The Indolence of the Filipino

Convinced by the insinuation of his inferiority, his spirit harassed
by his education, if that brutalization of which we spoke above can
be called education, in that exchange of usages and sentiments among
different nations, the Filipino, to whom remain only his susceptibility
and his poetical imagination, allows himself to be guided by his fancy
and his self-love. It is sufficient that the foreigner praise to him
the imported merchandise and run down the native product for him to
hasten to make the change, without reflecting that everything has its
weak side and the most sensible custom is ridiculous in the eyes
of those who do not follow it. They have dazzled him with tinsel,
with strings, of colored glass beads, with noisy rattles, shining
mirrors and other trinkets, and he has given in return his gold,
his conscience, and even his liberty. He changed his religion for the
external practices of another cult; the convictions and usages derived
from his climate and needs, for other usages and other convictions
that developed under another sky and another inspiration. His spirit,
well-disposed toward everything that looks good to him, was then
transformed, at the pleasure of the nation that forced upon him
its God and its laws, and as the trader with whom he dealt did not
bring a cargo of useful implements of iron, hoes to till the fields,
but stamped papers, crucifixes, bulls and prayer-books; as he did
not have for ideal and prototype the tanned and vigorous laborer,
but the aristocratic lord, carried in a luxurious litter, the result
was that the imitative people became bookish, devout, prayerful; it
acquired ideas of luxury and ostentation, without thereby improving
the means of its subsistence to a corresponding degree.

The lack of national sentiment brings another evil, moreover, which is
the absence of all opposition to measures prejudicial to the people and
the absence of any initiative in whatever may redound to its good. A
man in the Philippines is only an individual, he is not a member
of a nation. He is forbidden and denied the right of association,
and is therefore weak and sluggish. The Philippines are an organism
whose cells seem to have no arterial system to irrigate it or nervous
system to communicate its impressions; these cells must, nevertheless,
yield their product, get it where they can: if they perish, let them
perish. In the view of some this is expedient so that a colony may
be a colony; perhaps they are right, but not to the effect that a
colony may flourish.

The result of this is that if a prejudicial measure is ordered,
no one protests; all goes well apparently until later the evils are
felt. Another blood-letting, and as the organism has neither nerves
nor voice the physician proceeds in the belief that the treatment
is not injuring it. It needs a reform, but as it must not speak, it
keeps silent and remains with the need. The patient wants to eat,
it wants to breathe the fresh air, but as such desires may offend
the susceptibility of the physician who thinks that he has already
provided everything necessary, it suffers and pines away from fear of
receiving scolding, of getting another plaster and a new blood-letting,
and so on indefinitely.

In addition to this, love of peace and the horror many have of
accepting the few administrative positions which fall to the Filipinos
on account of the trouble and annoyance these cause them places at the
head of the people the most stupid and incapable men, those who submit
to everything, those who can endure all the caprices and exactions of
the curate and of the officials. With this inefficiency in the lower
spheres of power and ignorance and indifference in the upper, with the
frequent changes and the eternal apprenticeships, with great fear and
many administrative obstacles, with a voiceless people that has neither
initiative nor cohesion, with employees who nearly all strive to
amass a fortune and return home, with inhabit, ants who live in great
hardship from the instant they begin to breathe, create prosperity,
agriculture and industry, found enterprises and companies, things
that still hardly prosper in free and well-organized communities.

Yes, all attempt is useless that does not spring from a profound
study of the evil that afflicts us. To combat this indolence,
some have proposed increasing the native’s needs and raising the
taxes. What has happened? Criminals have multiplied, penury has been
aggravated. Why? Because the native already has enough needs with his
functions of the Church, with his fiestas, with the public offices
forced on him, the donations and bribes that he has to make so that
he may drag out his wretched existence. The cord is already too taut.

We have heard many complaints, and every day we read in the papers
about the efforts the government is making to rescue the country
from its condition of indolence. Weighing its plans, its illusions
and its difficulties, we are reminded of the gardener who tried to
raise a tree planted in a small flower-pot. The gardener spent his
days tending and watering the handful of earth, he trimmed the plant
frequently, he pulled at it to lengthen it and hasten its growth,
he grafted on it cedars and oaks, until one day the little tree died,
leaving the man convinced that it belonged to a degenerate species,
attributing the failure of his experiment to everything except the
lack of soil and his own ineffable folly.