The Philippines - Past and Present (Vol. 1&2). Dean C. Worcester
may be incidentally mentioned that Blount has passed somewhat lightly over the fact that he himself during his army days commanded an aggregation of sturdy citizens from this town, known as Macabebe scouts, who diligently shot the Insurgents full of holes whenever they got a chance. He incorrectly refers to them as a “tribe or clan.”14 It is absurd to call them a tribe. They are merely the inhabitants of a town which has long been at odds with the neighbouring towns of the province.
Things had come to a bad pass in Pampanga when its head wrote that the punishment of beating people in the plaza and tying them up so that they would be exposed to the full rays of the sun should be stopped. He argued that such methods would not lead the people of other nations to believe that the reign of liberty, equality and fraternity had begun in the Philippines.15
When it is remembered that persons tied up and exposed to the full rays of the sun in the Philippine lowlands soon die, in a most uncomfortable manner, we shall agree with the head of this province that this custom has its objectionable features!
Tarlac
While the failure of Messrs. Wilcox and Sargent to learn of the relations between the Tagalogs of Macabebe and their neighbours, or of the fact that people were being publicly tortured in Pampanga, is perhaps not to be wondered at under the circumstances, it is hard to see how they could have failed to hear something of the seriously disturbed conditions in Tarlac if they so much as got off the train there.
On August 24 the commissioner in charge of elections in that province asked for troops to protect him, in holding them in the town of Urdaneta, against a party of two thousand men of the place, who were going to prevent them.
On September 22 the secretary of the interior ordered that the requirements of the decree of June 18, establishing municipal governments, should be strictly complied with, as in many of the towns “the inhabitants continue to follow the ancient methods by which the friars exploited us at their pleasure and which showed their great contempt for the law.”16
Bilibid Prison Hospital
The Philippine Government has been charged with the neglect of prisoners. The truth is that it has made the prisons of the Philippines the most sanitary structures of their kind in the tropics, and gives its sick prisoners the best of care.
The following letter to Aguinaldo, from Juan Nepomuceno, Representative from Tarlac, speaks for itself as to conditions in that province on December 27, 1898, shortly after the American travellers passed through it on their return:—
“I regret exceedingly being compelled to report to you that since Sunday the 25th instant scandalous acts have been going on in the Province of Tarlac, which I represent. On the night of the Sunday mentioned the entire family of the Local Chief of Bamban was murdered, and his house and warehouse were burned. Also the Tax Commissioner and the Secretary, Fabian Ignacio, have been murdered. Last night Señor Jacinto Vega was kidnapped at the town of Gerona; and seven travellers were murdered at O’Donnel, which town was pillaged, as well as the barrio of Matayumtayum of the town of La Paz. On that day various suspicious parties were seen in the town of Pañique and in the same barrio, according to reliable reports which I have just received.
“All this general demoralization of the province, according to the information which I have obtained, is due to the fact that the province is dissatisfied with the Provincial Chief, Señor Alfonso Ramos, and with Major Manuel de León; for this is substantiated by the fact that all the events described occurred since last Sunday, when Señor Alfonso Ramos returned, to take charge of the Office of Provincial President, after having been detained for several days in this town. Wherefore, I believe that in order to restore tranquillity in the province, consideration be given to various documents that have been presented to the Government and to the standing Committee of Justice; and that there be removed from office Señor Alfonso Ramos, as well as said Señor Manuel de León, who has no prestige whatever in this province. Moreover on the day when fifty-four soldiers of the command deserted, he himself left for San Fernando, Pampanga.”17
On November 30, 1898, General Macabulos sent Aguinaldo a telegram18 from which it evidently appears that there was an armed uprising in Tarlac which he was endeavouring to quell and that he hoped for early success. Apparently, however, his efforts to secure tranquillity were not entirely successful, for on December 18 he telegraphed Aguinaldo as follows:—
“In a telegram dated to-day Lieut. Paraso, commanding a detachment at Camilin, informs me that last night his detachment was attacked by Tulisanes (robbers). The fire lasted four hours without any casualties among our men. This afternoon received another from the captain commanding said detachment, informing me of the same, and that nothing new has occurred. The people of the town await with anxiety the result of the charges they have made, especially against the local president and the justice of the peace, the original of which I sent to your high authority.”19
Obviously the police machinery was not working quite smoothly when a detachment of Insurgent troops could be kept under fire for four hours by a robber band, and perhaps the attacking party were not all “robbers.” Soldiers do not ordinarily carry much to steal.
We obtain some further information from the following telegram of December 27, 1898, sent by the secretary of the interior to the President of the Revolutionary Government:—
“Most urgent. According to reports no excitement except in Bangbang, Tarlac, which at 12 A.m., 25th, was attacked by Tulisanes [bandits or robbers—D.C.W.]. The local presidente with his patrols arrested six of them. On continuing the pursuit he met in Talacon a party too large to attack. At 7 A.m. of the 26th the town was again attacked by criminals, who killed the tax collector, and others who burnt some houses, among them that of the local presidente, and his stables, in which he lost two horses. I report this for your information.”20
Evidently tax collectors were not popular in Tarlac.
Still further light is shed on the situation by a telegram from the secretary of the interior to Aguinaldo, dated December 28, 1898:—
“According to my information the excitement in Tarlac increases. I do not think that the people of the province would have committed such barbarities by themselves. For this reason the silence of General Macabulos is suspicious; to speak frankly, it encourages the rebels. Some seven hundred of them, with one hundred and fifty rifles, entered Pañique, seized the arms of the police, the town funds, and attacked the houses of the people. I report this for your information. All necessary measures will be taken.”21
Note also the following from the secretary of the interior, under date of December 27, 1898, to Aguinaldo:—
“I have just learned that not only in Bangbang, but also in Gerona, Onell, and other places in Tarlac, men have been assaulted by numerous Tulisanes, armed with rifles and bolos, who are killing and capturing the inhabitants and attacking travellers, robbing them of everything they have. The President should declare at once that that province is in state of siege, applying martial law to the criminals. That—(remainder missing).”22
The secretary of agriculture