Politician v. Patriot v. Priest

THE PHILIPPINES

Politician v. Patriot v. Priest

Almost seven score and seven years ago the U. S. with patriarchal dignity named its foremost citizens to the Electoral College, allowed them in their wisdom to choose their leading patriot and biggest landowner, General George Washington, as first President of a new and independent nation. Next autumn the U. S. will launch the Philippine Commonwealth as a new and independent nation in its own image. Last week Filipinos got down to the serious business of electing their first President. The affair promised to be no patriarchal rite.

Manuel Quezon, president of the Philippine Senate and shrewdest of that crop of native politicos who have grown up in the islands under U. S. tutelage, was on his way back to the Philippines from the U. S. where he had seen Franklin Roosevelt sign the new Philippine Constitution (TIME, April 1). Before that Constitution was signed and before Filipinos in a plebiscite accepted it, Senor Quezon had laid his plans for becoming President of the Commonwealth. He had entered into a coalition with his onetime political enemies and between them they had agreed to a comfortable division of the new offices. There was to be but one ticket: Manuel Quezon for President; Sergio Osmena, his onetime rival, for Vice President. Manuel Roxas, No. 3 man, would be Speaker of the single legislative body under the new Constitution. And the excess of leaders resulting from the coalition of two factions would be quietly taken care of by appointments to the Supreme Court. But last week as Senor Quezon was within a few days sailing distance of home, it appeared that anything might happen to upset his well-laid plans.

1) The coalition began to crack apart. From his ship Senor Quezon radioed threats that he would not lead the ticket unless the coalition stuck together.

2) A plot against his life, the third reported in two months, was discovered. At the Quezon home near Baguio, the summer capital, whither the would-be President will hasten as soon as he reaches Manila, there were unearthed eleven cases of dynamite stolen from a construction camp, enough to blow him far beyond reach of any earthly honors.

3) Two new candidates for President took the field against him.

If the Philippines followed U. S. precedent, they would inevitably name their great revolutionary general, Emilio Aguinaldo, to the Presidency. But more than three decades have passed between the islands' revolution after the Spanish War and the founding of their Commonwealth. In that period Patriot Aguinaldo faded out of practical politics. He occupied himself in building up a comfortable fortune, a fine home in Kawit. First in the hearts of his countrymen, he enjoyed that warm spot and held additional prestige as head of the organization of revolutionary veterans who could always deliver a handsome bloc of votes at any election. But in recent months he and the politicos have grown apart. As Congress gave General Washington 40,000 acres of land (in addition to the 70,000 he already held) for war services, so the Philippine Government lent General Aguinaldo money. Recently someone, counting up, found that he had borrowed 200,000 pesos ($100,000) in over 20 years, had repaid only 18,000. Some of the borrowed money he used in 1915 as a down payment to buy 2,390 acres of land from the Government. When the Government began last winter to dun him with demands that he return the land for which he had never completed payment, he grew greatly disgruntled. He and the radical Sakdalistas alone opposed the Constitution which the Filipinos last month accepted by a 25-10-1 vote.

No longer was Emilio Aguinaldo unchallenged hero of the Filipinos. Manuel Quezon's Herald Philippines cried out then against him: "You and your brother headed an uprising which started as a suburban affair but which, by accident, ended as a national cause. ... In American eyes you won a glamorous notoriety akin to those of Captain Kidd, Jesse James and Robin Hood. . . . Meanwhile a grateful country placed you under pension while, succumbing to the materialism that supplemented the piety of another sovereignty, you acquired vast tracts of land. . . . Meanwhile, also, you organized your veterans, their sons, their grandsons and other kin into an association which acts clannish as easily as it becomes political. . . ."

Not willing to hear such insults the 65-year-old General resolved to be the Philippine George Washington or nothing. Last week he opened his campaign with a political parade in Cavite at which 1,000 supporters lustily shouted: "Aguinaldo-for-President."

Before the week was out a third Philippine hero had announced his candidacy. Sixty-two years ago Gregorio Aglipay was a peasant boy who drove his grandfather's carabaos through the main streets of Batac. While his boyhood friends grew up to be revolutionists, he joined the Catholic Church determined to share the power of an institution which then owned a third of the islands' wealth. As long as Spanish rule lasted the native priests had little power, were kept at menial tasks. Several who revolted were executed. When Admiral Dewey arrived and the insurrection started, Aglipay became Aguinaldo's chaplain-general, led armed forces in the field. The Spanish church excommunicated him. The U. S. conquerors after a time captured him. He went to Manila, became friends with Governor General William Howard Taft.

With the encouragement of that Unitarian, he founded a new Independent Catholic Church of the Philippines,* became its "Obispo Maximo" (Archbishop). Today, aged 75, in his black robe, his magenta sash, his huge gold crucifix, he rules a congregation of 3,000,000 souls, 400 churches, 2,000 chapels--a non-Roman church that, for all its catholicity, regards itself as first cousin to the Unitarians. Last week before Politician Quezon could reach home and before Patriot Aguinaldo could get his campaign under way, the "Obispo Maximo" stepped out to announce: "Aglipay-for-President."

Vice President John Nance Garner, Secretary of War Dern, Speaker of the House Byrns and other U. S. dignitaries are expected to witness the inauguration of the Philippine Commonwealth next Nov. 15. In a three-cornered contest between a politician, a patriot and a priest, the odds, in the Philippines as elsewhere, favor the politician. Nevertheless, official visitors to Manila next autumn cannot yet be sure what the occupation of the man they will greet as "Mr. President" will be.

*Known today as the Independent Phillippine Church.

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