Pokeresque.pdf

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Part of The American Chamber of Commerce Journal

extracted text: 12 THE AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE JOURNAL October, 1929 disposition of it, including the port collections. It was very little, but wonders were done with it. The prison building on San Ramon penal reservation, outside Zamboanga, was built of reinforced concrete for P 153,495.10; municipal markets were built for P6,000 each in most cases, either of concrete or hardwood. Now, for their major appropriations, the provinces take their chances in the general insular budget. Hence the current discussion concerning a Mindanao program; some legislators would be liberal in making the jungle accessible to settlers, others say the settlers should be there before the roads are built—to justify the expense. There is indecision, as in all things deliberated over by unwieldy bodies of men, but Mindanao and Sulu progress in the material sense anyway— on the stimulus of their commerce overseas. Procrastination may retard but cannot wholly stop Mindanao-Sulu progress. Out of the schools which Wood inaugurated has come the best system of rural schools, perhaps, in all the Philippines; there appear to be about 100 farm and settlement schools where peasant boys ply the hoe in the corn row part of the day and bend over the three r’s the remainder, these schools producing crops which help maintain them. Davao teems with industry, because of the American pioneers Wood encouraged to settle there and take up plantations on the slopes of Bud Apo, skirting the gulf. They have been followed by Japanese, who have imitated them in the cultivation of Manila hemp and coconuts. Now a modern experiment is being tried, an American corporation is turning a tract of nine square miles into a business unit as a hemp farm, building roads, providing drainage, choosing and cultivating the hemp carefully, and finally stripping, drying and baling it by machinery for overseas shipment. The Japanese have another economical unit devoted to hemp and coconuts, and word comes to Manila that they are install ing a paper mill depending upon the waste hemp for its raw material. A kutch factory and a coconut factory operate at Zamboanga, lumbering enterprises are mány, rubber is the prime crop on Basilan island. Dorey wonders about his oldtime friends, the Mohammedans. But they clamor for more schools, roads and bridges and if these are forth coming the chances are that they will reconcile themselves, even to such things as law codes and justices of the peace, and become diligent husbandmen. For a long time, though, it will be contended by some that the Mohammedans are one with the Christian people of the Phil ippines, and by others, who are not zealots of a cause, that they are a people culturally distinct from the rest. In March, 1915, Carpenter got the sultan to renounce in writing, duly witnessed, his preten sions to temporal sovereignty, and to recognize that of the United States. During Dorey’s last year here there were occasions when Moham medans came to him murmuring, even threaten ing to take matters into their own hands, alleging mistreatment. “But Leonard Wood would not want you to do that,” Dorey would say, “it would displease him.” And with their belief in the undying soul that beholds the conduct of the living, something they do not have from Mohammedanism, but from Buddhism perhaps, this would quiet them and off they would go— back to Mindanao to face it out. Two More Philippine Poems by Gilbert S. Perez Pokeresque Moonlight off Corregidor, And in the distance The towering heights Of Mari veles. On the holystoned table A lone pack of Crimson angel-backs And a saucer Of pearl white beans: Beans At a penny apiece. Morning off the Romblon coast, And the creaking Of chairs on deck; The glare of the sunlit Sea; Close eyes that are Sleepless and weary: Beans At five for a peso. Evening off the barren hills Of old Cebu; Cigarettes in ash laden Saucers, And the steady shuffle Of card on card: Beans At a peso ¿apiece. Dawn off the coast Of Mindanao, And rows of cots On deck; The slow steady grind Of the engine; A lone light, Red eyes, Grim, drawn faces: No beans—• And the sky the limit. —Gilbert S. Perez. Old-timer Huddled about his aching feet lie the lotus years Yellow and sear like autumn leaves in the forest; His weather-worn face—so old and so furrowed With the grim interlacings of pitiless time—• Smiles at the touch of little saffron hands, Baby fingers and tiny petaled hands That clasp his own in the thickening tropical twilight. I’m tired, grandpa, let’s go home. —Gilbert S. Perez. OVER YEARS tire building experience is behind every DIJNIOP tire you buy DUNLOP quality is built on this unrivaled experience, and today, Dunlop research ensures constant progress. Every possible improve ment is embodied in Dunlop Tires. Make them your choice always. IN RESPONDING TO ADVERTISEMENTS PLEASE MENTION THE AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE JOURNAL
Date: 1929
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