After reading Battle for Batangas by Glenn Anthony May (copyright Yale University 1993), I am now more curious about life in Batangas City when General Bell of the American Army zoned the area in order to debilitate General Malvar's resistance. (General Miguel Malvar is the last Philippine General to surrender to the US during the occupation.) The zoning in Batangas was General Bell's last resort, because Malvar would not surrender since he enjoyed the support of both the elite and the lower classes in his fight for "freedom". The plan of the Philippine revolutionaries at the time, especially in Batangas, was to exhaust the patience of the enemy, hoping that in time, the enemy would grow tired and go home. The beleaguered Malvar contingent had resorted to guerilla tactics, because from the very beginning, they were underdogs in any fighting done the conventional way.
My interest spins from May's comment about the transition in leadership in Batangas: "For at least a year following the U.S. occupation of Batangas, members of the provincial economic and political elite constituted the backbone of the anticolonial struggle. But, as the pressure of U.S. military operations began to take their toll and more and more members of the political and economic elite decided to cast their lot with the enemy, the fragile nature of this resistance became obvious. It was far from surprising therefore, that in the final years of the battle for Batangas Malvar made a determined effort to broaden the base of support by rallying the lower classes to his banner. A cause that offered only continuity had little appeal to those who were unhappy with their lot in the past.
"Continuity of a different kind could also be observed in the provincial officer corps. In creating his command structure, Miguel Malvar relied primarily on individuals with whom he had close, and in most cases, long standing, relationships--family members, compadres, trusted retainers, friends from his secondary-school days. Such a method of institutional formation may very well have had something to recommend it at the start, but over the course of the war, its deficiencies became apparent, as conflict surfaced between subordinates whose loyalty to Malvar could not overcome their dislike for each other. Here, then, was an inherent fatal flaw in the Filipino Army in Batangas: the very organizing principle of the officer corps was, at the same time, a root cause of the ongoing tensions within the army."
I am intrigued by this comment. I wonder whether similar "conflicts" did not occur in an army composed not of relatives and friends, but of drafted "patriots" who learned about each other only in the army, such as among soldiers from the US. The US troops had sophisticated training, and all of them obeyed the highest command because they were "professional" soldiers. But the Filipino revolutionary had no choice but to take up arms even if he did not know how to fire a gun or wield a bolo. What could he have done? Instantly, he had to look for allies, and where could he find these except from his family and friends? The revolution was on and he was hoping that victory against Spain would finally give him the freedom Bonifacio died for, however the unexpected happened and another oppressor came.
I would like to understand why Filipinos then (and now) have always relied on their "kins". I would like to know why Malvar only wooed the masses during the last phase of the struggle, isolating them from the cause of independence, while purporting to fight for freedom of the masses. Maybe, this will instruct me about what's happening today.
The Fil-Am war of 1890-1910 wasn't something the Filipinos had prepared for. Only those who occupy territories are ever ready to conquer and destroy. Those who are at the receiving end of the onslaught had no choice but to use every creative means to resist the invasion.
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