'These brothers of ours': Poblete's obreros and the road to Baguio 1903-1905.

On July 21, 1903, some two hundred laborers recruited to construct the Benguet Road linking the Americans' erstwhile summer capital of the Philippines at Baguio with the railhead to Manila refused to report for work and peremptorily marched out of camp. They were dissatisfied with conditions, treatment, and wages. While the incident is barely if at all remembered, it became something of a cause celebre at the time. The affair was made much of by a nationalist press owned by Manila-based literati involved in non-military confrontation with the new colonial administration and eager to cast Americans in the worst of lights. The Americans were anxious to be prove themselves blameless and to distance their actions from those of other colonial regimes. The workers, of course, the obreros, simply fade once more into the historical twilight but not before leaving behind them a glimpse at the nature of the changes taking place in the local labor market. To all three, however, the episode proved noteworthy even if its significance was transitory. As part of a wider campaign of religious nationalism, "seditious" theatre, political coalitions and labor organizing, radical journalism proved an increasingly effective tool in wringing concessions out of reluctant colonial authorities and in discrediting the Partido Federal whose members were largely supportive of the new regime. Americans were forced to find solutions to the problems of labor management in the local context and to discover something about how to fashion workable colonial practices. The voices are too few and muffled to hear what individual workers said about these events but within a few years Filipinos began to migrate overseas to work on the sugar plantations of Hawaii as new opportunities expanded mental horizons, encouraged labor mobility, and raised life expectations.

Of course, making overly much macro history from micro happenings is fraught with its own dangers. Yet without these fragments of the past, much of nonwestern history would remain hidden and the present would be less well understood. The situation in the Philippines is made more acute by historians' pre-occupation with the momentous political events at the beginning of the twentieth century. Intense debates about the nature of an "unfinished revolution" have reverberated down the ensuing century, influencing the direction that historiography has taken and largely obscuring appreciation of the important social changes taking place within the archipelago. (1) Attention is drawn more to the surface politics of the nation rather than to the dynamics of social change within Filipino society. As explanation for this fixation, Reynaldo Ileto points to the legacy of American colonialism and to scholars interpreting history more through the prism of patron-client relationships rather than class. (2) While it may be premature to talk about the dawning of such a consciousness as yet, there were socio-economic developments in Filipino society at this time that were just as significant as the political ones. The creation of a labor market, the introduction of new management techniques, more widespread migration in search of employment, the first flexing of industrial muscle, and changes in gender roles that took place between 1899 and 1908, between the end of Spanish colonialism and the creation of a Bureau of Labor, are milestones in the growth of the nation previously largely overlooked. (3)

These stirrings of labor owed their origins to a number of inter-related factors. Some were borne out of circumstance: the continuing military strife and the incessant manpower requirements of armed forces of all persuasions. It is estimated that between 200,000 and 600,000 Filipinos died during this period, a significant proportion of the economically active sector of the population. (4) Others were the result of ambitious colonial infrastructural projects that created unprecedented labor demands that dwarfed those of the largest employers under Spanish rule, the sugar centrals. (5) The increasing need for unskilled and progressively more skilled workers exacerbated an already existing labor shortage, placed workers in novel situations and undermined customary forms of reciprocal self-help arrangements. Still other factors had external origins. Anxious to demonstrate its policy of "benevolent assimilation" of the islands and influenced by the rhetoric of its own domestic situation during the Progressive Era (1898-1916), the U.S. administration actively promoted labor throughout the archipelago while often coming to rue the success of its own program.

It is against these wider considerations that the events surrounding the recruitment of labor on the Benguet Road are played out. Named after Pascual Poblete, the chief labor recruitment agent, the affair is one of those rare occasions when long term historical developments at work in the less visible strata of society come to the surface. The paper capitalizes on this transitory visibility to trace some of those contours. It commences with reconstructing what happened at that mountain camp those July days in 1903 before moving to a wider discussion of labor conditions prior to that time. Then it examines the responses of the American officials in charge of the project: their analysis of the labor market, their critical adjustments in recruitment tactics, and their success in obtaining and organizing the labor necessary to complete the road ahead of schedule. It concludes by looking at the political and nationalist context of the incident, the nature of the circumstances that from the perspective of the well-heeled urban literati transformed obscure rural road workers into "these brothers of ours". (6)

The Road

James Ross submitted his report on the alleged sufferings and mortality of the laborers sent from Manila the previous July to work on the Benguet Road on September 1, 1903. He had been commissioned by the civil government to conduct a thorough investigation into whether there was any truth in the rumors that Filipino workers had been systematically mistreated, abused or even starved to death by the Americans in charge of the construction site. While there is some evidence of ill-treatment based on petty-minded racist attitudes, deaths mainly occurred from cholera, dysentery and malaria. In the course of this enquiry, however, Ross conducted interviews with a large number of witnesses including the workers involved, the recruitment agents who engaged their services, the local government and health officials through whose districts the men and sometimes their families passed, and the civil and military officials engaged in the management of the project. (7) Collectively these testimonies and the incidents they describe constitute a unique insight into labor conditions at the turn of the twentieth century.

The advantages of a hill station manifested itself very early to American authorities. The task of developing a highland sanatorium whose curative airs and milder climate would aid in the recuperation of those enfeebled by prolonged sojourns in the lowlands was embarked upon even before the writ of the new colonial administration extended over the entire archipelago. Baguio, a village high in the central Cordillera Mountains a few kilometers distant from the Spanish provincial capital of Benguet was chosen because its alluring landscape of "rolling, turf-covered hills, studded thick with fragrant pines, and swept by all the breezes" reminded Americans of an idealized vision of home. (8) In fact, the Spanish had already "discovered" the attractions of the site and had planed a similar facility there, even realizing the construction of a steep bridle trail linking it to La Trinidad in 1892. (9) Access, however, remained the foremost preoccupation of the Americans as the village could only be reached after a 24-hour sea voyage from Manila to San Fernando followed by two to three more days travel by horseback. (10) A continuation of such conditions was evidently impractical if the place was to serve its purpose as a location where invalids could reach let alone convalesce.

The priority attached to this scheme is evident by the haste with which the newly arrived Philippine Commission sponsored a survey of possible routes into the mountains. (11) Captain Mead was authorized to examine the feasibility of constructing a rail link between the existing terminus at Dagupan in Pangasinan and Baguio on September 12, 1900. He reported back that the most direct and least expensive option was by way of the Bued River Canyon and suggested the initial construction of a temporary wagon road running along the bed of the proposed railroad. (12) The Commission endorsed his recommendation and appropriated the necessary funds for its realization in December of the same year. The new road was to run approximately 35 miles (56 kilometers), connecting at its northern end with the old Spanish road from La Trinidad and at the southern one with the existing provincial road near Pozorrubio. Work commenced at both points in January 1901 and made steady progress until reaching the Canyon. Even more intractable than its rock base that required extensive blasting and the frequent landslides that carried away sections of the road in seconds was the question of labor: it was "scarce, untrained, unwilling, and extremely difficult to procure." (13)

Insufficient labor was to haunt the first years of the construction of the Benguet (later Kennon) Road. (14) The initial workforce comprised impressed Igorot tribesmen under American foremen but such practices were soon put a stop to by the military authorities. Agents were then sent out to recruit laborers throughout the neighboring provinces but Captain Mead still complained vociferously about "the difficulty in securing native laborers," adding on April 1 that: "Not one native working today, and there is no way of making the fools work during holy week." (15) Mr. N. Holmes subsequently replaced Mead as chief engineer on August 20, 1901 but fared little better than his predecessor. Despite an energetic personality and a great deal of personal commitment to the project that saw the construction of a rough road passable for carts to a point about eight miles south of Baguio, he, too, complained of a "crippling" labor situation that suffered the work "to drag along" making "the most unsatisfactory progress." (16) All his efforts to recruit more workers proved unsuccessful despite repeated appeals, letters and the dispatching of numerous agents. He also concluded that "the native makes but a poor showing as a laborer," will not work at all unless supervised by an American foreman and that "even under the most favorable circumstances such work as they do perform is not equal to more than one-fifth the amount a good white laborer would perform in the same period." (17) Moreover cholera broke out along the route, effectively suspending work on the road for months. Holmes drew workers from any source he could: Ilocano, Pangasinan, Tagalog, and Igorot but only the latter proved "a vastly superior animal" that could be trusted to earn his wages "without the necessity of a white foreman to watch him." (18) Matters had reached such a sorry state by January 1903 that he reported only two to four men at work on the road daily. In April, he resorted to hiring American laborers at US$2 gold per day in a vain endeavor to maintain progress but there were still only 173 employees engaged on road construction two months later. (19)

Such delays proved unsatisfactory to the Philippine Commission bent on the rapid development of a colonial hill station. While not unmindful of the difficulties encountered in the road's construction, Commissioners nonetheless wanted results. In a meeting on June 1, 1903, they passed a resolution formally declaring Baguio the summer capital of the archipelago. Major Lyman W. Kennon was given overall responsibility for all "improvements in Benguet Province" though Holmes was retained as chief engineer for the Benguet Road. As the latter project proved to be the most immediate of his concerns, the Major established his headquarters along the roadway at Twin Peaks and assumed personal direction of all work there from the middle of August. After reading a newspaper report in which Pascual Poblete claimed he was able to furnish enterprises with large numbers of workers, Kennon authorized him to recruit 1,000 laborers for work on the road. (20)

The events that happened next are the subject of Ross's investigation. According to Kennon, he informed Poblete at their first meeting that the daily rate for Filipino workers was fixed at US25 cents gold (50 cents Philippine currency) plus rations and quarters, though the amount might be increased "if they showed ability to perform the same amount of work as laborers of other nationalities and races." (21) It was this corollary that was later to be the subject of so much controversy and misunderstanding. On his side, Poblete claimed that despite the difficulties they finally settled on "agreeing that Filipinos should be paid for the work actually done, as compared with what American labor did." (22) In any event, he then set about hiring capataces (agents) who, in turn, proceeded to recruit men from the region immediately South of Manila (especially Laguna and Batangas) as well as from the provinces closest to the road in Pangasinan and Tarlac. In all, some 1,400 laborers were engaged in this fashion of whom about a thousand actually reached the railroad terminus at Dagupan. (23) There is no doubt, however, that these men were led to believe they would receive between US$1-2 gold (2-4 Philippine pesos) a day. (24) "I was one of a company of workmen who went to Benguet in July last," Narciso Generalia of Cabuyao in Laguna told Ross. "I was invited to go by Publio Batallones of this town who promised me $2 gold, per day, with rations." Others told the same story. Moreover, Poblete confirmed these conditions when the men reached his house in Manila that acted as a collection center for workers from the south. "When in Manila", according to Narciso's further testimony, "we were standing below the window of Poblete's house, and he appeared at the window and stated to us that we would earn $2 gold per day." Cristobal Dimala from Los Banos corroborated this statement but added an important corollary: "Poblete said the Americans earned 4 pesos Mexican per day, that if we did the same work as the Americans we would receive the same amount of money, but that if we did only half as much as the Americans we would receive only half as much money. He did not tell us that if we could do only one-tenth as much work we would receive only one-tenth of the salary." (25)

After a stay of several days in Manila, the first 250 workers left by rail for Dagupan on July 17, 1903. Arriving there at night, they ate and were billeted in the camarines (stores) around the market place. The next morning the men were issued with two days' rations and then set off walking to Twin Peaks, a distance of some 35 miles, but inexplicably did not arrive there till late on the afternoon of July 20. There they received more food and were told to find what shelter they could as it was too late to proceed the four miles further to the main construction camp that night. The next morning, as the men were lining up preparatory to leaving, two of the capataces approached Mr. Holmes (Major Kennon being absent at the time) and in broken English "demanded" more rations, refusing to go any further without them. (26) The men were duly given more rice and salt and promised beef as soon as an animal was slaughtered. Again the men lined up ready to depart when the same "youngster" once more approached Holmes complaining that the women with them had not been issued any rations. Holmes had no authority to distribute food to anyone but laborers but, as the capataz insisted, he complied "in order to preserve peace and get them started." (27) Finally, the men started off for the construction camp when the young man returned a third time to ask how much the daily rate of pay was and, on being informed that the amount was US25 cents gold and rations, "flew into a state of excitement and said that he had been promised $4 a day when his work became as good as an American's but under any circumstances he was to get $2 a day and rations for each of his men." The capataz then refused to take the men to the construction site at Camp Three and instead positioned them in front of the chief engineer's house where he said they would remain until the arrival of Major Kennon and the resolution of the matter. (28) Ross's report makes no further mention of events that day except to note that "the very instant" the fresh meat was distributed to the men "they simply took it and walked deliberately out of camp." (29) Workers returning from the site, however, told a somewhat different tale, one in which American laborers had kicked-over and broken the pots in which their rations were cooking, and how they had been denied shelter when the torrential rains frequent at that time of the year had fallen. (30)

As the men disappeared down the road out of Twin Peaks, they vanish from the historical narrative with only momentary subsequent glimpses that illuminate their return journeys. It took them at least two days to reach the rail terminal at Dagupan where they split into groups of from a half dozen to 50 men to begin the trek back to Manila. They applied for food from the American official in charge there but were refused. Some tried successfully to hitch rides on the train. G. N. Eagan, the American schoolteacher at Tarlac, saw several flatcars piled with timber on which large numbers of obreros sat: "Many of them had handkerchiefs ... in which was rice and other provisions ... All of them were in very good humor, and evidently having a good time and a pleasant trip." Eagan complained of their "arrogance," filling up the stations along the line and making no effort to open up a passageway for anyone. He also claimed to have seen several of the men "that from appearance had drunk a large amount of 'vino' or other intoxicant." (31) However, others were less fortunate, men like Maximo Trasona who had to make the entire journey on foot. Groups of workers were strung out along the roads back to the capital "begging food of the people living along the route, as we had nothing to eat." Alfonso Ramos, Provincial Governor of Tarlac, saw many passing through Capas "begging food from house to house" and "half naked." (32)

All accounts confirm that the laborers mainly met with kindness and generosity from the communities through which they passed, being given food and even donations of money despite the troubled times and the shortages experienced in most parts of the country. (33) Still, many went hungry and all were weak and tired. Others reported more serious conditions. "The trip back was a very hard one," Narciso Generalia recalled. "We were seven days on the road from Dagupan to Manila. Several of our companions died on the road." (34) Pedro Malabayabas was more specific: "I had a brother named Francisco. He died in Paniqui, on Saturday, the 25th of July, from the effects of hunger and exhaustion. He ate some coconuts, was taken sick shortly after midnight and died during the day." (35) Rumors abounded and reports spread along the line of their march that many people had died. Captain Robert Noble thought there were as many as seven deaths in all; other witnesses said the tally was still higher. In Ross's final summation, he estimates that at least seventeen "strangers" died in the provinces of Tarlac and Pangasinan alone during this period though only one, Francisco Malabayabas, the brother of Pedro, could be definitely identified as having belonged to Poblete's company. As the stream of men returning from Twin Peaks met the advancing columns of obreros still en route for Benguet, rumor and innuendo held sway and all turned back towards Manila, turning an ebb tide into a flood. Mariano Vijandre, a capataz who had recruited over a hundred workers in Bulacan, turned back after reaching Dagupan along with some 300 others because they were "not satisfied with the food given us there." (36) Eventually most men made their way back to the capital where they congregated once more at Poblete's house. Meanwhile, press reports made the issue of the laborers' treatment a matter of sufficient public debate to goad a sensitive and still nervous colonial officialdom to institute an investigation into the alleged abuses and even to finance the obreros' onward journeys home. (37)

The Workers

Major Kennon's final report on the construction of the Benguet Road, published after its completion in 1906, provides fascinating details about working conditions and how they changed under his direction after the fiasco of the obreros episode. The scheme represented one of the first large-scale development projects in the islands where the workforce was hired on the "open market" for a wage rather than recruited by means of corvee labor as had been customary under the prior regime. (38) Roads, however, were also part of the army's pacification program and over 1,000 miles had already been constructed or improved mainly through impressed labor by August 1900. (39) Much of the early workforce on the Benguet Road had effectively been secured through the same means with agents "scouring" the surrounding country to secure men. (40) Provincial governors and municipal presidentes (mayors) treated U.S. recruitment drives in much the same manner as they had under the former Spanish system, ordering that a certain number of men report for work for a specified number of days or weeks. This period included travel to and from the construction site with the result that a worker arrived on the road in time to work Saturday, collect his pay and leave the following day. Needless to say, he neither became familiarized with the new tools he had to handle nor became accustomed to the type of labor demanded of him. Moreover, anyone forced to work under these conditions apparently did so "as if he were serving a sentence." (41) Even the experiment of using prisoners was tried. Some 200 convicts from Bilibid Prison in Manila were sent to Twin Peaks in August 1903 but the trial proved ineffective. Shackled prisoners could not be employed on precipitous cliff sites without endangering life and limb. They also had to be constantly guarded. Some died, others escaped, and the remainder proved too "demoralized and useless" and were returned to their cells in November. (42)

After mid 1903, then, workers had increasingly to be hired on the open market. Quite apart from Filipinos, the laborers were a very polyglot lot. At one time, there were said to be representatives of 46 nationalities at work on the road including North American Indians, Hawaiians, Mexicans, Peruvians, Chileans, Hindus, Chinese, Japanese, Russians, Germans, Irish, English, French, Swedes and Spaniards. (43) The indigenous labor force was just as ethnically composite. Men were recruited from as far away as Albay in the Bicol region and even Panay in the Visayas though the majority of workers were Tagalogs, Pangasinans, Pampangans, Igorots and increasingly Ilocanos. (44) Harmony was not easy to maintain among this multi-ethnic community and there was often hostility between groups. Captain Mead reported that Ilocanos and Pangasinans exhibited "a natural dislike to the Tagalogs" and he identified the latter as "a disturbing element" and blamed them for "forcibly driving local laborers from the camps." (45) At other times, this rivalry could be put to constructive purposes under more astute management; Major Kennon organized working parties from among the different "tribes" [sic] and "pitted them against each other" as a means of increasing productivity. (46)

Certainly, too, consciousness of ethnic difference permeated the construction site, shaping the manner in which work was organized, how laborers were housed and even what they ate. Thus workers after 1903 were grouped into units of varying size ranging from campsites of about a 1,000 men down to work-squads of between 20-25 individuals each under their appropriate foremen. Native foremen were placed in charge of only the smallest units each of which was composed of men from "the same class or race" as themselves. (47) Workers were also assigned separate sleeping quarters according to racial divisions: "American", Oriental or Native. All workers of American, European or African origin were classed under the general heading of American; Chinese, Japanese and Hindu were designated Oriental; and all Filipinos were grouped together as Native. (48) Food, too, was categorized along similar lines with different rations apportioned according to perceived racial and cultural differences. Thus separate provision were made for Americans, Japanese, Filipinos (including Chinese) and Sikhs based on the substitution of bread for rice, higher proportions of fish to meat, or the complete absence of the latter. (49)

This racial categorization both divided workers from one another and instilled a sense of unity among them. By labeling all Filipinos as one and treating them as "natives" in relation to others, they began to turn a fictional commonality into an imaged reality. (50) Moreover, as Filipino workers discovered common interests in relation to an American-dominated management structure, they manifested activities that could both be called non-confrontational forms of dissent or nascent class identity. (51) Just how important large-scale construction enterprises with large, multi-ethnic indigenous labor forces such as the Benguet Road were in the forging of a common consciousness among working people in the Philippines is an intriguing question that deserves fuller consideration.

American management techniques were at first largely coercive though there were strict regulations governing the use of physical violence. A reluctant workforce was egged on to greater efforts by white foremen mouthing coarse language and foul invective. Victor Clark, whose detailed survey of labor remains one of the principal sources on colonial education, observed one such instance in which a white boss pouring forth a torrent of American-Spanish "contumely" was regarded by a gang of "bewildered" stevedores as simply "borracho o loco" (drunk or crazy). (52) While some foremen may have been constrained by injunctions to avoid physical contact, others were not, and the whole road site was imbued "by the idea of force." Personal violence, however, proved to be both ineffective and self-defeating as employees did not work any faster, deserted at the first opportunity, and spread stories about harsh treatment that encouraged others to stay away. Ridicule was a much more effective method according to Chief Engineer Holmes. Men found "loafing" were made to stand in a prominent position holding a small piece of rock: "This would tend to call upon him a sheaf of witticisms and remarks from his collaborators, who would work with an increased vim for some time." (53) On another occasion, a foreman was able to appeal to the indigenous sense of hiya (shame) to induce his squad to climb a river canyon side. On reaching the 50-foot ladder, the men had categorically refused to ascend, proving equally deaf to threats or appeals, and had only done so after the disgusted foreman had ordered his wife to mount: "She did so and the whole party, following her, moved on its way." (54) Yet despite all these schemes, the men would "not do an honest, full day's work" and could only be kept at work at all under the vigilance of "a white foreman." (55)

Faced with such a regime, Filipino workers tried to minimize their labor, feigning activity when watched and taking any opportunity to stop work altogether. Laborers were noted for their "utter indifference" to the tasks assigned them. In a particularly evocative passage, Holmes describes how "the average native performs certain mechanical motions with the tool which may be assigned to him ... endeavoring never to work with the accomplishment of a purpose in view." How in handling a pick "the native will raise it in the air, allow it to drop by its own weight, striking a glancing, infinitesimal blow," or how with a shovel "he places the blade with the most deliberate care in such loose dirt as he can find." And how when shown the correct manner in which to use an implement: "They revert to their own methods as soon as the eye of the foreman is removed." (56) Laborers shielded from direct view would post a lookout while one and all took it easy, confident that a timely warning would ensure that the foreman found "every man ... industriously at work." (57) Similarly any group of men sent out to secure timber, grass or other materials had to be accompanied by an American, otherwise they returned "so close to the quitting hour that they can be put at nothing else, and yet not so late as to miss their daily issue of rice." (58)

And there was still a darker side to this resistance. Instances of theft and robbery were reported where toolboxes were broken open, implements taken and others scattered around the adjacent bush. Signs were vandalized and boards removed. Portions of the completed road were willfully destroyed, ditches dammed, gutters and culverts blocked, and at least one incidence of arson recorded in which a bridge was set alight. More sinister still, a timekeeper was attacked with bolos, the machete-like knife carried by most men in rural areas, and several horses were mutilated by the same means. These and similar incidences led Holmes to conclude that "the native laborer has proved himself on this work to be idle, shiftless, and stolidly indifferent, approaching his work with no degree of intelligence or judgment, of a deceptive and treacherous character, wantonly careless and frequently maliciously destructive, uninterested and indifferent to his work, unwilling to learn and impossible to teach." (59)

The relationship between worker and native foreman was ambivalent. On the one hand, the bond was patronal in that common interest and loyalty merged with paternal care and authority. The capataces in the case of Poblete's obreros acted as recruiting agents and then as the squads' foremen on the way to and at the construction site. One such capataz, Andres Egasani, appears to have been the "youngster" referred to by Holmes during the negotiations at Twin Peaks. According to Maximo Elasegui, one of the obereros interviewed by Ross, it was Egasani who had told them to leave: "He did not give us any reason for telling us to go. We left when the capataz told us to go, because he was the one who had taken us there." (60) Sharing a common place of residence furthered the association: Publio Batallones only recruited men from the vicinity of his hometown of Cabuyao in Laguna and a similar modus operandi was followed by Egasani in Calamba. (61) The bond, therefore, was a strong one; the only group of obreros to actually remain at the Benguet Road was that recruited by Alfonso Acosta who worked with him till the road's completion in 1905. (62) Yet the testimony of another capataz, Mariano Vijandre, reveals just how fragile that authority could be. When asked why he did not stay with his men, especially when some were taken ill on the return journey, he replied that the workers had not wanted him there and that "the laborers didn't like to obey me." (63) Such attitudes suggest that foremen also needed to possess a certain amount of charisma, a leadership trait common to traditional societies in maritime Southeast Asia. (64) But the socioeconomic background of these men is not easily ascertainable; Ross described them as "intelligent young Filipinos," suggesting an educational level above that of the normal laborer. Certainly they demanded a higher rate of pay, asking double what a laborer received. (65) Yet they do not seem to constitute a group apart from the workers either and depended as much on customary practice to achieve their purposes as on any sense of authority derived from the management structure. Clearly to the Americans, the foreman was just another "native" who could not be entirely trusted to ensure his charges did a proper day's work. (66)

The Americans

Poblete's obreros and the circumstances connected with the Benguet Road represent both the end of an era and the beginning of a new one for labor in the Philippines. Under Major Kennon's management, there would never again really be a scarcity of labor. A time would even come when the number of those seeking employment exceeded the need for labor and men had to be turned away. (67) In a sense, Kennon's policies were typical of their time and place, novel in their application of rationalized and systematic management techniques, but still with vestiges of a patronage that make them interesting as a transitional stage in the development of labor practice. Nor was the road to Baguio the only large-scale project initiated by the Americans during these years, the cumulative effect of which was to transform the workforce and the nature of labor. While these shifts were more apparent in Manila with the organization of an early form of labor confederation, the Union Obera Democratica (UOD), fundamental changes were also taking place in the rural workforce. Customary forms of communal labor were gradually giving way to more monetized arrangements as agriculture became increasingly commercial and war disrupted the supply and demand for workers. Moreover, the new colonial government was at least partly responsible for these developments both as a major employer and through policies aimed at improving working conditions. Perhaps, too, U.S. administrators regarded a more independent labor force as a useful check on the growing power of the landed-elite on whose collaboration they were dependent for running the country. (68)

Rhetoric promoting the independence and self-reliance of the ordinary man and woman may seem incongruous sentiments, let alone policy, for a colonial state not noted for its radicalism and one that was newly embarked on imperial venture far from its shores. Yet the turn of the century was also an age of reform in the United States. There was recognition that to maintain social harmony required curtailing the worst abuses of industrial practice and upholding the basic rights of the worker, if only to ensure further economic growth. Above all, the Progressive Era manifested an attempt to come to terms with the problems of a rapidly industrializing society. As such, it was an age rife with such apparent incongruities as a paternalistic state using the cloak of democratic oratory and the powers of the judiciary to control labor's growing industrial and social might and yet incorporating unions within the political process. (69) It was also an era of industrial violence, one in which the state had to act as regulator of the economic process and guarantor of stability. (70) At once contributing to this labor turmoil and responding to it, business embraced the principles of systematic management in which rationalization, organization, and efficiency substituted for the more patron-client relations of the workshop and craft era. In particular, much public prominence was given to the ideas of "scientific management" as advocated by Frederick Taylor though, in practice, its adoption was uneven. (71) Workplaces were restructured, workers timed, their productivity measured, and their capacities compared. Hierarchical management replaced the arbitrary personal authority of the foreman. "Science in the service of democracy" dominated the public discourse of the time. (72)

U.S. military authorities initially followed existing labor practices when recruiting men for large-scale enterprises. They employed patrons or bosses to secure a gang of from twenty to thirty workers. These patrons in their turn handled payments. Each would receive a slip stating the number of men in their gang and the time they had worked. After certifying and presenting the slip to the cashier, the patron was entitled to collect what was due to him and his respective gang for the work performed that day and would then redistribute the money to his crew. (73) This procedure was time-consuming, costly, and discouraged regular attendance and continuity of employment. Even if a worker was paid directly, he would turn the money over to his patron who would exact a certain amount (about 20 per cent) before returning the balance. (74) Such conditions could not be allowed to continue for long if a modern labor was to operate in the Philippines. As a first step, the payment of workers on a daily basis was replaced by the staged introduction of weekly, fortnightly, and then monthly wage packets from mid-1901, a change apparently achieved without too "much complaint or comment." (75) Dispensing with the practice of patrons and gangs, however, was harder. On two occasions, Captain Butt experienced a complete work stoppage in the Land Transport Department after he had discharged the patrons and stationed guards to prevent them from receiving workers' pay. Patrons responded to such actions by withholding their services and obstructing the hiring of any labor. (76)

Over time and with persistence, greater success followed: laborers gradually realized that theirs and their patrons' interests diverged. U.S. government employers kept patrons away from the premises, while telling workers that they had no need to share their wages and would always be able to find employment when they sought it. Foremen found engaging in exploitative practices were promptly fired and the grounds for their dismissal made known to all concerned. A white foreman discovered committing similar practices was discharged, arrested, prosecuted, and sentenced to six months in Bilibid Prison. (77) Care, too, was taken to ensure that workers were not abused or mistreated. Bosses and foremen had habitually struck men who showed insolence or did not obey promptly. Now anyone found guilty of striking an employee faced immediate discharge, and the regulation's strict enforcement was credited with inducing a marked change in attitudes toward work and overtime. (78) Workers responded well to the new situation. By 1902 most enterprises in Manila no longer had problems in securing sufficient labor. Butt reported considerable progress: men receiving regular wages, furnished with steady employment, and not paying anyone for the privilege of working had the "effects on the laboring classes throughout the city in getting away from the clutches of padrones and others who have been robbing the laborer of his earnings." (79) The situation in rural areas, however, was far more difficult though here, too, the influence of such policies was substantial. Such was even the case regarding labor conditions on the Benguet Road in the aftermath of the fiasco of Poblete's obreros and under the new management of Major Kennon.

The policy adopted by Kennon once he assumed direct control over the road in August 1903 incorporated both the notions of racial paternalism inherent in Social Darwinism and those of efficiency conveyed by systematic management. The changes he instituted also reflected the realities of the colonial Philippines: racial paternalism adapted to the practicalities of colonial control and systematic management modified to local conditions. It was on the Benguet Road and comparable sites that the framework of a uniquely American era of colonialism was forged, one that involved "raising" the Filipino through an admixture of fair wages, training, and education. (80) At the same time, however, there is no denying the racist overtones that characterized the paternalism of the new management style. Kennon instituted a policy of "attraction" rather than "coercion" to induce workers to come and remain at the road. Recruitment agents were dispatched to districts with which they were familiar and furnished with statements describing wages, rations, and treatment. Special care was taken in selecting the right men for this task. They were shown the actual working conditions before returning to the provinces. Moreover, recognition was finally accorded to the importance of family and men were granted permission to bring their wives and children. (81) Small shops opened to supply local demand and soon regular villages began to appear along the road at Twin Peaks, Camps Three and Four and elsewhere. A postal service was also established to improve communications with families remaining at home and to facilitate the remittance of money.

Conditions in the camp were also reformed. Rations were improved and meat made a regular feature of the diet at a time when many were still experiencing food shortages and starvation as a consequence of continuing military hostilities. Entertainment was provided: Saturday night dances and bands hired to play "lively tunes" to the men at work who fairly made "the dirt fly in time to the music." (82) Even saloons were permitted though their number and location were restricted, and their operations regulated and kept under constant surveillance, and a cockpit opened at Twin Peaks though gambling was officially discouraged. (83) Acknowledgement, too, was made of the often-dangerous nature of the work. Four hospitals were built at conveniently spaced distances along the road and equipped with dispensaries, operating rooms, wards, kitchens and quarters for staff. Surgeons were appointed to each and experienced medical orderlies to adjacent camps without such facilities. Patients were accommodated in comfortable metal cots, received a special diet, and were treated free of charge so long as the illness or injury had been incurred in the course of their duties. (84)

All this amounted to a considerable improvement in working conditions. Soon there was no longer any shortage of manpower. Over twenty thousand men worked on the road between October 1, 1903 and June 30, 1904, a little less than half of whom were Filipinos, and "no scarcity of labor ever existed again." (85) But this change of policy was very far from a change of heart and sprang more from an astute recognition of the practicalities of labor recruitment under existing conditions than from any sense of altruism. More revealing is the old "Yankee proverb" that Kennon chose to enliven his report with, that "one can catch more flies with molasses than with vinegar." (86) In his opinion, the tao or common Filipino was "human": "He is densely ignorant and primitive, but he is not cattle." (87)

At the same time that living conditions were made more attractive, the actual labor regime was made much more demanding through the introduction of systematic management practices. The worker was regarded more as a unit whose productivity was measurable against his needs and whose efficiency could be increased accordingly. As elsewhere, first the clientalist link to a patron had to be sundered; workers were paid in person to prevent "grafting" by middlemen. The new model foreman was very much a "company man", an agent of surveillance replete with quasi-police powers and charged with maintaining order and enforcing the regulations. Each employee was checked at least four times a day to ensure that his work met expectations and a timekeeper appointed to every two hundred workers. A record was kept of how every man performed. Each worker had a number and a metal time tag. On Sundays, a bulletin was posted in the camps showing the total number of days and hours each had worked and time-keepers were made liable to deduction of pay for every error in accounting that led to overpayment. (88)

Just as important as mechanisms to ensure productivity were inducements to encourage men to work harder. On the one hand, wages were scaled according to race: "American" carpenters earned between US$2.50-3.00 per diem, Japanese US$1.50 and Filipinos only US50 cents, while laborers received US$1.00-1.50, US$1.00 and US25 cents respectively. On the other hand, two rates of pay were established for each class of labor as an incentive to make men work harder or to maintain their higher status. Foremen were admonished to carefully observe the performance of each employee and record whether "he be an active, energetic, steady, hard worker." If such was the case, he was rewarded with an increase in pay and if not, penalized with a decrease. (89) Moreover to maintain the men's health and strength, sanitation and cleanliness were made matters of regulation. Camps sites were selected for their drainage and accessibility to running water, and, where necessary, the latter was brought in by galvanized iron or bamboo pipes. Sinks were flushed out regularly and refuse diverted directly into the nearby river. Between one and four men were detailed to police each camp and keep the area clean, removing dirt and burning all waste. Excrement was covered with earth and lime twice daily. Prescriptions dictated aspects of personal hygiene: water was to be boiled before drinking, dishes washed in hot water, food must be cooked before eating, and all raw provender forbidden. There were rules, too, governing the airing of bedding and clothing, and the whitewashing of walls in sleeping quarters. All these regulations were published in Spanish, Tagalog, Ilocano, Pangasinan, Chinese and Japanese to ensure compliance, though it was noted that "natives persisted in drinking water from running streams" and so fell ill more frequently. (90)

Kennon's new policies proved such a success that he was able to drive himself into Baguio in a calesa (buggy) on January 29, 1905. The roadway was still far from finished and would require considerable more work, yet the achievement was considerable. Since he assumed responsibility for the project in August 1903, 18.1 miles of new roadway had been constructed through some of the most difficult terrain, a significant rock-cut had been made between bridges 39 and 40, the old road had been rebuilt in places and even several miles of its lower stretches metalled with crushed stone. The most optimistic projection had anticipated three years to finish the road but, in the event, it took Kennon less than 18 months. (91) But amidst this triumph of modern management and confidence in the benefits bestowed by the colonia Americana, there were also signs of a nascent solidarity among Filipino workers that surfaces even in the official reports. It was noted that the most effective agents and delegations sent into the provinces to recruit labor for the road were always those composed of men from the working class as: "The tao is not often willing to accept the word of any class than his own." (92)

The Literati

While the walk-out at the mountain campsite was evidently of considerable moment to the workers concerned and demanded the immediate attention of the American officials involved, the whole affair was of consequence to a third group of people. Moreover, it is largely due to the activities of this latter group that Poblete's obreros are remembered at all: that they became first the subject of public scrutiny, then the focus of official inquiry, and ultimately the central characters of historical reconstruction. To a radical intelligentsia in the capital city bent on opposing American rule, the episode at Twin Peaks presented a perfect opportunity to publicize the nationalist cause, embarrass the civil administration and discredit political opponents who had chosen accommodation with the archipelago's new rulers. These were the literati that Felipe Calderon had identified as those principally responsible for the rebellion. (93) They composed a "third estate" of clerks and writers distinct from the landed rich or the rural poor who profited from the continuing chaos of war to improve their social status. (94) Their chosen weapon was not the gun but a "war of words," a torrent of radical journalism, labor oratory, seditious theatre and religious nationalism that they unleashed upon the invaders and those who supported them.

The Manila from which the obreros initially set out from on their trek north and to which they abruptly returned at its conclusion was a city rife with rumor and seething with enmities. Passions ran high as anti-"Yanke" sentiment, raillery at the religious orders, and attacks on collaborationist elites found expression in personal correspondence and in the press. While criticism of the Americans had to be more circumspect, at least in public, those on the religious orders, persons "who call themselves Apostles of the faith but were in reality merchants" or who used "the secrets of the confessional to betray many Filipinos to prison, exile and the firing squad" were merciless and unrelenting. (95) Moreover, such attacks were used to implicitly discredit the regime that condoned their return in "numbers [that] are rising day by day in proportion to their power." (96) But the worst invective was reserved for the Partido Federal whose members had come to terms with the enemy and who advocated an end to hostilities, acceptance of U.S. sovereignty, and ultimately incorporation of the archipelago as a state. These federalistas or americanistas were collaborators: "los mismos perros con distintos collares"--just the same dogs with different collars. (97)

Manila was also a city of fear and betrayal whose streets were full of soldiers, police and spies, a place where "terror was the order of the day." (98) Agents of the secret police swarmed among its buildings and along its thoroughfares like "locusts." (99) Denunciation, humiliation, petty harassment and abuse of the local population, whether real or imagined, provided suitable material for the "yellow" press. Businesses had "jewelry and other objects of value" arbitrarily confiscated and women were arrested for dressing in the same red and blue of the national flag. After a particularly daring partisan raid on a U.S. military store, over-zealous policemen stripped a man in broad daylight of his khaki colored trousers leaving him naked from the waist down. Yet another unfortunate lost both his shirt and pants on the wharf. Suspects might have incriminating items "planted" on them. The owner of a house in Santa Cruz was brought before an American judge accused of possessing the chevrons of a revolutionary officer that an agent of the secret police summarily produced from his pockets. Imprisoned, he was only freed on the payment of five hundred pesos, the amount required to employ "the services" of an American lawyer. For those without money, the alternative was prison where, it was said prisoners were forced to drink water fouled with human excrement. ("That's what you hear. Not even the Boxers in China do such things." (100))

No one was apparently safe from the "legions of police created by McKinley" that raided dwellings, fining, and imprisoning high and low alike with impunity. (101) Or so said the tsismis, the gossip. Such stories, however, did not appear in public; the press was muzzled. Both proprietor and printer of El Independiente, Senores Honorio Lopez and Salvador Choa were detained by the authorities with the predictable result that the newspaper "neither said anything about the Revolution nor against the Americans." (102) Another newspaper, El Renacimiento that fulminated against the arrival of these "recently arrived birds of prey" was heavily fined and banned from further publication. (103) Though the situation eased somewhat after the capture of President Emilio Aguinaldo in February 1901 and the surrender of General Miguel Malvar in April 1902, any public manifestation of nationalism had to be carefully orchestrated to avoid repressive counter-measures.

It is in this context, then, that the episode involving the obreros in July 1903 has to be understood. Even more so as the person at the centre of the whole affair, Pascual Poblete is not principally remembered as a labor recruiter. Instead, he is better known as an anti-Spanish playwright and editor of a radical newspaper, El Grito del Pueblo, (104) who flirted with anarchism, socialism, and anti-clericalism, was a friend of Isabelo de los Reyes, and had spent time in Spain. (105) American authorities are generally studiously non-judgmental in their references to him. (106) Only the report of Captain Noble who organized the onward journeys of the returned workers from Manila is more critical, openly complaining of his "deceit." (107) No suggestion, however, is made of Poblete's close links to the labor movement or to his role as founder of the newly constituted Partido Nacionalista that advocated early autonomy and eventual independence for the Philippines. Furthermore, he was associated with the Union Obrera Democratica and suspected by Governor Taft of maintaining secret contacts with the forces still resisting American occupation. He was also known to have delivered an "inspiring speech" to strikers at the Cavite shipyard in November 1902 and to have co-addressed a petition to President Roosevelt to halt Chinese migration in February 1903. (108)

All this makes Major Kennon's decision to accept Poblete's services surprising and raises the possibility that the whole "oberero" episode may have been a stage-managed event concocted by Poblete and those in his circle sympathetic to the revolutionary cause to discredit the road project and embarrass the Americans. He certainly made much capital out of what happened. Not unexpectedly, his newspaper relates a somewhat different account of events. His editorials claim that the men had been made to stay in the open along with their wives and children at Twin Peaks despite the torrential rain, and then been given material to built shelters but not the bolos (machetes) needed to do so. In other accounts, he describes the men as being so incensed ("blind with passion") that they had held him responsible for their misfortunes and had nearly lynched his son who had tried to convince them to remain at the campsite. The latter, apparently, was forced to hide from squads of "workmen with bolos and sticks, wanting to assassinate" him all the way back to Manila. (109) He also describes how the men had been "packed like herrings in boxes" on the journey to Dagupan and how on reaching their destination they had been told to sleep in the railcars where it was so cramped that "sleep was impossible." All told, he estimates that as many as 35 deaths occurred on the journey to and from the road. (110) In a particularly lurid piece of purple prose, Poblete depicts the homecoming of one such starving worker:

  "Last night there arrived in the suburb of Ermita, coming from
  Dagupan, one of those unfortunate laborers by the name of Francisco
  del Rosario, whose family lives on Calle P. Fauna. He stepped over the
  threshold of his home with the symptoms of death on his face; he had
  gone afoot from Dagupan to Manila, a journey of eleven days. Upon
  seeing his poor mother, he exclaimed. 'Mother, give me something to
  eat, I am dying of hunger ...' The unhappy, ill-treated laborer was
  not mistaken. This morning he died of nanition [sic] after his tragic
  odyssey ... These cries to Heaven make one's blood boil. It is
  necessary that an investigation be made into this matter and that the
  persons who have mistreated 'these brothers of ours' in such an
  inhuman manner be punished with an iron hand." (111)

Much was also made of the plight of the stranded returnees who petitioned Governor Taft for food and transport home, appearing on mass outside the Ayuntamiento (City Hall) on the morning of July 29 where they "squatted in the park opposite the palace spread handkerchiefs over their heads in a futile attempt to keep the rain off, and waited with the grim resignation of fatalists." (112) Taft, however, was too busy to see them immediately. Soon, however, the mileage to be made from Poblete's obreros was exhausted and the literati found other subjects for their impassioned prose: how a Filipino who lost a limb working on the railway received no compensation while an American factory worker who lost an arm was paid 250 pesos. (113) Or articles that decried the lack of security, the plague of friars and their "crimes," the need for greater press freedom and more active unions, and support for the Iglesia Filipino Independiente, the nationalist church instigated by the renegade Catholic priest, Gregorio Aglipay. (114)

Conclusion

Thus it was that an obscure group of road workers became the subject both of official investigation and nationalist polemic, and were changed from colonial subjects into labor spokesmen and from illiterate peasants into "these brothers of ours." The transformation, of course, proved temporary and the men were soon relegated to their past anonymity, forgotten alike by colonial bureaucrats and urban literati. Yet the whole affair is not without its wider historical significance.

Foremost, is the need to consider the obreros' actions against the rising tide of trade unionism in the Philippines. Worker associations or gremios already existed by the late nineteenth century and took the form of mutual assistance organizations based around craftsmen belonging to a particular shop or neighborhood. (115) The first attempt at organizing formal trade unions occurred in 1899 with the establishment of the Union Obrera Democratica. The subsequent proliferation of strikes was both part of the continuing socio-cultural developments within Filipino society as well as a response to American occupation. Moreover, the evident coordination, whereby one strike would begin only as soon as another ended, suggests more than just a rudimentary sense of solidarity based on common interests. (116) As Edward Rosenberg notes, in such an atmosphere of revolutionary promise and high colonial blandishments: "Is it any wonder the working people are not satisfied with conditions of labor which existed under Spanish rule and insist on better wages and better treatment?" (117) These attitudes were even officially acknowledged in the first annual report of the newly created Bureau of Labor in 1910 that explained the frequency of strikes as the "consequence of the unity and solidarity of ideals and sentiments which now reign among the workingmen." (118)

For the Americans, the whole affair appears more straight-forward. Kennon apparently found an answer to the acute shortage of labor on the road by a skilful adaptation of systematic management techniques to local conditions, smashing the old patron system, and introducing impersonal modern hiring methods. Yet all is not quite what it appears. After his assumption of direct management in 1903, Kennon recruited a disproportionate number of Ilocano migrants to Nueva Ecija and Pangasinan. In fact, no less than 2,000 of the 2,800 Filipinos at work on the road by October that year were of this origin. (119) In his previous posting as a commander in the Fourth District of the Northern Luzon Military Department, Kennon had enthusiastically supported the use of Filipino auxiliaries, employed large numbers of Ilocanos on operations, and even raised a local force known as the Ilocano Scouts. (120) Faced with a demand for labor, he once again turned to this same source, just as: "He had made them his allies in the days of insurrection, [he] now asked them to aid him in the works of peace." (121) To what extent Kennon was able to mobilize manpower in much the same manner as the labor patrons he so assiduously smashed or could even call out followers in much the same way as a datu (indigenous chief) is largely a matter of interpretation. (122) At all events, his ability to "solve" the labor question resists neat categorization. Moreover, within a year of the project's completion, the Philippine Commission reintroduced a law requiring every able-bodied man to render five days' work a year on road construction or pay the equivalent wages in cash. That is, the Americans soon resorted to a modified version of the hated Spanish corvee labor system for public works. (123)

As to the nationalist literati in Manila, there was still a war to wage as much in the city as in rural areas if American designs were to be thwarted, their hypocrisy made public, and the revolution saved. In this war of words, the obreros on the road and elsewhere were so much ammunition to be expended in the cause. The imprisonment for sedition of Don Belong, union leader of the first strike at the Fabrica de Tabacos de Malabon, was not a matter to lament but one to celebrate, revealing as it did the true nature of the new colonists' much vaunted democratic values. (124) Despite the critical labor issues involved on the Benguet Road, the incident also needs to be seen as much for its distinctly political implications as for its social and economic ones. Indeed, the labor issues involved might have been largely irrelevant to many of the leading participants. It may be no coincidence that Pascual Poblete's initial altruistic "offer" to help the Americans, one that he insisted in his interview with Ross was motivated simply by his desire "to assist the laborers and the government" and from which he "was not expecting to make any money," happened to follow closely upon the heels of a major reversal for him and his immediate circle, the arrest of Domindor Gomez and the declared bankruptcy of the UOD's successor organization, the Union Obrera Democratica de Filipinas (UODF) on May 29, 1903. (125) Poblete was a nationalist and like many urban-based educated Filipinos resented the arrogance of the American presence with its self-conscious Anglo-Saxon sense of superiority and their policy of empowering the more conservative elites, like the Federalistas with whom he was at odds. (126) For men like him, the struggle was not necessarily a social revolution and the extent to which he and they sympathized with the plight of poor laborers is a mater of conjecture.

Walter Benjamin notes how images of the past not recognized as concerns of the present threaten to disappear irretrievably. (127) The neglect shown Poblete's obreros is indicative of the lack of significance hitherto given to reconstructing labor history in the Philippines and the prominence bestowed on a nationalist agenda that dominates the historical discourse. Imbued with the idea of creating an undifferentiated Filipino identity to present to the world, the notion of separate, parallel and at times antagonistic histories drawn up along class lines was seriously disturbing to both the urban-based literati of the time as it still is to the present-day heirs of the colonial state. (128) Yet the experiences of the workers on the Benguet Road, how they were treated and how they responded, and why they gained sudden notoriety and were just as quickly forgotten, are equally important to a fuller understanding of the present as the political and military figures about whom so much more is known.

And as for the road to Baguio, it was still very much a road to nowhere in 1905. Moreover, the four million or so dollars that had been expended on its construction left the Philippine Commission reluctant to authorize any additional appropriations for the development of the city itself. (129) Ultimately, though, the construction of the road met the wildest of American expectations and, despite losing its accreditation as summer capital in 1913, Baguio grew into a bustling modern city whose expansion now threatens to completely overwhelm Daniel Burnham's initial architectural plan for a stately hill station. Today the road is still named after the American under whose management the project was first completed, the Kennon Highway, a potent reminder of the pervasiveness of colonial legacies that often obscure the experiences of local actors.

ENDNOTES

Research for this article was partly funded by the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study (NIAS) as a fellowship-in-residence 2003/2004. I gratefully acknowledge the help of my research associate in the Philippines, Lea de la Paz. Thanks, too, to Rosanne Rutten at the University of Amsterdam and Paul Taillon at the University of Auckland who read and commented upon an initial draft of this article.

1. On the Philippine Revolution, see: Teodoro Agoncillo, The Revolt of the Masses; The Story of Bonifacio and the Katipunan (Quezon City, Philippines, 1956); Teodoro Agoncillo, Malolos The Crisis of the Republic (Quezon City, Philippines, 1960); Renato Constantino, The Philippines: A Past Revisited (Quezon City, Philippines, 1975); and Rey Ileto, Pasyon and Revolution Popular Movements in the Philippines, 1840-10 (Quezon City, Philippines, 1979). On the early American colonial period, see: Peter Stanley, A Nation in the Making The Philippines and the United States, 1899-1921 (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1974); Glenn May, Social Engineering in the Philippines The Aims, Execution, and Impact of American Colonial Policy, 1900-1913 (Westport, Connecticut, 1980); Stuart Miller, "Benevolent Assimilation": The American Conquest of the Philippines, 1899-1903 (New Haven, 1982); and Floro Quibuyen, A Nation Aborted; Rizal, American Hegemony, and Philippine Nationalism (Quezon City, Philippines, 1999). On the Huk Rebellion, see: Benedict Kervliet, The Huk Rebellion A Study of Peasant Revolt in the Philippines (Quezon City, Philippines, 1982). On the National Democratic Front and the New People's Army, see Kathleen Weekley, The Communist Party of the Philippines 1968-1993 A Story of Its Theory and Practice (Quezon City, Philippines, 2001).

2. Rey Ileto, "Orientalism and the Study of Philippine Politics," in Knowing America's Colony A Hundred Years from the Philippine War (Manoa, Hawai'i, 1999), 41-65.

3. The Bureau of Labor was established by Act No. 1868 of 18 June 1908. The early history of labor in the Philippines has often been treated somewhat cursorily as a prelude to more significant events that take place later. See: Kenneth Kurihara, Labor in the Philippine Economy (Stanford, 1945); Renze Hoeksema, "Communism in the Philippines: Historical and Analytical Study of Communism and the Communist Party in the Philippines and Its Relation to Communist Movements Abroad," unpublished PhD dissertation, Harvard University, 1956; John Carroll "Philippine Labour Unions," Philippine Studies 9, no.2 (1961): 220-254; Jose Ma. Sison, The Struggle for National Democracy (Quezon City, Philippines, 1967); Elias T. Ramos Philippine Labor Movement in Transition (Quezon City, Philippines, 1976); Ildefonso Runes, "Toward a Militant Trade Unionism," Philippine Journal of Labor and Industrial Relations 5, no.1 & 2 (1983): 65-76; and Benjamin Mangubat, "History of the Minimum Wage Law," Philippine Journal of Labor and Industrial Relations 12, no.1 (1990): 1-7). More detailed analysis based on primary sources can be found for unionism in: Rosario Torres-Yu, "Workers Progressive Response to Underdevelopment and Authoritarianism," unpublished PhD dissertation, University of the Philippines, 1987; Melinda Kerkvliet, Manila Workers' Union 1900-1950 (Quezon City, Philippines, 1992); William Henry Scott, The Union Obrera Democratica First Filipino Labor Union (Quezon City, Philippines, 1992); and for the sugar industry in: Alfred McCoy, "A Queen Dies Slowly: the Rise and Decline of Iloilo City," in Philippine Social History Global Trade and Local Transformations, ed., Alfred McCoy and Ed, de Jesus (Quezon City, Philippines, 1982): 297-358; John Larkin, Sugar and the Origins of Modern Philippine Society (Berkeley, 1993); and Filomeno Aguilar, Clash of Spirits: The History of Power and Sugar Planter Hegemony on a Visayan Island (Honolulu, 1998). On significant early labor organizers, see Vivencio Jose, "Si Crisanto Evangelista at ang Radikalisasyon ny Kilusang Manggagawa," Philippine Journal of Labor and Industrial Relations 5, no. 1 & 2 (1983): 77-82; and Rene Ofreneo, "Isabelo de los Reyes and the Organized Labor Movement," Philippine Journal of Labor and Industrial Relations 18, no. 1 & 2 (1998): 92-105. See also the autobiography of a prominent labor leader, Lope Santos, Talambuhay ni Lope K. Santos Paham ng Wika (MCS Enterprises, 1972).

4. The population of the archipelago is estimated at nearly seven million in 1899.

5. Larkin, 54-60 and Aguilar, 126-155.

6. "Another Man Starved to Death," El Renacimiento, 28 July 1903. The phrase is attributed to Pascual Poblete.

7. James Ross, "Report of an Investigation Made by James Ross, Supervisor of Fiscals, Concerning Alleged Sufferings and Deaths Among Certain Laborers Sent From Manila During the Month of July 1903, To Work on the Benguet Road," in Annual Reports of the War Department 1903 Report of the Philippine Commission (Washington D.C, 1903), 5:358-391.

8. Lyman. W. Kennon, "Report of Officer in Charge of Construction of Benguet Road," in Sixth Annual Report of the Philippine Commission 1905 (Washington D.C., 1906), 3:359.

9. Robert Reed, City of Pines: The Origins of Baguio as a Colonial Hill Station and Regional Capital (Baguio City, Philippines, 1999 previously published 1976), 78 and Arturo Corpuz, The Colonial Iron Horse: Railroads and Regional Development in the Philippines, 1875-1935 (Quezon City, Philippines, 1999), 132. There is some controversy over the exact state of this trail as Colonel John McGinnis describes it as "perfectly practicable, not only for a wagon road, but for an electric railway as well." Frank Golay, Face of Empire United States-Philippine Relations, 1898-1946 (Quezon City, Philippines, 1997), 67. La Trinidad was the provincial capital of Benguet under later Spanish colonialism.

10. Steamers could take a week just to reach San Fernando in stormy weather. Kennon, 360.

11. President William McKinley appointed William Howard Taft to head a five-man Philippine Commission in June 1900 to formulate a plan of government for the new colony.

12. A contemporary description of these and subsequent events is provided by Dean Worcester, a member of the First Philippine Commission (1900-1913) and Secretary of the Interior of the Philippine Islands (1901-1913) who had spent considerable time traveling throughout the islands prior to the American occupation of the archipelago. Dean C. Worcester, The Philippines Past and Present (London, 1914), 449-487.

13. Kennon, 360.

14. The Atlantic, Gulf and Pacific Company's rock quarries at Mariviles also initially experienced difficulties in securing and retaining sufficient labor. Edward Rosenberg, "Filipinos as Workmen; Data and Conclusions on the Labor Situation and General Conditions in the Philippine Islands," American Federationalist 10, no. 10(1903): 1023.

15. Kennon, 375.

16. Ibid., 360. The gap in the road at the beginning of 1902 was approximately 17 miles.

17. Ibid., 375.

18. Ibid., 376.

19. Ibid., 376.

20. Ibid., 376.

21. One U.S. dollar was equivalent to two Philippine pesos, although many rates were quoted in Mexican pesos (also often referred to as dollars) that were worth Mexican $2.45 in 1903. Rosenberg, 1022. On the currency situation at the time, see Willem Wolters, "Flooded With Foreign Coins; Spanish and American Administrations Dealing With Currency Problems in the Philippines 1890-1905," Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Landen Volkenkunde 157, no.3 (2001): 513-538.

22. "Many Pesos Out of His Pocket," The Manila-American, 26 July 1903.

23. Ross, 383.

24. Edward Rosenberg mentions a daily wage of $1 Mexican or approximately US40 cents. Rosenberg, 1024.

25. Ross, 360-362.

26. American officials testified that the men had been issued sufficient rations the previous night, the per capita equivalent to two pounds rice, more than half an ounce salt, and a little over five ounces of bacon per person.

27. The singular in Spanish of capataces is capataz.

28. This account is largely based on the more extensive statement of N.M. Holmes to James Ross but is not contested in any substantial detail by the testimony of any of the other witnesses either laborers or capataces.

29. Ross, 378-379.

30. "Doctor Poblete's Memory Very Bad," The Manila-American, 31 July 1903.

31. Ross, 374.

32. Ibid., 388.

33. Ibid., 376.

34. Ibid., 360.

35. Ibid., 363.

36. Ibid., 369.

37. An account by Captain Noble details the government sponsored transportation of some 50 men and women by steamer from Manila to their homes in the provinces of Laguna and Batangas. "Captain R. H. Noble to Hon. William Taft, Manila, 31 July," in Annual Reports of the War Department 1903 Report of the Philippine Commission (Washington D.C., 1903), 5:389-391.

38. Whether a commercial labor market existed at all under Spanish administration is debatable as only on the sugar plantations of Negros did a significant wage labor force emerge prior to the twentieth century. Alfred McCoy, "Sugar Barons: Formation of a Native Planter Class in Colonial Philippines," Journal of Peasant Studies 19, no.3/4(1992): 106-141, Larkin, 60-82, and Aguilar, 97-155. On the other hand, the colonial state still exercised a right to exact corvee or forced labor from every able-bodied man who was obliged to render 40 days a year to the state (reduced to 15 days in 1882) or pay three pesos in lieu of such service. Nicholas Cushner, Spain in the Philippines: From Conquest To Revolution (Quezon City, Philippines, 1971), 112-126; Onofre D. Corpuz, The Roots of the Filipino Nation (Quezon City, Philippines, 1989), 1:196-198; and Larkin, 31-33. The nature of wage labor under Spain is discussed in Greg Bankoff, "Wants, Wages, and Workers: Laboring in the American Philippines, 1899-1908," Pacific Historical Review 74, no. 1 (2005): 61-66.

39. Brian McAllister Linn, The Philippine War 1899-1902 (Lawrence, Kansas, 2000), 202. On US colonial policy with regard to transportation, see May, 135-139.

40. Michael Salman, "The United States and the End of Slavery in the Philippines, 1898-1914: A Study of Imperialism, Ideology, and Nationalism," PhD dissertation, Stanford University, 1993: 501.

41. Kennon, 377.

42. Ibid., 379. Similar policies were employed under the Spanish colonial administration. Greg Bankoff, Crime, Society and the State in the Nineteenth Century Philippines (Quezon City, Philippines, 1996), 166-169.

43. Kennon, 379.

44. Ibid., 378.

45. Ibid., 375.

46. Ibid., 379. Kennon also later attributed much of the labor troubles to Tagalogs: "They have in the majority of cases been the disturbing element. Everyone wanted to be a boss, and they ferment trouble in every way. They picked fights with other tribes, and in every way possible retarded work." "Major Kennon is in Manila," The Manila-American, 2 August 1903.

47. The other levels of foremen (first, second and third in charge respectively of approximately 1,000, 200 and a 100 men) were mainly whites with the most senior positions filled by Americans.

48. Kennon, 380-381.

49. Kennon, 386.

50. Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origins and Spread of Nationalism (London, 1992).

51. James Scott and Michael Adas (1986) refer to non-confrontational forms of protest as weapons of the weak or avoidance protest, including foot dragging, dissimulation, false compliance, pilfering, feigned ignorance, slander, arson, sabotage and the like. James Scott, Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance (New Haven, 1985) and Michael Adas, "From Footdragging to Flight: The Evasive History of Peasant Avoidance Protest in South and South-east Asia," The Journal of Peasant Studies 13, no.2 (1986): 64-86.

52. Victor Clark, "Labor Conditions in the Philippines," Bulletin of the Bureau of Labor 58(1905): 800.

53. Kennon, 375-376.

54. Ibid., 379.

55. Ibid., 376.

56. Ibid., 391.

57. Similar practices of "passive resistance" were noted on haciendas charging exorbitant rates of interest on the advances made to tenants and where, as a consequence, "the land is very often poorly worked." Rosenberg, 1025-26.

58. Kennon, 391.

59. Ibid., 391-392.

60. Ross, 359.

61. Ibid., 367.

62. Kennon, 377.

63. Ross, 371.

64. O.W. Wolters, History, Culture, and Region in Southeast Asian Perspective (Singapore, 1982) and Laura Lee Junker, Raiding, Trading, and Feasting: The Political Economy of Philippine Chiefdoms (Honolulu, 1999).

65. Ross, 379.

66. Kennon, 391.

67. Ibid., 377.

68. Aguilar, 189-228.

69. Christopher Tomlins, The State and the Unions: Labor Relations, Law, and the Organized Labor Movement in America, 1880-1960 (Cambridge, UK, 1985), 60-95 and Richard McCormick, The Party Period and Public Policy: American Politics from the Age of Jackson to the Progressive Era (New York, 1986), 263-288.

70. Gabriel Kolko, The Triumph of Conservatism: A Reinterpretation of American History, 1900-1916 (New York, 1964), 301-305 and Melvyn Dubofsky, The State and Labor in Modern America (Chapel Hill, 1994), 37-60.

71. On the system of scientific management and the influence of Frederick Taylor, see Daniel Nelson, Managers and Workers: Origins of the New Factory System in the United States 1880-1920 (Madison, 1975), 55-78.

72. David Montgomery, "To Study the People: The American Working Class," Labor History 21(1980): 489 and David Montgomery, The Fall of the House of Labor: The Workplace, the State, and American Labor Activism, 1865-1925 (Cambridge, UK, 1987), 5.

73. J.B. Aleshire, "Major J. B. Aleshire to Hon. William Taft, Manila, 4 November 1902," in Eighth Annual Report of the Philippine Commission to the Secretary of War, 1907 (Washington D.C., 1908), 969.

74. Archibald Butt, "Captain Archibald Butt to His Excellency William Taft, Manila, 24 October 1902," in Eighth Annual Report of the Philippine Commission to the Secretary of War, 1907 (Washington D.C., 1908), 980.

75. Aleshire, 971.

76. Butt to Taft, 980.

77. Butt to Taft, 980 and Archibald Butt, "Captain Archibald Butt to Chief Quartermaster, Manila, 30 June 1901," in Eighth Annual Report of the Philippine Commission to the Secretary of War, 1907 (Washington D.C., 1908), 981.

78. J.W. Beardsley, "Labor Conditions in the Philippine Islands, Engineering News, 23 November 1905," in Eighth Annual Report of the Philippine Commission to the Secretary of War, 1907 (Washington D.C., 1908), 1020.

79. Butt to Chief Quartermaster, 982-983.

80. Cameron W. Forbes, The Philippine Islands (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1945 originally published 1928), 403 and May, 16-17.

81. A similar policy was pursued by the Atlantic, Gulf and Pacific Company when it encountered recruitment problems for its quarry at Mariveles. The Company resorted to constructing a purpose-built village for workmen and their families. Rosenberg, 1023.

82. Kennon, 378.

83. Ibid., 374, 378.

84. Ibid., 373.

85. Ibid., 377 and Salman, 508.

86. Kennon, 378.

87. Ibid., 377.

88. Ibid., 372 and "Time Regulation, Benguet Road," Eighth Annual Report of the Philippine Commission to the Secretary of War, 1907 (Washington D.C., 1908), 387-388.

89. Kennon, 380, 393.

90. Ibid., 373-374, 389-390.

91. Ibid., 362.

92. Ibid., 378.

93. Felipe Calderon was a lawyer and landowner, a member of the ilustrado or elite landowning class who had helped draft the Malolos Constitution in 1899 but had subsequently turned against the Revolution.

94. Michael Cullinane, "Playing the Game: The Rise of Sergio Osmena, 1898-1907," in Philippine Colonial Democracy, ed. Ruby Paredes (New Haven, 1988), 70-113 and Ruby Paredes, "The Origins of National Politics: Taft and the Partido Federal," in Philippine Colonial Democracy, ed. Ruby Paredes (New Haven, 1988), 41-69. Resil Mojares identifies similarly upwardly mobile groups in revolutionary Cebuano society. Resil Mojares, The War Against the Americans: Resistance and Collaboration in Cebu 1899-1906 (Quezon City, Philippines, 1999), 26-36.

95. XXX, "Recuerdos del Pasado: Dedicados a los Veteranaos de las Revoluciones Filipinas, en especial al Pueblo Filipino," (Iloilo, Philippines, n.d.), 1.

96. Ibid., 4. While the manuscript has no date, its reference to William Taft as Civil Governor indicates its publication after September 1901.

97. Felipe Agoncillo to Isabelo de los Reyes, Paris, February 24, 1901, Iglesia Filipina Independiente Archives, OM 15 1897-1934, Box 50, Folder 159, File OM1456.

98. Capitan Crame to Isabelo de los Reyes, Hong Kong, January 22, 1901, Iglesia Filipina Independiente Archives, OM 15 1897-1934, Box 50, Folder 129, File OM1455.

99. "Pasig" to Isabelo de los Reyes, Manila, November 20, 1900, Iglesia Filipina Independiente Archives, OM 15 1897-1934, Box 50, Folder 129, File OL 1452.

100. Crame.

101. Ibid.

102. Ibid.

103. Jose de los Reyes y Sevilla, Biographia del Senador Isabelo de los Reyes y Florentino Padre de los Obreeros y Proclamador de la Iglesia de la Filipina Indpendiente (Manila, Philippines, 1947), 16-17.

104. Michael Cullinane, Ilustrado Politics Filipino Elite Responses to American Rule, 1898-1908 (Quezon City, Philippines, 2003), 77, 119.

105. On the importance of Isabelo de los Reyes to the labor movement, see Ofreneo, 92-105.

106. Ross, 383 and Kennon, 376.

107. Noble, 390.

108. Scott, Union Obrera Democratica, 33, 53, 57, 64.

109. "Doctor Poblete's Memory Very Bad."

110. "Seek Relief," Manila Freedom, 29 July 1903.

111. "Another Man Starved to Death."

112. "Seek Relief."

113. "El Juez Rhode," El Grito del Pueblo, 21 October 1903.

114. On the Aglipayan Church, see Pedro de Achutegui and Miguel Bernad, The Religious Revolution in the Philippines: The Life and Church of Gregorio Aglipay 1860-1960 (Manila, Philippines, 1960). Most early labor leaders were also members of this church.

115. Ramos, 15 and Scott, Union Obrera Democratica, 6-9.

116. Scott, Union Obrera Democratica, 35-41.

117. Rosenberg, 1024.

118. First Annual Report of the Bureau of Labor Fiscal Year 1910 (Manila, Philippines, 1911), 7.

119. Kennon, 377.

120. Brian McAllister Linn, The Philippine War 1899-1902 (Lawrence, Kansas, 2000), 260.

121. Kennon, 377.

122. On patterns of pre-Hispanic leadership in the Philippines, see Junker.

123. Seventh Annual Report of the Philippine Commission, 1906 (Washington D.C., 1907), 2:208.

124. Reyes y Sevilla, 17.

125. Ross, 381. After his election as president, Gomez reorganized the UOD as the UODF. Carroll, 224.

126. Cullinane, Ilustrado Politics, 112-142.

127. Walter Benjamin, "Theses on the Philosophy of History," in Illuminations, ed. Hannah Arendt (London, 1992 originally published 1940), 247.

128. Greg Bankoff and Kathleen Weekley, Post-Colonial National Identity in the Philippines: Celebrating the Centennial of Independence (Aldershot, Hampshire, 2002), 177-183.

129. Reed, 113-114.

By Greg Bankoff

University of Auckland

University of Auckland

Private Bag 92019

Auckland

New Zealand