Things Gilmore has got done in the Philippines

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Part of The American Chamber of Commerce Journal

Title: Things Gilmore has got done in the Philippines
Language: English
Year: 1929
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Fulltext: 4 THE AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE JOURNAL July, 1929 Things Gilmore Has Got Done in the Philippines Outstanding among Vice Governor Gilmore’s achievements during the several periods when he has been the islands’ acting governor—especially the long period between Wood’s departure from Manila May 27, 1927, and Stimson’s arrival in Manila March 1, 1928—are the several acts by which the long-persisting shipping monopoly was broken and egress into the marine commerce of the islands was made for American vessels. This signalized a new era in local shipping, a modern era, and Gilmore might rightly be known as the father of modern shipping in the Philippines. To effect the reforms most vital, it was necessary to secure action by the legislature; the situation which Gilmore corrected had baffled governors for thirty years. The basis of the monopoly was that the utility commission controlled routes and rates, and that the shipping companies owned by Spaniards in the Philippines were, as they still are, prevented by law from acquiring new ships. Before a vessel could operate on any route in the islands, it had to obtain a certificate of public convenience from the utility commission, and the commission, when it issued such a license, decreed the rates to be charged. Agitation begun with the launching of the proposal that the foreign interests be permitted to replace old tonnage with new, and opinion for and against developed inside and outside the legislature. The outcome was a triumph for public opinion, and public welfare over private welfare. The renewal-of-tonnage project was abandoned, and a bill suppressing the utility commission’s powers to fix routes and rates was passed in the closing hours of the 1927 legislative session. Ships now choose their own routes, and fix their own rates, being restricted only by a maximum. The next step was the port bonds issues for Iloilo and Cebu—enough in single acts of the legislature to modernize both harbors. The third step has just been taken and its outcome depends upon Governor Davis. An agreement has been effected, subject to Davis’s approval, putting the wharfage revenue into a permanent port works fund to be used only in harbor improvements. This revenue is about P2,000,000 annually—enough to improve many,ports within a few years. As it derives from shipping, it is wholly reasonable to devote it to this industry. The remainder of this paper must be mere summarization. 1. The $5,000,000 bond issue for the better sanitation of Manila. 2. The $5,000,000 stock purchase in the Manila Railroad (authorized) for extending the lines northward. 3. An act authorizing a commission to ascertain the physical and economic resources of Mindanao and draft plans for their exploitation. 4. An allotment of $150,000 to publicity for Philippine cigars. 5. An allotment of $250,000 to promote vocational and agricultural education. 6. Suppression of the wharfage tax of $1 per ton upon exports of ore, coal, timber and cement. (While of little immediate benefit to the industrial Philippines, this is wise prevision). GILMORE’S METHOD As an executive of the Philippine government, Vice Governor Gilmore did not settle the City-Metropolitan (Water District) controversy himself, his fiat did not extend so far; he got the contending parties into conferences where they reached an accord. He<did not deprive the utility commission of its powers over interisland shipping, which is beyond an executive’s prerogative; he got a majority of the legislature to do it. He did not wave his hand and summon the Monroe school-survey commission to the Philippines, for he had neither authority nor funds for such an enterprise; he got a majority of the legislature to vote the funds and authorize the survey, and to vote an additional sum when the first proved insufficient. The law disperses authority here and there, and Gilmore’s gift is to energize this authority wherever he finds it placed, and to counsel it wisely and concentrate it upon matters affecting public welfare which press for solution. So it falls out that men everywhere in the government, and many outside of it, share in all his executive achievements; and the press shares in them preeminently. It equally falls out, the editor believes, that here is a truly eminent civilian executive: one familiar with the law and the means of effecting its purposes.—¿Ed . 7. Loans to towns and provinces for public works. 8. Revision and compilation of the election law of the islands. 9. A rescidivist act. 10. The new marriage act, which, while in need of amendments, is serving its main purpose, that of suppressing abuses of the privilege to perform marriage ceremonies. 11. Authorization of cooperative marketing associations—a measure which received Gilmore’s approval, but was not his proposal. 12. The workmen’s compensation act, permitted to become law without Gilmore’s action; not the measure he would have wished for, but one embodying a principle for which he stands. 13. Greater tax autonomy to towns. 14. The interisland shipping committee, headed by the director for the orient of the U. S. shipping board, which furnished timely technical information to the legislature that was fundamental in gaining a majority for the shippingreform legislation. 15. An act making wireless equipment compulsory on all interisland vessels. 16. The accord between Manila and the Metropolitan Water District, settling out of court a prolonged legalistic controversy. (The diplomacy here manifested comports with that exercised in the shipping legislation). 17. Summary recall of a foreign consul who officiously intervened directly with the legislature to prevent passage of legislation recommended by the executive. (Another instance of the skillful aid rendered Governor Gilmore by the Manila press). 18. Tightening up the enforcement of the immigration law, and the coincident suppression of the so-called tong conflicts in Manila. (This has occurred since Colonel Stimson’s departure from the islands in February, and it occurred very early after that event). 19. Cordial relations between the executive and the legislature, without forfeiture of the executive’s independent prerogatives. “. . . . Insisting always on what was his and at the same time respecting that which properly belonged to others,” is Senator Osmeña’s description of Gilmore’s attitude. He adds that “such a government will necessarily work harmoniously and successfully.”) 20. Repeal of the peonage act. An act passed about 22 years ago had for 20 years fostered peonage, though this was not the legislative intention when it was passed. When a workmen went into a man’s employ and received an advance payment against his wages—• the procedure which is the basis of peonage—he was practically bound to that man until he was square on the books; and in practice pains were taken to see that he never should be free to quit his job. If he did quit while in debt, it was a criminal offense and the constabulary rounded him up and turned him over to the courts to be jailed, or turned him back to his master. This convenience of plantation management must now be foregone; advancement from it is decreed by the act of repeal. THE SCHOOLS The vice governor’s portfolio is that of the public-instruction department, the most important one in the number of its personnel, the amount of money expended and the scope and influence of its jurisdiction. The vice governor is ex officio chairman of the University board of regents, and also of the board controlling the teachers’ pension fund. The Philippine health service, the education bureau and the quarantine service are under his department, for which the annual appropriations run to nearly 30% of the total insular revenues—-the personnel approximating 30,000. Schools appropriations have increased by an annual sum of about $3,000,000 during the time Vice Governor Gilmore has been in office; the value of school property has increased $9,000,000; school libraries have doubled in number and books in school libraries tripled in number. Teachers with normalschool training have increased from 4.18% of the The result of over half a century of refining experience SOCDNY MOTOR OILS AND MOTOR GASOLINE Remember that SOCONY is Standard IN RESPONDING TO ADVERTISEMENTS PLEASE MENTION THE AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE JOURNAL July, 1929 THE AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE JOURNAL 5 number employed to 21%; six normal schools have been built and a training-department building added to the parent school in Manila. In 1925, the legislature provided for an expert survey of the islands’ schools which was carried out by the Monroe commission (headed by Dr. Paul Monroe of Columbia University). The original sum provided being too little, more was voted at a subsequent date. The legislature checked up on the report with a survey of its own, and agreed with most of the fundamental conclusions of the Monroe report, which is a book of 700 pages. The surveys had a wholesome effect. Though the schools administration is an entrenched bureaucracy, it is no longer heresy to voice a reasonable criticism of the schools and some eventual good may come of the public information imparted by the Monroe and legislative reports. Some good has already come, in fact, in the grant from the legislature for employing experts in rural vocational education, curriculum construction, elementary education, teacher training, and health education. There is valid argument on the side of the schools administration which discounts the enormity of an abnormally large proportion of college students going in for law, medicine and other professional courses whose graduates might be expected to join the parasitical class; for the attractiveness of other professions consists largely in there being opportunities for professional employment in them, and in the Philippines such chances are few. Besides, here the lawyer buys a farm as soon as he is able, and the doctor does so too; so there is a working back to the land from professional life. Gilmore realizes that for the farm-school graduate there should be a career in farming Leonard Wood’s Vision: Leprosy Eradication During the first half of this year 400 cured lepers were set at liberty from Culion, and nobody knows where they have gone or how they are faring. This is almost equal to the total number cured and discharged during 1928, which was but 480; and it is 10% of the lepers under treatment at Culion, who number 4,000. It is expected that fully 800 lepers will be cured and discharged from custody at Culion during this year; that is, it is believed that the record of the first half-year will be equaled during the second. The Philippines are on the way to mastery of leprosy. Since Culion was reorganized under Wood’s leadership in 1922, no less than 2,000 lepers have been cured there. Where are they? The whereabouts of but few of them are known. It is important to the science of leprosy treatment, as well as to the sociological side of the work, to ascertain where these cured lepers are living, how they are making a livelihood, and under what conditions they have been received into the communities where they are to be found. The Philippine AntiLeprosy Society plans to undertake this investigation with a corps of field workers on full time. To this end it is seeking financial aid from the public; it wishes to raise P20,000 to be awaiting. In setting aside the reservation for the pineapple industry he stipulated that among the homeseekers applying for lands on the reservation, farm school and agricultural college graduates should be given preference. Controversy aside, he inaugurated a movement in education which will be more thoughtfully guided than the progress of Philippine public education has been guided in the past. There is at least some thought given now to what the schools are doing; formerly the public was practically constrained to be satisfied with the mere fact that the schools functioned. It is just that Leonard Wood’s name be associated for all time with the leprosy work which was such a dominant interest of his administration. He took all the leadership in this, only the details of carrying out projects falling to Gilmore as head of the department. Gilmore has been directly instrumental in establishing a system of provincial hospitals, in providing the hospital for the insane at Manila, and in effecting other betterments in the health service. On June 27, but a few days ago, the plans of two years came to fruition in the incorporation of a governing entity—'associated with the government, but independent of it—to create fifty fellowships in the field of research in pure science. An objective is, to give applied science the benefit of this research. It is a reasonable hope that Manila will thus become a center of scientific investigation along many lines. Money for the work is to derive from private sources in the Philippines and the United States, the expectation being that the laboratory, library and other facilities of the government will be available to the fellows in research. —W. R. devoted solely to the cured-leper survey. Progress in curing leprosy, then, has reached the stage where the fate of the cured patient becomes important. He numbers so very many, and soon there will be an augmentation of 1,000 a year in his ranks. Necessity must find a way of looking after him, if he needs looking after. If he doesn’t, what a credit it is to the islands that they accept the verdict of science on leprosy and take the cured leper back into their communities. The exact situation in which the cured leper finds himself should be reliably known and reported. The Philippines have 4,900 lepers under medical treatment at present: Culion, 4,000; Cebu, 200; Manila, at San Lazaro, 400; Iloilo, 100. There are 1,600 lepers at Culion who are not under treatment, so the total number segregated is 6,300. Treatment consists in the regular injection of chaulmoogra ethyl esters with iodine (1/2%) into the patient’s blood. The technic has been improved recently at Culion by making the injections directly into the leprous lesions, instead of just at any convenient point on the body. Under the new method, lesions sometimes disappear entirely within three months. After a patient shows no further clinical and laboratory signs of leprosy—when all lesions are gone, and microscopic examination of the blood reveals no leprosy germs—he is kept under observation at Culion from six months to two years before being discharged as cured. There seem to be no recurrences of the disease, in persons pronounced cured, but only the careful survey proposed to be carried out by the anti-leprosy society can determine this point scientifically. Is the disease unique in this respect, as it is in others—does it recur after the lapse of years? It seems no one knows, at least no one in the Philippines. The leper expert would like ever so much to know; he would also like to know that patients cured and discharged are keeping up self-treatment as a precaution against reinfection, or recurrence of the old infection. Absolute triumph over leprosy waits upon this data. It is known that the health service has had to permit fifty cured lepers to return to Culion, they being unable to fit themselves into life outside the colony. Room is being made for more such residents of the island. Dr. Simplicio Chiyuto, colony chief, used lepers at the colony and built a road two kilometers along the coast, to Bayani. This gave access to some fields that can be tilled. The Leonard Wood Memorial Fund was then drawn upon to extend the road over the coastal hills to Baldad, about six kilometers, opening more fields to the colony market; and the antileprosy society is extending this road five more kilometers, at the cost of about P20,000. Altogether, the road opens considerable grazing and farming land up for settlement. Culion, an island 140 square miles in area, can support a much larger population than it is now supporting, if the road system is made extensive with the island’s boundaries and the skill of the forester and engineer is brought to the settlers’ aid. Fishing might employ many. If thousands of cured lepers were settled on the island, they would be accessible to scientific observation at all times—all doubts as to the permanency of the cure could be cleared up for all time. This seems to be an ideal solution of the difficulty the cured leper presents, but it depends upon the charity of the public. Then too, if a cured leper does not wish to live on Culion, if the cure is permanent there is no reason why he should live there; perhaps there is no legal way of holding him there. Five years hence, if the public is liberal, more about what may safely be done with him will be known. Properly, the Wood fund may only be spent for scientific research in the treatment of leprosy: using a little for the road may have been stretching a point rather hard, though it does get cured lepers under convenient observation in conditions normal to life outside the severely regulated colony. Therefore, the economic development of Culion as a place of residence for cured lepers must, in bulk, fall upon other resources than the Wood fund. This fund, it is expected, will be $2,000,000 (P4,000,000) before the end of the year. Leprosy exists in every part of the Philippines, but is rarer in some regions than in others. It is rare in Zambales; it is frequently encountered in Ilokos, the Bikol region, Cebu and Panay. Retail nine American D>< Wh01esa Importers íVVP» Agents BOTICA BOIE ° MANILA Heavy Chemicals—Fertilizer—Manufacturers We have been selling drugs for 98 years ADVERTISEMENTS PLEASE MENTION THE AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE JOURNAL