Chapter 17 Labor and Peasant Activism

7/29/2019 Chapter 17 Labor and Peasant Activism

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XVIILabor and Peasant

Activism

Masses Reorienting

Consciousness


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Perceptions of the Masses

The masses movements would be directed not only against theconqueror but also against the native allies of US and theiroverseers as well

When the ilustrados betrayed the liberating aims as seen by themasses, mystical organizations again proliferated since they lackedtheoretical guidance, there were the reversion to a form of nativismor fanaticism reminiscent of early rebellions against Spanish rulebut these would give rise to a growing social awareness.

Mass organizations socio-economic goals would be seen on secretpatriotic societies, peasant associations, and labor unions.

A lot of these organizations would have the economic objectives fora better working conditions within a colonial framework.

Other groups will begin to perceive with greater clarity theinterconnection between their economic demands and the nationalgoal of independenceleading to the radical political associations ofworkers and peasants.


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Impetus for Labor and Agrarian

Unrests 1. Worldwide economic crisis of the late twenties and

early thirties that further depressed the living standardsof the masses drove them to desperate violence on theone 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 gettinglarger; (b) resulting to absentee landlords; (c) goaded byprofit maximization; (d) in Central Luzon, increased

tenancy and proximity to Manila meant more contactsbetween the peasantry and workers; and (e) greaterinteraction between the citys leaders and Central Luzonpeasant leaders; (f) the exploitative land tenure system.


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The Land Tenure System

The land tenure system kept the peasants in a condition of bondagefrom which they seldom if ever escaped.

Of two types:

-1. Inquilino tenantscash tenants, leased a piece of land for whichhe 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 sharein the expenses of constructing a road or dike or build a warehouse.Refusal to contribute or work could mean dismissal from thehacienda.

-2.Kasama or share tenants or share cropperprovided the laborand shared the harvest on a 50-50 basis with his landlord after

deducting the planting and harvesting expenses. The landlordsupplied the necessary implements as well as the carabao. Thelandlord advanced his tenant cash and/orpalayand deducted fromthe tenants share at the next harvest. He was also expected torender free labor of various kinds at the discretion of the landowner.


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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 chargedfor the advances orgastos compounded the expoitation.

Interest rates varied from 50 to 100%, even 200%.

If the tenant had borrowed money, this too was paid inpalay

computed at the price of grain at harvest time, the lowest of theyear.

The hacendero had the additional advantage of being able to storehispalayand to sell it at the higher price usually prevailing justbefore the next harvest.

Since most of the tenants were illiterate, only the landlords keptaccounts to that the former were cheated mercilessly.

Tenants labor is estimated at six centavos per hour while hiscarabaos labor was worth nine centavos per hour as estimated in astandard of living of a tenant in a 1934 study.


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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 seasonwhile working for sixteen hours.

2. Women and children were paid thirty-five to fifty centavos andworked eleven hours.

3. In the sugar centrals, 30% of the workers received less than apeso and 27% less than a peso and twenty centavos while workingfrom eight to twelve hours per day.

4. Thepakyawsystem of the middle thirties had underpaid laborershired on a fixed fee.

5. Workers were forced to buy their food and other needs at thehacenderos canteen where they were charged as much as 80%more than the prevailing prices for the goods that they bought.


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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 thesparsely populated of the friar properties.

The selling price proved to be beyond the reachof most tenants.

No credit facilities were made available topersons of modest means who might want to

buy a few hectaresresult: landowners becamethe chief beneficiaries of the supposedredistribution for only they had the funds withwhich to buy the lands offered for sale.


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The Rise of Minor Messiahs

Grinding poverty, high taxes, usury, oppressivetreatment by caciques, the frustration of the tenantshopes of acquiring plots of their own, dispossession ofpoor farmers though land-grabbing, fraudulent titling and

other legal trickeries employed by the rich andpowerfulformed the backdrop for new upsurge ofpeasant unrest in the twenties.

These would lead to movements led by self-styledmessiahs, secret societies with roots in the revolutionary

traditions, and revivals of old organizations such as thepulajanes and the colorums not only in Luzon but in theVisayas and Mindanao.


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Rise ofPulajanes and Colorums

Pulajanes: (1) Liquitan in Samar; (2) Jesus Maria Jose inSiquijor and Negros Oriental; (3) Soldiers of Christ inDao, Iloilo; (4) a secret society in in Cavite pledged tothe 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 collectingfunds for the purchase of guns to be sent to Gen.

Artemio Ricarte in Japan to continue the Revolution.

Colorumsactive 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 inPampanga, Bulacan, Pangasinan, and Nueva EcijainTarlac, Rizal, La Union, Batangas and Surigao.


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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 ofHermano Pules Cofradia de San Joseof the 1840s;

--Their religion a melange of Catholic devotion, hero-worship and

folk superstitionin Tarlac worshipping Jose Rizal and Apo IpeSalvador and believed in their resurrection;

--Believed that anting-antingmade all members invulnerable to thebullets of the enemy;

--Upon the resurrection of their leader, the property of all those whowere not colorums would be confiscated and apportioned among the

members. Other examples: (1) Kapisanan Makabola Makarinagby PedroKabola in 1923 in Nueva Ecija; 12,000 members by 1924; (2)Florencio Intrencherados movement in the Visayas gathered 12,000following


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Additional Colorum Groups

3. Pedro Calosas in 1929 in Pangasinanoperatedbehind two new groups dedicated to the amelioration ofbarrio conditions: (a) Sociedad ti Mannalon or Society ofLand Tenants and (b) Sinaraway.

Causes for the proliferation of the group: (a) failure of thecourts to give justice to tenants in their complaintsagainst landlords and the activities of land-grabbers inconnivance with Bureau of Lands officials; (b) manywere tenants who had been ejected by hacenderos, or

small farmers deprived of their lands by land grabberswho who used both the courts and the police to advancetheir nefarious schemes.


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Labor Groups

1. Union de Litografos e Impresores de Filipinas, formed in January,1902 by Isabelo de los Reyescharacterized by: (a) the confluenceof the interests of labor and management; (b) used the union asvehicles for nationalist propaganda since pro-independence politicalparties were still banned; (c) much concerned with the civic andmoral education of their membership as their contribution to the

building of a responsible citizenry which could be entrusted withindependence; (d) were led by ilustrados who infused into theseorganizations their own political outlook.

2. Union Obrera Democrata (U.O.D.)followed the first labor unionwhen members decided to reorganize themselves as federation ofsmaller unions of printers, litographers, cigar-makers, tailors,

shoemakers with 150 affiliated unions of 10,000 members; led byDr. Dominador Gomez and later by Lope K. Santos, a printer andnewspaperman as the last president which became known as the

3. Union del Trabajo de Filipinas which was decimated by politicalrivalries by 1907.


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Labor Groups (contd.)

4. Union de Impresores de Filipinas, seceded from theU.O.D. in 1906 with Felipe Mendoza as president andCrisanto Evangelista as secretary generalsignificant insuch that it prohibited employers from becoming unionmembers by 1907.

5. Congress Obrero de Filipinas (C.O.F.)laborcongress organized on May 1, 1913 by Evangelista.

6.Asamblea Obrerafounded by Vicente Sotto in 1917to boost his candidacy in the House of Representatives.

7. Federacion del Trabajofounded by Joaquin Balmorito support the candidates of the Partido Democrata.

8. Legionarios del Trabajofounded in 1919 as offshootof a strike against the Manila Electric Company.


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Peasant Unions

1. Union ng Magsasakaformed in Bulacan in bu1917 to fight the evils oftenancy and usury.

2.Anak Pawasfounded in Pampanga by peasant leaders with the aim ofunionizing the tenants and rural laborers of the entire province.

3. Union de Aparceros de Filipinasfounded by Jacinto Manahan in 1919with the aim of uniting in one federation all peasant organizations of the

country leading to the First Tenant Congress in Manila in August, 1922 inturn leading to the forming of

4. Katipunan ng mga Mangagawa at Magsasaka sa Pilipinas, orConfederacion Nacional de Aparceros y Obreros Agricolas de Filipinas.

5. Katipunan Pambansa ng mga Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KPMP)was thenew identity given by Manahan during the 1928 convention of the NationalConfederation of Tenants and Farm Laborers; as a militant radical force in

Philippine society, it secured the passage of a resolution endorsing it to theChristentern or Peasant International.

6. Union de Arrendatarios was organized by the lease holders in HaciendaEsperanza in Nueva Ecija to protest the changes made by the owners in theterms of their contracts.


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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 theformation 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 theCong reso Obrero de Fi l ip inas(Proletariat) otherwise known as theKat ipunan ng mga Anak Pawis ng Pil ip inasorK.A.P. Evangelistawas elected the executive secretary and Manahan as vice-presidentin charge of peasant movement.


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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 generalin 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 theworkers and peasants;

-4. Through struggle, achieve immediate, absolute, and completeindependence of the Philippines and establish a real peoples government;

-5. To unite the revolutionary movements the world over, especially amongthe colonial countries; and,

-6. To establish the Soviet system in the Philippines.

C. When the Communist Party of the Philippines was formally establishedon Nov. 7, 1930, almost all officers of the K.A.P. became members of thefirst Central Committee of the CPP

D. The final decision to declare the CPP illegal was when the SupremeCourt ruled on it on Oct. 26, 1932.


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Social Movers

1. Patricio Dionisiofounder ofTangulan, a leftist organization.

2. Teodoro Asedillojoined theAnak Pawis; and with NicolasEncallado fought the Philippine Constabulary, disreputablegovernment officials and big landlords on behalf of the masses inthe Southern Tagalog region; his bullet-ridden body was takenaround places as abject lesson to the people.

3. Benigno Ramospublished a weekly tabloid, Sakdalcriticizingthe political and economic oligarchy and the widening gap betweenthe rich and the poor; founded the Sakdalistaparty but hes brandedas an opportunist.

4. Pedro Abad Santospopularly known as Don Perico due to hiselite upbringing; the most famous, militant leader of the peasantry

from 1935 up to the outbreak of the war; his Socialist movementspread throughout Central Luzonled to the Socialist Party.


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Peasant Organizations

1. Kapisanan Panahon Na (The Time Has Come)composed of tenants in haciendas owned by theCatholic church in Central Luzon and the SouthernTagalog Region agitating for government purchase ofChurch lands for resale to the tillers.

2. Dumating Na (It Has Come)composed of tenants ofHacienda Buenavista in San Rafael, Bulacan.

3. Handa Na (We Are Ready)composed of tenants ofSan Ildefonso, Bulacan.

4. Oras Na (It Is Time)composed of tenants in theJesuit estate in San Pedro Tunasan, Laguna.

5. Yapak(Barefoot)composed of tenants in SanPedro, Laguna seeking to seize the estate owned by theColegio de San Jose to be distributed among members.


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Manuel L. Quezons Definition of

Social Justice Is to placate the exploited masses while reassuring the

elites.

Share Tenancy Act of 1933supposed to regulate sharetenancy contracts for the protection of the peasantry but

contained loophole to protect the interest of thelandowners.

Social Justice Programestablished the National Riceand Corn Corporation to undercut usurers and Chinesemiddlemen by providing small farmers with storage

facilities; the setting up of the Court of IndustrialRelations to mediate labor disputes; to give legalassistance to peasants in court proceedings; later, theCourt of Agrarian Relations will be added.


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Social Dynamics

While the peasants had the PambansangKaiasahan ng mga Magbubukid(PKM) aimingto: (a) the extension of bank credit facilities tosmall 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 largestof which was Cawal ning Capayapaan (Knightsof Peace) founded by Gov. Sotero Baluyot of

Pampanga plus the TambuliOrdinancesforbidding the gathering of two or more peopleafter dusk.


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The Fascists and the Anti-Fascists

Falangista movement in Europe spread to thePhilippines via the Catholic hierarchy particularly theSpanish priests of the Dominican order of UST and SanJuan de Letran; pro-Francisco Franco of Spain, pro-

Hitler and pro-Mussolini, plus Andres Soriano, formerfranchise holder of the Coca Cola Bottling Company.

The Left front, on the other hand, is joined by the anti-fascist: namely; the civic workers and student leaders inManilaPhilippine Youth Congress, Civilian Emergency

Administration, Young Philippines, Nacionalista Party,Civil Liberties Union, League for the Defense ofDemocracy, League of Women Voters, Legionarios delTrabajo.

Documents

Chapter 17 Labor and Peasant Activism