No CrossRef data available.
Article contents
Extract
The present war has brought home the fact that even the most elementary freedom, the right to dispose over one's own person, cannot be taken for granted. Despotism backed by military force still rides roughshod over the rights of man. But whereas formerly a conqueror confiscated without hypocrisy the working power of his victims as well as their property, today world opinion forces him to use circumlocution, to pretend to purposes other than those of greed. Thus, labor in the Philippines has been recruited for compulsory services “in the interest of public safety, security and welfare.” And the compulsory nature of that recruitment is disguised by a pretense of voluntary enrollment which deceives few, least of all the victims. Actually, under a recent order in Manila all citizens between the ages of eighteen and fifty were eligible for labor conscription, and in other parts of the country more general enactments have been interpreted as permitting an almost unrestricted use of Filipino labor for the construction of defense works, roads, air fields and air raid shelters, and for other purposes. A false air of respectability has been given to some of these services by persuading leading citizens to lead parades, armed with spades, to the places where the “voluntary” and “patriotic” work was to be performed.
- Type
- Articles
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © The Association for Asian Studies, Inc. 1945
References
1 Blair, Emma H. and Robertson, James A., The Philippine Islands, 1493–1898, Cleveland, 1903–1909, vol. XVI, 121–23.Google Scholar
2 Assembly Report on Slavery and Peonage in the Philippine Islands, Manila, 1914.
3 Act of Congress, July 1, 1902, section 5.
4 Report of the Philippine Commission, Manila, 1913, p. 90.
5 Act 2071, Philippine Commission, August 7, 1911.
6 Report of Philippine Commission, Manila, 1912, p. 76.
7 Slavery and Peonage in the Philippine Islands, Manila, 1913.
8 Address before the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences, November 19, 1913; appendix XXIV of vol. II, Cameron Forbes, W., The Philippine Islands, Boston, 1928, p. 497.Google Scholar
9 Act No. 2300, Philippine Legislature, November 28, 1913.
10 For some detailed observations see Hurley, Vic, Southeast of Zamboanga, New York, 1935, pp. 114–15, 138–39.Google Scholar
11 The Philippines, past and present, rev. edn., New York, 1939, vol. I, p. 514.
12 Op. cit., vol. I, p. 526.
13 Miller, Hugo H., Principles of economics applied to the Philippines, Boston, 1932, p. 53.Google Scholar
14 Allen, James S., “Agrarian tendencies in the Philippines,” Pacific Affairs, XI, 1, March 1938, pp. 62–63.Google Scholar
15 Keesing, Felix M., The Philippines, a nation in the making, Shanghai, 1937, pp. 36–37.Google Scholar
16 Benitez, Conrado, History of the Philippines, Boston, 1926, p. 128.Google Scholar
17 Miller, Hugo H., op. cit., p. 193.Google Scholar
18 Kroeber, A. L., Peoples of the Philippines, New York, 1928, p. 166.Google Scholar
19 Ibid., p. 164.
20 Morga, Antonio de, Sucésos de las Islas Filipinas (1609), Paris, 1890, p. 297Google Scholaret seq.
21 For examples see Hurley, Vic, op. cit., p. 102Google Scholar; also Lasker, B., Filipino itnmigration, Chicago, 1931, pp. 89, 191.Google Scholar In Manila, the numbers game often assumed socially dangerous proportions in recent pre-war years.
22 Macaraig, Serafin E., Social problems, Manila, 1929, p. 44.Google Scholar
23 Miller, Hugo H., op. cit., p. 52.Google Scholar
24 Appleton, Marjorie, East of Singapore, London, 1942, p. 137.Google Scholar
25 Kurihara, Kenneth K., Labor in the Philippine economy, Stanford University, in the press, chap. II.Google Scholar