A Short History of South-East Asia

by Peter Church

  Manila was quickly transformed from a small but busy port town linked to regional trading networks into one of the major colonial port cities in South‐East Asia. Its rival in the 17th and 18th centuries was Batavia (Jakarta). In the 19th century, Singapore outstripped both. Chinese merchants controlled Manila's trading lifeblood, although their numbers were only small. At the beginning of the 19th century, there were probably no more than 4,000 Chinese in the Philippines, mostly based in Manila. Many of the Chinese married locally and over time became a mestizo community. In many ways, 17th and 18th century Manila was a Chinese city or, at least, a city of Chinese and mestizos. They organised the entrepot trade and provided the internal trading and credit networks essential to that trade. There was never a large Spanish population in the Philippines and most who lived there resided in Manila. Most came via New Mexico and many were themselves Creoles who married locally in the Philippines. The mestizo communities, one Spanish‐derived and the other Chinese‐derived, became the most powerful political and economic forces in the Philippines.

  While Spanish rule in the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries had little economic impact on the peoples of the Philippines, its political and religious impact was considerable. In contrast to European invaders elsewhere in South‐East Asia, the Spanish were not confronted by indigenous states supported by bureaucracies, aristocracies, or religious organisations. Spanish rule defined the modern state of the Philippines and its social, religious, and ideological underpinnings. Spanish power was centred in Manila, on the island of Luzon in the northern part of the island chain. However, Spanish control was only really assured in the lowlands of the northern and central islands. Despite constant efforts throughout the 18th and 19th centuries to conquer the southern islands, Spain was repeatedly rebuffed by the Islamic sultanate of Sulu. The Sulu archipelago and the island of Mindanao were not incorporated into the Philippines until the Americans took over the colony from Spain at the end of the 19th century. Even then it was only a partial incorporation. Independent Philippine governments from the 1940s to the 1990s have struggled to assert control over the Muslim south, tying up much of the Philippine armed forces in the effort to do so.

  The key to Spanish control of the Philippines was the close relationship between state and church. Spain wanted to convert the peoples of the Philippines for the glory of God. Priests from Spanish orders, predominantly Jesuits, Dominicans, and Columbians, were sent by the state to the countryside, where they proselytised the faith, and at the same time established the presence of the colonial state. Indeed, the friars were the state outside Manila, controlling large tracts of land, which they developed into plantations, and exercising considerable temporal powers alongside their spiritual powers. The people in the northern and central islands of the Philippines were gradually converted to Catholicism, albeit a Catholicism incorporating pre‐Catholic animistic beliefs, symbols, and ritual.

  From the late 18th century and through to the early 20th century, social and economic structures in the Philippines were transformed. The Philippines, along with the rest of South‐East Asia, was drawn into the world trading system. The catalyst was Britain's occupation of Manila in 1762. Spain had allied itself with France in the latter's war with Britain. Britain then occupied Manila in order to prevent a French threat to its China trade. Manila was sacked, galleons were captured, and bullion confiscated. The British naval forces quickly departed, leaving behind a considerably poorer Spanish colony. In the context of a general decline in Spain's economic power in the 17th century, successive Spanish governors were forced to seek new sources of wealth and revenue.

  One initiative was to create a state‐controlled tobacco monopoly in northern Luzon. Local people were forced to provide labour on tobacco plantations, producing cheap tobacco for export to European markets and generating considerable profits for the treasuries of both the Philippines colony and the Spanish motherland. Another was the ending of the galleon merchants' trading monopoly. The Philippines was opened to private traders and investors. In addition to encouraging of private traders, in 1785 the Spanish Crown established The Royal Philippine Company, which became an investor in export crops in the Philippines, primarily sugar, coffee, indigo, and pepper. In all of these crops, the Philippines was competing on world markets with the Netherlands East Indies.

  The speed of social and economic change quickened after the end of the Napoleonic War. After the colony was opened to foreign traders and investors, the Philippines could be described as an Anglo‐American colony flying the Spanish flag. In the 19th century, Anglo‐American merchant houses dominated the burgeoning export economy. The Philippines became a major producer of cash crops for international markets. Between 1825 and 1875, the volume of international trade increased 15 times. Major exports were sugar, tobacco, coffee, and abaca.

  The incorporation of the Philippines into the world economy had two important consequences. First, it saw the emergence of Filipino nationalism and with it the emergence of a modern nation‐state. Second, it created regional economic, social, and political forces that served in the long term to weaken the nation‐state. The growth of an export economy led to the creation of powerful regional elites who became the major political forces in the 20th century.

  FILIPINO NATIONALISM

  The Philippines nationalist movement was the earliest nationalist movement in South‐East Asia. Many of its leaders saw their movement as a beacon for other South‐East Asian colonies. In reality, it had little impact. Nationalism took a decidedly different course in the Philippines from elsewhere in South‐East Asia. Philippine intellectual and political elites identified themselves more with Spain and, later, the United States than they did with anti‐colonialists elsewhere in South‐East Asia.

  Philippine export crops were grown predominantly on land owned by the Chinese mestizo community. The haciendas developed by powerful regional families were worked by tenants. The landowners became rich and powerful while the tenants became increasingly impoverished, trapped in a grossly unequal relationship with the landowners. Here lie the origins of the major Philippine families who continue to control the rural Philippines today and who from this economic base continue to exert enormous political power. Their wealth continues to be based on large estates, even though many have diversified their investments in recent decades.

  The landed elite which emerged in the 19th century, unique in South‐East Asia for its social, economic, and political power, educated their children in Spanish schools, seminaries, and universities. Their Spanish‐educated children, known as ilustrados, were influenced by the liberal reforms in Spain after 1868. From the 1870s, they began to demand the same rights as Spaniards, including representation in the Spanish parliament. Avowedly anticlerical, they demanded the separation of state and church, the expulsion of the Spanish friars who dominated rural areas, and the introduction of native clergy. Their demands were disregarded by both the colonial government and the Catholic Church. Disillusioned by Spain's refusal to treat them as equals and its dismissal of their proposals for social and economic reform, by the 1890s the ilustrados began to call themselves Filipinos. They were led by Jose Rizal, a wealthy fifth‐generation Chinese mestizo. Hitherto, the Spanish had appropriated the term “Filipino” for Spaniards born in the Philippines, referring to natives as “Indios.” The term “Filipino” now became a symbol of nationalism.

  In contrast to the moderate nationalism of the ilustrados, a rebellion organised by a far more radical group known as the Katipunan and led by Andres Bonifacio, a relatively poorly educated Manila clerk, broke out in Manila in 1896. The Spanish responded by arresting not only Katipunan leaders but also many ilustrados as well. Rizal was arrested, charged with treason, and publicly executed. Philippine nationalism now had a martyr.

  As well as being confronted by open rebellion in the Philippines, Spain was also fighting a major rebellion in its central American colony of Cuba. The drain on its limited resources was immense. United States inter
vention in Cuba resulted in the American‐Spanish war. As a consequence, the US Pacific fleet sailed into Manila bay, destroyed the Spanish fleet, and laid siege to Manila. Philippine nationalists took advantage of a weakened Spain by declaring independence on June 12, 1898, under the ilustrado leader, Apolinario Mabini. The Filipinos were the first people in Asia to defeat their colonial power and create a modern nation‐state.

  Unfortunately for the nascent Philippine Republic, the United States decided that occupation of the Philippines would provide it with a base in the western Pacific from which it could promote its political and economic interests in East Asia. Early in 1899, open hostilities broke out between the Philippine Republic and the United States, eventually involving more than 10,000 US troops. Most hostilities ended in 1901 when the United States effectively bought off the ilustrado elite, promising to maintain their wealth and power in return for collaboration with American colonial rule. However, the Muslim south remained under American military jurisdiction until 1913. Even then sporadic violence continued against American authorities for some years.

  The agreement of 1901 consolidated the power of the landed Chinese mestizo elite, enabling them to dominate the political and economic structures of the Philippines in the 20th century. It also created a Filipino elite that looked to the United States not only for economic and political patronage but also as its intellectual and cultural model. The landed ilustrado elite in the Philippines had no parallel elsewhere in South‐East Asia, their social and political power stemming from an economic base independent of the colonial state.

  US COLONIALISM

  It has been argued that if Spain occupied the Philippines for “the glory of God,” then the United States occupied the Philippines for “the democratic mission.” Certainly, Americans were uneasy about their status as an imperial nation. It ran counter to their perception of themselves as a people who had thrown off the colonial yoke to become the beacon for free, democratic, and egalitarian values in the world. The Americans' own history of anti‐colonialism ensured that there were significant differences in US rule in the Philippines from colonial rule elsewhere in South‐East Asia. From the outset, the United States made clear that its goal was to lead the Philippines to independence. Nationalism was a legitimate force (to be moulded in its own image, of course), not one to be distrusted and repressed. It followed from this that the role of the colonial state was to tutor Filipinos in the administration of a modern nation‐state in order that they learn the skills necessary for independence as quickly as possible.

  Given that the Americans saw themselves as being in the Philippines for the best of reasons—“the democratic mission”—it is not surprising that US colonial administrations emphasized the importance of developing education, health, and democratic processes. Electoral systems were introduced at all levels of society and the national parliament was encouraged to monitor officials and influence colonial policies. By 1934, the United States Congress mandated Philippine independence within 12 years. As a first step toward this goal, in 1935 a Philippines Commonwealth was established and was given autonomy in domestic affairs. Manuel Quezon was its first president. Though political developments in the Philippines were unique in South‐East Asia, in the long run the effect was to increase the wealth and power of the landed elite.

  The United States government expended money on the Philippines rather than extracted money from it—another unique occurrence in colonial South‐East Asia. Much of this money was spent on developing education and health systems far superior to anywhere else in the region. At home, the United States was committed to mass education at all levels, in contrast to Britain, France, and Holland, which restricted access to high schools and believed that a university education was only for a small elite. Education policies in the Philippines reflected American domestic educational philosophies in the same way as education policies in British, French, and Dutch colonies reflected their domestic policies. The contrast between the Philippines and Indonesia on the eve of World War II illustrates these differences. In 1938–39, there were 7,500 students at the University of the Philippines in Manila. For the same year in Indonesia there were a mere 128 students at Colleges of Law, Medicine, and Engineering. In 1941, the literacy rate in the Philippines was five times that in Indonesia.

  Nationalist movements in most of colonial South‐East Asia flourished from the 1910s, demanding independence, by and large rejecting colonial cultural mores, and vigorously debating the need for radical social and economic reform. They were generally led at the “national” level by the Western‐educated sons of either the traditional aristocracy or the bureaucratic elite and at the local level by upwardly mobile clerks, schoolteachers, and government officials. There was a wide spectrum of parties, ranging from conservative ones, who wanted independence and little social or economic change, to the communist parties, which wanted thoroughgoing revolution. The Philippines was once again an exception. Its nationalist movement was dominated by the Nationalist Party under the leadership of Manuel Quezon. Leaders were from the landed elite, who were even more wealthy and powerful under American rule than they had been under Spain. While publicly demanding immediate independence, in fact their personal economic interests were well served by continued US rule. Enjoying self‐government after 1935, and under a relatively benign colonialism, the Filipino nationalist elite remained pro‐American. In many ways they were bicultural. The shape of Filipino nationalism—in ideology, myths, and symbols—was very different from elsewhere in South‐East Asia. With no need to foster a strong “national” consciousness and few “national” symbols, regionalism and regional loyalties based on regional landed elites remained strong. This had significant consequences after 1945. Filipino nationalists were barely conscious of the events going on elsewhere in South‐East Asia and this left a legacy of separateness from the rest of the region which had only partially changed by the 1990s.

  JAPANESE OCCUPATION

  When General MacArthur was forced to flee the Philippines in 1942 he uttered the famous words, “I shall return.” When in 1944 he did return at the head of American troops charged with driving the Japanese back to Japan he was greeted as a hero. Fighting in the Philippines during the Pacific War was more intense than elsewhere in South‐East Asia. It took six months of bloody warfare for the Japanese to oust the Americans in 1941–42 and another ten months for the Americans to expel the Japanese in 1944–45. There was a great cost in Filipino lives.

  Japanese slogans such as “Asia for the Asians,” “Japan the light of Asia,” and “The Co‐Prosperity Sphere” made much less sense to Filipinos than to other South‐East Asians. The nature of American colonialism, the biculturalism of the Filipino elite, the experience of self‐government, and the realisation that they were due to get independence in 1946 anyway, placed Filipino nationalists in a different relationship to the Americans than nationalists elsewhere in South‐East Asia to their colonial rulers. Though opinion was divided about the appropriate response to occupation, resistance to the Japanese in the Philippines was strong. The collaborationist government established by the Japanese lacked legitimacy in the eyes of many Filipinos.

  Comparisons with other South‐East Asian countries are striking. Elsewhere, the invading Japanese were seen as liberators. The iron grip of colonial rule was broken. Certainly, as time went by the mood changed to resentment and then hatred of Japanese brutality but Japanese occupation often opened the way for nationalists to seize power in August/September 1945 and to organise resistance to the reinvading Europeans. Filipino nationalists, by contrast, welcomed the returning American forces as liberators, restoring the country on the path to independence promised by 1946.

  However, there were important long‐term effects from the Japanese occupation of the Philippines. Its incorporation into Japan's South‐East Asia empire broke the isolation of the Philippines from the rest of the region that had begun with the arrival of the Spanish and continued through US rule. Filipinos becam
e more aware than ever before of their place in Asia. The war also sharpened social, economic, and political tensions in the Philippines. Throughout Japanese‐occupied Asia people suffered badly. Filipinos were no exception. Corruption increased, the gap between the rich and the poor widened, and social structures broke down. In 1946, the Communist Party of the Philippines took advantage of the deteriorating conditions in the countryside to arouse support for rebellion. The war also spawned an armed society. Filipinos put up strong resistance to the invading Japanese and the fighting between US‐Filipino and Japanese forces in 1944–45 was extensive. The violence of the war years led to a greater preparedness to use force to achieve political ends in the post‐independence Philippines.

  INDEPENDENCE AND THE DEMOCRATIC YEARS

  Historians of the Philippines have stressed the importance of the family to an understanding of the political culture and the structures of the Philippines. They see independence in 1946 as having changed very little. A small number of wealthy families, generally based on extensive regional land holdings, has controlled Philippines politics since the first elections in 1907. In the late 1960s, a prominent Philippines businessman summed up the failure of the Philippines political system with the statement: “We have no institutional loyalty, only personal loyalty.” The political process in the 21st‐century Philippines—both pre‐ and post‐independence—has been based on extensive patron–client relations, linking at the base of the society exploited peasants and powerful landlords. Party politics has been free of ideology—with the exception of the Huks and the Communist Party of the Philippines. Party loyalty has been fickle and based on a complicated and extensive reward system linking party notables to politicians and local leaders.