XVIILabor and Peasant Activism

Masses Reorienting Consciousness

Perceptions of the Masses

The masses movements would be directed not only against the conqueror but also against the native allies of US and their overseers as well When the ilustrados betrayed the liberating aims as seen by the masses, mystical organizations again proliferated since they lacked theoretical guidance, there were the reversion to a form of nativism or fanaticism reminiscent of early rebellions against Spanish rule but these would give rise to a growing social awareness. Mass organizations socio-economic goals would be seen on secret patriotic societies, peasant associations, and labor unions. A lot of these organizations would have the economic objectives for a better working conditions within a colonial framework. Other groups will begin to perceive with greater clarity the interconnection between their economic demands and the national goal of independenceleading to the radical political associations of workers and peasants.

Impetus for Labor and Agrarian Unrests

1. Worldwide economic crisis of the late twenties and early thirties that further depressed the living standards of the masses drove them to desperate violence on the one hand, and to affiliation with more radical organizations on the other. 2. Peasant unrest was the result of increasingly grave economic exploitationdue to: (a) haciendas getting larger; (b) resulting to absentee landlords; (c) goaded by profit maximization; (d) in Central Luzon, increased tenancy and proximity to Manila meant more contacts between the peasantry and workers; and (e) greater interaction between the citys leaders and Central Luzon peasant leaders; (f) the exploitative land tenure system.

The Land Tenure System

The land tenure system kept the peasants in a condition of bondage from which they seldom if ever escaped. Of two types: -1. Inquilino tenantscash tenants, leased a piece of land for which he paid a yearly rent in cash. In addition, he was often required to render various services, including domestic services, for free. Bugnos or contribution might even be asked from a tenant as share in the expenses of constructing a road or dike or build a warehouse. Refusal to contribute or work could mean dismissal from the hacienda. -2.Kasama or share tenants or share cropperprovided the labor and shared the harvest on a 50-50 basis with his landlord after deducting the planting and harvesting expenses. The landlord supplied the necessary implements as well as the carabao. The landlord advanced his tenant cash and/or palay and deducted from the tenants share at the next harvest. He was also expected to render free labor of various kinds at the discretion of the landowner.

Abuses in the Share Tenants System

Although the 50% share of the landlord was already an exhorbitant price for land use, the usurious rates of interest customarily charged for the advances or gastos compounded the expoitation. Interest rates varied from 50 to 100%, even 200%. If the tenant had borrowed money, this too was paid in palay computed at the price of grain at harvest time, the lowest of the year. The hacendero had the additional advantage of being able to store his palay and to sell it at the higher price usually prevailing just before the next harvest. Since most of the tenants were illiterate, only the landlords kept accounts to that the former were cheated mercilessly. Tenants labor is estimated at six centavos per hour while his carabaos labor was worth nine centavos per hour as estimated in a standard of living of a tenant in a 1934 study.

Exploitation of the Sugar Plantation Workers

1. As of 1937, laborers were paid fifty centavos a day during the slack season and about seventy centavos during the peak season while working for sixteen hours. 2. Women and children were paid thirty-five to fifty centavos and worked eleven hours. 3. In the sugar centrals, 30% of the workers received less than a peso and 27% less than a peso and twenty centavos while working from eight to twelve hours per day. 4. The pakyaw system of the middle thirties had underpaid laborers hired on a fixed fee. 5. Workers were forced to buy their food and other needs at the hacenderos canteen where they were charged as much as 80% more than the prevailing prices for the goods that they bought.

The Palliative Solution by the Colonial Govt. on Friar Lands

In 1903, the Insular government did buy a total or 166,000 hectares of friar estates. But the lands sold were the less arable and the sparsely populated of the friar properties. The selling price proved to be beyond the reach of most tenants. No credit facilities were made available to persons of modest means who might want to buy a few hectaresresult: landowners became the chief beneficiaries of the supposed redistribution for only they had the funds with which to buy the lands offered for sale.

The Rise of Minor Messiahs

Grinding poverty, high taxes, usury, oppressive treatment by caciques, the frustration of the tenants hopes of acquiring plots of their own, dispossession of poor farmers though land-grabbing, fraudulent titling and other legal trickeries employed by the rich and powerfulformed the backdrop for new upsurge of peasant unrest in the twenties. These would lead to movements led by self-styled messiahs, secret societies with roots in the revolutionary traditions, and revivals of old organizations such as the pulajanes and the colorums not only in Luzon but in the Visayas and Mindanao.

Rise of Pulajanes and Colorums

Pulajanes: (1) Liquitan in Samar; (2) Jesus Maria Jose in Siquijor and Negros Oriental; (3) Soldiers of Christ in Dao, Iloilo; (4) a secret society in in Cavite pledged to the creation of a Filipino army; (5) secret society with a rumored membership of four thousand in Pangasinan, Bulacan, Tarlac, and Nueva Ecija said to be collecting funds for the purchase of guns to be sent to Gen. Artemio Ricarte in Japan to continue the Revolution. Colorums active in many provinces in the 1920s: (1) Sociedad de la Confianza in Leyte and Samar; (2) Caballeros de la Sagrada Familia with 1,000 followers in Pampanga, Bulacan, Pangasinan, and Nueva Ecijain Tarlac, Rizal, La Union, Batangas and Surigao.

Common Characteristics of Colorum Groups

1. Religious fanaticism 2. Membership was recruited from the peasantry and urban poor. --As spiritual descendants of the original colorum movement of Hermano Pules Cofradia de San Jose of the 1840s; --Their religion a melange of Catholic devotion, hero-worship and folk superstitionin Tarlac worshipping Jose Rizal and Apo Ipe Salvador and believed in their resurrection; --Believed that anting-anting made all members invulnerable to the bullets of the enemy; --Upon the resurrection of their leader, the property of all those who were not colorums would be confiscated and apportioned among the members. Other examples: (1) Kapisanan Makabola Makarinag by Pedro Kabola in 1923 in Nueva Ecija; 12,000 members by 1924; (2) Florencio Intrencherados movement in the Visayas gathered 12,000 following

Additional Colorum Groups

3. Pedro Calosas in 1929 in Pangasinanoperated behind two new groups dedicated to the amelioration of barrio conditions: (a) Sociedad ti Mannalon or Society of Land Tenants and (b) Sinaraway. Causes for the proliferation of the group: (a) failure of the courts to give justice to tenants in their complaints against landlords and the activities of land-grabbers in connivance with Bureau of Lands officials; (b) many were tenants who had been ejected by hacenderos, or small farmers deprived of their lands by land grabbers who who used both the courts and the police to advance their nefarious schemes.

Labor Groups
1. Union de Litografos e Impresores de Filipinas, formed in January, 1902 by Isabelo de los Reyescharacterized by: (a) the confluence of the interests of labor and management; (b) used the union as vehicles for nationalist propaganda since pro-independence political parties were still banned; (c) much concerned with the civic and moral education of their membership as their contribution to the building of a responsible citizenry which could be entrusted with independence; (d) were led by ilustrados who infused into these organizations their own political outlook. 2. Union Obrera Democrata (U.O.D.)followed the first labor union when members decided to reorganize themselves as federation of smaller unions of printers, litographers, cigar-makers, tailors, shoemakers with 150 affiliated unions of 10,000 members; led by Dr. Dominador Gomez and later by Lope K. Santos, a printer and newspaperman as the last president which became known as the 3. Union del Trabajo de Filipinas which was decimated by political rivalries by 1907.

Labor Groups (contd.)

4. Union de Impresores de Filipinas, seceded from the U.O.D. in 1906 with Felipe Mendoza as president and Crisanto Evangelista as secretary generalsignificant in such that it prohibited employers from becoming union members by 1907. 5. Congress Obrero de Filipinas (C.O.F.)labor congress organized on May 1, 1913 by Evangelista. 6. Asamblea Obrerafounded by Vicente Sotto in 1917 to boost his candidacy in the House of Representatives. 7. Federacion del Trabajofounded by Joaquin Balmori to support the candidates of the Partido Democrata. 8. Legionarios del Trabajofounded in 1919 as offshoot of a strike against the Manila Electric Company.

Peasant Unions

1. Union ng Magsasakaformed in Bulacan in bu1917 to fight the evils of tenancy and usury. 2. Anak Pawasfounded in Pampanga by peasant leaders with the aim of unionizing the tenants and rural laborers of the entire province. 3. Union de Aparceros de Filipinasfounded by Jacinto Manahan in 1919 with the aim of uniting in one federation all peasant organizations of the country leading to the First Tenant Congress in Manila in August, 1922 in turn leading to the forming of 4. Katipunan ng mga Mangagawa at Magsasaka sa Pilipinas, or Confederacion Nacional de Aparceros y Obreros Agricolas de Filipinas. 5. Katipunan Pambansa ng mga Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KPMP)was the new identity given by Manahan during the 1928 convention of the National Confederation of Tenants and Farm Laborers; as a militant radical force in Philippine society, it secured the passage of a resolution endorsing it to the Christentern or Peasant International. 6. Union de Arrendatarios was organized by the lease holders in Hacienda Esperanza in Nueva Ecija to protest the changes made by the owners in the terms of their contracts.

The Rise of the Communist Party of the Philippines

A. Crisanto Evangelista clashed with the conservative elements on the labor front when his group proposed: -1. The organization of factory committees as a first step toward the formation of industrial unions; -2. The establishment of a workers political party; -3. The advocacy of class struggle; -4. The condemnation of the Nacionalista and Democrata parties; and, -5. A demand for independence from the United States. B. When Evangelistas group were outnumbered during the labor Congress by the conservatives, they walked out and launched the Congreso Obrero de Filipinas (Proletariat) otherwise known as the Katipunan ng mga Anak Pawis ng Pilipinas or K.A.P. Evangelista was elected the executive secretary and Manahan as vice-president in charge of peasant movement.

Rise of the Communist Party (contd.)

The aims of the K.A.P. are: -1. To unite the workers and peasants and the exploited masses in general in their own class organizations; -2. To struggle against the rule of American imperialism in the Philippines; -3. To struggle for the betterment of living and working conditions of the workers and peasants; -4. Through struggle, achieve immediate, absolute, and complete independence of the Philippines and establish a real peoples government; -5. To unite the revolutionary movements the world over, especially among the colonial countries; and, -6. To establish the Soviet system in the Philippines. C. When the Communist Party of the Philippines was formally established on Nov. 7, 1930, almost all officers of the K.A.P. became members of the first Central Committee of the CPP D. The final decision to declare the CPP illegal was when the Supreme Court ruled on it on Oct. 26, 1932.

Social Movers
1. Patricio Dionisiofounder of Tangulan, a leftist organization. 2. Teodoro Asedillojoined the Anak Pawis; and with Nicolas Encallado fought the Philippine Constabulary, disreputable government officials and big landlords on behalf of the masses in the Southern Tagalog region; his bullet-ridden body was taken around places as abject lesson to the people. 3. Benigno Ramospublished a weekly tabloid, Sakdal criticizing the political and economic oligarchy and the widening gap between the rich and the poor; founded the Sakdalista party but hes branded as an opportunist. 4. Pedro Abad Santospopularly known as Don Perico due to his elite upbringing; the most famous, militant leader of the peasantry from 1935 up to the outbreak of the war; his Socialist movement spread throughout Central Luzonled to the Socialist Party.

Peasant Organizations
1. Kapisanan Panahon Na (The Time Has Come) composed of tenants in haciendas owned by the Catholic church in Central Luzon and the Southern Tagalog Region agitating for government purchase of Church lands for resale to the tillers. 2. Dumating Na (It Has Come)composed of tenants of Hacienda Buenavista in San Rafael, Bulacan. 3. Handa Na (We Are Ready)composed of tenants of San Ildefonso, Bulacan. 4. Oras Na (It Is Time)composed of tenants in the Jesuit estate in San Pedro Tunasan, Laguna. 5. Yapak (Barefoot)composed of tenants in San Pedro, Laguna seeking to seize the estate owned by the Colegio de San Jose to be distributed among members.

Manuel L. Quezons Definition of Social Justice

Is to placate the exploited masses while reassuring the elites. Share Tenancy Act of 1933supposed to regulate share tenancy contracts for the protection of the peasantry but contained loophole to protect the interest of the landowners. Social Justice Programestablished the National Rice and Corn Corporation to undercut usurers and Chinese middlemen by providing small farmers with storage facilities; the setting up of the Court of Industrial Relations to mediate labor disputes; to give legal assistance to peasants in court proceedings; later, the Court of Agrarian Relations will be added.

Social Dynamics
While the peasants had the Pambansang Kaiasahan ng mga Magbubukid (PKM) aiming to: (a) the extension of bank credit facilities to small farmers; (b) purchase big estates for resale to tenants on easy terms; and (c) humanization of tenant-landlord relationships; the caciques had their private armies, the largest of which was Cawal ning Capayapaan (Knights of Peace) founded by Gov. Sotero Baluyot of Pampanga plus the Tambuli Ordinances forbidding the gathering of two or more people after dusk.

The Fascists and the Anti-Fascists

Falangista movement in Europe spread to the Philippines via the Catholic hierarchy particularly the Spanish priests of the Dominican order of UST and San Juan de Letran; pro-Francisco Franco of Spain, proHitler and pro-Mussolini, plus Andres Soriano, former franchise holder of the Coca Cola Bottling Company. The Left front, on the other hand, is joined by the antifascist: namely; the civic workers and student leaders in ManilaPhilippine Youth Congress, Civilian Emergency Administration, Young Philippines, Nacionalista Party, Civil Liberties Union, League for the Defense of Democracy, League of Women Voters, Legionarios del Trabajo.