Republic or empire? This basic question lies at the heart of Leia Castañeda Anastacio’s “The Foundations of the Modern Philippine State, Imperial Rule and the American Constitutional Tradition, 1898-1935” (Cambridge University Press, 2016). It tackles the United State’s colonization of the Philippines, leading up to America’s foreign entanglements in such diverse places as Puerto Rico, Guam, Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq.
It is part of a series on legal history undertaken within the Cambridge Historical Studies in American Law and Society. Anastacio brings a formidable record of credentials for this task, being a Doctor of Juridicial Science graduate of Harvard Law School and a research fellow of its East Asian Legal Studies Program.
An alumna of Ateneo de Manila University, she topped the 1993 Philippine bar examinations and was awarded Harvard Law School’s Young Kim ’95 Memorial Prize in 2008 and the American Society of Legal History’s William Nelson Cromwell Foundation Dissertation Prize in 2010.
Nearly 120 years after the US foray into the Philippines on the pretext of the Spanish-American War, one may well ask if that political experiment was a success, more so because it was regarded officially by President George W. Bush as a template that could be applied to US involvement with Iraq in the 21st century.
Benevolent imperialism
The book—divided into 11 chapters—opens with the idea of “benevolent imperialism” under US President William McKinley in 1898 and ends with the codification of the colonial legacy in the 1935 Philippine Constitution.
The novelty of the author’s approach is, in connecting, an analysis of the Philippine jurisprudence and government during the American colonial period with the local history of that time, casting light on how personalities, such as the American governors-general, interacted with Philippine officials and the public, and how this could have affected governance.
The book extends its scrutiny of US-Philippine relations to the presidency, Supreme Court, Congress and the general public.
Given America’s own historical experience and its pride in its putative difference from the European nations, it’s interesting to see, through the examples provided by Anastacio, whether the US consistently lived up to its ideal goals of constitutionalism, rule of law, respect for human rights and consent of the governed.
One might argue that this was a primary example of social engineering since it aimed no less at transforming a Hispanic colony into a mirror-image of the Anglo-Saxon United States.
Unlike in Puerto Rico and Guam, the Philippines was then waging its own revolution which it virtually won against Spain, had it not been for American intervention.
Curiously, Anastacio chooses not to cite, as a comparison, the Cuban example, quite possibly since theoretically, Cuba gained independence earlier and was not regarded as a US colony or territory (though not without further American political interference, invasion, loss of territory in Guatanamo Bay, and economic domination).
Tug-of-war
By refusing to recognize the Philippines as a nation, and the cultural level of its inhabitants rich enough to constitute a civilization, the US had the perfect excuse to impose its own version of “benevolent imperialism,” and the political and economic tutelage on the Filipinos.
It was implied and stated that independence would be granted when the US has deemed the Philippines ready to govern itself.
The effect was that Philippine leaders—elected by their own people in the Philippine Assembly, the only body in which they were theoretically sovereign—were obliged to adopt American forms to prove their “civilization.” They were also caught in a tug-of-war with the reigning American governor-general to determine who really controlled the Philippine government.
Ironically, the Americans fell back on the pattern of a strong Executive by having the governor-general assume the powers once exercised by their Spanish predecessors. The system of checks and balances on the US mainland through the bill of rights, federalism, division of powers, etc. were unworkable in the Philippine setting.
Legal experts, such as Chief Justice Malcolm, said that the Oriental tradition engendered respect only through a strong Executive.
Hence, the building blocks for authoritarianism were, despite all the talk of constitutionalism and rule of law, already built into the 1935 Constitution and in the government of President Manuel L. Quezon.
This also enabled President Ferdinand E. Marcos to impose martial law in 1972 and a dictatorship which would last 14 years.
Anastacio introduces a “eureka” moment in a work that is both scholarly and highly informative. For example, she shows the reader how elements of the Malolos Constitution reverberated in the minds and hearts of patriots such as Maximo Kalaw, who in plain sight brought these into the political discourse of the day, showing their compatibility with American practice and customs.
The author’s conclusions on the US experiment in the Philippines and engagement in various parts of the world are indeed salient and relevant to this very day. For this, she deserves praise for an engaging work that will be a fine resource book for scholars and history buffs alike.