Philippine Revolution and Society by Amado Guerrero

In exchange for the Philippine raw materials, U.S. finished goods were imported free of tariff

duties under the Payne-Aldrich Act of 1909. In 1913, quota limitations on Philippine raw materials

exported to the United States were completely lifted. The free trade between these two types of

commodities perpetuated the colonial and agrarian economy. The increasing avalanche of finished

goods into the country crushed local handicrafts and manufacturers and furthermore compelled the

people to buy these finished goods and to produce raw materials mainly.

U.S. surplus was invested in the Philippines both in the form of direct investments and loan

capital. Direct investments went mainly into the production of raw materials and into trade in U.S.

finished products and local raw materials. Minor processing of raw materials was also introduced.

Mineral ores were extracted for the first time on a commercial basis. On the other hand, loan capital

served to support foreign trade and cover trade deficits, convert pesos into dollars for profit remittances,

pay salaries of American bureaucrats and business personnel, cover the needs of the colonial

government for various equipment and the like. Every year, raw material production and, therefore, the

exploitation of the people had to be intensified by the colonial regime in order to increase its rate of

profit.

U.S. imperialism improved the system of transportation and communications as a means to tighten

its political, economic, cultural and military control of the Philippines. U.S. corporations derived huge

profits from public works contracts in the construction of more roads, bridges, ports and other

transportation facilities. These public works in turn widened directly the market for U.S. motor

vehicles, machinery and oil products. The colonial exchange of raw materials and finished products

was accelerated. Troop movement for the suppression of the people also became faster.

The establishment of an extensive public school system and the adoption of English as the medium

of instruction served not only to enhance the political indoctrination of the Filipinos into subservience

to U.S. imperialism but also to encourage local taste for American commodities in general. It also

opened the market directly for U.S. educational materials. The mass media was developed not only to

spread imperialist propaganda but also to advertise all kinds of U.S. goods and, in particular, to sell

various kinds of printing and communications equipment. Even the campaign for public sanitation and

hygiene was a means to speed up the monopoly sales of U.S. drugs, chemicals and medical equipment.

In the first place, the depredations of the U.S. aggressors troops in the Filipino-American War had

resulted in various kinds of pestilence and epidemics, especially cholera, which threatened the health of

the imperialist conquerors themselves.

On the basis of the economic conditions bred by U.S. imperialism, a certain social structure was

built up in the Philippines. The U.S. imperialists merely adopted as their principal puppets those

exploiting classes which had collaborated most with the Spanish colonial rulers in the 19

t h

century and

retained them at the top of the Philippine society. These were the comprador big bourgeoisie and the

landlord class. From the ranks of these exploiting classes, the U.S. imperialists chose their top political

agents and trained them to become bureaucrat capitalists sharing in the spoils of the colonial

government. At the base of the society were the toiling masses workers and peasants who comprised

more than 90 per cent of the people. During the U.S. colonial rule, the proletariat increased in number

to the extent that the semifeudal society became reinforced with the quantitative increase of raw

material production, trade, transport and communications facilities and minor manufacturing. But the

peasantry remained the majority class in the entire society.

In the middle section of Philippine society were such strata as the national bourgeoisie and the

petty bourgeoisie. The national bourgeoisie was an extremely tiny and hard-pressed stratum because of

the enormous dumping of U.S. finished products and the concentration of financial power in the hands

of the comprador big bourgeoisie and the imperialist firms. The petty bourgeoisie which had

maintained its status by sheer property ownership that made it self-reliant increasingly took interest in

formal education. Of the many small landlords and rich peasants who became bankrupt, some held on

to a petty-bourgeois status by acquiring a college education and getting into salaried service in the

colonial bureaucracy and in private companies and others fell to the status of the proletariat or the

semiproletariat. 15

U.S. imperialism built up an educational system as a major instrument of colonial control. Its

main content was directed against the Philippine Revolution