THE PHILIPPINES: Peace on the Pasig

Peace on the Pasig

When a Philippine plebiscite last spring voted in favor of suffrage for women by a 400,000 to 40,000 majority, only one more wrinkle remained before Filipino women became enfranchised. This was the actual framing of a law to allow them to vote. Last week, the wrinkle was ironed out in characteristic Filipino fashion.

Filipino males pay a head tax of $1 apiece. The tax receipts have been the means whereby voters are identified. Philippine President Manuel Quezon last week announced that he would veto the woman suffrage bill unless it imposed a poll tax on women, recommended 25¢ a head as a minimum tariff for Filipino females. Next day, while Filipino suffragettes sputtered with indignation that a tax should go with the right to vote, the National Assembly passed a bill which evaded the question of the poll tax by substituting a different method of identifying voters. If President Quezon signs it, Filipino voters will hereafter put their thumbprints on their ballots. The prints will then serve to settle anticipated arguments about fraudulent voting.

Whether this incident represented a minor revolt of his rubber stamp legislature or whether dictatorial little President Quezon had quietly arranged it as a window dressing to prove to visiting U. S. officials that parliamentary government functions in the Philippines, it was only one of several matters which kept him busy last week. For while all was apparently peaceful along the Pasig—the muddy little stream that flows through Manila—Manuel Quezon was busily heating several political irons in the fire.

Island Problems. The difference between my critics and me is that while they talk, I do things.” This recent boast by President Quezon, to a crowd in front of his handsome Malacanan Palace, referred to the fact that, during his absence in the U. S. and Europe, he was running the Philippines from the U. S. by radio telephone messages to his moon-faced little secretary Jorg Vargas, the U. S. Supreme Court in Washington had approved the constitutionality of giving the Philippines the $50,000,000 (100,000,000 pesos) proceeds of the coconut oil processing tax which the U. S. imposed in 1934. So President Quezon, although he bitterly opposed the original imposition of the tax, now has 100,000,000 pesos to spend and is intent on getting full credit for it. To a special session of his legislature, he explained how he proposed to start spending this windfall.

First major expenditure would be $3,500,000 for buying large haciendas for resale to impoverished tenants. For those who were surprised that, in view of the Philippines’ recent acute agrarian troubles, no more was earmarked for this purpose, President Quezon had a ready answer: if he promised to buy estates wherever agrarian trouble started, landowners who were eager to sell out would foment trouble to encourage sales.

As a second way to emphasize that his personal attention had been restored to the islands, he had another proposal. Strongest political opposition comes from the Philippines’ Popular Front—coalition of Left politicians, who are agreed that the Quezon presidency is in effect dictatorship. To forestall any chance that the Popular Front might develop a dangerous opposition among Philippine workers, Manuel Quezon proposed to up wages 62¢ a day in Manila, 25¢ in the provinces. Political observers familiar with Filipino political tactics construed this as a classic example of Quezon’s political guile. During his trip to the U. S. Manuel Quezon argued in Washington and broadcast to his constituents speeches in favor of advancing the date of Philippine national independence to 1938 or 1939. To distribute to masses of voters the proceeds of a U. S. tax that will end with Independence looked suspiciously as though President Quezon was trying to arouse public opinion against his own plan.

Joint Committee. Shortly after Manuel Quezon returned to Manila, he was followed by several thousand U. S. refugees from China. If this influx of tourists reminded President Quezon that hastening Philippine independence might be inopportune while Japan retains an imperialistic state of mind, last week was almost his last chance to reconsider his stand. Appointed by President Roosevelt partly in response to the urgings of President Quezon that the subject of advancing the date of Independence be reopened, a Joint Preparatory Committee on Philippine Affairs, headed by Ambassador John Van Antwerp MacMurray, after a month touring the islands was by last week nearing the end of its job: to examine political and economic means of arranging the transition to complete Philippine independence with the least possible discomfort to U. S. industries and Philippine inhabitants. The Committee, mostly composed of specialists on the subject of Far Eastern trade problems, met in Washington last spring, held a series of hearings in San Francisco before leaving for Manila in July. In November it will be ready to draw up for Presidents Roosevelt and Quezon the report that will help decide how and when Philippine Independence is to be effected.

Cigaret-Lighter. One of the first things Commissioner McNutt did on arriving in Manila last spring was to demote President Quezon down the toast list at Philippine banquets. Manuel Quezon’s Philippines Herald promptly took to editorial baiting of High Commissioner McNutt. First indication that President Quezon’s conversations with President Roosevelt, Secretaries Hull and Woodring (who, it was again rumored last week, would soon resign as Secretary of War to replace High Commissioner McNutt at Manila) had convinced him that it would be wiser to get along amiably with Commissioner McNutt took the form of a speech at an open-air banquet in Manila’s Rizal Stadium. President Quezon, who had called on Commissioner McNutt the day after his return, declared: “As the Representative of the President of the United States, the High Commissioner naturally takes precedence over the President of the Philippines. . . .”

Lest his constituents doubt the sincerity of this statement, wily Manuel Quezon took another way of expressing his change of tactics. A firm rule of Filipino etiquet is that when a superior places a cigaret between his lips, a subordinate must quickly strike a match to light it for him. President Quezon is accustomed to having half a dozen of his Cabinet members pop up on their feet every time he takes out his cigaret case. Last winter when he wanted to take a military aide to the U. S. with him, he invited a group of West Point-trained Filipino officers to dine. When their U. S. training caused them to forget their native manners so far as to fail to light President Quezon’s after-dinner smoke, he decided to go to the U. S. without military escort. By last week, all Manila knew that President Quezon was really prepared to consider Commissioner McNutt as Boss. On the occasion of his homecoming call, he graciously lighted the McNutt cigaret.