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The Philippines

The Republic of the Philippines is the only colony of the United States ever to declare its independence. Now, millions of Filipinos wonder if that was wise.

The U.S. acquired the Philippines from Spain as a result of triumph in the Spanish-American War of 1898 — a war in which a smashing victory at Manila Bay was a dashing highlight. The archipelago's people, however, had already been working for independence from Spain, and the more militant elements in that struggle were not willing to accept a U.S. overlord as substitute for a Spanish overlord. So they waged a guerrilla war for independence, which the United States Army crushed, with disgusting atrocities on both sides. After three years, the guerrillas gave in, and the U.S. consolidated its control. Fortunately for Filipinos, the United States' colonial regime was relatively benign, and many improvements were made in infrastructure, education, health care, etc. But the United States in 1898 was not the United States of 1998 or 2001. It was deeply, though not necessarily maliciously, racist and anti-Catholic.

The U.S. ruling class, then comprising mainly "WASPs" (White, 'Anglo-Saxon' Protestants), did not believe that little 'brown' or 'yellow' Filipinos could possibly rise to the level of big 'white' Americans and thus become full citizens of the United States in a State of the Philippines. Besides, Filipinos were overwhelmingly Catholic — and a significant minority were Moslems! — whereas the ruling class of the United States was then and remains today preponderantly Protestant. So the U.S. refused even to consider statehood for the Philippines, but put it on track for eventual independence. In 1934, U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt got legislation thru Congress to make the Philippines a country to itself in 1946. Despite an invasion by Japan that lasted from the end of 1941 to 1945, and the devastation that the Japanese inflicted and the fight to drive them out produced, the U.S. went ahead with its pledge to give the Philippines independence on time, and on July 4th, 1946, the Philippines became a nation among nations.

Alas, the period of democratic mentoring by the U.S. wasn't long enough to overcome centuries of Spanish absolutism from afar, and the Philippines proved unable to maintain the democracy the U.S. willed it. In the 1960s, beset by Communist and Moslem-separatist guerrilla insurrections, the Philippines fell into dictatorship under Ferdinand Marcos, a dictatorship that was to last for over 20 years. The Philippine opposition to the Marcos regime fled abroad, mainly to the U.S., and eventually the flagging Marcos dictatorship crumbled. Marcos invited the leader of the opposition, Benigno Aquino, to return to the Philippines to negotiate — whereupon he was shot dead at the airport on arrival. His widow, U.S.-educated Corazon Aquino, led a "People Power" revolt against Marcos. Marcos himself, old and dying from cancer, gave up power in exchange for a free ride to luxurious exile in Hawaii, USA.

Philippine democracy is still not stable. At the turn of the Millennium, a once-hugely-popular elected president, Jose Estrada, a film actor famous for his action roles as champion of the downtrodden, was forced from office by a second "People Power" revolt after an impeachment proceeding fell to pieces over the suppression of key evidence. Another woman, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, became President for having been elected Vice President in her own right under a different party's banner.  (This is a mistake the U.S. Constitution fixed in the 12th Amendment — in 1804!) She is the daughter of the last democratically elected President of the Philippines before Marcos. She too, like Cory Aquino before her, was educated in the United States.

President Estrada was an ostensible champion of the poor, but did not accomplish anything toward land reform or the other basic changes in Philippine law and society necessary to lift the bulk of the population out of poverty. President Arroyo is a creature of the middle class, put into office by a revolt of the middle class, and many people expect her to be captive to her class and NOT make the kinds of thoroughgoing economic reforms the Philippines desperately needs.

In 1985, there was a sizable Philippine statehood movement under the rubric of the Federal Party of the Philippines, which claimed 7 million members. But when Marcos was overthrown, Filipinos in general thought they had a second chance to make their own nationhood work, so put aside thoughts of statehood to give nationhood a second chance. Well, it's 16 years later and Philippine nationhood has proved, again, a massive and monstrous failure.

The majority of Filipinos are poor, and some are grindingly, dehumanizingly poor. An avalanche of garbage at a landfill outside Manila killed dozens of garbage-pickers, some of the many thousands of poor Filipinos who lived in shantytowns around the dump and sorted thru trash for recyclables and other things that could be sold. People live in lengths of concrete CONDUIT in the Philippines! How long can the poor be expected to suffer for the sake of prosperous Philippine nationalists? What has nationalism done for THEM? What WILL it do for them in the foreseeable future? These are questions that any Philippine statehood organization will need to address.

The original Philippine statehood group within USI (Aksyon!) has gone inactive, but has been replaced by another, the Third Option Proponents (TOP) Party.

Email: Philippines_Statehood_USA@yahoo.com

Postal address and phone numbers:

Office Address: 103 E. Rodriguez Cor. BMA and Kitanlad Streets
Quezon City, Metro Manila, Philippines 0263

Telephone Number: (632) 712-1501

Take a poll. There are three different polls below, with the same questions and answer options but directed to different groups of people. Be sure to complete the right one.

The first poll is for Filipinos resident in the Philippines.

This next poll is for Filipino-Americans.

This last poll is for non-Filipino Americans.

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