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Philippines The Jones Act
The term of Governor General Francis Burton Harrison
(1913-21) was one of particularly harmonious collaboration
between Americans and Filipinos. Harrison's attitudes (he is
described as having regarded himself as a "constitutional
monarch" presiding over a "government of Filipinos") reflected
the relatively liberal stance of Woodrow Wilson's Democratic
Party administration. In 1913 Wilson had appointed five Filipinos
to the Philippine Commission of the legislature, giving it a
Filipino majority for the first time. Harrison undertook rapid
"Filipinization" of the civil service, much to the anger and
distress of Americans in the islands, including superannuated
officials. In 1913 there had been 2,623 American and 6,363
Filipino officials; in 1921 there were 13,240 Filipino and 614
American administrators. Critics accused Harrison of transforming
a "colonial government of Americans aided by Filipinos" into a
"government of Filipinos aided by Americans" and of being the
"plaything and catspaw of the leaders of the Nacionalista Party."
A major step was taken in the direction of independence in
1916, when the United States Congress passed a second organic
law, commonly referred to as the Jones Act, which replaced the
1902 law. Its preamble stated the intent to grant Philippine
independence as soon as a stable government was established. The
Philippine Senate replaced the Philippine Commission as the upper
house of the legislature. Unlike the commission, all but two of
the Senate's twenty-four members (and all but nine of the ninety
representatives in the lower house, now renamed the House of
Representatives) were popularly elected. The two senators and
nine representatives were appointed by the governor general to
represent the non-Christian peoples. The legislature's actions
were subject to the veto of the governor general, and it could
not pass laws affecting the rights of United States citizens. The
Jones Act brought the legislative branch under Filipino control.
The executive still was firmly under the control of an appointed
governor general, and most Supreme Court justices, who were
appointed by the United States president, still were Americans in
1916.
Elections were held for the two houses in 1916, and the
Nacionalista Party made an almost clean sweep. All but one
elected seat in the Senate and eighty-three out of ninety elected
seats in the House were won by their candidates, leaving the
National Progressive Party (the former Federalista Party) a
powerless opposition. Quezon was chosen president of the Senate,
and Osmeña continued as speaker of the House.
The Jones Act remained the basic legislation for the
administration of the Philippines until the United States
Congress passed new legislation in 1934 which became effective in
1935, establishing the Commonwealth of the Philippines.
Provisions of the Jones Act were differently interpreted,
however, by the governors general. Harrison rarely challenged the
legislature by his use of the veto power. His successor, General
Leonard Wood (1921-27), was convinced that United States
withdrawal from the islands would be as disastrous for the
Filipinos as it would be for the interests of the United States
in the western Pacific. He aroused the intense opposition of the
Nacionalistas by his use of the veto power 126 times in his six
years in office. The Nacionalista Party created a political
deadlock when ranking Filipino officials resigned in 1923 leaving
their positions vacant until Wood's term ended with his death in
1927. His successors, however, reversed Wood's policies and reestablished effective working relations with Filipino politicians.
Although the Jones Act did not transfer responsibility for
the Moro regions (reorganized in 1914 under the Department of
Mindanao and Sulu) from the American governor to the Filipinocontrolled legislature, Muslims perceived the rapid
Filipinization of the civil service and United States commitment
to eventual independence as serious threats. In the view of the
Moros, an independent Philippines would be dominated by Christians , their traditional enemies. United States policy from 1903
had been to break down the historical autonomy of the Muslim
territories. Immigration of Christian settlers from Luzon and the
Visayan Islands to the relatively unsettled regions of Mindanao
was encouraged, and the new arrivals began supplanting the Moros
in their own homeland. Large areas of the island were opened to
economic exploitation. There was no legal recognition of Muslim
customs and institutions. In March 1935, Muslim datu
petitioned United States president Franklin D. Roosevelt, asking
that "the American people should not release us until we are
educated and become powerful because we are like a calf who, once
abandoned by its mother, would be devoured by a merciless lion."
Any suggestion of special status for or continued United States
rule over the Moro regions, however, was vehemently opposed by
Christian Filipino leaders who, when the Commonwealth of the
Philippines was established, gained virtually complete control
over government institutions.
Data as of June 1991
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