- from "THE PROBLEM OF LABOR IN THE PHILIPPINES" by F. WELLS WILLIAMS of Yale University. Proceedings of the American Political Science Association, Vol. 10, Tenth Annual Meeting. (1913), pp. 125-147.

And to the paragraph above, I say, OUCH.

Today, I tried to condense some readings I found regarding the Labor situation in the Philippines. The text written above tells us about how Americans, at the turn of the century, understood or misunderstood the Philippines.

I can go on and on for hours to disprove what this Mr. Williams has written but I am not going to delve on that for I guess we already know...

Kababayans, we know, right?

We know about the...

... warrior culture and history of our Moro brothers?
... highly organized tribal system of our Filipino brothers in the North, and more so, their advanced skills and enduring patience in carving from several mountains the biggest rice terraces in Asia and the world?
... history of trade of our brothers in Mindanao with Java and China which rewinds to hundreds of centuries back?
... intricate patterns of our very own handmade textiles, different styles and patterns in our many different islands?
... existence of over 80 dialects which linguists now claim to be languages rather than mere dialects because of their uniqueness?
... animist religions practiced by various tribes in our many different islands which held ancient communities together?
... xistence of the babaylans, lady priests? That they held the highest positions and received the highest respect in our olden communities which show nothing but our ancient culture's high regard for women?

Etc, etc...

And if these practices, cultures, and traditions have faded, we know too that...

....the Spanish, who colonized the Philippines for over 300 years shoved into our forebears' faces perhaps their most powerful colonizing tool: the Catholic religion?
... the Americans came and "guided" us to adopt "commonwealth" government, and "helped" embed in our national systems their most powerful colonizing tool: Americanized education?

And the Japanese?

... Well, actually, it was the Japanese who called for the re-Filipinization of the Philippines.

So anyway, today, I pasted the indeed quotable quote from a scholar from the great Yale University to my Mongolian friend via Yahoo Messenger. I told him that it was an American author writing about the Philippines.

"Hehe," he wrote back, "I thought (it was) China talking about Mongolia."

Smileys!

That's all for today, folks.