."
19. T. Llamzon, "The Tasaday Language So Far," Philippine Journal
ofLinguistics, no. 2 (1971), pp. 1-30.
*That is, vocabulary about universal phenomena such as the moon and
the sun in contrast to words for such locally specific items as certain
kinds of bowls or pots. -ED.
20. Fox, "Time Catches Up."
From the beginning there was anthropological skepticism
about the authenticity of the Tasaday. The first scholar to pub
lish his doubts about the veracity of the findings of the
PANAMIN group of anthropologists was Zeus Salazar,zl who
suggested that on the basis of their 1971 population the Tasaday
could not have been isolated for more than 120-150 years; that
the presence of words for "grain," "grind," and "plants" indi
cated either direct farming knowledge or borrowing, which
reduced the possibility of isolation; and that Tasaday stone tools
were very rudimentary despite claims they had been used for a
long time.
PANAMIN22 in their first special publication characterized
the Tasaday as a living paleolithic people. It reprinted several
scholarly papers, including the major review of research up to
that time by Fernandez and Lynch,z3 but ignored Salazar's24
refutation that appeared in the Philippine Journal o/Linguistics,
even though it directly followed Elkins's25 favorable comments
that were reprinted. Frank Lynch, among the privileged scien
tists allowed to spend time with the Tasaday in the company of
Elizalde, lost interest and resigned his post as PANAMIN's
Tasaday research director. German and Japanese television
crews were not allowed to visit the Tasaday, and over thirty news
organizations were refused. The Tasaday apparently com
plained, "we don't know the things people ask us about,,,26 and
Elizalde's response was to send in different specialists, like an
ethnobotanist or a linguist, for a short period each for fieldwork.
When PANAMIN researchers Baradas and Fernandez finally
embarked on an extended field trip they were forced to flee
within days when armed men fired over their tents.27 After the
crest of publicity in 1971-72, Marcos, on Elizalde's recommen
dation, issued Presidential Proclamation 995 of 6 April 1972,
declaring about 19,000 hectares reserved for the Tasaday. Short
ly after the Tasaday protected zone was decreed, Presidential
Decree No. 407 in early 1974 set aside 130,000 hectares for the
T'boli municipality west of the Tasaday reserve.
The protected reserve, intended to prevent unwelcome
visitors,28 actually gave rise to more doubts among Tasaday critics.
PANAMIN did not stop the process ofland loss to lowlanders, and
land transfer could even take place in the PANAMIN office in
21. Z. Salazar, "Footnote on the Tasaday," Philippine Journal of Lin
guistics, no. 2 (1971), pp. 34-38.
22. PANAMIN, PANAMIN Foundation Research Series no. 1 (Makati,
Rizal, the Philippines: PANAMIN, 1972).
23. C. Fernandez and F. Lynch, "The Tasaday: Cave-Dwelling Food
Gatherers of South Cotabato, Mindanao," Philippine Sociological
Review, no. 20 (July 1972), pp. 279-3l3.
24. Salazar, "Footnote on the Tasaday."
25. R. Elkins, "Comments," Philippine Journal of Linguistics, no. 2
(1971), pp. 31-33.
26. L. Mair, "0 Brave New Worlds? Review of The Gentle Tasaday,
by 1. Nance," The Spectator, no. 27 (Sept. 1975), p. 409.
27. ABC-TV, The Tribe That Never Was, A Documentary Film for the
"20/20" program, by Judith Moses, producer (New York: ABC-TV
"20/20," 1986).
28. See J. Nance, Discovery ofthe Tasaday, A Photo Novel: The Stone
Age Meets the Space Age in the Philippine Rain Forest (Philippines:
Vera-Reyes, 1981).
42
T'boli Town (Kemato).29 T'boli municipality was created not to
protect the T'boli but to facilitate PANAMIN control over resour
ces and development in the area. Mai Tuan was selected by Elizalde
to become the T'boli mayor, and he continues as mayor and remains
involved in the Tasaday hoax. In 1979 Elizalde had several mining
claims in the area and a mining operation on the Simod Manobo
reservation in Bukidnon. 30
In South Cotabato Province, then Mayor Jose Sison, Sr., of
Surallah denounced the Tasaday as a hoax and Elizalde for using
them as a supposed Stone Age people to generate funds for
PANAMIN to finance his personal ambitions. Sison accused
Elizalde of trying to control the prospective mining in the area
and thus driving away the Christian migrants interested in the
mines presumed to be in the Tasaday reserve. 3' PANAMIN be
came known in South Cotabato as "PANAMINES,"32 and ac
cording to Governor Sergio Morales of South Cotabato, the
Tasaday were "gawa-gawa lamang yan ni Elizalde" (Elizalde's
concoction only).33 A South Cotabato Commission for National
Integration (CNI) inspector asserted that the only indigenous
peoples in the region, including the mountains between Surallah
and Maitum, were Manobo and T'boli, and the so-called Tasaday
were a few families of Manobos whose ancestral place was
Kulaman. 34 Except for Mai Tuan, Dafal, and other Elizalde aides
who derived benefits from the deception, residents of South
Cotabato rejected the authenticity of the Tasaday. However, the
contentions of the people of South Cotabato never received ap
propriate attention of Philippine national dailies, much less the
international media.
Following the publication of more fieldwork observations,
Salazar'5 made a more in-depth analysis of the Tasaday theory.
He questioned the effective isolation that had been postulated by
Fernandez and Lynch 36 and deemed it untenable, especially con
sidering that limited contact was admitted with Tasafang and
Sanduka villagers for obtaining wives. Moreover, he considered
that metal tools had to have been used to prepare the lashings on
the Tasaday "heirloom" stone tools. Elizalde had invited
photojournalist John Nance on virtually every trip to the
beleaguered Tasaday, and based on seventy-two days of visits of
two to four hours each scattered over several years, Nance
published his best seller The Gentle Tasaday in 1975 after the
second Salazar critique. Even Nance 37 expressed surprise that the
Tasaday took about ten minutes to make a stone axe that became
unusable after a short period of use.
PANAMIN published their second special Tasaday study38
29. See Rocamora, "The Political Uses of PANAMIN," p. 14.
30. Ibid., pp. 15, 18.
31. D. Non, "The History of the Tasaday Controversy: An Overview"
(Paper presented to the 1986 Conference on the Tasaday).
32. See T. George, Revolt in Mindanao (Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia: Ox
ford University Press, 1980), pp. 155-61.
33. R. Pastor, Sunday Malaya, II May 1986.
34. P. Bidangan, "Tasaday: ALost Tribe?" The Recorder, 21 Apr. 1972.
35. Z. Salazar, "Second Footnote on the Tasaday," Asian Studies, no.
11 (Aug. 1973), pp. 97-113.
36. Fernandez and Lynch, "The Tasaday: Cave-Dwelling Food
Gatherers."
37. J. Nance, The Gentle Tasaday: A Stone Age People in the Philip
pine Rain Forest (New York: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1975).
largely in response to Salazar's mounting criticisms, but his
"Second Footnote"39 was neither reprinted nor acknowledged.
Half the book consists of Doug Yen's ethnobotanical studies,
while the remainder includes a description of pre-Dafal material
culture by Robert Fox40 and a 1976 presentation of texts and
vocabularies by Carol Molonl' that also postulates that the
Tasaday language is only 80 percent cognate with Manobo.
Salazar has criticized Molony's competency in studying the
Tasaday language because she was a specialist in Romance lan
guages rather than Malayo-Polynesian ones. 42 Molonl3 ac
knowledges "there is a little truth to what the hoax theorists are
saying," but still maintains the Tasaday are authentic. As it has
transpired, ethnobotanist Doug Yen became the only scientist to
spend some weeks with the Tasaday, but always with PANAMIN
aides. Yen 44 estimated local forest resources met nutrients essen
tial to Tasaday diet, but he was unwelcome at mealtimes at the
caves. Moreover, both Yen and earlier Baradas45 observed on the
few occasions they were present during mealtimes at the caves
that the Tasaday were eating rice supposedly provided by
Manobo and T'boli PANAMIN aides.
As pointed out by Yengoyan:' "the social anthropology of
the Tasaday is yet to be done, but given the present crises in
southern Mindanao it simply may not be possible." It is, there
fore, Nance's book The Gentle Tasaday that has provided the
principal popularization and ethnographic treatment of A Stone
Age People in the Philippine Rainforest. 47 The professional
academic reviews of Nance's book were predominantly skepti
cal without denying outright the authenticity of the Tasaday.
More than other reviewers, Yengoyan48 accepted that Nance
provided a "good ethnographic picture ... [that] may well be the
last word on the Tasaday" and extolled the book as both an eth
nographic novel and a form of poetics "important for an under
standing of the human condition." Klein:9 however, came to the
conclusion that Nance presented "an overly long, tedious and
only occasionally interesting report on a newly contacted group
of people." Nance's continual assertion that these people are the
most important anthropological discovery of the century is seen
through by Klein,50 who claims "if this book is any indication of
38. See Further Studies on the Tasaday. ed. Yen and Nance.
39. Salazar, "Second Footnote."
40. See R. Fox, "Notes on the Stone Tools of the Tasaday, Gathering
Economies in the Philippines, and the Archaeological Record," in Fur
ther Studies of the Tasaday, pp. 3-12.
41. See C. Molony, "Further Studies on the Tasaday Language: Texts
and Vocabulary," in ibid., pp. 97- 136.
42. See Malayang, "Bmtalizing Findings."
43. C. Molony, "The Tmth About the Tasaday," The Sciences, vol. 28,
no. 5 (1988), pp. 12-20.
44. D. Yen, "The Ethnobotany of the Tasaday: III,"p. 163.
45. ABC-TV, The Tribe That Never Was.
46. A. Yengoyan, "Review of Further Studies of the Tasaday, ed. by
D. Yen and J. Nance," American Anthropo/ORist, no. 79 (1977), p. 944.
47. 1. Nance, The Gentle Tasaday.
48. A. Yengoyan, "Paradise Lost? Review of The Gentle Tasaday, by
J. Nance," The American Scholar, vol. 46 (1977), pp. 134--38.
49. N. Klein, Journal ofAmerican Folklore, pp. 976-77.
50. Ibid.
43
anthropologists. Around forty imposed themselves on the
Tasaday over a three-day period early in 1972, and seven were
taking pictures simultaneously. Given that the observers stayed
in tents (figure 4), not in the caves, and spent only a few hours
each day with the people, the combined 190 days of observations
do not constitute normal participant-observation. Fire making,
plant using, and food collecting portrayed as uniquely Tasaday
were routine tasks for the local Manobo and T'boli, and the
dwelling in caves and making and using of stone tools were
staged, as we shall see.
their anthropological importance, both anthropology and the
Tasaday may be in trouble." Jacobson51 likewise found Nance's
book questionable because the "analysis of Tasaday culture,lan
guage and social organisation is scattered, weak, often dis
organised, and highly speculative." Maif2 found Nance's story
"has several themes which are rather confusingly intermingled"
and underplay social justice for indigenous people, especially
the local T'bolL Wideman53 also concluded the book is "not so
much a tale of the Tasaday as it is a political and philosophical
discussion on the role of 'primitive' minorities in a modem
society and the responsibility of the state for them."
The protected reserve, coupled with Marcos's martial law
in September 1972, meant that the Tasaday saga was carefully
orchestrated and diverse criticisms on their authenticity were
blacked out or ignored. Nance's54 statement that the "Tasaday,
which they call themselves [is a] conclusion...not from Manuel
Elizalde, but from at least 10 social scientists and 4 research as
sistants who collectively spent more than 190 days in the rain
forest with these people" summarizes the position of the
PANAMlN group of observers during the period of internation
al attention in the 1970s. Of at least twelve people who descend
ed on the caves in July 1971, only Lynch and Fernandez were
Hoax Today
In 1981 a B'laan man born in South Cotabato who had
worked for PANAMIN when the Tasaday story broke in the early
1970s was hired by the Filipinas Foundation, Inc. (FFI) as re
search assistant under Eduardo Munoz-Seca, a photojournalist.
He later reported55 that they had been taken to the Tao Mloys and
the Sanduka who were allegedly more primitive than the
Tasaday. These people later claimed they were T'bolis and that
Munoz-Seca had ordered them to undress and pose for him. Sub
sequently, a linguistic analysis by Hidalgo confirmed the Tao
Mloy were T'boli, and an anthropological study by Fernandez
also indicated the Sanduka were T'bolL Elizalde's final return to
T'boli Town was in 1976, and his last return to the T'boli people
was in 1982 to neutralize the FFI Tao Mloy and Sanduka reports
that threatened the Tasaday story. A photojournalist named
51. H. Jacobson, "Review of The Gentle Tasaday, by John Nance,"
Pacific Affairs, vol. 50, no. 3 (Mar. 1977), pp. 561--62.
52. Mair, "0 Brave New Worlds," p. 409.
53. B. Wideman, "Saga of the Tasaday. Review of The Gentle Tasaday,
by J. Nance," Far Eastern Economic Review, no. 91 (6 Feb. 1976),p. 33.
54. J. Nance, "Forest Reserve at Stake," New York Times, 30 Jan. 1988.
ELEVATION
GEOGRAPHIC PROFILE
55. See Malaya, 6--9 May 1986.
TOPOGRAPHY
R[SOURC[ AR[A OR
ECOLOGICAL ZONF
ZONE.
750-800 foet
500 feet
Caves
450 f.et
III
Upland Forest
II
Stream banks and terraces
250 feet
o
10 feet
Temporuy
camp
o------t::=~==~r--~~~~~
(4.000 feet
above ... I...1)
~-------------J!==9=~5:===~::::;;~
Stream
Figure 4. Location of the PANAMIN camp in relation to the Tasaday caves. (After Fernandez and Lynch, 1972.)
44
Walter Unger, then of Stem magazine, visiting with the Tasaday in the caves in 1986. At the far left is Balayem, the supposed headman of the
Tasaday, and the man squatting farthest left in the foreground is Gintui; at the far right is Sua, one of Gintui's two wives, holding Lin, their
child. A week earlier, in the first unauthorized visit to the caves, Oswald lten and Joey Lozano had found them deserted, with those thought to
be Tasaday living elsewhere in T' boli houses and dressed in T' boli and Western clothing. Unger and .lay Ullal, however,found these same
people nearly naked and back in the caves, although in some cases with Western clothing under their leafskirts-note the women on the right.
Both expeditions became convinced that the Tasaday were local Manobo or T' boli people. This photo was taken by .lay U/lal of Stern magazine
and accompanied Unger and Ullal's article in Stern. This photo is courtesy of Walter Unger, Judith Moses, and Gerald BeiTeman.
Christian Adler, under assignment from Geo, consulted with Fer
nandez before spending two weeks in the Tasaday reserve in
1982. For humanitarian reasons he did not publish his findings
initially, but he released them in 1986 when the people indicated
they wanted the truth to be known. Elizalde fled right after the
Aquino assassination in 1983, the first of the Marcos cronies to
leave the Philippines. 56 The PANAMIN staff indicated he stole
$35-45 million, thereby bankrupting the organization, and that
he attempted to take twenty-five indigenous young women with
him. 57
In April 1986, Swiss anthropologist and journalist Oswald
Iten, accompanied by Joey Lozano, a journalist from South
56. Ibid.
Cotabato, made the first unauthorized investigation of the
Tasaday caves and found them deserted. What they documented
was long-standing PANAMIN manipulation of local Manobo
and T'boli peoples who were first made to live in caves in 1971
in order to create a false image of cave-dwelling, Stone Age
people." Lozano knew people in the region never believed the
Tasaday were authentic and indicated "the easiest way to visit
the Tasaday is not in the caves but in the Saturday markets."59
Lozano prearranged his and Iten's movements with the Moro Na
tional Liberation Front (MNLF), and they had safe passage. Ger
man journalists Walter Unger and Jay Ullal 60 from Stern, who
went in only a week after Iten and Lozano, were not so lucky.
Hen and Lozano, accompanied by T'boli headman Datu Galang,
found the Bilangan family in a T'boli house and dressed in T'boli
and Western clothing, whereas the Germans, led by Dafal, found
the Bilangan family nearly naked back in the caves. They were
57. See ABC-TV, The Trihe That Never Was; and J. Southworth, "Taker
of Tribal Maidens Fooled the World," Courier Mail, 21 Aug. 1988, p. 13.
58. See O. lten, "Die Tasaday--ein philippinischer Steinzeitschwin
del," Neue Zurcher Zeitung (12-13 Apr. 1986), pp. 77-79, and O. lten
and J. Lozano, "A Swiss Journalist Says the Tasaday Could be the Great
Stone Age Hoax," Sunday Malaya, II May 1986, pp. 3-7.
60. W. Unger and 1. Ullal, "Der Grosse Bluff im Regenwald," Stern,
vol. 39, no. 17 (1986), pp. 20-33, 179.
originated in the caves and his people still present offerings there
before harvesting and hunting. Tasaday simply meant the region
around the caves. "We were poor before Elizalde came, but now
we are even poorer," complained Bilangan. The Manobo Datu
Mafalo (son of Datu Dudim-both described by Nance) joined
Hen and explained he maintained radio contact with Elizalde and
transported rice and other foodstuffs for those posing as Tasaday.
Iten and Lozano walked in one-and-a-half days from the paved
road of the Allah Valley to the caves, although some Manobo
houses were only one hour's walk away. They exposed the hoax
masterminded by Elizalde and his close assistants and asserted
that the Tasaday were Manobos and some had intermarried with
the Tboli.M
Exploitation of those posing as Tasaday started
when Elizalde used them and PANAMIN during
his bid for the senate in 1971. Their manipulation
was part ofa consistent PANAMIN tactic ofremov
ing indigenous peoples from their homelands and
forcing them into primitivism on reservations to let
agribusiness, prospecting, mining, and logging in
terests exploit their lands and resources.
On the right is Datu Galang, the T' bali headman who led the 1986
Unger and Ulial expedition to the caves to see the cave-dwelling
Tasaday. The previous week he had claimed to Oswald 1ten that some
of the Tasaday were related to him, including the father of Lola,
Lobo, and Natek-fhe prominent caveman Bilangan, who Datu
Galang said was his first cousin. This photo is by and courtesy of
Judith Moses, 1986.
suspicious when they observed the Tasaday wearing Western
clothing under their grass skirts, and Dafal vanished before
several armed MNLF kidnapped Unger and Ullal for ransom.OI
They paid a P30,OOO ransom and were released in the Hofer log
ging camp near Maitum. 62 Unger and UIlal 63 stated after their
release that the Tasaday were Manobo with relatives in Tboli
communities near Lake Sebu.
Datu Galang claimed to Iten that some of the so-called
Tasaday were related to him, including Bilangan, who was his
first cousin. Bilangan confided that "Elizalde forced us to live in
the caves so that we'd be called cavemen. Before that we wore
regular clothing, though very shabby. But it was Elizalde who
forced us to sit in the caves almost naked. Before he came I lived
in a nipa [thatch] hut. ..[on 1 the other side of the mountain and
we did farming," and he went on to explain that his ancestors
When the story of the Tasaday fraud reached the interna
tional media, the expedition of fifteen years earlier was hurried
ly recreated under Nance, the two former PANAMIN
anthropologists, Peralta and Fernandez, and the original NBC
crew, allegedly including Jack Reynolds. This time the Nance
expedition found sixty-one Tasaday living in the caves, though
they had only numbered twenty-six when last heard of in 1974;
yet inexplicably Nance65 could only account for thirty-nine. Six
had died, and seventeen women and two men had apparently
emigrated in the 1980s. NBC reported that the European jour
nalists had misunderstood that the Tasaday had simply adapted
to modem civilization, and Nance still contended that if it were
a hoax then it was a heck of a hoax, and they are still the major
anthropological discovery of the twentieth century."" Iten 6? ob
served that having the accused pass their own verdict does not
withstand the simplest criteria of any investigation.
An American Broadcasting Company (ABC) television
crew for the "20/20" show under producer Judith Moses then
negotiated to meet some of the original Tasaday about four hours'
walk from the caves, and they made a documentary titled The
Trihe That Never Was. Visuals document that the Tasaday
64. lten, "Die Tasaday."
65. J. Nance, "Controversies Return to the Tasaday," Asiaweek, no. 12
(15 June 1986), pp. 26--38.
62. Malayang, "Brutalizing Findings."
63. Unger and Ulla1, "Der Grosse Bluff."
67. O. lten, "First a Hoax and Now a Cover Up" (Paper presented to
the 1986 Conference on the Tasaday).
46 •
,,"
1:::.
..
~<"'{;'i~ ,~:.
In 1986 Bilangan was really living here in a Tboli settlement about two hours' walk from the caves. This picture
shows him and his wife tending a garden in front of their thatch hut. no differentfrom others owned by their T bali
and Manobo neighbors. Bilangan explained to Oswald lien that his ancestors originated in the caves. but that he
had worn regular clothing. lived in a thatch hut. and farmed until being forced by Elizalde to live in the caves.
Former Tasaday cavemen Bilangan and Gintui sit in the upper cave while Bilangan's son Lobo demonstrates how
he used to climb into the caves for the rrumy photographers in the early I 970s. Both photos on this page were taken
by Oswald [ten in 1986. and they are reproduced here courtesy ofOswald Iten. Judith Moses. and Gerald Berreman.
© BCAS. All rights reserved. For47
non-commercial use only. www.bcasnet.org
protected environmental zone had already been extensively
stripped by logging. After a ten-hour walk the crew met eight of
the original Tasaday residing in a typical T'boli settlement. In
terviews were conducted in T'boli and Bongo, the lingua franca,
and interpreted into English. Lobo related that his father,
Bilangan, was a T'boli and his mother was a Manobo, and that
they had always had contact with other people. He said they took
off their clothes because Elizalde had told them to do so and had
promised if they looked poor they would get assistance. Elizalde
gave them money to pose as Tasaday and armed them to help
keep away outsiders and engage in counterinsurgency. The
people themselves welcomed the fact that the truth about the
hoax would finally become known. According to Judith Moses,
"the Tasaday story was the ugliest and most disgraceful she has
ever covered."68 Similarly, late in 1987 another television expose
titled Scandal of the Lost Tribe was produced for Britain's
Central Television by John Edwards, who said: "A part of me
wanted to believe it wasn't a hoax. The people were utter pawns,
the real victims."69 The dossier "The Taker of Tribal Maidens"
collected by Smith, their investigative reporter, revealed how
Elizalde exploited indigenous women and used the Manobo and
T'boli to play "elaborate charades in the caves land] their Stone
Age tools were pebbles picked out of the stream."'o
Once the Tasaday hoax was exposed and attempted cover
ups started, Jerome Bailen, the head of the anthropology depart
ment at the University of the Philippines (UP) at Diliman,
organized and chaired the International Conference on the
Tasaday Controversy and Other Urgent Anthropological Issues
with the anthropology society Ugnayang Agham-Tao (UGAT)
in August 1986. Gerald Berreman from the anthropology depart
ment of the University of California at Berkeley and John Bod
ley from the anthropology department of Washington State
University were invited to attend to independently assess the
proceedings. According to Bailen71 "Tasaday consciousness"
was of national and international concern because indigenous
cultural communities of the Philippines were victims of fraud,
and state agencies by endorsement and quiet acquiescence if not
total unconcern helped foster the Tasaday hoax. Moreover,
international agencies and persons helped propagate the Tasaday
story.
An invitation was sent to Elizalde and PANAMIN officials
through Jose Guerrero, caretaker of Elizalde's enterprises,
without a positive response, and Elizalde did not return to the
Philippines during the conference. Nor did Carol Molony,
Richard Elkins, Teodoro Llarnzon, or David Baradas choose to
attend this conference. Representing the pro-Tasaday position
were John Nance, Jesus Peralta, and Carlos Fernandez, who
provided verbal accounts of the "old" and "transformed"
Tasaday during the conference. Nance has had a long and
profitable association with Elizalde; and National Museum staff
members Jesus Peralta (anthropology curator), Alfredo Evan
68. See "Outbursts Mark Debate on Tasaday among Experts," Philip
pine Daily Inquirer, 1 Aug. 1988, p. 8.
-
'''~.'>
I
4
~. .
I'
.'
)
After Oswald [ten broke the story ofthe Tasaday hoax, an ABC news
crew under producer Judith Moses metsome ofthe original Tasaday
at the T' boli settlement of Tabok. about four hours' walk from the
caves. These "Tasaday" were eager to further expose the hoax. and
they are shown here enjoying the TV equipment with ABC News
cameraman Ron Dean. In this picture Gintui is the cameraman and
Natek is the sound man, with Lobo standing to the left ofRon Dean.
Photo by Judith Moses. courtesy of Judith Moses.
gelista (director), and Carlos Fernandez all collected lucrative
PANAMIN consultancy fees through 1983. The only other
former PANAMIN researcher, Doug Yen, attended more in an
observer rather than Tasaday advocate role.
Relati ves of the Tasaday, on the urging of George Tanedd 2
and the journalist Malayang, agreed to appear before the con
ference. Salazar dramatically presented Blessen Tongkay and
Joel and Elizer Bon as "direct evidence" at the last session of the
conference. They provided confirmation of claims about them
selves, giving their testimony in T'boli and Ilocano, with George
Tanedo and UP anthropologist Ponce Bennagen interpreting for
them. The conduct of the conference participants, especially
69. See Southworth, "Taker of Tribal Maidens," p. 13.
70. Ibid.
71. J. Bailen, 'The Tasaday Controversy: A National and International
Concern," inA TasadayFolio, ed. J. Bailen, the 1986 Conference on the
Tasaday, p. 109.
72. George Tanedo identifies himself as a T'boli, and the family resides
in Maitum, South Cotabato. Tanedo has consistently been a leading
figure among the T'boli and in the Tasaday controversy.
48
Nance, in grilling them about the coherence and consistency of
their statements, was like a court litigation. Berreman could not,
consequently, help but admonish the conference for what seemed
to him to be unprofessional interrogation and an appalling breach
of ethics. Nonetheless, not a single relative independently con
firmed or substantiated claims of Nance and PANAMIN re
searchers.
Governor Sison and a teacher from South Cotabato also ap
peared before the conference. Sison reiterated his position from
the 1970s that the Tasaday were a hoax and drew attention to the
more urgent issue of impoverishment of the people. The school
teacher stressed that while the indigenous people of South
Cotabato are indeed gentle, there are no Tasaday and, therefore,
she could not in good conscience adhere to using the Tasaday in
the curriculum. Their testimonies were important because South
Cotabato residents had long disbelieved in the existence of the
Tasaday. In terms of informants' credibility, their testimony and
that of the T'boli relatives was certainly as good or better than
that from Nance, Peralta, and Fernandez.
Our evidence obtained in Maitum, South Cotabato, in 1989
further substantiates the testimonies presented by the T'boli rela
tives at the 1986 conference. Figure 5 shows three T'boli from
Maitum who originally posed as Tasaday. Kultow (Kulataw) is
the uncle (father's brother) to the siblings Saay (Udelen) and
Yong (Lafonok) in both figures 3 and 5. However, the original
Tasaday genealogy shows a different father for the siblings, and
Dianes, their real brother, is not acknowledged.
Based on his 1982 visit to the caves, Adler's73 presentation
to the 1986 conference indicated the Tasaday were pre
dominantly Manobo who had been abused and commercially ex
ploited for years. Main PANAMIN control was centered on
T'boli Town west of the caves and on Teboyung, a Manobo vil
lage north of the caves. These were where the Tasaday were
recruited. Official Tasaday visitors were announced along the
Manila-T'boli Town-Teboyung radio link in order to get the
Tasaday to the caves before the helicopter departed, with the as
sistance of Mai Tuan.
Adlee4 observed that little remained of the rain forest in the
northern portion of the reserve, except on the ridge of the moun
tain chain where the caves are located, and that the area was sur
rounded by Manobo villages and gardens. He was informed that
T'boli and Manobo leaders were bribed by Elizalde commen
surate with their importance: 400 pesos for sitio (local leaders),
800 pesos for datus (regional leaders), and 1500 pesos for Fran
cisco, Elizalde's personal bodyguard. Francisco and two other
T'bolis, Roman and Samuel, agreed to a Manila trip to pose as
Tasaday dressed in leaves, and Elizalde awarded them with
25,000 pesos plus wages. George Tanedo revealed to us that he
posed as a "Xerox" Tasaday and greeted Gerald Ford in Manila
73. Adler, "The Tasaday Hoax."
74. Ibid.
D.
T'boll no.PlII
SG.PIf'll
I
2)
Ko.bo.lo
Saay
Yang
Salyon
1
To.SIg
Lo.l'lno.w
Kultow
To.so.do.y nG.PI1I
6
Kulo.tGw
~
UdellPn
~
Laf'onok
Bgang
Dralles
Figure 5. T' boli names and kinship relationships of three of the alleged Tasaday. (Source: Hyndman and Duhaylungsod
fieldwork in 1989.) Figures 1-5 accompanying this article were provided by David Hyndman and Levita Duhaylungsod.
49
on his state visit of 1974.75 Francisco was murdered in 1983.
Elizalde had sexually abused Manobo and T'boli women, in
cluding Mai Tuan's wife,"6 not only in their viIIages but in his
White Plains mansion in Manila where they had been induced
by promises of educational scholarships.77
The two invited international observers, John Bodley and
Gerald Beffeman,"' were convinced during the conference that
the Tasaday were a hoax. Bodley concluded that the Tasaday
were misrepresented but that the researchers were not hoaxers.
Rather, they were too hasty with their interpretations and saw
only what they wanted to see and disregarded contradictory
evidence, especially that the Tasaday homeland was actually
very close to settled territory of the well-known Manobo and
T'boli. Beffeman concluded that many people had varying
degrees of awareness and responsibility in perpetrating the hoax,
and it was apparent from the conference that Elizalde had master
minded the Tasaday hoax.
Elizalde returned to the Philippines in August 1987 and
began releasing media statements attacking critics ofhis Tasaday
creation, calling them "a bunch of bums and extortionists-they
belong to mental institutions and they are also part of the Mar
cos propaganda machinery."?9 With his media ownership and
connections, he was able to diffuse public attention on him and
the notorious record of PANAMIN. To counter, Filipino
anthropologists decried Elizalde's media orchestration as noth
ing more than an effort "to launder back into the fold and con
sciousness of decent society the tarnished image of a man once
entrusted to safeguard minorities' interest but who turned out to
be their worst oppressor."go
An inquiry in the Philippine House of Representatives
started investigating manipulation ofthe Tasaday on 14 October
1987.81 William Claver" (PDP-Laban, Kalinga-Apayao), who
chaired the investigation, stated that "the investigation-inquiry
is not for the purpose of establishing the authenticity of the
Tasaday as a tribe but to determine whether manipulative activity
was employed to force tribesmen to pose as cavemen and to
determine whether government funds were used for such pur
poses. ,,83 The congressional committee investigated whether
Elizalde used his PANAMIN post to abuse indigenous people,
especially women, to organize armed vigilantes, and to amass a
huge personal fortune from public funds, donations from foun
dations and institutions abroad, and from mining ventures in
closed reservations for indigenous peoples.
75. 4-16 Feb. 1989, field notes of D. Hyndman and L. Duhaylungsod.
76. See Rocamora, "The Political Uses of PANAM IN."
77. See Adler, "The Tasaday Hoax."
78. Personal communication.
79. See D. Mondelo and T. Culla, "It's Not an Anthropological Issue,"
Trihal Forum, no. 8 (June 1987, released in July 1988), pp. 7-12.
80. See D. Mondelo, "Beyond the Tasaday," Tribal Forum, no. 8 (June
1987, released in July 1988), pp. 13-15.
81. See R. de Guzman, "House Probe on Tasaday Controversy Starts
Today," Philippine Daily inquirer, 14 Oct. 1987, pp. 1,8.
82. Claver, who heads the committee concerned with indigenous
peoples, is an Igorot and the only indigenous cultural community mem
ber in the congress.
83. See R. de Guzman, "Protests over Tasaday Hoax Probe," Philip
pine Daily inquirer, 23 Oct. 1987, pp. 1,8.
Committee member Gregorio Andolana (PnB, North
Cotabator indicated that UGAT, the UP Diliman anthropology
department, the UP Anthropology Society, and UP Folklore
Studies had received the first invitations to testify because they
had originally lodged the complaints. Elizalde would then be
asked to appear.'s Jerome Bailen, Chair of the UP Diliman
anthropology department, Zeus Salazar, chair of the UP Diliman
history department, and Ernesto Constantino appeared before the
committee on the first day. Bailen testified that "Elizalde has
been involved not in a controversy but in a crime against our
people and humanity. We Filipinos can neverrest until this issue
is resolved, since our brother Filipinos were used to cover up one
man's hunger for power and glory."86 His testimony reflects the
position of the UP anthropologists in their international state
mentS?: "It is not just a matter of proving the group's authenticity
as a separate ethnolinguistic group. What is more vital is to estab
lish if public funds were used to project an image of a
'benevolent' dictatorship protecting the interests of 'gentle
primitives' ."
The congressional committee . . .confirmed the
authenticity of the Tasaday . .. .Such an outcome
was perhaps inevitable given the constituency ofthe
committee and the fact that the Elizalde family
owns an extensive media empire with radio stations,
a TV station, a daily newspaper, and a weekly news
magazine.
Committee member Edcel Lagman88 (Lakas, Albay) tried
but failed to question the integrity of the three expert academic
witnesses. He attacked Bailen for waging a personal war against
Elizalde. 89 Bailen, Salazar, and Constantino provided evidence
that T'boli and Manobo were forced to pose as Tasaday cavemen,
but left it to human rights groups to expose Elizalde's other
abuses against indigenous peoples. Testimony from the Bons to
the 1986 UP conference was presented, and Salazar informed the
committee that Elizer Bon had subsequently been murdered
84. See Guzman, "House Probe on Tasaday Controversy," pp. 1,8.
85. Senators and congressmen closely linked to Elizalde, including a
close relative of Aquino and senior member of the House, failed to block
the investigation, even though the Elizalde family is still considered in
fluential in the Aquino administration.
86. Ibid.
87. See UP Department of Anthropology, "The Tasaday Controversy,"
AAA Anthropology Newsletter, vol. 29, no. 2 (1988), p. 4.
88. Lagman, who acted as Elizalde's counsel in his 1971 senate elec
tion protest case against then senator Alejandro Almendras, was not an
original member of the indigenous cultural communities committee but
had exchanged with Florencio Abad (LP, Batanes).
89. See "Between Deadlines," Philippine Daily inquirer, 25-26 Oct.
1987.
50
George Tanedo, Bidula. the brother ofDatu Galang (on the higher chair), and other T' boli at George Tanedo's house during
the Conference on Tribal Identity. Solidarity. and Prosperity held in Maitum in November 1987. where Bidula testified she
was a T' boli and the Tasaday were a hoax. Although a 1986 conference at the University ofthe Philippines convinced many
that the Tasaday were a hoax, in 1988 a Philippine congressional committee declared them authentic. Now the debate has
gone international. This photo is by Romarico Tanedo. and it is reproduced here courtesy of Romarico Tanedo and David
Hyndman.
under mysterious circumstances. 90
Mai Tuan facilitated the delivery of Joel Bon and Blessen
Tongkay, the other two T'bolis to testify at the 1986 conference,
to Representative Gualberto Lumauig 91 (Ind. Ifugao) in Novem
ber 1987. Later they recanted their story before the congressional
committee and testified instead that they were promised land and
timber concessions and money, and were held at gunpoint by the
brothers George and Franklin Tanedo and forced to say the
Tasaday were a hoax. Moreover, they said they were informed
by Elizalde that if the Tasaday were discredited their reservation
would revert to ancestral lands and be opened for mining and
logging.92 Nance93 has also used the cover-up story that the
Tasaday hoax is a tactic to lift the forest reserve, but it is unsup
ported, considering that logging has already taken place within
the protected zone.
90. See Guzman, "Protests over Tasaday Hoax Probe," pp. I, 8.
91. Lumauig is aligned to Elizalde and was one of the committee memo
bers opposed to the congressional inquiry.
92. See E. Perpena, "2 T'bolis Recant Tasaday Story," Philippine Daily
l"'luirer, 18 Nov. 1987, pp. 1, 11.
93. Nance, "Forest Reserve at Stake."
The congressional committee moved in early December
1987 to the T'boli homeland in Lake Sebu, South Cotabato.
Bidula Tusina, who appears in a photo in Nance's book The
Gentle Tasaday, testified she was a T'boli paid to pose as a cave
dwelling Tasaday. Mydans 94 chose to ignore Bidula's inde
pendent corroboration of the hoax and promoted the image of
seemingly obedient Tasaday who have variously testified that
they were genuine, paid to pretend to be Tasaday, and paid to say
they pretended to be Tasaday. Nance continued to maintain that
the Tasaday are real and took up an ethnocentric, condescending
position: "They are trying to survive. It is a classic and deep
Philippine response: 'Who do you want me to be?,,,95 By the end
of December 1987, Bidula Tusina, her husband, and two trans
lators and their relatives were residing in Elizalde's mansion.
Bidula recanted her previous testimony that she was not a true
Tasaday, and Mydans 96 incorrectly identified her as the first
94. S. Mydans, "In Mindanao: Ancient Tribe or a Hoax from the
1970 s?" New York Times, 7 Dec. 1987, p. 6.
95. Ibid.
96. S. Mydans, "From Forest to Manila, Stranger in a Strange Land,"
New York Times, 27 Dec. 1987.
51
member of the "primitive Tasaday tribe" known to have visited
Manila. Mydans97 uncritically accepted both Elizalde's state
ment that Bidula "has declined any kind of excursion to town or
to go shopping. She doesn't know what shopping is" and that of
Helen Mabundo, his anthropological fieldworker, that "During
their stay neither television nor the outside world have held much
interest for forest people. They would prefer to lie down and chat
among themselves and chew betel nut and sleep." Mydans thus
chose to ignore that Bidula was staying in the house of the man
who masterminded the hoax.
By December 1987 Elizalde had teamed up with an evan
gelical preacher from Manila, Roger Arienda, who used his
television ministry to depict Elizalde as the only god the Tasaday
knew until he converted them to Christianity.98 "You will have
eternal life. No more death" cried Arienda over a televised broad
cast that according to Mydans99 required a two-step translation
to reach the Tasaday living in their reserve. Far from being the
only god they had known until Arienda's evangelical visit,
Elizalde had forced those he created as the Tasaday to call him
Momo Dakel and threatened the Manobo and T'boli by saying
"You fanatics. Look at me. I should be your god. I've got money
and I am a white man toO!"IOO
The congressional committee concluded their investigation
in December 1987 and reached the opposite conclusion of the
1986 UP conference. Instead, they confirmed the authenticity of
the Tasaday in their official report of October 1988, and Aquino
publicly endorsed it the following month. Such an outcome was
perhaps inevitable given the constituency of the committee and
the fact that the Elizalde family owns an extensive media empire
with radio stations, a TV station, a daily newspaper, and a week
ly news magazine. Elizalde, with four of those who originally
posed as Tasaday, has even taken out a million-peso libel suit
against selected media and academic detractors.
However, William Claver lOl remains of the opinion that
Elizalde manipulated indigenous peoples and misappropriated
state funds and believes that he should be prosecuted. Con
gressman Andolana lo2 has also issued an important dissenting
statement that the Congress is not the proper body to investigate
a scientific issue and that:
Up to now, no bill has resolved that would hold anybody criminal
ly and civilly liable for exploiting our cultural communities has been
attached to the report. With this neglect, we did not only deny jus
tice to the clamoring anthropological community, but we also failed
to give justice to our own hard work and efforts by registering a score
of zero throughout the whole congressional investigation. 103
Because of the ambiguous results of the inquiry, the Philip
pine Social Science Council (PSSC) decided to sponsor a con
tinuing academic and public forum to thresh out the remaining
issues. 104 The Episcopal Commission on Tribal Filipinos (ECTF)
felt compelled to stress that "ultimately it is the Tasadays or those
supposed to be Tasaday who know the truth and those who are
fooling them" and criticized the manipulation of indigenous
people by interest groups.105
After the 1986 UP conference and the 1987 congressional
inquiry, debate on the Tasaday controversy went international.
Bailen, Salazar, and Berreman exposed the hoax in July 1988 to
the Twelfth International Congress of Anthropological and Eth
nological Sciences held in Zagreb. Cervantes and Rogel-Rara,
former PANAMIN officials and now with Elizalde's Tasaday
Community Care Foundation, accompanied by Nance, disrupted
the proceedings and attempted to cover up the Tasaday hoax
expose. 106
More recently, the American Anthropological Association
(AAA), concerned about the credibility ofthe discipline, invited
a review of the Tasaday controversy on 16 November 1989
during the annual meeting in Washington, D.C. The Science lfYl
review of the debate has sided with Iten's discovery that the en
tire story is a hoax, stating that "his skeptical view now
predominates." The discussant Richard Lee, a leading authority
on modem hunting and gathering peoples, summarized the day's
evidence that the Tasaday have to be regarded as a hoax. lOS
The persistent effort to continually portray these people as
primitives traveling rapidly through centuries of cultural evolu
tion to reach the level of their more advanced neighbors per
petuates the notion they are living fossils and not human beings
victimized by unscrupulous power brokers. Our invited paperlO9
to the AAA session supported the hoax thesis but particularly
stressed that the more crucial issue of T'boli rights to their land
and resources is being ignored.
Exploited Forever?
The Tasaday story is only one of the many cases of ex
ploitation and displacement of indigenous peoples in the Philip
pines. Exploitation of those posing as Tasaday started when
Elizalde used them and PANAMIN during his bid for the senate
in 1971. Their manipulation was part of a consistent PANAMIN
tactic of removing indigenous peoples from their homelands and
forcing them into primitivism on reservations to let agribusiness,
prospecting, mining, and logging interests exploi t their lands and
resources. IIO
the controversy to that part in Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass
where Tweedledee tells Alice: "If it was so, it might be; and if it were so,
it would be; but as it isn't, it ain't. That's 10gic."Therefore "If the Tasaday
aren'tthe Tasaday, they might be the Tboli; and if they were so, it would
be a hoax; but as they are now Christians, it ain't. That's logic."
104. See Mondelo and Culla, "It's Not an Anthropological Issue," p. 8.
105. See Mondelo, "Beyond the Tasaday," p. 15.
97. Ibid.
98. See D. Hyndman and B. Nietschmann, "The Gentle Tasaday are
Merely a Persistent Hoax," New York Times. 9 Jan. 1988, p. 14.
99. Mydans, "In Mindanao: Ancient Tribe or a Hoax?" p. 6.
100. Malaya. 6-9 May 1986.
101. Claver, personal communication.
102. G. Andolana, Committee Report no. 301 (Manila: Philippine Con
gress, 1988).
103. Hyndman and Nietschmann, New York Times. 7 Dec. 1987, likened
106. See Philippine Daily Inquirer. 1 Aug. 1988, p. 8.
107. E. Marshall, "Anthropologists Debate Tasaday Hoax Evidence,"
Science. 1 Dec. 1989, p. 113.
108. Ibid., p. 114.
109. "Behind and Beyond the Tasaday: The Untold Struggle over In
digenous Peoples' Resources" (Paper presented to the panel "Tasaday
Controversy: An Assessment of the Evidence," at the annual meeting of
the AAA, Washington, D.C.,Nov. 1989).
110. See Rocamora, Southeast Asia Chronicle.
52 PANAMIN's "medical safaris" paled in comparison to
Elizalde's Tasaday discovery.'lI The gentle Stone Age Tasaday
were part of PANAMIN's forced primitivism whereby only in
digenous people scantily clad or attired in traditional clothing
were eligible for dole outs of medicine, canned goods, and cloth
ing, and with no follow-up medical trips.ll2 PANAMIN main
tained two museums in Manila complete with indigenous
peoples as live exhibits, and fake Tasaday were also put on dis
play. During martial law under the Marcos dictatorship state
agribusiness and hydroelectric expansion required PAN AMIN
to handle indigenous Filipino victims of these programs. After
the CNI was abolished in 1975, PANAMIN was altered from
Elizalde's publicity instrument for electoral ambitions to ex
propriating lands and resources of all non-Muslim indigenous
peoples through use of reservations and strategic hamleting, pat
terned on the CIA counterinsurgency Montagnard program in the
preliberation Vietnamese highlands. "3 PANAMIN's two highest
officials after Elizalde, Jose Guerrero and Roque Reyes, were
both military men. The first regional director of Bukidnon and
Misamis Oriental in Mindanao was Oliver Madronial, a military
officer with five years' experience in the Montagnard program. 114
William Claver believes that the urgency ofprevent
ing the Tasaday reserve from further exploitation
lies in the recognition ofManobo and T'boli rights.
The struggle now is to secure their ancestral land
and see that it is not assigned as public domain and
allocated to land reform.
By the end of 1977 PANAMIN had assigned 2,600,000 in
digenous people to 400 reservations, more than half of the ap
proximately 4.5 million indigenous people then in the
Philippines. According to a Mindanao PANAMIN official, "We
settle the natives on reservation land which we manage for them.
From then on, any company that is interested in the land deals
with us." PANAMIN policy secured reservations that it ad
ministered as government property, and it did not push Presiden
tial Decree no. 410 (1974), which allowed indigenous peoples
to acquire legal title over their ancestral lands. '15
Roque Reyes stated in 1977 that "the purpose of PANAMIN
is to check on the loyalty of the cultural minorities ... .If they pass,
we submit their names to the constabulary for integrating into
paramilitary units. Those minorities who pass our loyalty check
are permitted to participate in the government's fight against sub
versive elements.,,"6 PANAMIN, through their 1979 National
Gintui, who used to climb around in caves to he pictured as a Stone
Age hoy, sports a shotgun and wears a Levi's T-shirt in this photo by
Oswald lten in 1986. The Tasaday hoax needs to he seen in the con
text of PANAMIN's overall plan to force indigenous people into
primitivism on reservations to enable others to exploit their lands and
resources, as well as PANAMIN's large-scale strategic-hamlet
program using indigenous people to ward,off Muslim rebels and the
NPA. Elizalde had ahout400 weapons distributed to the Manobo and
T boli people the Tasaday came from, and in December 1990 the son
in-law of T boli headman Datu Galang was killed by the N PA in an
ambush after having been forced to hunt for the NPA as part of the
Citizen Armed Forces Geographic Unit organized by the Philippine
army to fight the rebels. The civilians involved in the hunt were made
to lead the way and consequently were thefirst to get shot. This photo
is courtesy ofOswald lten, Judith Moses, and Gerald Berreman.
Security and Information Campaign, stated "Through its security
program and in close coordination with the military, PANAMIN
has maintained the loyalty of the 4.25 million non-Muslim hill
tribes to the President and to the govenm1ent. As a result, the cul
tural communities have served as a strong deterring factor to the
expansion plans of the Muslim rebels and the NPA'S."'!7 Counter
insurgency was the largest item in PANAMIN's budget.!18 Among
the Manobo and T'boli who provided Tasaday recruits Elizalde
had about 400 weapons distributed with the help of Mai Tuan,
mostly Garand carbines and some Armalite machine pistols. "0 Vin
cent Cullen, working with Manobos ofthe Bukidnon reservations,
stated: "PANAMIN's reservation program is basically a strategic
harnletprogram, probably imported from the Vietnam Montagnard
program, and thus a military control program; it should not come
as a surprise that there is little development, since military objec
tives may be considered to have been achieved."'))
111. Ibid., p. 13.
112. Ibid., p. 12.
113. Ibid., p. 13.
117. Ibid.,p.19.
114. Ibid., p. 19.
118. Ibid.
115. Ibid., p. 19.
119. See Adler, "The Tasaday Hoax."
116. Ibid., p. 18.
120. See Rocamora, "The Political Uses of PANAMIN," p. 20.
53 Elizalde has persistently perpetuated the Tasaday hoax for
the dual purposes of advancing his political image and fa
cilitating economic exploitation of the region. In the Marcos era
it was done with government support through PANAMIN, and
he has succeeded in the reproduction of these same patterns
under Aquino and congress.
The Office of Muslim and Cultural Communities
(OMACC) succeeded PANAMIN in 1984, but under it indige
nous peoples continued to be compromised by export-oriented
and foreign-capital-dependent state development policies. 12 ' In
digenous peoples comprise only 14 percent of the Philippine
population, but they are primarily confined to the highlands
where they occupy over 55 percent of the land. 122 Living on the
other side of the frontier, the state considered their natural re
sources as national resources and politically regarded their lands
as strategic sanctuary for insurgents. It is their land rather than
the peoples themselves that continued to guide OMACC.
Counterinsurgency was one ofthe agency's principal objectives;
their 1987 budget specified that "OMACC as a civil agency can
therefore be actively involved in the counter-insurgency
program within the framework of the policy of attraction and
reconciliation. "123
Cory Aquino abolished OMACC by Executive Order 122
in January 1987 and created three new offices-for northern cul
tural communities, for southern cultural communities, and for
Muslim affairs; but their objectives, policies, and activities are
the same as those of OMACC and PANAMIN."4 Militarization
and land dispossession of the T'boli and Manobo' 25 continues
under Cory Aquino.
The 1987 constitution has provisions for protection of an
cestralland from agrarian reform and creation of an autonomous
Cordillera and Muslim Mindanao, but these are subject to na
tional development policies and programs. William Claver, as
head of the Cultural Communities Committee, is actively work
ing to see that the state follows through with its new constitu
tional provisions and recognizes and protects ancestral rights to
land and natural resources. Claver'26 agrees that those posing as
Tasaday and their supposedly protected environmental zone
have already been exploited. What is at stake is the rights of the
Manobo and T'boli. He believes that the urgency of preventing
the Tasaday reserve from further exploitation lies in the recog
nition of Manobo and T'boli rights. The struggle now is to secure
their ancestral land and see that it is not assigned as public
domain and allocated to land reform.
The present legislative body is but a supplementary venue
for the broad agenda on self-determination and autonomy of in
digenous peoples in the Philippines. Academic anthropologists,
together with other advocate groups in the Philippines, are them
selves actively committed to protecting the rights of indigenous
peoples. In their statement to the international anthropological
121. See J. Okamura, "The Politics of Neglect," Tribal Forum, no. 8
(1987), pp. 5-30.
122. Ibid.
123. Ibid., p. 14.
124. Ibid.
125. See Tribal Forum "Land, Our Lost Heritage: How Do We Regain
It?" no. 7 (1985), pp. 1-52.
126. Claver, personal communication.
community, the UP anthropology department declared that "as
anthropologists, we have consistently opposed all kinds of at
tempts to annihilate these communities, whether through
military operations, grabbing of ancestral lands or infrastructure
projects such as the Chico River and Agusan River dams that
threatened the existence of our 'minority' communities."'27
More importantly, indigenous peoples themselves, through
their collective forces, are now working on appropriating more
power in their struggle. In Mindanao, Lamadnong Alyansa
Alang Sa Demokrasya-Mindanao (Lumad Mindanao) was estab
lished in 1983.'" According to the general secretary, Datu
Omos,129 Lumad Mindanao is their indigenous people's
solidarity group that actively exposes exploitation of Lumad
peoples, attempts to prevent further human rights violations, and
opposes further incursion of foreign corporations on their an
cestral lands and resources. People like the T'bolis and the
Manobos cannot be pushed forever and be continually denied
access to decision making. Lumad Mindanao and other similar
indigenous peoples' movements in the Philippines are an indica
tion of their growing empowerment, and their continuing strug
gle will soon erase the fiction created about them.
December 1989
127. See MA Anthropology Newsletter, p. 4.
128. P. Bennagen, "The Continuing Struggle for Survival and Self
Determination among Philippine Ethnic Minorities," in A Tasaday
Folio, pp. 135-44.
*
129. D. Omos, personal communication.
magazine on China
News and views on China today. Authoritative comment and analysis from China specialists. Features, reviews, short stories and ideas for teaching about China. Recent issues have focussed on the Roots of Crisis, Gender and Sexuality, Health, China's other peoples. Coming soon: Film and Media, Religion.
Regular features and topical themes by academics,
travellers and residents make
H:lln4~ll\ltI an unrivalled introduction to China.
~oumalists,
Contributors include: Sheila Hillier, Cyril lin, Bill Brugger, Mark Brayne. Harriet Evans, Terry Cannon.
IH:llit¥till\!lfA is aquarterly published by the Society for
Anglo-Chinese Understanding. Subscribe now and receive two back issues free!
UK
Overseas
(airl
Oveneas (surface) Individuals.
Institutions:
£12 p.a.
£22 p.a.
£IB p.a. £25 p.a.
£35 p.a.
£30 p.a. or send £2 for a sample copy IUK only) 'lt.'...
.. Wl""IV...U
""1II"'1I....
Society for Anglo-Chinese Understanding,
'Rendezvous', 16 Portland Street,Cheltenham,
Gloucester. Gl522PB.
54
~
~
Review Essay: Marginal People on Marginal Land SOUTHEAST ASIAN TRIBAL GROUPS AND
ETHNIC MINORITIES: PROSPECTS FOR
THE EIGHTIES AND BEYOND. 11 Divinity
Ave., Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.: Cultural
Survival, Inc., 1987, 171 pp., iIIus. Paper, $10.00.
NATIVES OF SARAWAK: SURVIVAL IN
BORNEO'S VANISHING FORESTS, by Evelyne
Hong. 87 Cantonment Rd., 10250 Penang,
Malaysia: Institut Masyarakat, 1987, 259 pp.,
ill us. Hardcover, U.S. $20.00 or U.K. £14.00;
paper, U.S. $10.00 or U.K. £7.00.
THE HMONG OF THAILAND: OPIUM
PEOPLE OF THE GOLDEN TRIANGLE, by
Nicholas Tapp. 180 Brixton Road, London
SW9 6AT, U.K.: Anti-Slavery Society; and 11
Divinity Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.:
Cultural Survival, Inc., 1986. 72 pp., iIlus. Paper,
£4.95.
ON THE ROAD TO TRIBAL EXTINCTION:
DEPOPULATION, DECUL TURA TION, AND
ADAPTIVE WELL-BEING AMONG THE
BATAK OF THE PHILIPPINES, by James F.
Eder. Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London:
University of California Press, 1987.276 pp., iIIus.
Hardcover, $38.00.
LAND RIGHTS NOW: THE ABORIGINAL
FIGHT FOR LAND IN AUSTRALIA, Interna
tional Working Group for Indigenous Affairs
(IWGIA) Document 54. Fiolstrrede 10, DK 1171,
Copenhagen K, Denmark: IWGIA, 1985.222 pp.
Paper, U.S. $4.50 (individuals), $8.00 (institu
tions).
by Philip Hirsch
What makes a people marginal? Clearly it is not physical
remoteness from the hub of civilization per se. In advanced
capitalist society, the most marginalized populations often reside
a stone's throw from the seat of modem capitalism, our great
fmancial districts. In Southeast Asia, nevertheless, the most mar
ginalized of a diverse range of marginal populations-upland
dwelling ethnic minorities- do reside on the physical as well as
social periphery. Moreover, they occupy land that is marginal in
an ecological sense. Are these groups, then, made marginal by
virtue of their location?
Once again, the answer must be a qualified no, for mar
ginalization is relational and a historical process; it is also mul
tidimensional. Marginalization is a process of alienation from
political and economic, social and individual means of determin
ing and making a livelihood. In the case of ethnic minorities
living on the fringes of national territory, these various dimen
sions of marginality are often closely linked, bound together by
the relationship of people to land.
Taken together, the accounts under review here suggest that
we need to take something of an eclectic position regarding land
and its relationship to indigenous populations. Land is political
territory, within which sovereignty is exercised. Land is also soil,
an economic resource, a means of subsistence and commodity
production. Land is a cultural product with spiritual significance
whose value transcends materialist considerations. Since mar
ginalization is an alienation of people from control over one or
more of these social resources, an understanding of the process
often requires an understanding of this multidimensionality of
land.
In political and economic dimensions, indigenous people
are marginalized first and foremost by the position in which they
find themselves in nation-states and capitalist economies. It is
incorporation and not isolation that is the primary feature of mar
ginality. The dual political-economic forces of nationalism and
capitalism interact to make ethnic marginalization at once a class
process. This interaction is the most striking common feature of
the five books under review, and it also helps to place the cul
tural dimension in perspective.
The issues are examined on a number of scales. Southeast
Asian Tribal Groups and Ethnic Minorities (hereafter SATGEM)
is a collection offifteen short essays by seventeen authors, cover
ing a diverse range of problems affecting diverse ethnic groups
in insular and mainland Southeast Asia. The contributions are
grouped under the three main topics of relations with the state,
cultural change, and population movement3. Natives ofSarawak
deals with the Dyak, a generic name for a number oftribal groups
inhabiting the territory of this East Malaysian state. It is a
detailed and stinging indictment of prevailing attitudes and
55 have become defined as such largely as a product of the colonial
and postcolonial organization and reorganization of national
space. This point is made forcefully and illustrated skillfully by
Ben Anderson in his introduction to SATGEM. A group is mar
ginal only in relation to the center, so imposition of new centers
on peripheries, such as Jakarta on Irian Jaya or Kuala Lumpur
on Sarawak, at once marginalizes people and the territory they
occupy as a consequence of incorporation. Incorporation may be
political, as in the case of addition of new territories to central
ized nation-states;1 it may be economic as a result of new forms
and relations of production, such as under the White Rajahs (the
Brooke dynasty) from the midnineteenth century, described in
Natives ofSarawak; or it may be in the form of local and physi
cal encroachment as in the case of the Batak of Palawan. Per
haps the starkest encroachment is that of what a Sarawak native
describes to Hong as the "modem rajah," a large dam such as the
Batang-ai that displaces thousands of tribal people from their
homes. In all cases, the ironic and ubiquitous consequence for
incorporated local groups and territories is further marginaliza
tion.
The humble wish ofthe indigenous groups is to be
left alone, or to make quiet, slow adaptations to the
outside world. But since the outside world wiU not
let them do this, ethnicity is invoked as the focusfor
identity and political action within the larger society
into which marginal groups are incorporated.
A woman ofKenyah, Sarawak, gathering peanuts from her swidden
(shifting cultivation) field. Although swidden practices are general
ly sustainable and less harmful than logging or cash cropping, they
have been criticized by capitalists, governments, and even some en
vironmentalists. Phato by and courtesy of Evelyne Hong from her
book Natives of Sarawak, p. 35.
policy toward indigenous peoples and their environment. The
Hmong ofTluIiland is concerned with a single ethnic group, but
one that historically covers a wide area as a result of migration.
It highlights the treatment of the Hmong as local scapegoats for
national and international problems. Only On the Road to Tribal
Extinction (hereafter Tribal Extinction) deals with a small, dis
crete, and geographically confined group, the Batak ofPalawan
in the Philippines. The author sets out to show how the process
of alienation associated with detribalization leads to stress and
breakdown of local culture so that the demographic as well as
cultural viability of the group is threatened. Land Rights Now
sheds light on the important historical parallels and current
predicament of aboriginal groups in advanced capitalist society.
The volume documents official Australian policy and responses
by activists and legal authorities to provide a detailed polemic
on Aboriginal perspectives on land rights.
A recurrent theme in these studies is the use of national
security as a pretext for incorporation of peripheral places and
their inhabitants. Unambiguous control over peripheral areas and
peripheral populations is a modem concern of the twentieth
century territorial nation-state. Historically, marginal peoples
Tribal groups not only live in marginal territory; they also
occupy marginal land. This fact underlies the popular associa
tion of many such groups with environmental problems. Swid
dening (shifting cultivation) in particular stands out as a form of
production that is both inimical to surplus appropriation by
capitalist economies and difficult to control and legislate for by
central authority. Neither of these observations is new, but it is,
then, all the more striking that marginal peoples in the late 1980s
are still treated and regarded in ways not altogether different
from early colonial times. This persistence of prejudices is par
ticularly striking in the modem context with the wealth of
evidence of ecologically sound practices contained in most shift
ing cultivation systems, and the steadily increasing indications
that commercial logging is a major culprit in destruction of
Southeast Asian forest environments. Hong in particular does a
careful calculation and concludes that in Sarawak, which now
accounts for one-quarter of the world's hardwood exports, com
1. See these essays in SATGEM: Charles F. Keyes, "Tribal Peoples and
the Nation-State in Mainland Southeast Asia"; Edith T. Mirante, "Eth
nic Minorities ofthe Bunna Frontiers and their Resistance Groups"; and
Benedict R. O'G. Anderson, "The State and Minorities in Indonesia."
mercial loggers deforest at least fifteen square kilometers for
each one cut by shifting cultivators. She also shows that whereas
shifting cultivation provides one of the few sustainable uses of
Sarawak's fragile tropical-forest environment, logging is unsus
tainable and threatens to plunge the local economy into crisis
within a decade.
An important question relating to the sustainability of shift
ing cultivation is whether population growth makes it an ul
timately redundant practice. This question needs to be addressed,
if only in answer to latter-day critics of tribal swidden practices
on the grounds that, sound as such practices were in the past,
population growth now inevitably leads to a reduction in fallow
cycles and a consequent breakdown in the system. Natives of
Sarawak deals with this issue and shows convincingly that the
argument is hollow in the context of much more significant
competing demands on land that serve to reduce fallow cycles
demands like logging, forestry plantations, and encroachment by
cash cropping. What is termed "extinguishment of native rights"
to local resources thus plays a key role in creating population
pressure on the environment. The Hmong of Thailand is less
thorough and more assertive in arguing essentially the same
point. In other contexts, it would have been nice to see considera
tion of the means by which shifting cultivators cope with popula
tion growth. After all, these are groups that historically have
coped with, adapted to, and survived natural and human adver
sity of immense proportions.
Tribal land is not only marginal in an ecological sense.
Legally, too, tribal cultivators, hunters, and gatherers have a
tenuous hold over their land. Invariably, modem legal systems
come into conflict with indigenous systems of tenure. Land
Rights Now shows us that the basis for this is an assumption of
precolonial terra nullius, territory not annexed by any nation. The
concept of usufruct does not fit easily into modem legal systems.
Nor does the idea of communal rights over land. Torrens land
titling requires certification of continuous use of a particular plot,
yet this is clearly at odds with principles of shifting cultivation
and fallow cycles. Natives of Sarawak contains a detailed and
revealing analysis of the progressive alienation of rights to land
and forest resources as it has been written into state legislation.
Alienation ofland by legal measures is exacerbated by what
Lopez 2 in SATGEM has referred to as "bureaucratic landlord
ism," or the direct expropriation ofland by the state. This means
that the lands of the Palaw'an and other marginal groups are
claimed twice over-first by the state, and then by settlers or
commercial interests. In recent years coverage of resource ex
ploitation in the media shows how extreme this is in the case of
Palawan and how closely commercial and state interests over
lap.' It also puts into perspective the relative merits of tribal
groups versus states as custodians of tropical forest environ
ments. In Land Rights Now we see a model for communal con
siderations to be taken into account within a modem legal
framework in the form of inalienable freehold, whereby land is
held by Aboriginal groups under trust.
An irony of the position of tribal groups in Sarawak is that
It IS III part a product of the supposed safeguards of local
autonomy written into the federal Malaysian constitution. The
close association between political and logging interests and the
limited federal control over land and forest issues has placed the
Dyak in a more marginal position than they might otherwise have
been. Aboriginal organizations in Australia are well aware of the
danger of such limited decentralization, particularly when it
vests power in state governments with close ties to pastoral and
mining interests. In a response to proposed legislation the Na
tional Aboriginal Conference insists that "the national Land
Rights legislation must clearly indicate that it is the Common
wealth [federal government] which is primarily responsible for
ensuring that land is returned to Aboriginal and Islander owner
ship" (Land Rights Now, p. 68).
The crassness ofoutsiders' view ofnative culture is
aptly expressed in a development report
[that] ... concludes that transmigration ought to
take some account of Dayak culture, since "musi
cal, folkloric and craft traditions are worthy of
being preserved. Alongside the natural resour
ces.. .. they form a strong potential for tourist
development."
The threat to marginal groups as a paradoxical result of
removal of centralized authority is also one of the ironies of
decolonization, whereby incorporation as a product of
nationalism serves to marginalize hitherto isolated groups.
Tribal Extinction reveals that the Batak have suffered most in the
postcolonial era. Mirante in SATGEM (see footnote 1) shows
how in Burma the marginal position of particular ethnic groups
is a direct result of colonial policy, which was to use ethnic
minorities as a tool of colonial control, resentment over which
provides the basis of postcolonial tensions.
One difficulty in representing tribal groups is the issue of
aboriginality. Lynch4 in SATGEM reviews ILO and UN defini
tions of indigenous peoples and concludes that "the extraordi
nary diversity among indigenous occupants in insular Southeast
Asia mandates ...definitional flexibility." Endicote in the same
volume outlines the predicament of the Orang Asli in Malaysia,
who are literally and genuinely the "original people." Yet these
people suffer discrimination at the hands of a bumiputera ("sons
of the soil") racial policy that in practice accords such status only
to Muslim Malays. Eder in Tribal Extinction quite specifically
defines tribes by their aboriginality, but this is then problematic
in the context of modern nation-states and crossborder
2. Maria Elena Lopez, "Integrated Displacement: the Palaw'an case."
4. Owen J. Lynch, Jr., "Indigenous Rights in Insular Southeast Asia."
3. See the cover story in the Far Eastern Economic Review, 24 Novem
ber 1988.
5. Kirk Endicott, "The Effects of Government Policies and Programs
on the Orang AsH of Malaysia."
57
migrations. The Hmong of Thailand, for example, concerns a
people who are much more recent arrivals than the dominant eth
nic Thai, and this in tum contrasts sharply with the situation of
Aborigines in Australia vis-a-vis the European settlers after
1788. In Burma non indigenous citizens are defined as those who
arrived after 1824!
Tapp helps us understand the historically marginal position
of the Hmong with an account of their southward migrations
after physical displacement by Han expansion in China'. Thus
despite being relatively recent arrivals in Thailand, they have had
conflictual and marginal relations with ethnic majority popula
tions for a long time. This helps explain the recent political irony
of the Hmong, who have found themselves on either side of the
left-right ideological divide in their opposition to the Royal Thai
and Pathet Lao governments, yet unified in their dissent and
hence marginality within centralized nation-states.
A recurrent theme in these studies is the use of na
tional security as a pretext for incorporation of
peripheral places and their inhabitants. t.' 'lam
biguous control over peripheral areas and
peripheral populations is a modern concern of the
twentieth century territorial nation-state.
It is most unfortunate that The Hmong of Thailand has a
subtitle that reinforces the stereotyped image of the Hmong as
the Southeast Asian source of the heroin trade. Since the author
shows in fact how little the Hmong themselves benefit from the
trade and the extent to which they have been made scapegoats,
the choice of this title-presumably intended to help sell the
book~oes little credit to the two organizations involved in its
publication. This is particularly aggravating since the issue of
opium itself, along with related questions of national security
and environmental degradation, plays a large part in marginaliz
ing the position of the Hmong in Thai society.
Turning specifically to the policies of central authorities, a
common theme is the juxtaposition of welfare and control con
siderations in the context of developmentalism and securing na
tional territory. Resettlement in particular exhibits these dual
concerns. As Keyes 6 in SATGEM makes clear, environmental
grounds are often the pretext for resettling shifting cultivators,
but the resettlement of longhouses in "model villages" always
carries the implication-and often explication-that it is "for
their own good." Natives ofSarawak explodes this myth by relat
ing the dire experience of dam oustees, but it is a myth with a
history, as the philanthropic "protection" offered to Aborigines
on native reserves reveals in the introduction to Land Rights
Now. Hanks and Hanks 7 in SATGEM show how unsuccessful the
6. Charles F. Keyes, ''Tribal Peoples and the Nation-State in Mainland
Southeast Asia."
Thai state has been in resettling the Lisu, and how non
bureaucratic factors have encouraged the same group to settle
themselves. It is interesting to note the recent media attention
devoted to Romania's intention to resettle people (albeit
European and in a neo-Stalinist context) in much the same way,
and how rarely the much more common schemes that are part of
"development" receive similar critique.
In addition to forced resettlement, the issue of spontaneous
population movement presents a further problematic aspect of
indigenous people's relationship to their land. Colonial and
postcolonial states have often used tribal "nomadism" as a jus
tification for alienation oflands. Hunting and gathering, and also
shifting culti vation, make use oflocal environments in a noncon
tinuous manner. Many easily assume that this lack of continuity
results from a lack of individual or group permanence or affinity.
Both Tribal Extinction and Land Rights Now show how mistaken
is this assumption or unjustified this pretext.
Largely in reaction to the treatment of marginal peoples
resulting from both misunderstanding and blatant abuse of
power, there has sometimes been a tendency toward atavistic
response, with a static view of indigenous culture. Tribal Extinc
tion explicitly seeks to escape from what Eder terms the "vic
tims of progress" paradigm. It is important to see cultures in a
continuous process of change, as products of a dynamic relation
ship between people and their natural and social environments.
Natives of Sarawak stands open to criticism in this regard, per
haps not surprisingly since Hong is reacting to the massive
onslaught faced by tribal peoples. The Hmong of Thailand
manifests a more disturbing romanticism, exhibited by rather
blatant inconsistency. We are told, for example, that the Khmu'
of northern Vietnam were "speedily quelled by the blunderbus
ses of the Hmong" on their southward march, and almost in the
next breath how remarkable is the Hmong's "peaceful co-exist
ence with their neighbours." In another vein, Land Rights Now
illustrates the importance of traditionalist expression of culture
in the politics of land in Australia.
Perhaps nowhere is the static expression of "native culture"
manifested so clearly as in the modern context of tribal tourism.
The crassness of outsiders' view of native culture is aptly ex
pressed in a development report quoted by Lynch (see note 4),
which generously concludes that transmigration ought to take
some account of Dayak culture, since "musical, folkloric and
craft traditions are worthy of being preserved. Alongside the
natural resources...they form a strong potential for tourist
development." Volkman 8 in SATGEM shows how, among other
influences including migration and religion, tourism at once
recreates and fossilizes conceptions of culture among the Tana
Toraja of Sulawesi, particularly regarding funerary ritual:
"Tourism reinforces the connection made ...between ritual and
identitas [identities], as mountain villagers discover that ritual is
what makes them interesting and attractive to outsiders" (p. 105).
Kammerer9 in the same volume notes the adaptation of Akha
ritual to cater to Akha identity as part of a wider nation, only to
7. Jane R. and Lucien M. Hanks, "Settling the Lisu in Thailand."
8. Toby A. Volkman, "The Periphery and the Past: Identity in Tana
Toraja."
9. Cornelia Ann Kammerer, "Minority Identity in the Mountains of
Northern Thailand: The Akha Case."
58
Batak people of the Philippines on the move between their settlement and a forest camp. Although
the Batak and other indigenous peoples show signs of cultural atrophy. they have also responded
to changing conditions by adapting to them, migrating, and resisting them. Demarginalization and
empowerment are the hope for the future, and international solidarity networks have formed to help
these people resist the agendas of state and capital. This photo is by james Eder and is from his
On the Road to Tribal Extinction, © 1987. The Regents of the University of California.
meet an uncompromising response on the part of the Thai
authorities. Marginalization as the ironic product of assimila
tion is nowhere more evident than here.
Responses of marginal populations to encroachment on
culture and livelihood are varied. As an alternative to the attempt
at accommodation by the Akha outlined above, we also see
evidence of cultural atrophy among the Batak, hence Eder's title
of Tribal Extinction. We also see strategies of resistance, but
more often of adaptation and migration. Kiefer lo in SATGEM dis
cusses resurgent Islam and ethnic minorities in the Philippines,
and suggests that the relevant question to ask is why ethnic
minorities do not rebel. He suggests that the "tiresome litany of
familiar themes" (underdevelopment, lack of education,
religious zealotry), rolled out by government and popular press
alike to explain rebellion, are off-target: "Sulu does not need the
maritime equivalent of Dole Pineapple." For what comes
through is not so much disgruntlement at having been excluded
as what Hong terms
a deep-seated conflict of systems: of economic systems (between
profit-motivated companies and the natives' customary tenurial sys
tem), of ecological and technological systems (between the modern
destructive technology and careless technique of the loggers and the
ages-old conservationist style of swidden agriculture), and of cul
10. Thomas M. Kiefer, "Resurgent Islam and Ethnic Minorities in the
Philippines."
tural systems (the get -rich-quick vulgarity of the modern enterprise
versus the natives' ancient adat tied to the land). (Natives of
Sarawak, pp. 86-87)
Put more directly by Anderson in the introduction to SATGEM
"Their humble wish is to be left alone, or to make quiet, slo~
adaptations to the outside world." But since the outside world
will not let them do this, ethnicity is invoked as the focus for
identity and political action within the larger society into which
marginal groups are incorporated.
It is tempting to sum up the implications of these works on
a note of pessimism. Natives ofSarawak includes a summary of
a report to the UN Sub-Commission on the Prevention of Dis
crimination and Protection of Minorities. The conclusions are so
clearly inimical to the interests and modus operandi of modem
capitalism and official nationalism that it may appear difficult to
rise far beyond the conclusions of Tribal Extinction. On the other
hand, the resistance and adaptation evident in many other cases
suggests that new modes are constantly emerging, and that we
should tum our attention also to demarginalizing processes. The
obverse of marginalization is empowerment, and international
solidarity networks of marginalized ethnic groups are an impor
tant response to the totalizing agenda of state and capital. All this
s~ould rei~force awareness of the danger of assuming the mar
gills of SOCiety to be stagnant, constant, timeless. As a step toward
action, we must recognize, but also look beyond, the spatial con
notation of marginality and see it as a historical as well as a
geographic phenomenon.
59
*
Review Essay: "Are Not Religion and Politics the Same Thing?"* SAVING CHINA: CANADIAN MIS
SIONARIES IN THE MIDDLE KINGDOM,
1888-1959, by Alwyn J. Austin. Toronto: Univer
sity of Toronto Press, 1986, xi + 395 pp.
Hardcover, U.S. $27.50 or U.K. £19.50.
PROTESTANT MISSIONARIES IN THE
PHILIPPINES,1898-1916: AN INQUIRY INTO
THE AMERICAN COLONIAL MENTALITY,
by Kenton J. Clymer. Urbana: University of Il
linois Press, 1986, xi + 267 pp. Hardcover, $26.95.
THE ANGLICAN CHURCH IN BORNEO,
1848-1962, by Brian Taylor. Bognor Regis, Sus
sex: New Horizon (Transeuros Limited), 1983, vi
+ 485 pp. Hardcover, £6.75.
by Kenyalang
The common thread tying together the three books under
review is that of Protestant missionaries in Asia. In his
chronological history Alwyn Austin, a Canadian professional
writer born in Asia of missionary parents, covers both Protestant
and Catholic Canadian missionaries in China between 1888 and
1959. Kenton Clymer, a historian at the University of Texas, EI
Paso, deals with cultural aspects of U.S. Protestant missionaries
in the Philippines from 1898 to 1916. Brian Taylor, a missionary
priest who worked in Borneo in the I 960s as a schoolteacher, has
written a straightforward chronicle of a particular Protestant
denomination in what used to be known as British Borneo.
However, because Taylor's account is not a history and "few con
clusions are drawn" (preface), some of the remarks made in this
review may not apply with equal force to Taylor's book.
shores of British Columbia (p. 52). Their U.S. counterparts acted
on the premise that the United States was the most Christian of
nations (Clymer, p. 154). Evangelism overseas, then, was part of
the "divine plan," and missionaries-national origins and
denomination aside-were haunted by an early religious version
of the domino theory into saving their respective Asian "wards"
with a dose of white, superior religion lest they lose all Asia to
the devil or, equally bad, to Islam. l
.As part and parcel of the nineteenth-century cultural milieu,
these missionaries carried with them abroad that self-serving
paternalism that invariably saw the white race as being at the top
of the human hierarchy, and the target people for conversion as
underdeveloped children, incapable of making sound decisions
and unfit to govern themselves. That affable pretense of being
Similarities in Theme
It was no coincidence that the British, U.S., and Canadian
overseas missions were launched around the 1840s. The three
crusades were parts of the consolidation of white nationalism
within their respective metropolitan power bases. Britain had a
head start because of her Industrial Revolution. The creation of
Canada symbolized the triumph of "civilization" over savagery
(Austin, p. 24), and the Canadian missionaries saw. for instance,
the Yangzi River as an arm of the Pacific that stretched from the
* William Blake, in his poem "JERUSALEM," written in 1804.
1. Frank H. Tucker has aptly called this white man's habitual view of
himself as God-sent deliverer "Messianism." See his The White Con
science (New York: Ungar, 1968), p. 2. "They considered their own
apostolic mission as an unremitting struggle against false gods and
Satan," said the French scholar, Jacques Gernet, in China and the
Christian impact (Cambridge, Eng.: Cambridge University Press,
1985). p. 68.
60
The missionary Luella Miner at her desk as a student recites at North China Women's College in Beijing,
founded in i905. Since many missionaries believed that China's age-old, advanced civilization countedfor lit
tle or nothing, they tried to teach superior Western ways. This is an American Board of Commissioners for
Foreign Missions photo in the collection of Harvard University's Houghton Library, and it is used here with
permission.
able to enter another people's collective mind and know what
was in their best interests was not inhibited by a general ig
norance among the missionaries of the religious history and cul
ture of the natives.' Thus the Borneo Church Mission led by the
Reverend Doctor Francis T. McDougall to Sarawak, Borneo, in
1848 saw itself as introducing the gospel to "that benighted land"
(Taylor, p. 4). China's age-old civilization counted for nought in
the eyes of these missionaries, for she had sunk into opium-in
duced, sin-besotted degradation and must now be re-created in
the image of the white missionaries (Austin, p. 83). Likewise,
U.S. Protestants considered the Catholicism already brought by
the Spanish to the Philippines as "unchristian" (Clymer, p. 15),
so the vice-ridden natives had to be cleansed with evangelical
Protestantism, that "purest religion" (p. 154).3 In view ofthe cul
tural focus he sets for himself, this is one area where Clymer,
who is from the United States and the most scholarly of the three
writers, proves rather disappointing in not del ving beyond "smug
assumptions of Western superiority" (p. 24) into the ideological
underpinning behind the European missionary enterprise.
The ideological missing link is scientific racism and its variant
forms: the social Darwinism of Herbert Spencer, who coined the
2. For an excellent discussion of the situation in seventeenth-century
China, see Gernet, China and the Christian impact.
3. For a literary study of the trumped-up version of the Godless East,
see Rana Kabbani, Europe's Myths of the Orient: Devise and Rule
(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1986).
phrase "the survival of the fittest"; the TeutoniclNordic cult; the
IQ (intelligence quotient) creed; and the eugenics movement.
Scientific racism was the product of the Industrial Revolution, and
made its appearance at a critical tum in history. To justify the con
tinuation of the inhuman (un-Christian) treatment of the working
poor, it was first necessary to deprive them of their right to be con
sidered as fully human as their employerst'benefactors."4 At a time
when the classic Biblical excuses for greed, selfishness, and pover
ty (for others) were fast losing their credibility, scientific racism
provided pseudoscientific rationales for the maximization of
profits, the minimization of taxes on these profits, and the opposi
tion to social programs for the general welfare of the very people
whose labor made such profits possible in the first place. The influ
ence of such propaganda5 was-and still is-pervasive.6 The tenets
4. The same process of dehumanizing the "enemy," first as subhuman
and then as nonhuman, to make the taking of human life easier on the
conscience, is at work during war.
S. The term "propaganda" is used here to refer to words and deeds
designed to make others believe or act in ways the propagator wants
them to believe or act.
6. Allan Chase, The Legacy ofMalthus: The Social Costs ofNew Scien
tific Racism (New York: Knopf, 1980). Few of the great minds of the
nineteenth century escaped its influence. Today it lives in the writings
of and advocacy by notable professors at eminent universities in the
United States and England. See also Marvin Harris, The Rise of
Anthropological Theory (New York: Crowell, 1968); and Stephen Jay
Gould, The Mismeasure of Man (New York: Norton, 1981).
61
classes of people from ever aspiring to rise
above their stations at birth.lO Of the three
authors, Austin is the most perceptive and
comes close to uncovering the ideological
link to scientific racism. He describes the
U.S. reverend Arthur H. Smith's book,
Chinese Characteristics (1890), which up to
the 1930s was considered essential reading
for anyone concerned with understanding the
East, as "a nasty piece of racist business"
(Austin, p. 38).
Harold R. Isaacs in his study of U.S.
public opinion on China was on target when
he called the era 1840-1900 "the Age of
Contempt" (Austin, p. 69). The presumed
inferiority ofthe natives paved the way for
the "white man's burden."* Self-govern
ment (promised in the case of the Philip
pines for 1916) or the assumption of the
position of equality (in the case of the
Chinese) was premature until the infusion
of Anglo-Saxon spiritual and cultural
An Episcopal priest training 19orotsfor the printing trade in the Philippines in 1914. "The
values into the target people was complete.
missionaries felt mightily that Filipino culture had to change," that the approach to labor
The demand for the "multiplication of our
was too casual and the work ethic had to be instilled. This photo and its caption informa
selves" (Austin, p. 169; Taylor, p. 94) soon
tion are from Clymer's Protestant Missionaries in the Philippines, 1898-1916, photo sec
took precedence over the goal of mission
tion and p. 84, and the photo is used here courtesy of the original source, the Archives of
ary work-individual salvation. ll Austin,
the Episcopal Church, Austin, Texas.
Clymer, and Taylor all point to the impor
tance the missionaries placed on the
provision of mission schools and Western
of scientific racism or its variant forms became the conventional
medical service in the host countries. They served the interests
wisdom in institutes of higher learning in Britain and elsewhere in
of proselytization as well as those of the colonizing power. From
the mission schools would come the elite of the country reborn
Europe as well as in the United States, which, except for the 1933
1945 period, was the center of the movement. The effect of such
who would in tum exercise social control over the rest of the
population (Austin, pp. 84, 161; Clymer, p. 150).
conditioning on the minds of graduates, including those who be
came missionaries, can only be guessed. The founding father of
However, with a few exceptions, the evangelists from the
West did not come to the East because of popular appeals in
scientific racism, Rev. Thomas Malthus (1766-1834), was an or
dained moralist before becoming a professor of political economy
China, the Philippines, Borneo, or at the invitation of the elites
at the new East India Company's7 college at Haileybury,
Hertfordshire, in 1805.'
Oncethe missing link of scientific racism is supplied, it ex
10. Chase, Legacy of Malthus, p. 519. This makes sense of the Indian
plains why so much of the diction and arguments used hy white
scholar, K.M. Panikkar's remarks: "The doctrines of international law
missionaries going to Asia and Africa echoed the rbetoric of
did not apply outside Europe [and] what would be barbarism in London
European imperialism,9 even though the missionaries were not ser
or Paris is civilised conduct in Peking (e.g. the burning of the Summer
vants of the white nation-states as the soldiers, ambassadors, and
Palace)...[The] European nations had no moral obligations in dealing
governors obviously were. The historic function of scientific
with Asian peoples (as for example when Britain insisted on the opium
racism when translated from within the white metropolitan nation
trade against the laws of China, though opium smoking was prohibited
states to the international scene always remains the same: to keep
by law in England itself...[This] was part of the accepted creed of
what Malthus contemptuously termed the lower and middling
Europe's relations with Asia." See K.M. Panikkar, Asia and Western
7. The East India Company with its monopoly of British trade in Asia
was then beginning the military conquest of India for the British Em
pire.
8. Likewise, Adam Smith, a founding father of classical economics
whose Wealth of Nations appeared earlier in 1776, was a Eurocentric
moral philosopher before he turned his attention to economic matters.
9. Some missionaries seemed to have realized this belatedly. For
example, Rev. A.W. Stanton, speaking in Borneo after World War II:
"The Church was always looked upon as a sort of society existing to
further the political aims of the British" (Taylor, p. 275).
Dominance (London: Allen and Unwin, 1959), p. 35. One is reminded
here also of the Monroe Doctrine and its various accretions/corollaries,
from the Truman Doctrine to the Reagan Doctrine, which boil down to
this: The U.S. Government confers upon itself the enviable "right" to
intervene militarily in the affairs of other countries. The double stand
ard is best summed up by Dwight Morrow: "We judge ourselves by our
motives, and others by their actions." (Quoted in Leon A. Harris, The
Fine Art of Political Wit [New York: Dutton, 1966], p. 243.)
*Rudyard Kipling's famous/infamous poem "The White Man's
Burden," which bears the subheading "The United States and the Philip
pine Islands," was written in 1899 in response to the American war in
the Philippines.
11. Cf. Matthew, chapter 23, verse 15, the Bible.
62
of these countries. They came for a variety of reasons, all of
which were exogenous to the Asian countries the missionaries
ended up in. Indeed, there was none of the near-pathological
eagemess to contract the white man's faith in the belief, mistaken
or otherwise, that the natives' claim to sophistication would
thereby be improved. Were the Western missionaries then, wit
tingly or unwittingly, serving the purposes later served by foreign
aid in securing a pro-Western orientation among Asians? The
parallels between the two phenomena are uncanny. Like the mis
sionary enterprise overseas, foreign aid did not originate from
pressures in the Third World. Rather, it was organized by the new
Holy Alliance of Western powers in 1949, at a time when an
ticommunism was the ascendant orthodoxy, primarily against
the demons of the godless but equally white-dominated Soviet
bloc.
A less positive process was also at work, but none of the
writers explicitly point this out: the destruction of native culture
to pave the way for the spiritual conquest by Christianity. The
missionaries saw themselves in a benevolent light and could
scarcely conceive of their ministrations as an unwonted disrup
tion of the native culture. '2 Austin does, however, indirectly refer
to an example. Until 1940, the rites associated with so-called an
cestor worship '3 among the Chinese were regarded as religious
ceremonies and banned for the Chinese converts, especially by
the Catholics. Did Christian conversion of the Chinese render
them less Chinese culturally so as to arouse ostracism by their
fellow Chinese? Taylor mentions that the first Chinese im
migrants to North Borneo were Basel Mission Chinese converts
from Canton (Taylor, p. 108). Clymer refers to another sugges
tive example: The Filipino casual approach to labor would be
replaced by the Protestant work ethic (p. 84).
By and large the missionaries dispensed charity and other so
cial work without questioning the causes of human misery. While
they wanned to the faction of the existing elite that was most pro
Western, most missionaries opposed native-led movements no
matter how popularly based they were (Austin, p. 292; Clymer, p.
156). By the same token, there was no general missionary opposi
tion to the use of violence by the Western powers to crush native
challenges to the white man's invasion of their country (Austin, p.
75; Clymer, pp. 156-67; Taylor, pp. 50-51). Thus the Philippine
American War of 1899-1902 was essentially an American war of
conquest, yet most missionaries considered the native resistance
led by Emilio Aguinaldo an insurrection, as if American rule were
already established and legitimate. Likewise, the onus was placed
on the Chinese of Bau 14 when the conflict in 1857 between the
kongsi of this self-governing, gold mining settlement and Rajah
James Brooke's government at Sarawak town (Kuching) passed
into official history under the misnomer the Chinese Revolt (Tay lor,
pp. 50, 155).
12. Tucker, White Conscience. p. 7.
13. This is a misnomer for ancestor/ancestral reverence, which is so
much part of the Confucian culture.
14. Even the original Chinese name for the settlement, Sak-Loong
Moon (Rock-Hole Gate) was replaced by the MalaylDayak adjective
for smelly, Bau, following the massacre of the Chinese miners and the
subsequent stench of decomposing corpses. For details, see my review
of The SarawakChinese by John M. Chin,BCAS, vol. 16, no. 2 (1984),
pp.69-70.
Indeed, the Christianity of the churches provided religious
sanction for the stabilization of the "order" imposed by the
European powers. The missionaries favored the penetration of
Western control inland because it facilitated their own
proselytization, even though this often led to interchurch
territorial raiding (Austin, p. 37; Clymer, pp. 31, 39, 54). In return
for the protection provided by the supremacy of Western force,
the missionaries conveniently looked the other way instead of
scrutinizing with the eye of a Savanarola for evidence of
breaches of God's law (the Ten Commandments of the Bible) by
their compatriots in Asia. The Anglican Church, for example,
side
That affable pretense ofbeing able to enter another
people's collective mind and know what was in their
best interests was not inhibited by a general ig
norance among the missionaries of the religious
history and culture of the natives.
sided with the Brooke Raj in the armed suppression of "pirates"
in the name of law and order even though the coming of the white
man to Borneo had been a cause of the problem of piracy by
disrupting traditional patterns of local trade. A weak Qing Dynas
ty easily cowed by Western gunboat diplomacy was preferable to
the Chinese-led Taiping (Kingdom of Heavenly Peace, 1850-64)
movement, even though the latter was Christian-inspired. Many
missionaries sided with the Qing forces and the British Victorious
Army under General Charles G. ("Chinese") Gordon to crush the
"Christian rebellion" (Austin, p. 71).
In terms of the number of converts relative to the total
population, the missionary enterprise of the Protestant churches
was not exactly a success in China (Austin, p. 67), the Philip
pines (Clymer, p. 195), and Borneo (Taylor, p. 351): in Austin's
words, "so much love, so much sacrifice, so few results." Despite
its claim to color-blind universality, Protestant Christianity as in
troduced and preached in China, the Philippines, and Borneo was
really a Western culture-bound religion (Taylor, p. 12). Until it
divested itself of those Western elements to truly serve the needs
and aspirations of the natives (Austin, p. 329), it would continue
to be seen as a Western import that is useful as long as the
Western-imposed ordr holds sway over the country, rather than
as a home-grown product.'5 In China, the Three-Self Church
15. It is of interest to note here that it was only in the last twenty years
that Latin America (which unlike Asia and Africa was colonized in the
first European imperialism) found a home-grown hybrid religion in
liberation theology. Liberation theologians argue that from Saint Paul
to Vatican II, the Roman Catholic Church has been part of a dominant
culture imposed on the rest of the world through Western colonization.
The God of The Bible, according to liberation theology, takes the side
of the poor and the oppressed; and the Church, to be true to its mission,
must do likewise in history.
63
A missionary to China, Grace Irvin, setting out on an itineration by wheelbarrow with
her Bible woman, ca. 1898. Bible women were local Christians trained by the church.
Such proselytizing efforts and the missionary movement in general served the colonial
powers as well as the church. This photo is from Austin's Saving China, and it is used
here courtesy of the original source, the China Inland Mission Archives of the United
Church of Canada's Overseas Missionary Fellowship.
(self-governing, self-propagating, self-supporting), established
in 1907 under its own synod in the countryside (rather than in
the urban areas where the foreign missionaries were con
centrated), was the response of the Chinese Christians to the bud
ding modem nationalism that manifested itself in the May Fourth
Movement. Austin sums up the position of the mission churches
in China best: "If Christian missions had not yet figured out their
role after 140 years, post-war [World War II] China was no place
to learn" (Austin, p. 290). In the Philippines, the response to the
nationalistic call for greater decision making in church affairs
took the form of a dramatic split from the Catholic Church led
by Gregorio Aglipay in 1902, the Methodist Church led by
Manuel Aurora in 1905, the Presbyterian Church led by Agustin
de la Rosa in 1906, the Methodist Episcopal Church led by
Nicolas Zamora in 1909, and from the Seventh-Day Adventist
Church led by Felix Manalo in 1913. Only in Borneo was the
Protestant church spared the nationalist test. The foreign mis
sionaries of the parent churches in these Asian countries did not
forgive the independence, nor did they celebrate the new-found
self-confidence of Asian people in interpreting God's word
without white intermediaries.
Difference of the Three Books
It is a pity that Clymer does not extend his scholarly analy
sis beyond "an examination of ideas, attitudes, and perceptions
[to] help us understand better the American colonial experience
and the colonial mentality" (p. 8). Taylor is silent on the
socioeconomic forces that worked hand in hand with the
missionary expansion overseas, and Clymer merely alludes to
these in his introductory chapter (pp. 2-3). Austin, however, is
most suggestive: In the case of the Laymen's Missionary Move
mentofthe United States and Canada founded in 1906, there was
a marriage of men, money, and missions (Austin, p. 100). The
cost of Christianizing, it was argued then, would be more than
repaid a generation later by trade with the Chinese (pp. 92, 264,
273), so the private greed of businessmen like Chester Massey
and Sir Joseph Flavelle was cloaked by the public charity of
adopting foreign missions. The impression is that the marriage
between church and business lasted throughout the whole period
under study, although Austin does not say so.
The difference in approach taken by the respective authors
shows in the treatment of the subjects. Clymer deals with his mis
sionaries as a collective presence. With a few exceptions like
Charles Henry Brent, the Episcopal missionary bishop of the
Philippines, their names do not recur often enough for them to
become familiar faces. Austin's narrative, on the other hand, with
the aid of ample photographs, readily lends itself to character
sketches and pen portraits so that those who stayed long enough
in the field emerge as individuals rather than as faceless mem
bers of a denomination. This is especially valuable in bringing
out the fate of that minority of mission workers who, having an
independent mind and the benefit of hindsight, returned to ques
tion the policies of the church that had sent them out to China in
the first place. Taylor's record of who was where and when is to
tally devoid of photographs and maps so that except for the
bishops around whom each chapter has been structured practi
cally every Anglican missionary is lost from sight in the nearly
four hundred pages of verbiage.
Taylor's account is a chronicle rather than a history, but
anyone who subsequently attempts to write a history of the
Anglican Church in Borneo will find the sources, especially the
recondite church archives that Taylor lists, an invaluable start
ing point for research. The judicious use of sources by the other
two writers is also comprehensive, ranging from standard secon
dary works to recent unpublished dissertations and personal
documents. Particularly exemplary are Austin's and Clymer's
uses of the missionaries' personal papers that otherwise have not
been publicly available. Because of their use of personal
materials, these books make valuable contributions to the history
of the collision of the West with the East in particular, and to
scholarship on Asian studies in general. First, as Clymer reports
64
(p. 13), most missionaries' personal records are closed to re
searchers. Second, in a world of cant and hypocrisy, even mis
sionaries make a habit of leaving behind favorable accounts for
the official record while consigning their true feelings and
thoughts to the privacy of their diaries, letters, and other forn1s
of personal papers (Clymer, pp. 11, 131,182). Indeed, Taylor's
chronicle exemplifies this split personality. His footnotes make
more interesting and more informative reading than the main
text, which is written in pedestrian prose, thus giving the impres
sion that he wrote the text in his official capacity as the editor of
the publications of the Borneo Mi~sion Association, leaving the
footnotes to reveal his talents as a historian. 16
The churches as employers of the missionaries were not
above launching public relations campaigns to present their ac
tivities in the most favorable light (Austin, p. 78; Clymer, p. 61)
in order to stem well-aimed criticisms, such as the criticism of
their "gunpowder gospel." Impressive as their real ecumenical
undertakings were, the usual accounts and histories passed by
the church authorities therefore present a distorted view by ex
cluding or minimizing contrary informed opinions and embar
rassing facts. 17 Such accounts and the mainstream standard texts
based on them have filled the archives and library stacks of semi
naries, schools of theology/divinity, and universities with the
result that the cumulative effect on the education of the students
at these institutions easily surpasses the disturbing situation
revealed by Frances FitzGerald in a related field.
FitzGerald,18 in studying the evolution of U.S. history
textbooks, discovered that for a whole generation of Americans
growing up in the 1940s through the 1960s leaming about
Manifest Destiny in the expansion of the United States from sea
to shining sea, the facts surrounding the corrupt politics of those
decisions were carefully edited out. This history was a history of
Americans as secular demigods, of a race created in God's image
and set upon the shores of Massachusetts Bay to establish a new
Eden. U.S. wars were holy wars, U.S. victories in them were in
evitable, and U.S. supremacy among the races of humanity was
assured-at least until the Vietnan1llndochina War.
The hidden agenda in the area of religious history is proba
bly worse. The West has a long-established tradition of leaving for
posterity written records that stand better chances of surviving in
tact against the ravages of time than the manifestations of the oral
traditions of the East. * In the meeting of East and West in the form
of evangelical Christianity, reports and other records of the mis
sionaries and their exploits in the East composed for their home
constituencies and subsequently left behind for the historian easi
ly surpass in sheer quantity the native sources, the records by those
Asians whose hearts and minds they had changed or tried to change.
On top of this uneven, if not one-sided, character of the source,'9
must be added mention of the official bias of the orthodoxy of the
particular denomination of the time period and, of course, the
ideological blinkers of the ever-present scientific racism. One il
lustration suffices to indicate what a Herculean struggle it is to get
at the whole truth about this past. 20
16. For instance, the question of "connections" raised by the footnote
on page 384 on the banning by the Brooke Raj of Sun Yat-Sen's writ
ings is intriquing. Sun, whom Austin quotes as saying, "I do not belong
to the Christianity of the churches, but to the Christianity of Jesus, who
was a revolutionary" (Austin, p. 118), was an Anglican convert, had
been educated in mission schools outside China, and printed Bibles at
a mission press in Canton, but was also a republican. The combination
of open evangelistic work among the Hokkien Chinese traders in Kuch
ing by Kong Kuin En, a Hakka catechist at the Anglican Church's
Chinese Institute, and his Chinese republican sympathies probably led
to his exile from Sarawak in 1908. Did the rabid antirepublicanism of
the Brooke Raj have anything to do with the origins of the conflict in
1857 with the Chinese miners of Bau?
17. Cf. Matthew, chapter 23, the Bible. Are the churches today any dif
ferent from the Scribes and Pharisees of Jesus' days?
*Chinese records are an exception, of course.
18. Frances FitzGerald, America Revised (New York: Vintage Books,
1979). For the demythicizing of Sir Francis Drake and Vasco da Gama
as heroes in maritime history, see Peter Padfield, Tide of Empire:
Decisive Naval Campaigns in the Rise of the West, 2 vols. (London:
Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1979 and 1982).
It was no coincidence that the British, U.S., and
Canadian overseas missions were launched around
the 1840s. The three crusades were parts ofthe con
solidation of white nationalism within their respec
tive metropolitan power bases.
Austin's documentation of the lengths to which the United
Church of Canada went to stop Reverend Jim Endicott, a former
moderator, and Professor Earl Willmott from communicating
their independent views on China upon their return (Austin,
pp. 289-323) is a reminder to all that not only does the fire of in
tolerance of the Church for dissent bum unabated since the days
of Galileo despite the Reformation, but also that, unlike God,
whose word the Church is supposed to spread to and practice
among all humankind, it is more willing to forgive the sin than
19. Professor emeritus John K. Fairbank, the doyen of the China
scholars in the West, in 1974 (John K. Fairbank [ed.], The Missionary
Enterprise in China and America (Cambridge: Harvard University
Press, 1974) and again in 1985 (John K. Fairbank and Suzanne Wilson
Barnett [eds.], Christianity in China: Early Protestant Missionary Writ
ings (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1985) called for a study of
the face-to-face interactions between Asian Christians and the Western
missionaries in the hope ofgoing beyond the 1929 survey by Latourette
(Kenneth S. Latourette, A History ofChristian Missions in China [New
York: Macmillan, 1929]) on the foreign-mission side.
20. Compare this with the more familiar attempts by the state in the
USSR, U.S.A. (CIA), etc., at rewriting history by tampering with records
until any trace ofdissent disappears as if it never existed in the first place.
Witness the excision of Nikita Khrushchev's entire career from Soviet
official histories after he fell from power in October 1964, the blank
spaces in the 1986 edition of Jonathan Kwitny's Endless Enemies: The
Making ofan Unfriendly World (New York: Viking Penguin, 1986), and
the attempted suppression by the CIA of Decent Interval, an insider ac
count of the end of Saigon by its chief strategy analyst, Frank Snepp.
65
the sinner.2! The institution just could not reconcile itself with
those enlightened missionaries whose loyalty to their own
church was often complicated by a "perverse" affection for the
people in a distant land they had returned home from.
For the time periods and the countries covered, the books
by Austin, Clymer, and Taylor reviewed here are each a first
(in English) in their genre. This reviewer looks forward to
seeing Taylor turning his chronicle into a full-fledged history
complete with maps and photographs, examining and present
ing evidence with the talents of the historian. Austin has
synthesized much of the fruits of more focused research,22 and
despite his treatment of the Chinese as objects rather than sub
jects (Austin, p. xvi), Saving China is written in an easy-to
read style that weaves in the socioeconomic background, and
it is likely to become the standard general work on Canadian
missionaries in China. Each of the three books deserves to be
read widely as a guide and stimulus to further research and
reappraisal, especially by Asian scholars, on the religious form
of European messianism in individual Asian countries and the
connections between this messianism and the emergent native
nationalism and imperialism, the two driving forces con
tending for the soul of Asia.
21. The Catholic Church, too, has not yet learned to listen, seeing itself
as the central authority rather than a focal point of unity and continuing
to silence those whom it regards as dissidents. In 1985, Leonardo Boff,
a Franciscan friar and liberation theologian in Brazil, was banned by the
Vatican's chief inquisitor, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, Prefect of the
Roman Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (successor to the Holy
Office of the Inquisition) from preaching, teaching, and publishing for
one year.
22. John W. Foster, "The Imperialism of Righteousness: Canadian
Protestant Missions and the Chinese Revolution, 1925-1928," Ph.D.
diss., New York University, 1977: Karen Minden, "Missionaries,
Medicines and Modernization: Canadian Medical Missionaries in
Szechuan, 1925-1952," Ph.D. diss., York University, 1981; and
Cheung Yuet -Wah, "The Social Organization of Missionary Medic ine:
A Study of Two Canadian Protestant Missions in China before 1937,"
Ph.D. Diss., University of Toronto, 1982, to mention a few.
NONVIOLENTALTERNAnvES
ANNOUNCES THREE PROGRAMS FOR 1991
"ALTERNATIVES TO VIOLENCE"
6 WEEKS IN INDIA (July-August)
"LEARNING HARMONY WITH THE LAKOTA"
3 WEEKS IN SOUTH DAKOTA (June)
"THE WHOLISTIC ALTERNATIVE"
3 WEEKS IN INDIA (six times April-November)
EACH PROGRAM ENABLES THE EXPERIENCE OF RADICAL
DISPLACEMENT IN SEARCH OF ALTERNATIVES TO VIOLENCE
For more information contact: Nonviolent Alternatives
825 4th St.
Brookings, SO 57006
(605) 692-8465
Nonviolent Alternatives Is a Resource and Activity Center for Exploration and
Experimentation with Alternatives to Violence
66 *
Review UNEQUAL ALLIANCE: THE WORLD BANK,
THE INTERNATIONAL MONETARY FUND,
AND THE PHILIPPINES, by Robin Broad.
Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London: University of
California Press, 1988, xxviii + 352 pp., $35.00.
by Charles W. Lindsey
Robin Broad has written an important book about the in
volvement of the World Bank and, to a lesser extent, the Inter
national Monetary Fund (IMF) in the unsuccessful attempt to
transform the Philippine economy from one based on export of
raw materials and import-substitution industrialization to one
driven by export-oriented industrialization. Drawing on internal
World Bank documents and over a hundred interviews with of
ficials of the World Bank and the Philippines, informed business
people, academics, politicians, and activists, Broad examines the
policy-making process that resulted "from the interaction of in
terests of local transnationalist classes and international institu
tions, challenged, with varying degrees of success, by nationalist
factions" (pp. 18-19). Her conceptual framework is one that sees
the Philippines as an example of dependent development.!
In the early 1960s many Filipino economists and tech
nocrats, as well as representatives of the World Bank and other
multilateral and U.S. agencies, attacked the government's policy
of import substitution, a strategy that had been implemented in
the Philippines in the late 1940s. The critics, however, met with
little success. After the declaration of martial law in September
1972, and having suppressed those who argued that the Filipino
economy should be controlled by Filipinos, President Ferdinand
E. Marcos increasingly integrated the already relatively open
Philippine economy into the larger world economy. Foreign in
vestment was encouraged, and an export-oriented strategy of in
dustrialization was initiated.
The Philippine economy, however, became neither totally
open nor laissez faire. Government intervention into the
economy increased. Foreign investment surged, at least for a few
1. Peter Evans, Dependent Development: The Alliance ofMultination
al, State, and Local Capital in Brazil (Princeton: Princeton University
Press, 1979); and Fernando Henrique Cardoso and Enzo Faletto, Depen
dency and Development in Latin America (Berkeley and Los Angeles:
University of California Press, 1979).
years, but it became proportionally less important in industry.2
The friendliness of the regime toward transnational corporations
(TNCs) did not protect them, however, when Marcos was grab
bing up businesses for himself or his friends. The government
also retained tight control over foreign exchange, and the level
of tariff protection for domestic industry remained high. The
result was that the economy was neither closed to imports and
foreign investment nor totally open; economic policy and its im
plementation included elements of both export orientation and
import substitution. The result was that proponents of each ap
proach had something to complain about, as did the critics.
Broad examines how the multilateral lending institutions en
couraged the increasing integration of the Philippine economy into
the world economy. In the mid-1970s the Intemational Monetary
Fund provided the Philippines with approximately $250 million
through an Extended Fund Facility to promote changes in govem
ment economic policy. The fund, however, was unsuccessful in
getting the Philippine government to reduce protection for domes
tic producers. In this struggle Broad focuses on the resistance of
Governor Gregorio Licaros and other high officials of the Philip
pine Central Bank to IMF demands (pp. 59-63).
The IMF having failed here, the momentum shifted to the
World Bank, which implemented a strategy ofcircumventing the
Central Bank and enhancing the position of more sympathetic
Filipinos in the government's planning unit, the National
Economic Development Authority (NEDA), and other mini
stries. The World Bank was successful. Between 1979 and 1982,
Broad argues, "nationalists lost every key foothold of influence
on policy formulation, as transnationalists assumed hegemonic
control of all major ministries. Within the private sector,
2. Charles W. Lindsey, "The Philippine State and Transnational Invest
ment" Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars, vol. 19, no. 2 (Apr.-June
1987), p. 29.
economic nationalist factions whose enterprises depended on
domestic markets were decimated as a class" (p. 13). To imple
ment their strategy, the World Bank negotiated two major loans
with the Philippines: a Structural Adjustment Loan for $200 mil
lion to provide balance-of-payments relief while the tariff wall
was reduced, and an Apex Loan of $150 million to provide funds
for firms willing to enter the export market.
The struggles within the bureaucracy predate the World
Bank assault. Within NEDA and the Ministry of Industry, one
official pointed out, there had been a desire to reduce the level
of industrial protection, but resistance came from vested inter
ests (pp. 72-73). The World Bank was a useful ally. It circum
vented the Central Bank in negotiations and helped elevate those
technocrats who had transnationalist views. In early 1981
Central Bank governor Licaros was forced to resign. He was
replaced by Jamie Laya, whose transnational orientation was
compatible with the World Bank and its Filipino allies.
On the other hand, once the transnationalist-oriented tech
nocrats were in positions of power, Broad argues, the World
Bank was unwilling to take a back seat. Differences remained,
and the World Bank prevailed. She illustrates her point with the
issue of devaluation. Resisted by many technocrats, including
World Bank ally and Minister of Finance Cesar Virata, the
Philippines ultimately promised to devalue the peso. Stable over
the three years prior to mid-1980, the peso fell in value by 8 per
cent over the next twelve months (pp. 90-94).
Conditions for loans to the Philippines have generally not helped
small businesses or increased employment. This drawing and the
next one are from and courtesy ofIBON (Manila), 30 Sept. and 15
Oct. 1990 (p. 5) and 15 Sept. 1990 (p. 7).
off; the early 1980s was a period of growing debt and increasing
stagnation, a crisis in the building that was triggered by the 1983
assassination of former Philippine senator and opposition leader
Benigno Aquino.
Domestically, the policies advocated by the World Bank
resulted in increasing concentration of economic power among
the few and increasing misery among the many. The efficiency
necessary for international competition, it was claimed, required
modernization of the economy and taking advantage of
economies of scale. In banking, trading, and textiles-to take
three examples-World Bank policy resulted in increasing con
centration and monopolization.
Those advocating the development of export-oriented in
dustry saw that the comparative advantage ofthe Philippines was
its cheap labor. The strategy of the Marcos regime was to make
it cheaper: real wages in the Philippines fell 25 to 30 percent
during the 1970s (p. 119). The World Bank position was that the
solution to Philippine poverty was increased integration into the
world economy. Employment was projected to grow by 350,000
between 1980 and 1985 by one World Bank estimate. Internal
ly, cautionary notes were aired. For example, it was pointed out
that the World Bank's analysis did not sufficiently consider small
establishments; increases in modern-sector employment could
be easily offset by employment declines in the cottage industry
sector (pp. 124-26). These concerns, however, were not reflected
in policy. Needless to say, the anticipated employment gains
have yet to appear.
Broad's discussion of the World Bank strategy and Philip
pine government policy making is well documented and per
suasive; she was able to get inside the black box of World Bank
dealings with Third World countries (p. 15). Her effort to situate
the negotiations in Philippine political economy, however, could
be refined. Since it has some bearing on her conclusions, the
issue is worth exploring. I will take it up now.
The author divides domestic capitalists into two groups: the
nationalists who demand protection from the world market in
order to develop Filipino capital, and the transnationalists who
are linked to transnational banks and corporations through joint
ventures, licensing and marketing agreements, and other ways.
The latter, she argues, favor greater international flow of both
goods and capital (p. 7).
Both the fact and the timing ofthe restructuring of
the Philippine economy involves more than a World
Bank initiative and struggle within the Philippine
bureaucracy. Marcos curried support from both
Filipino andforeign capitalists and received it until
the economy began to go flat and his cronyism be
came too blatant.
The World Bank and the transnationalist-oriented Filipino
technocrats hoped that by opening the Philippines to internation
al competition the economy would become more efficient and
growth would be accelerated. But there were problems and con
tradictions. Perhaps the most important was the changing world
economy. The newly industrializing countries (NICs)-Taiwan,
South Korea, and Singapore, among others-had sustained
prolonged rapid growth based on the export ofmanufactures. But
at the time this policy was being pushed in the Philippines, the
world economy was slowing; protectionism was increasing in
the industrialized nations that were to be the markets of Philip
pine manufactured exports, and there was a proliferation of other
countries, like the Philippines, emulating the policies of the NICs
(p. 205). Broad notes that Bank economists and academics who
had pushed export-oriented policies were aware of the problems
and expressed misgivings, but public documents did not reflect
either caution or unease (p. 182). History, of course, has been on
the side of the skeptical. The Philippine economy did not take
68
Economic nationalism has a long history in the Philippines,
being linked with the struggle for independence throughout
much of the U.S. colonial period. The National Economic
Protectionism Association (NEPA), for example, was formed in
1934 (p. 106). Protectionism in the NEPA title implied protect
ing the Philippine economy for Filipinos, from both imports and
foreign investment. During the 1950s and the initial surge ofim
port-substitution industrialization, however, much of the invest
ment in industry was by TNCs. The pressure for retaining tariff
protection increasingly has come not only from the nationalists,
but also from foreign capital that has jumped the tariff wall and
wished to be protected. The correlation between attitudes toward
foreign investment and those toward an open-trade economy,
therefore, is no longer as tight as is implied in the book under
review.
Who currently constitutes the groups of Filipinos referred
to as nationalist capitalists is not clear. Some areas of the
economy, many Filipinos agree, should be exploited solely by
Filipinos. Within manufacturing, however, opinion has varied.
Some have argued that foreign capital should be allowed to par
ticipate in the economy through joint ventures with Filipinos;
other views are more restrictive. Broad categorizes the former
group, as well as those domestic capitalists that have licensing
agreements and other connections with TNCs, as being
transnationalist. Such an encompassing grouping, however,
creates problems. Given the import-dependent nature of Philip
pine manufacturing, precious few Filipino businessmen of any
size can have no relationship with foreign capital. Also, Broad's
categories overlap, with a considerable number of Filipino
Although in the Marcos era nationalist forces delayed tariff reduc
tions demanded by the IMF and the WB. many ofthe required chan
ges were eventually made in exchange/or loans.
capitalists producing for the local market (and wishing to be
protected), while at the same time interacting with transnational
capital. She is aware that the division between nationalist and
transnationalist is not precise, but the acknowledgment does not
affect her analysis (p. 107).
Domestically, the policies advocated by the World
Bank resulted in increasing concentration of
economic power among the few and increasing
misery among the many.
At the onset of martial law, Marcos opened the Philippine
economy to foreign investment. In this he was supported wide
ly by the technocrats. But as Broad points out, it was not until
the 1980s that tariff rates began to fall. Why the delay? The
author shows that import liberalization was the World Bank's
primary interest, and Filipino technocrats also supported the
change early on (p. 81). If so, why did it take the better part of a
decade after the onset of Marcos's authoritarian rule for the
government to move decisively to lower trade barriers? The
author points to the Central Bank as a nationalist stronghold and
argues that it was able to fend off efforts to move the economy
toward free trade, at least until the end of the 1970s. She mar
shals considerable evidence of bureaucratic struggle in support
of her position. It is difficult to believe, however, that more fun
damental forces did not also playa substantial role.
Restricting the nationalist category to those who had no
connections with transnational capital, I would argue, leaves us
with an almostempty set, at least with respect to large and power
ful capitalists. They are too few to have had a substantial impact
on policy. In addition, they were out of favor with the regime.
But, as Broad demonstrates, resistance to tariff reductions and
other changes mandated by the World Bank was widespread
during the period she examines. To obtain support for such
moves, it was necessary for Marcos, in the words of Minister of
Industry Ongpin, to rally "the country to rise to the challenge of
confronting the economy" (p. 72). Later, as the time approached
for the reductions in tariff rates to take place, Broad reports, Mar
cos felt compelled to slow the process down. In March and April
1981 widespread government-business consultations occurred,
capped by a two-day "policy conference on tariff reforms" on 23
and 24 April 1981. To keep the pressure for change on, the World
Bank had, with the apparent approval of Minister of Finance
Virata, refused to release the second tranche 3 of the Structural
Adjustment Loan until the go-ahead for the final phase of tariff
reductions had been approved (pp. 83-87). All this implies the
opposition to tariff reduction was widespread and powerful, too
3. A tranche is a portion of a loan to be distributed to a country.
69
widespread and powetful to have been limited to a few Filipino
businessmen who did not deal with foreign capital or have in
fluence in the government.
What is missing from Broad's framework is this com
plexity. The role of Marcos, surely a transnationalist, is virtual
ly ignored. It is unlikely that the Central Bank could have resisted
tariff reductions without his support. Why did he n'ot provide it?
In what other quarters in the government was there support for
protectionist policies (p. 72)? And why the change in late 1979?
What were the "challenges confronting the economy" referred
to by Ongpin above?
Both the fact and the timing of the restructuring of the
Philippine economy involves more than a World Bank initia
tive and struggle within the Philippine bureaucracy. Marcos
curried support from both Filipino and foreign capitalists and
received it until the economy began to go flat and his cronyism
became too blatant. Those supporting protection surely had
his ear for a time. The possibility of shifting alliances of
businessmen must be included in a satisfactory explanation.
The slowing down of the economy and increasing balance-of
payments problems in the late 1970s may also have affected
the timing of the policy change. It was during this period, for
example, that Philippine external debt began to soar (pp. 195,
197-99). And, of course, there was the growing pressure from
Washington as the U.S. economy's trade position declined. All
these factors need to be brought into the explanation.
My comments do not question the author's analysis of
the intrusion and impact of the World Bank on policy making
in the Philippines, nor do they challenge her critical comments
about the impact of the policy changes. Rather, they are
directed to the nationalist/transnationalist dichotomy she util
izes to explain the struggle over the restructuring of the Philip
pine economy. In addition, it questions her sympathetic
portrayal of nationalist capitalists. After an initial spurt in ac
tivity during the early import-substitution period of the 1950s,
Philippine industry has not been a leading sector. Neither the
nationalists nor the transnationalists, nor, for that matter, the
TNCs, have been a source of dynamism for Philippine
development. A more appropriate criticism of the in
tegrationist pressure of the World Bank might be to question
its support of capitalism in the Philippines at all rather than to
defend one set of capitalists against another.
*
"'... ,....--
.T"TEMENT 01' OWN~...~t.,o=~ AND CIRCULATION
1.... T. . of"'~
._M'_ a.DIM ......
II. flUlLICATlONNO.
BulleUn of ConcerDed uian Scholers
..
Quarterly . ----.-~,-~
~--,
I
1-;:;'::"-- 1
91318101410
...
1
lo.t.I,199O
Four
522.00
IVOICES • OF • RESISTANCEI
+. '--, . . , , - ,
,
3239 9th Street. Boulder. Boulder County. CO 80304-2112
.~"""'.Mdr_"_~"_I11_~"""_"""..j
3239 9th Street. Boulder. CO 80304-2112
•.
1----'
-,
1--
.... tII* .... IIVSfNOT .. .....,
F""-_~.""'~""*,,,-."'.~
REBOLUSYONI
8111 Doub. 3239 9th Street, Boulder. CO 80304-2112
-- ....... _.....,-_
Bob Karka. Dept. 01 H18tory. Whittier Coll.p. Whittier. CA
BUI Daub. 3239 9th Str..t. Boulder.
7. OwNrtlf......J., • ."....MI _ _ . . . . _
(X)
A GENERATION OF STRUGGLE IN THE PHILIPPINES
90608
80304-2112
. . . . ..", ... ..........,. . . . . . . . . _ _ 1IIIMw.4.................. , - - - . ,............. _ _ ......
_ .. ..-. , ......,.,......
..........,...,1-, .. __..........._"........._
....... ,.,.....-._
..,..,...,•...,.............
J"'-._4"_~.-t.
.........., 4.~
- .
... -
-
...
uUeUn of Concerned Asian Sc.bolar8

.................... 1IIIIIIa.-s...ner ........ 0wIIinI ......... I " - - . ' ..... III'T... " - I .......... _ _ .. OIhIr
...._
--....t(f...--.• ~
...
•. ,...
,..e...........~ ........ OIpIIt............. T..... "--..._IIlIIIlIIf...... GJ.I1-'W ......................... _
.................................... "' •
------ 0==
..,..~_
'" b!J:::::'c:..
'D.
.................. c.......
....
... T....... c - ....
........
.....
~..,
..,.---~
---
1............................................ ___ .....
2. M............ C.T.....ICI....,.,_...... ~
a-.,.,_~
o Frwo..,......."M.... c.rrllroro.htf . . . . ........ ~..,. ..... 01IMf'...
. . . . . . .a.d_1 t¥. . . . ,.,.,---~.,
......... " . _ 1 ............. c....bdI .... O....
.......... ,2 .......
Act.......
1938
,.....
347
408 1242
1218
1S89
1626
0
I. T.... D~_.,C_Df
1589
1626
•. c..frM'lO""""
1. OtfIM_.... _ .............. .-iIH ..........
349
274 0
2 "-urn"-n .......... ...
TOT~
....
.,I."...
.• AJ
1938
2---..v,.._".,_~
1_ _ " ' _ _ _ "
................................
c.- ............ .................. , ... 0.•
0
c.... G.

Id.r. CO
-
by Benjamin Pimentel foreword by Ramsey Clark afterword by Edicio de la Torre "In this sensitive treatment of a key leader of the
Philippine left Pimentel brings alive the remark
able development of the Philippine progressive
movement In the 1970s and 1980s. This was truly
a generation that mattered In Philippine
politics." -Walden Bello, author of Development
Debacle: The World Bonk and the PhilippInes
$12.00 • PB8235 paper I $26.00 • CL8227 cloth
MONTHLY REVIEW PRESS
122 West 27111 Street
New York N.Y. 10001
0
1900
1 ............ ' .... . , .......· ........· ..................·010.
~
c;a ~1l1 Doub.
pubUsher 70
(212) 691·2555
Review EUROPEAN COMPANIES IN THE PHILIP
PINES. 22 Coleman Fields, London Nl 7AF:
Catholic Institute for International Relations,
1987, xx + 194 pp. Hardcover, U.K. £25; paper,
U.K. £8.95.
by Charles W. Lindsey
The Catholic Institute of International Relations has at
tempted to provide an "account of the involvement of West
European companies in the Philippines" (p. ix). The book is or
ganized in chapters around major sectors of economic activity:
traditional exports, nontraditional exports, manufacturing and
trading, and so on, with one chapter devoted to the major in
dustrial projects that the Marcos regime attempted to launch in
the late 1970s. Considerable information is included, but it is
presented rather haphazardly. No consistent set of information is
presented either on the European firms involved in the Philip
pines or the projects themselves. Moreover, the book is limited
by a lack of analytical focus. The usefulness of the volume will
be primarily as a reference source on European direct investment
in the Philippines.
European Companies in the Philippines begins with a
somewhat uneven introduction to Philippine political economy,
suggesting that the book is directed primarily to audiences un
familiar with the Philippines. This might explain why there is
such limited reference to the literature on foreign investment in
the Philippines and no reference to other efforts to establish the
population and area of economic activity of foreign investment
in that country.
One is given the impression in the introduction that
involvement means direct investment. In addition several tables
are presented providing information on individual European in
vestment projects and on the relative importance of each
European country's participation. A total of 227 investments
from fourteen European countries are identified. Almost half of
these are listed in the annual publication by Business Day as
being among the largest 2,000 firms in the country.
In the sectoral chapters, on the other hand, the discussion
ranges well beyond direct European investment in the Philippine
economy to include European companies that have secured con
tracts for plant or equipment from a Philippine company, have
licensing agreements with Philippine firms, or have sales agen
cies in the Philippines. Given the difficulty in identifying the
population offirms engaged in non-direct investment economic
interaction with the Philippines, as well as the limited number of
cases included, this reviewer assumes the information presented
is only illustrative.
The book's lack of analytical focus is most apparent in the
discussion of the non-direct investment activities of European
firms. For example, six European firms are listed as either sup
plying equipment for sugar centrals (mills) in the Philippines or
constructing sugar centrals (pp. 4--6). But there is no indication
of why that is useful information.
Another example is the discussion of Cellophil Resources
Corporation, which was owned in the 1970s by Marcos crony
Herminio Disini and was engaged in a controversial logging
project in northern Luzon. Reference is made to a consortium
headed by a French firm that was in charge of planning and con
struction of a pulp mill in the logging area and to the initial fund
ing of the project by European banks. Two paragraphs follow.
The first discusses the displacement of Philippine minority
groups living in the area and the resulting militarization, human
rights abuses, ecological damage, and pollution. The second out
lines conflicts between the Philippine government and Cellophil,
on the one hand, and the French consortium, on the other hand,
over failure to meet contract commitments and delays in the
project. What is the point of it all?
The authors are not even clear about what constitutes a
European firm. In 1980 an agreement was signed between the then
British-owned Guthrie Corporation, and the Philippine govern
ment to establish a palm-oil estate. Ayear later, Guthrie was bought
out by Malaysian interests. Nevertheless, Guthrie is included,
presumably because it figured prominently in a debate in Britain
over a British aid project to the Philippines (pp. 54--56).
The book is at its best when discussing direct investment.
Information is provided on percentages of holdings in joint
ventures, production arrangements, labor relations, and'the
like. Even here, however, there are problems. For example,
economic information is presented for a number of firms, but
usually only for the 1983-85 period. That firms generally suf
fered losses or declining incomes during this period should
not be surprising to anyone familiar with the downturn in the
Philippine economy in the early 1980s or the political and
economic crisis that was precipitated by the assassination of
opposition leader and former senator Benigno Aquino. Com
parative economic information over a much longer period,
however, would have been useful.
71
The nature and extent of involvement of European firms
in the Philippines is an important issue. Many Filipinos and
others interested in the Philippines would benefit from having
more information on the subject, and the Catholic Institute
should be commended for their effort. However, having read
the book, this reviewer doubts that anyone with expertise in
the subject was consulted. This is unfortunate, for there are
many in the Philippines, as well as in Britain, who could have
provided useful assistance. A collaborative effort between ac
tivists and those more familiar with the issues surrounding
foreign investment could have produced a much more useful
volume.
*
Books to Review
The following review copies have arrived at our office since the last
issue. Please refer to the longer list in the previous issue for other
books currently available from BCAS.lfyou are interested in review
ing one or more of these books, write to Bill Doub, BCAS, 3239 9th
Street, Boulder, CO 80304-2112, U.SA. We also welcome reviews of
important works on Asia that are not on our lists, and if you ask us to
get particular books for you to review, we can usually do it. We
generally prefer review essays that compare two or more books and
discuss problems of approach or analysis. For more details on our
preferences, please write for a copy of our "Guidelines for BCAS
Authors."
General
Acarya Prasiidananda Avadhuta, Neo-Humanist Ecology (Singapore
and Manila: Ananda Marga Publications, 1990).
Terry Eagleton, Fredric Jameson, and Edward W. Said, Nationalism,
Colonialism, and Literature (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota
Press, 1990).
Pablo Bustelo Gomez, Econom[a politica de los nuevos parses in
dustriales asiaticos (Madrid: Siglo veintiuno editores, 1990). In
Spanish.
Han Suyin, Tigers and Butteiflies: Selected Writings on Politics, Cul
ture and Society (London: Earthscan Publications, 1990).
Richard Holloway, ed., Doing Development: Government, NGOs and
the Rural Poor in Asia (London: Earthscan Publications in associa
tion with Canadian University Services Overseas).
Ralph McGehee, CIABASE (Herndon, VA: McGehee, 1990). An an
notated guide to information about the U.S. Central Intelligence
Agency, in the form of a set of seven 5.25-inch floppy disks for
IBM-compatible computers.
S.N. MUkherjee and J.O. Ward, eds., Revolution as History, Sydney
Studies in Society and Culture no. 5 (Sydney: Sydney Association
for Studies in Society and Culture, 1989).
East Asia
Rey Chow, Woman and Chinese Modernity: The Politics of Reading
between West and East, Theory and History of Literature, vol. 75
(Minnesota and Oxford: University of Minnesota Press, 1991).
James A. Dorn and Wang Xi, eds., Economic Reform in China:
Problems and Prospects (Chicago and London: University of
Chicago Press, 1991).
Ha Jin, Between Silences: A Voice from China (Chicago and London:
University of Chicago Press, 1990).
Edward Morin, ed., The Red Azalea: Chinese Poetry since the Cultural
Revolution (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1990).
Pang Pang, The Death ofHu Yaobang (Honolulu: University of Hawaii
Press, 1990).
Frederick C. Teiwes, Politics at Mao's Court: Gao Gang and Party
Factionalism in the Early 1950s, Studies on Contemporary China
(Armonk, N.Y. and London: M.E. Sharpe, 1990).
Wang Anyi, Love on a Barren Mountain (Hong Kong: Renditions,
1991).
The World Bank, China: Macroeconomic Stability and Industrial
Growth under Decentralized Socialism, A World Bank Country
Study (Washington, D.C.: The World Bank, 1990).
The World Bank, China: Revenue Mobilization and Tax Policy, A World
Bank Country Study (Washington, D.C.: The World Bank, 1990).
Northeast Asia
Jang Jip Choi, Labor and the Authoritarian State: Labor Unions in
South Korean Manufacturing Industries, 1961-1980 (Seoul: Korea
University Press, 1989).
George E. Ogle, South Korea: Dissent within the Economic Miracle
(London and Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Zed Books; Washington, D.C.:
International Labor Rights Education and Research Fund, 1990).
South Asia
Shahida Lateef, Muslim Women in India: Political and Private
Realities (London and Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Zed Books, 1990).
Ghanshyam Shah, ed., Capitalist Development: Critical Essays.
Felicitation Volume in Honour of Prof. A.R.Desai (Bombay:
Popular Prakashan, 1990).
Inderjit Singh, The Great Ascent: The Rural Poor in South Asia (Bal
timore, MD and London: Johns Hopkins University Press for the
World Bank, 1990).
Myron Weiner, The Child and the State in India: Child Labor and
Education Policy in Comparative Perspective (Princeton: Princeton
Southeast Asia
Asia Watch, The Philippines: Violations of the Laws ofWar by Both
Sides (New York: Asia Watch, 1990).
Jane Monnig Atkinson and Shelly Errington, eds., Power and Dif
ference: Gender in Island Southeast Asia (Stanford: Stanford
Anne Booth, W.J. O'Malley, and Anna Weidemann, eds., Indonesian
Economic History in the Dutch Colonial Era, Monograph Series
no. 35 (New Haven: Yale University Southeast Asia Studies, Yale
Center for International and Area Studies, 1990).
Howarth E. Bouis and Lawrence J. Haddad, Agricultural Commer
cialization, Nutrition, and the Rural Poor: A Study ofPhilippine
Farm Households (Boulder, CO; and London: Lynne Rienner
Publishers, 1990).
Marc Cayer, Prisoner in Viet Nam (Washington, D.C.: Asia Resource
Center, 1990).
Theodore Gochenour, Considering Filipinos (Yarmouth, ME: Intercul
tural Press, 1990).
Geoffrey C. Gunn, Rebellion in Laos: Peasant and Politics in a
Colonial Backwater (Boulder, CO; San Francisco; and Oxford:
Westview Press, 1990).
Jomo Kwame Sumdaram, Growth and Structural Change in the
Malaysian Economy (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1990).
Victor Lal, Fiji: Coups in Paradise. Race, Politics and Military In
tervention (London and Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Zed Books,
1990).
Carl A. Trocki, Opium and Empire: Chinese Society in Colonial
Singapore, 1800-1910 (Ithaca, NY; and London: Cornell University
Press, 1990).
Marilyn Young, The Vietnam Wars 1945-1990 (New York: Harper
Collins Publishers, 1991).
Robert Youngblood, Marcos against the Church: Economic Develop
ment and Political Repression in the Philippines (Ithaca, NY; and
London: Cornell University Press, 1990).
72 *