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PART ONE: TERRITORIAL FILIPINOS
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A. CESSION BY PURCHASE, NOT AS “SPOILS OF WAR”
The Spanish-American War brings America into Manila Bay to annihilate the Spanish armada commanded by Admiral Patricio Montojo y Pasaron. A “mock battle,” staged later--to uphold “Spain’s honor”--facilitates U.S. occupation of Manila, involving a “secret” deal Belgian Consul "for the last sixteen years in Manila," Edward A. Andre, mediates between Spanish Governor-General Fermin Jaudenes y Alvarez and American Admiral George Dewey.
But the farce is performed a day after the Protocol of Peace is signed; and so, under the Treaty of Paris, while cession of Puerto Rico and Guam, even of Cuba, could be regarded as “spoils of war” (from the distinctively American proverb, “To the victor belong the spoils”); “the Philippines could not be demanded as a war trophy.” Spanish negotiators “eventually yielded” to America’s $20 million bid to purchase and assume “All rights of possession, supervision, jurisdiction, control and sovereignty … in and over the territory and people of the Philippines”--as “prime real estate for coaling stations.”
Filipinos--now also transformed into “prime property” Dred Scotts--are cast into the quagmire America earlier dumps African Blacks and Indian Aboriginals, as Territorial Filipinos “subject to the jurisdiction” of, and obligated to “owe allegiance” to, the new Sovereign and colonizer, America--the return for which the Citizenship Clause “by virtue of natural law” vests the reciprocal obligation of U.S. citizenship upon each and everyone of them so obliged.
Unlike those inked with Indian Aboriginals, the Treaty denies Filipino representation, although Patriot “Katipuneros” of the 1896 Philippine Revolution to oust Spain’s 350-year Rule already encircle what remains of the Spanish forces in Intramuros.
In fact, a few months earlier, Independence of what was then Las Islas Filipinas is proclaimed, a Constitution, a Bill of Rights promulgated, a Republic, a National Flag, a National Anthem inaugurated--a Filipino First in all of Asia until America intervenes.
Denied Treaty participation, Filipinos protest as betrayal American occupation, invoking a Right basic to Democracy, America grossly violates—the consent of Filipinos before being obligated by Treaty to owe allegiance to a new colonizer and sovereign.
B. PHILIPPINE INSURRECTION OR PHILIPPINE-AMERICAN WAR?
The Filipino Revolutionary leader, General Emilio Aguinaldo, determined to pursue Nationhood aspirations, declares "war," for the honorable, righteous recourse left open to peaceful, freedom-loving non-white Filipinos is to owe allegiance by conquest rather than bow and consent in silent, slavish submission to imperialist adventurism.
The U.S. National Archives & Records Administration tags the war merely as the "Philippine Insurrection" by “Insurrectos” who refuse to owe allegiance to the United States and to renounce their loyalty to the Philippine Republic, with the lofty aim to "Christianize" (but Filipinos were Roman Catholics since 1521) and to "civilize" (but University of Santo Tomas is older than Yale and Harvard).
To Mark Twain, it was pure and simple “Imperialism,” or was it genocide? Andrew Carnegie, the steel magnate who financed the Anti-Imperialist League “believed that taking the Philippines was one of the great historic mistakes in American history. And, in fact, Carnegie had the peculiarly American solution for taking the Philippines, what he suggested to McKinley was that he, Carnegie, would personally pay McKinley $20 million to buy the Philippines and then he'd turn them back to the Filipinos. McKinley turned this particular offer down.” (see Anti-Imperialism in the United States, Walter LaFeber, pbs.org)
The Philippine-American War Body Count is grim: Filipinos--200,000 "collateral" Innocents, 20,000 Patriots; Americans--5,000 invaders. The fact that a total of 69 U.S. Army servicemen were awarded the Medal of Honor during the hostilities alone is a sad reminder of its savage ferocity, not to mention the documented cruelties committed.
C. “CRUELTY IS NO LONGER DENIED. IT IS NOW AVOWED AND JUSTIFIED”
In April of 1902, the Philippine Investigating Committee in the U.S. Senate was formed to investigate and publicize U.S. military atrocities in the Philippines. A brief for the Committee, completed on August 29, 1902 and prepared by legal counsels Moorfield Storey and Julian Codman, details the atrocities committed, in particular “water cure” or, it’s current term as used in Iraq, “water-boarding”: (http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Secretary_Root%27s_Record:%22Marked_Severities%22_in_Philippine_Warfare)
Among the several documents presented is the letter A. A. Barnes, of Battery G, Third United States Artillery, wrote to his brother, March 20, 1899:
Some of the more startling conclusions in the counsel’s brief include:
(NOTE: SeeBenevolent Assimilation: The American Conquest of the Philippines, 1899-1903 (1984) by Stuart Creighton Miller; The Philippine War, 1899-1902 (2002) by Brian McAllister Linn; and A War of Frontier and Empire: Philippine-American War, 1899-1902 (2008) by David J. Silbey)
(NOTE: See a recent detailed discussion of the atrocities and cruelties by Paul Kramer, The Water Cure at http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/02/25/080225fa_fact_kramer?currentPage=all)
Apologies, anyone? America, of course, continues to confront the horrors of its past, for instance:
The Civil Liberties Act of 1988 granted reparations to Japanese-Americans who had been interned by the United States government during World War II. The Act was signed into law by Pres. Ronald Reagan on Aug. 10, 1988 and granted each of the 60,000 surviving internee about US$20,000 in compensation for actions that were based on "race prejudice, war hysteria, and a failure of political leadership."
The "Apology Resolution" to Native Hawaiians passed by Congress and signed by Pres. William J. Clinton on November 23, 1993 to acknowledge the 100th anniversary of the January 17, 1893 overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaii, and to offer an apology to Native Hawaiians on behalf of the United States for the overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaii.
D. COMPELLED TO OWE ALLEGIANCE TO THE UNITED STATES
The Political Cartoon in the Philadelphia Inquirer of May 23, 1901 depict “Philippine General Emilio Aguinaldo” (referred to as "Aggie"), following his capture after three bloody years of the Philippine-American War, being forced to read the "Oath of Allegiance" to the United States with the accompanying caption:
Another Political Cartoon that appeared in Harper's Weekly of April 13, 1901 shows a dejected Aguinaldo holding a poster emblazoned with the “Oath of Allegiance with this caption:
The "Boston insurgents" (Inquirer) and "the boys" (Harper's) in the captions of both Political Cartons derisively refer to the Anti-Imperialist League members who opposed annexation of the Philippine Islands and America's War of Conquest.
So, it is clear that the war was, after all, about allegiance--the allegiance Territorial Filipinos were compelled to owe their new sovereign, the United States, the allegiance America bought for $20 million from Spain under a treaty signed and ratified without their participation or consent that their new sovereign was expectedly determined to enforce by whatever means, illegal or immoral.
But the loyalty that allegiance obligates pertains to matters of the mind and heart, of emotions or feelings, as love or hate, even of faith or disbelief, and may thus be likened to Judge Learned Hand’s “The Spirit if Liberty”; and to paraphrase what he said in this regard in 1944 at the height of WWII--
Chief Justice Melville Weston Fuller in Fourteen Diamond Rings (1901) said that, under the provisions of a treaty, allegiance can be coerced, and in the particular case of the Philippine Islands, by purchase:
E. BIRTH “IN THE ALLEGIANCE OF THE UNITED STATES ARE NATURAL-BORN CITIZENS”
Nationality attaches at birth, either by place of birth (jus soli) or by blood (jus sanguinis); otherwise, born stateless.
During the same year the 39th Congress enacted the Citizenship Clause in Section1 of the Fourteenth Amendment, Justice Noah Haynes Swayne in U.S. v. Rhodes (1866) held that:
And he concluded:
Birthright rule, of course, comes from English common law. In Calvin’s Case (1608), it established that under English common law, “a person’s status was vested at birth, and based upon place of birth--a person born within the king’s dominion owed allegiance to the sovereign, and in turn, was entitled to the king’s protection.” But “place of birth” must, at the time of birth, occur “within the king’s dominion.” For “Birth and allegiance,” to Justice Swayne, “go together.”
Thus, Calvin’s case declared:
In fact, Chief Justice Waite in Minor v. Happersett (1874) said:
Sadly at that time, Jim Crow was still “separate but equal” with anti-miscegenation and “white supremacy” still the prevailing law of the land. Or is it still, even more?
F. “SHALL BE CONSIDERED AS IF THEY WERE ALIENS,” CONTRARY TO FACT
Not content with that, the U.S. Congress enacted a law inexplicably phrased in the subjunctive mood, which provided that “citizens of the Philippine Islands shall be considered as if they were aliens” or aliens by supposition, contrary to fact. And It is precisely the misreading of the Citizenship Clause that legitimized that “supposition” and rendered them--stateless, without any country, at birth!
The U.S. Congress, of course, was well aware that using words in the classic subjunctive mood, “as if … were,” is a supposition contrary to fact. But its malicious employment (in a provision of law at that) betrays the racist intent, since Territorial Filipinos who were viewed by the Courts as “American nationals” at birth would thereafter be subject to harsh immigration laws applicable only to “aliens.”
G. “LOYAL AMERICANS OF THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS”
In the early morning hours of Dec. 8, 1941 after devastating the U.S. Pacific Fleet anchored at Pearl Harbor in what was then the U.S. territory of Hawaii, Japanese Zero fighters swooped down and attacked Subic Bay and Sangley Point in the Philippine Islands, another U.S. territory.
America declares war with Japan. Barely two weeks later, 28th December, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in a Message to the Filipino People--now surprisingly named “the loyal Americans of the Philippine Islands” rather than “the loyal aliens” of a “foreign country”--were called upon “to do their duty” of defending American territory against the onslaught of an invading army (http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=16076):
H. ALLEGIANCE VALIDATED IN THE CRUCIBLE OF WAR
These “aliens” performed their “crucial role” admirably well, even to the extent of obeying “Beyond the Call,” validating and ennobling the allegiance they owed to the United States; for these “aliens,” in obedience to the President’s Call to Duty, refused to yield, despite the tragic Fall of Bata-an and the ensuing Death March, while all the other South East Asian colonials crumbled and bowed.
American sovereignty, its constitution and standard, were nowhere in sight, suspended, all over the Land. And, as in every hostile occupation, there will always be the pariah of collaborators; but the open resistance countrywide was totally unexpected by the Japanese. For having been branded by law “as if they were aliens,” Territorial Filipinos certainly had nothing to lose. In fact, it was not their “war” anyway; it was a “war” the United States, their sovereign, declared against Japan. As “aliens,” they could have simply played it safe and cooperated with the invaders, who immediately promised them the “independence” they fought for against the Americans only 40 years earlier.
But, upon Gen. Jonathan Wainwright’s surrender at “the final stand on beleaguered Corregidor,” reflecting “the high morale of American arms in the face of overwhelming odds” (from his Medal of Honor citation); Territorial Filipinos, undaunted, bearing proudly the Stars and Stripes Japan humiliated, spit and torn, unleashed all over the Land a relentless Guerrilla War of Resistance for well over three bloody years--a feat unparalleled in the documented annals of unconventional warfare--opening the window for Gen. Douglas McArthur who fled to Australia to regroup and rearm, counterattack and hasten V-J Day.
I. AMERICANIZED BUT WERE NEVER HISPANIZED
So, why did they not simply toe the line and cooperate? Can this deep loyalty of Territorial Filipinos to their sovereign be attributed to President William McKinley’s oft-quoted imperial policy of “Benevolent Assimilation”--the “Americanization”--of Filipinos, Spain Christianized but miserably failed to hispanize?
For, inexplicably, on the one hand, unlike natives in all of Spain's South American colonies who were completely transformed (including even their aboriginals) into Hispanics during the same colonial period as the Philippines; Filipinos, on the other, fiercely retained their hodgepodge of regional dialects and were never hispanized after close to four centuries of total Spanish domination; but in only less than half a century of United States rule, Territorial Filipinos were totally “Americanized”!
In a word, if “colonial mentality” is to be forever relied on as the convenient scapegoat to justify the “Americanization” of Territorial Filipinos, why did that same “mentality” fail to hispanize the “colonial” Indios in Las Islas Filipinas during the longer, though equally cruel and discriminatory, Spanish period?
Of course, this “assimilation” could only have been made possible by the pioneering saga of the “Thomasite” teachers, who arrived in 1906 to recreate “In Our Image” (Stanley Karnow, 1990) our “Little Brown Brother” (Leon Wolff, 1960), instilling in English democratic aspirations, ideals, values--virtues, mind you, innate to Filipinos (ask Lapu-Lapu, Dagohoy, Andres Bonifacio, Jose P. Rizal, Jose Abad Santos, even Benigno Aquino)--to uphold and revere, to defend and to willingly sacrifice their lives for.
J. LOYALTY AND PALABRA DE HONOR
So, was the steadfast loyalty Territorial Filipinos displayed during the horrors of the Japanese occupation merely a confirmation of Justice Hand’s notion cited earlier here that allegiance, indeed, “lies in the hearts of men and women” and that, “while it lies there it needs no constitution, no law, no court to save it”?
In fact, it was not so much in the tenacity by which Territorial Filipinos struggled to defend American territory (which they regarded rightly as their own as well), but more so in the stoic refusal of Territorial Filipinos countrywide to collaborate with the Japanese--the declared enemy of the sovereign they owed allegiance to, an allegiance owed they were bound to honor, instinctively as Filipinos, and to uphold, even to die for.
And it is in this context that Jose Abad Santos, Supreme Court Chief Justice, Commonwealth of the Philippine Islands, exemplified what the Spanish Palabra de Honor (“word of honor”) meant to Territorial Filipinos (and continues to mean to their posterity as well) in their bold and firm resolve to honor their word once vowed and to redeem their allegiance, as a Call to Duty, whenever pledged.
In May of 1942, before being executed by the Japanese for refusing to head the “puppet” republic his captors would soon be establishing, Chief Justice Abad Santos calmly replied, as he stood beside his son now unabashedly weeping:
Indeed, for as Judge Learned Hand continues in “The Spirit of Liberty” cited:
Territorial Filipinos, no doubt, were “persons born in the allegiance of the United States,” an allegiance that was validated and ennobled in the crucible of WWII. Both the Courts and the law agree. But was the Philippines Islands, over which the United States exercised the rights of sovereignty and jurisdiction, included in the phrase “in the United States” in the context of the phrase “All persons born in the United States” appearing in the Citizenship Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment?
K. U.S. SUPREME COURT DECLARES THAT TERRITORIAL FILIPINOS, ALTHOUGH BORN U.S. NATIONALS, BECAME ALIENS ON JULY 4, 1946.
Justice William Brennan in Rabang v. Boyd (1957) said:
L. U.S. SUPREME COURT AFFIRMS THAT THE POWER TO ACQUIRE TERRITORY CARRIES WITH IT THE POWER TO PRESCRIBE STATUS OF INHABITANTS, SEVERING TIE OF ALLEGIANCE OWED
Justice Brennan in Rabang continues:
So, the Court relies on Downes v. Bidwell (1898), declaring that “the power to acquire territory by treaty” implies the power “to prescribe upon what terms the United States will receive its inhabitants, and what their status shall be.” The Court also cites the provision in the Tydings-McDuffie law declaring that Territorial Filipinos “shall be considered as if they were aliens” and the Philippine Islands “as a separate country” with an immigration “quota of fifty.”
However, Justice Douglas dissenting said:
M. U.S. CIRCUIT COURTS REJECT THE INTERPRETATION THAT THE WORDS “IN THE UNITED STATES” IN THE CITIZENSHIP CLAUSE INCLUDE THE U.S. TERRITORY OF THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS
In another case involving the same surname of Rabang, Rabang v. INS (9th Circuit, 1994), similarly in Valmonte v. INS (2nd Circuit, 1998), several Filipino Plaintiffs argued that the words “in the United States” in the Clause include within its coverage the U.S. Territory of the Philippine Islands.
Sadly, the Circuit Courts rejected the validity of that reading; the cases were dismissed, and the Plaintiffs deported. In affirming the harsh deportation in Rabang, the Court said:
In his stirring dissent in Rabang, however, Judge Pregerson asserted forcefully:
The authors applaud the depth of Judge Pregerson’s dissent (which covers more pages than the majority decision) and his concern towards rectifying the injustice in depriving “the fundamental right to citizenship at birth” Territorial Filipinos were entitled to.
N. TERRITORIAL FILIPINOS NOW CHALLENGE THE PREVAILING OFFICIAL AND JUDICIAL READING OF THE CITIZENSHIP CLAUSE
It was the Pregerson dissent in Rabang that inspired the authors to embark on a journey of scrutinizing a fundamental right denied to Territorial Filipinos.
What the authors gathered during the studies conducted is that, grammatically read,what SenatorHoward, the author, intendedthe Clause to convey has altogether been incredibly overlooked--a misreading of the phrase “and subject to the jurisdiction thereof” the legal community already reveres as gospel truth.
Unshaken, Territorial Filipino, challenge this official and judicial view of the Citizenship Clause--now stare decisis for well over a hundred years, mindful that:
The authors insist that it is a grammatically erroneous reading, emboldened by the words of Irving Brant:
Truly, “by their antiquity,” for Territorial Filipinos belong, historically, to a different yet almost forgotten breed of Filipinos, portrayed in many ways to be--
--Filipinos born during the American territorial period between April 11, 1899 and July 04 1946 following the ratification of the Treaty of Paris (concluded December 10, 1898) and the cession of Las Islas Filipinas by the Spanish Crown to the United States of America for 20 million Dollars;
--Filipinos born in the outlying possession and U.S. territory of the Philippine Islands and, by 1934, in the Commonwealth of the Philippines, over which the United States was sovereign;
--Filipinos mandated to “owe allegiance to the United States” and, conversely, “entitled to the protection of the United States”;
--Filipinos over whom the United States exercised the rights of sovereignty and jurisdiction under a policy of “Benevolent Assimilation”;
--Filipinos designated by U.S. laws with the racist oxymoron status of non-citizen ”American nationals” at birth, but to be “considered as if they were aliens” of foreign birth (legalizing a “supposition contrary to fact”), with the sole intent of placing them all, now regarded by law as “aliens by supposition,” and hence subject to U.S. immigration laws.
--Filipinos who validated their “allegiance to the United States,” ennobled its tie to birthright, by defending, as a Call to Duty, American territory against the onslaught of Japanese invaders in gory battlefields of WWII and, proudly bearing the Stars and Stripes Japan humiliated after Bata-an Fell, waged a relentless Guerilla War of Resistance unparalleled in the annals of unconventional warfare.
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"A large part of the motivation for the passage of this bill is presumed relief to certain American agricultural industries from competition by Philippine products. We are trustees for these people and we must not let our selfish interest dominate that trust … If we are to predicate the fate of 13,000,000 people upon this motive we should at least not mislead our farmers about it."
-- Pres. Herbert Hoover, Veto Message to Hare-Hawes-Cutting Bill (providing for independence of the Philippine Islands), January 13, 1933, and overriden by Congress on January 17, 1933, but the Philippine Legislature rejected it.
"Citizens of the Philippine Islands shall be considered as if they were aliens."
-- The Philippine Independence Act or Tydings-McDuffie Law (1934)
"In this great struggle of the Pacific, the loyal Americans of the Philippine Islands are called upon to play a crucial role … It is not for me or for the people of this country to tell you where your duty lies. We are engaged in a great and common cause. I count on every Philippine man, woman, and child to do their duty. We will do ours.”
-- Pres. Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Message to the Filipino People, Dec. 28, 1941, after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and Sangley Point, Dec. 7-8, 1941, and before the Fall of Bata-an, April 9, 1942
“I cannot possibly do that, because if I do so, I will be violating my oath of allegiance to the United States”---------------------------------------------------------------------
-- Commonwealth of the Philippine Islands Supreme Court Chief Justice Jose Abad Santos before his execution by the Japanese Imperial Army in May 1942, for refusing to collaborate and join the Puppet Republic.
A. CESSION BY PURCHASE, NOT AS “SPOILS OF WAR”
The Spanish-American War brings America into Manila Bay to annihilate the Spanish armada commanded by Admiral Patricio Montojo y Pasaron. A “mock battle,” staged later--to uphold “Spain’s honor”--facilitates U.S. occupation of Manila, involving a “secret” deal Belgian Consul "for the last sixteen years in Manila," Edward A. Andre, mediates between Spanish Governor-General Fermin Jaudenes y Alvarez and American Admiral George Dewey.
But the farce is performed a day after the Protocol of Peace is signed; and so, under the Treaty of Paris, while cession of Puerto Rico and Guam, even of Cuba, could be regarded as “spoils of war” (from the distinctively American proverb, “To the victor belong the spoils”); “the Philippines could not be demanded as a war trophy.” Spanish negotiators “eventually yielded” to America’s $20 million bid to purchase and assume “All rights of possession, supervision, jurisdiction, control and sovereignty … in and over the territory and people of the Philippines”--as “prime real estate for coaling stations.”
Filipinos--now also transformed into “prime property” Dred Scotts--are cast into the quagmire America earlier dumps African Blacks and Indian Aboriginals, as Territorial Filipinos “subject to the jurisdiction” of, and obligated to “owe allegiance” to, the new Sovereign and colonizer, America--the return for which the Citizenship Clause “by virtue of natural law” vests the reciprocal obligation of U.S. citizenship upon each and everyone of them so obliged.
Unlike those inked with Indian Aboriginals, the Treaty denies Filipino representation, although Patriot “Katipuneros” of the 1896 Philippine Revolution to oust Spain’s 350-year Rule already encircle what remains of the Spanish forces in Intramuros.
In fact, a few months earlier, Independence of what was then Las Islas Filipinas is proclaimed, a Constitution, a Bill of Rights promulgated, a Republic, a National Flag, a National Anthem inaugurated--a Filipino First in all of Asia until America intervenes.
Denied Treaty participation, Filipinos protest as betrayal American occupation, invoking a Right basic to Democracy, America grossly violates—the consent of Filipinos before being obligated by Treaty to owe allegiance to a new colonizer and sovereign.
B. PHILIPPINE INSURRECTION OR PHILIPPINE-AMERICAN WAR?
The Filipino Revolutionary leader, General Emilio Aguinaldo, determined to pursue Nationhood aspirations, declares "war," for the honorable, righteous recourse left open to peaceful, freedom-loving non-white Filipinos is to owe allegiance by conquest rather than bow and consent in silent, slavish submission to imperialist adventurism.
The U.S. National Archives & Records Administration tags the war merely as the "Philippine Insurrection" by “Insurrectos” who refuse to owe allegiance to the United States and to renounce their loyalty to the Philippine Republic, with the lofty aim to "Christianize" (but Filipinos were Roman Catholics since 1521) and to "civilize" (but University of Santo Tomas is older than Yale and Harvard).
To Mark Twain, it was pure and simple “Imperialism,” or was it genocide? Andrew Carnegie, the steel magnate who financed the Anti-Imperialist League “believed that taking the Philippines was one of the great historic mistakes in American history. And, in fact, Carnegie had the peculiarly American solution for taking the Philippines, what he suggested to McKinley was that he, Carnegie, would personally pay McKinley $20 million to buy the Philippines and then he'd turn them back to the Filipinos. McKinley turned this particular offer down.” (see Anti-Imperialism in the United States, Walter LaFeber, pbs.org)
The Philippine-American War Body Count is grim: Filipinos--200,000 "collateral" Innocents, 20,000 Patriots; Americans--5,000 invaders. The fact that a total of 69 U.S. Army servicemen were awarded the Medal of Honor during the hostilities alone is a sad reminder of its savage ferocity, not to mention the documented cruelties committed.
C. “CRUELTY IS NO LONGER DENIED. IT IS NOW AVOWED AND JUSTIFIED”
In April of 1902, the Philippine Investigating Committee in the U.S. Senate was formed to investigate and publicize U.S. military atrocities in the Philippines. A brief for the Committee, completed on August 29, 1902 and prepared by legal counsels Moorfield Storey and Julian Codman, details the atrocities committed, in particular “water cure” or, it’s current term as used in Iraq, “water-boarding”: (http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Secretary_Root%27s_Record:%22Marked_Severities%22_in_Philippine_Warfare)
Among the several documents presented is the letter A. A. Barnes, of Battery G, Third United States Artillery, wrote to his brother, March 20, 1899:
“The town of Titatia was surrendered to us a few days ago, and two companies occupy the same. Last night one of our boys was found shot, and his stomach cut open. Immediately orders were received from General Wheaton to burn the town and kill every native in sight, which was done to a finish. About one thousand men, women, and children were reported killed. I am probably growing hard-hearted, for I am in my glory when I can sight my gun on some dark skin and pull the trigger."
Some of the more startling conclusions in the counsel’s brief include:
--“That the destruction of Filipino life during the war has been so frightful that it cannot be explained as the result of ordinary civilized warfare.”
--“That at the very outset of the war there was strong reason to believe that our troops were ordered by some officers to give no quarter [or take no prisoners].”
--“That from the beginning of the war the practice of burning native towns and villages and laying waste the country has continued.”
--“That from a very early day torture has been employed systematically to obtain information.”
--“That the Secretary of War never made any attempt to stop this barbarous practice …”
--“That the statements of Mr. Root’s, whether as to the origin of the war, its progress, or the methods by which it has been prosecuted, have been untrue.”
--“That he [Mr. Root] has shown a desire not to investigate, and, on the other hand, to conceal the truth touching the war and to shield the guilty, and by censorship and otherwise has largely succeeded.”
--“That Mr. Root’s, then, is the real defendant in this case. The responsibility for what has disgraced the American name lies at his door.”
“Cruelty is no longer denied. It is now avowed and justified … The administration has not been sitting in darkness. The Department of War must have known what has been going on. If it has not it can hardly put forward so gross a dereliction of its duty as an excuse for what has been done. Let the opposition keep their eyes on the men in Washington. Then if there is any blood to be shed as payment for maladministration, it will not be the vicarious blood of men who have honestly and bravely done their duty as they saw it.”
(NOTE: SeeBenevolent Assimilation: The American Conquest of the Philippines, 1899-1903 (1984) by Stuart Creighton Miller; The Philippine War, 1899-1902 (2002) by Brian McAllister Linn; and A War of Frontier and Empire: Philippine-American War, 1899-1902 (2008) by David J. Silbey)
(NOTE: See a recent detailed discussion of the atrocities and cruelties by Paul Kramer, The Water Cure at http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/02/25/080225fa_fact_kramer?currentPage=all)
Apologies, anyone? America, of course, continues to confront the horrors of its past, for instance:
The Civil Liberties Act of 1988 granted reparations to Japanese-Americans who had been interned by the United States government during World War II. The Act was signed into law by Pres. Ronald Reagan on Aug. 10, 1988 and granted each of the 60,000 surviving internee about US$20,000 in compensation for actions that were based on "race prejudice, war hysteria, and a failure of political leadership."
The "Apology Resolution" to Native Hawaiians passed by Congress and signed by Pres. William J. Clinton on November 23, 1993 to acknowledge the 100th anniversary of the January 17, 1893 overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaii, and to offer an apology to Native Hawaiians on behalf of the United States for the overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaii.
D. COMPELLED TO OWE ALLEGIANCE TO THE UNITED STATES
The Political Cartoon in the Philadelphia Inquirer of May 23, 1901 depict “Philippine General Emilio Aguinaldo” (referred to as "Aggie"), following his capture after three bloody years of the Philippine-American War, being forced to read the "Oath of Allegiance" to the United States with the accompanying caption:
“Now let the Boston insurgents follow Aggie's example and take the Oath of Allegiance”
Another Political Cartoon that appeared in Harper's Weekly of April 13, 1901 shows a dejected Aguinaldo holding a poster emblazoned with the “Oath of Allegiance with this caption:
"Now, boys, sign this with me."
The "Boston insurgents" (Inquirer) and "the boys" (Harper's) in the captions of both Political Cartons derisively refer to the Anti-Imperialist League members who opposed annexation of the Philippine Islands and America's War of Conquest.
So, it is clear that the war was, after all, about allegiance--the allegiance Territorial Filipinos were compelled to owe their new sovereign, the United States, the allegiance America bought for $20 million from Spain under a treaty signed and ratified without their participation or consent that their new sovereign was expectedly determined to enforce by whatever means, illegal or immoral.
But the loyalty that allegiance obligates pertains to matters of the mind and heart, of emotions or feelings, as love or hate, even of faith or disbelief, and may thus be likened to Judge Learned Hand’s “The Spirit if Liberty”; and to paraphrase what he said in this regard in 1944 at the height of WWII--
“Liberty [like allegiance] lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can save it; no constitution, no law, no court can even do much to help it. While it lies there it needs no constitution, no law, no court to save it.”So, if allegiance, like liberty or even love, “lies in the hearts of men and women,” can the law compel it?
Chief Justice Melville Weston Fuller in Fourteen Diamond Rings (1901) said that, under the provisions of a treaty, allegiance can be coerced, and in the particular case of the Philippine Islands, by purchase:
“By the 3d article of the treaty Spain ceded to the United States 'the archipelago known as the Philippine islands,' and the United States agreed to pay Spain the sum of $20,000,000 within three months. The treaty was ratified; Congress appropriated the money; the ratification was proclaimed. The treaty making power, the executive power, the legislative power, concurred in the completion of the transaction.In fact, a provision in the Tydings-McDuffie Act (1934) expressly commands that “All citizens of the Philippine Islands [Territorial Filipinos] shall owe allegiance to the United States.”
“The Philippines thereby ceased, in the language of the treaty, 'to be Spanish.' Ceasing to be Spanish, they ceased to be foreign country. They came under the complete and absolute sovereignty and dominion of the United States, and so became territory of the United States over which civil government could be established. The result was the same although there was no stipulation that the native inhabitants should be incorporated into the body politic, and none securing to them the right to choose their nationality. Their allegiance became due to the United States, and they became entitled to its protection.” (bold added)
E. BIRTH “IN THE ALLEGIANCE OF THE UNITED STATES ARE NATURAL-BORN CITIZENS”
Nationality attaches at birth, either by place of birth (jus soli) or by blood (jus sanguinis); otherwise, born stateless.
During the same year the 39th Congress enacted the Citizenship Clause in Section1 of the Fourteenth Amendment, Justice Noah Haynes Swayne in U.S. v. Rhodes (1866) held that:
“All persons born in the allegiance of the United States are natural-born citizens. Birth and allegiance go together. Such is the rule of the common law, and it is the common law of this country as well as of England.” (bold added)
And he concluded:
“We find no warrant for the opinion that this great principle of the common law has ever been changed in the United States. It has always obtained here with the same vigor, and subject only to the same exceptions, since as before the Revolution.”
Birthright rule, of course, comes from English common law. In Calvin’s Case (1608), it established that under English common law, “a person’s status was vested at birth, and based upon place of birth--a person born within the king’s dominion owed allegiance to the sovereign, and in turn, was entitled to the king’s protection.” But “place of birth” must, at the time of birth, occur “within the king’s dominion.” For “Birth and allegiance,” to Justice Swayne, “go together.”
Thus, Calvin’s case declared:
“Neither the climate nor the soil but obedience and still allegiance that makes the subject born.”
In fact, Chief Justice Waite in Minor v. Happersett (1874) said:
“Allegiance and protection are, in this connection (that is, in relation to citizenship) reciprocal obligations. The one is a compensation for the other; allegiance for protection, and protection for allegiance.” (bold added)So, to repeat: “All persons born in the allegiance of the United States are natural-born citizens.”
Sadly at that time, Jim Crow was still “separate but equal” with anti-miscegenation and “white supremacy” still the prevailing law of the land. Or is it still, even more?
F. “SHALL BE CONSIDERED AS IF THEY WERE ALIENS,” CONTRARY TO FACT
Not content with that, the U.S. Congress enacted a law inexplicably phrased in the subjunctive mood, which provided that “citizens of the Philippine Islands shall be considered as if they were aliens” or aliens by supposition, contrary to fact. And It is precisely the misreading of the Citizenship Clause that legitimized that “supposition” and rendered them--stateless, without any country, at birth!
The U.S. Congress, of course, was well aware that using words in the classic subjunctive mood, “as if … were,” is a supposition contrary to fact. But its malicious employment (in a provision of law at that) betrays the racist intent, since Territorial Filipinos who were viewed by the Courts as “American nationals” at birth would thereafter be subject to harsh immigration laws applicable only to “aliens.”
G. “LOYAL AMERICANS OF THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS”
In the early morning hours of Dec. 8, 1941 after devastating the U.S. Pacific Fleet anchored at Pearl Harbor in what was then the U.S. territory of Hawaii, Japanese Zero fighters swooped down and attacked Subic Bay and Sangley Point in the Philippine Islands, another U.S. territory.
America declares war with Japan. Barely two weeks later, 28th December, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in a Message to the Filipino People--now surprisingly named “the loyal Americans of the Philippine Islands” rather than “the loyal aliens” of a “foreign country”--were called upon “to do their duty” of defending American territory against the onslaught of an invading army (http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=16076):
“News of your gallant struggle against the Japanese aggressor has elicited the profound admiration of every American … In this great struggle of the Pacific, the loyal Americans of the Philippine Islands are called upon to play a crucial role. They have played, and they are playing tonight, their part with the greatest gallantry. As President I wish to express to them my feeling of sincere admiration for the fight they are now making … It is not for me or for the people of this country to tell you where your duty lies. We are engaged in a great and common cause. I count on every Philippine man, woman, and child to do their duty. We will do ours.”(bold added)NOTE: Perhaps, the only other time a U.S. President was compelled to call upon “the loyal Americans” to defend American soil against an invading army was during the War of 1812; so, how many Patriots still alive today, other than Territorial Filipinos, have had the privilege of being called upon by the Executive no less “to play a crucial role” in, and “to do their duty” of, defending American territory?
H. ALLEGIANCE VALIDATED IN THE CRUCIBLE OF WAR
These “aliens” performed their “crucial role” admirably well, even to the extent of obeying “Beyond the Call,” validating and ennobling the allegiance they owed to the United States; for these “aliens,” in obedience to the President’s Call to Duty, refused to yield, despite the tragic Fall of Bata-an and the ensuing Death March, while all the other South East Asian colonials crumbled and bowed.
American sovereignty, its constitution and standard, were nowhere in sight, suspended, all over the Land. And, as in every hostile occupation, there will always be the pariah of collaborators; but the open resistance countrywide was totally unexpected by the Japanese. For having been branded by law “as if they were aliens,” Territorial Filipinos certainly had nothing to lose. In fact, it was not their “war” anyway; it was a “war” the United States, their sovereign, declared against Japan. As “aliens,” they could have simply played it safe and cooperated with the invaders, who immediately promised them the “independence” they fought for against the Americans only 40 years earlier.
But, upon Gen. Jonathan Wainwright’s surrender at “the final stand on beleaguered Corregidor,” reflecting “the high morale of American arms in the face of overwhelming odds” (from his Medal of Honor citation); Territorial Filipinos, undaunted, bearing proudly the Stars and Stripes Japan humiliated, spit and torn, unleashed all over the Land a relentless Guerrilla War of Resistance for well over three bloody years--a feat unparalleled in the documented annals of unconventional warfare--opening the window for Gen. Douglas McArthur who fled to Australia to regroup and rearm, counterattack and hasten V-J Day.
I. AMERICANIZED BUT WERE NEVER HISPANIZED
So, why did they not simply toe the line and cooperate? Can this deep loyalty of Territorial Filipinos to their sovereign be attributed to President William McKinley’s oft-quoted imperial policy of “Benevolent Assimilation”--the “Americanization”--of Filipinos, Spain Christianized but miserably failed to hispanize?
For, inexplicably, on the one hand, unlike natives in all of Spain's South American colonies who were completely transformed (including even their aboriginals) into Hispanics during the same colonial period as the Philippines; Filipinos, on the other, fiercely retained their hodgepodge of regional dialects and were never hispanized after close to four centuries of total Spanish domination; but in only less than half a century of United States rule, Territorial Filipinos were totally “Americanized”!
In a word, if “colonial mentality” is to be forever relied on as the convenient scapegoat to justify the “Americanization” of Territorial Filipinos, why did that same “mentality” fail to hispanize the “colonial” Indios in Las Islas Filipinas during the longer, though equally cruel and discriminatory, Spanish period?
Of course, this “assimilation” could only have been made possible by the pioneering saga of the “Thomasite” teachers, who arrived in 1906 to recreate “In Our Image” (Stanley Karnow, 1990) our “Little Brown Brother” (Leon Wolff, 1960), instilling in English democratic aspirations, ideals, values--virtues, mind you, innate to Filipinos (ask Lapu-Lapu, Dagohoy, Andres Bonifacio, Jose P. Rizal, Jose Abad Santos, even Benigno Aquino)--to uphold and revere, to defend and to willingly sacrifice their lives for.
J. LOYALTY AND PALABRA DE HONOR
So, was the steadfast loyalty Territorial Filipinos displayed during the horrors of the Japanese occupation merely a confirmation of Justice Hand’s notion cited earlier here that allegiance, indeed, “lies in the hearts of men and women” and that, “while it lies there it needs no constitution, no law, no court to save it”?
In fact, it was not so much in the tenacity by which Territorial Filipinos struggled to defend American territory (which they regarded rightly as their own as well), but more so in the stoic refusal of Territorial Filipinos countrywide to collaborate with the Japanese--the declared enemy of the sovereign they owed allegiance to, an allegiance owed they were bound to honor, instinctively as Filipinos, and to uphold, even to die for.
And it is in this context that Jose Abad Santos, Supreme Court Chief Justice, Commonwealth of the Philippine Islands, exemplified what the Spanish Palabra de Honor (“word of honor”) meant to Territorial Filipinos (and continues to mean to their posterity as well) in their bold and firm resolve to honor their word once vowed and to redeem their allegiance, as a Call to Duty, whenever pledged.
In May of 1942, before being executed by the Japanese for refusing to head the “puppet” republic his captors would soon be establishing, Chief Justice Abad Santos calmly replied, as he stood beside his son now unabashedly weeping:
“I cannot possibly do that, because if I do so, I will be violating my oath of allegiance to the United States.”
Indeed, for as Judge Learned Hand continues in “The Spirit of Liberty” cited:
“… yet in the spirit of that America which lies hidden in some form in the aspirations of us all; in the spirit of that America for which our young men are at this moment fighting and dying; in that spirit of liberty and of America I ask you to rise and with me and pledge our faith in the glorious destiny of our beloved country.”So, if the allegiance Territorial Filipinos owed their sovereign, the United States, already lies embedded “in the hearts of men and women”--which “lies hidden in the aspirations of us all” and “for which our young men are at this moment fighting and dying”--can such matters purely emotional as allegiance be just as easily terminated unilaterally by the mere mandate of a law, without even according each and every one of them the opportunity to voluntarily renounce or preserve the allegiance they owed at birth and the birthright it automatically confers--an allegiance owed they defended and preserved proudly in the face of a brutal enemy occupation?
Territorial Filipinos, no doubt, were “persons born in the allegiance of the United States,” an allegiance that was validated and ennobled in the crucible of WWII. Both the Courts and the law agree. But was the Philippines Islands, over which the United States exercised the rights of sovereignty and jurisdiction, included in the phrase “in the United States” in the context of the phrase “All persons born in the United States” appearing in the Citizenship Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment?
K. U.S. SUPREME COURT DECLARES THAT TERRITORIAL FILIPINOS, ALTHOUGH BORN U.S. NATIONALS, BECAME ALIENS ON JULY 4, 1946.
Justice William Brennan in Rabang v. Boyd (1957) said:
“In the Independence Act, the Congress granted full and complete independence to the Islands, and necessarily severed the obligation of permanent allegiance owed by Filipinos who were nationals of the United States. Anything less than the severance of the ties for all Filipinos, regardless of residence in or out of the continental United States, would not have fulfilled our long-standing national policy to grant independence to the Philippine people. See Hooven & Allison Co. v. Evatt, 324 U.S. 652, 674. Section 14 of the Independence Act in clear language applies "to persons who were born in the Philippine Islands." This language demonstrates, and we hold, as did the courts below, that persons born in the Islands, and who thereby were nationals of the United States, became aliens on July 4, 1946, regardless of permanent residence in the continental United States on that date.”So, under the Independence Act or Tydings-McDuffie law, “persons who were born in the Philippine Islands” and “who thereby were nationals of the United States became aliens on July 4, 1946.”
L. U.S. SUPREME COURT AFFIRMS THAT THE POWER TO ACQUIRE TERRITORY CARRIES WITH IT THE POWER TO PRESCRIBE STATUS OF INHABITANTS, SEVERING TIE OF ALLEGIANCE OWED
Justice Brennan in Rabang continues:
“But the fallacy in the petitioner's argument is the erroneous assumption that Congress was without power to legislate the exclusion of Filipinos in the same manner as "foreigners." This Court has held that ". . . the power to acquire territory by treaty implies not only the power to govern such territory, but to prescribe upon what terms the United States will receive its inhabitants, and what their status shall be . . . ." Downes v. Bidwell, Congress not only had, but exercised,the power to exclude Filipinos in the provision of 8 (a) (1) of the Independence Act, which, for the period from 1934 to 1946, provided:
"For the purposes of the Immigration Act of 1917, the Immigration Act of 1924 (except section 13 (c)), this section, and all other laws of the United States relating to the immigration, exclusion, or expulsion of aliens, citizens of the Philippine Islands who are not citizens of the United States shall be considered as if they were aliens. For such purposes the Philippine Islands shall be considered as a separate country and shall have for each fiscal year a quota of fifty ..."
So, the Court relies on Downes v. Bidwell (1898), declaring that “the power to acquire territory by treaty” implies the power “to prescribe upon what terms the United States will receive its inhabitants, and what their status shall be.” The Court also cites the provision in the Tydings-McDuffie law declaring that Territorial Filipinos “shall be considered as if they were aliens” and the Philippine Islands “as a separate country” with an immigration “quota of fifty.”
However, Justice Douglas dissenting said:
“This Filipino came to the United States in 1930 and he has never left here. If the spirit of the 1931 Act is to be observed, he should not be lumped with all other "aliens" who made an "entry." The Filipino alien, who came here while he was a national, stands in a class by himself and should remain there, until and unless Congress extends these harsh deportation measures to his class."So, to Justice Douglas, “[t]he Filipino who came while he was a national” belongs to “a class by himself and should remain there.”
M. U.S. CIRCUIT COURTS REJECT THE INTERPRETATION THAT THE WORDS “IN THE UNITED STATES” IN THE CITIZENSHIP CLAUSE INCLUDE THE U.S. TERRITORY OF THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS
In another case involving the same surname of Rabang, Rabang v. INS (9th Circuit, 1994), similarly in Valmonte v. INS (2nd Circuit, 1998), several Filipino Plaintiffs argued that the words “in the United States” in the Clause include within its coverage the U.S. Territory of the Philippine Islands.
Sadly, the Circuit Courts rejected the validity of that reading; the cases were dismissed, and the Plaintiffs deported. In affirming the harsh deportation in Rabang, the Court said:
“Supreme Court precedent compels a conclusion that persons born in the Philippine Islands during the territorial period were not “born … in the United States,” within the meaning of the Citizenship Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and are thus not entitled to citizenship at birth.”
In his stirring dissent in Rabang, however, Judge Pregerson asserted forcefully:
“… all persons born within the territory of a sovereign nation and who owe complete allegiance to that nation are deemed “natural born” for purposes of citizenship. Thus, I would hold that persons born in the Philippines during the territorial period--between December 10, 1898 and July 4, 1946--should be considered United States citizens within the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment’s Citizenship Clause.” (bold added)And he concluded:
“A review of the relevant authorities ineluctably leads me to conclude that the District Court erred in dismissing Plaintiffs complaints for failure to state a claim, and that the majority opinion erroneously affirms that dismissal. Persons born in the Philippines during the territorial period indisputably were born within the dominion of the United States, and therefore were born ‘in the United States’ within the meaning of the Citizenship Clause. Moreover, neither congressional power to control naturalization and regulate territories, nor the now disfavored doctrine of territorial incorporation, authorizes this Court to deny to the Plaintiffs what the people of this country sought to ensure under the Fourteenth Amendment—the inviolability of the fundamental right to citizenship at birth.”
The authors applaud the depth of Judge Pregerson’s dissent (which covers more pages than the majority decision) and his concern towards rectifying the injustice in depriving “the fundamental right to citizenship at birth” Territorial Filipinos were entitled to.
N. TERRITORIAL FILIPINOS NOW CHALLENGE THE PREVAILING OFFICIAL AND JUDICIAL READING OF THE CITIZENSHIP CLAUSE
It was the Pregerson dissent in Rabang that inspired the authors to embark on a journey of scrutinizing a fundamental right denied to Territorial Filipinos.
What the authors gathered during the studies conducted is that, grammatically read,what SenatorHoward, the author, intendedthe Clause to convey has altogether been incredibly overlooked--a misreading of the phrase “and subject to the jurisdiction thereof” the legal community already reveres as gospel truth.
Unshaken, Territorial Filipino, challenge this official and judicial view of the Citizenship Clause--now stare decisis for well over a hundred years, mindful that:
“Discovery consists in seeing what everyone else has seen and thinking what no one else has thought.”--Albert Szent Gyorgy, 1937 Nobel Prize for Medicine.
The authors insist that it is a grammatically erroneous reading, emboldened by the words of Irving Brant:
"The most ancient errors are hardest to correct, partly because they become indurated by their antiquity."--The Bill of Rights: It's Origin and Meaning, p. 502 (1967)
Truly, “by their antiquity,” for Territorial Filipinos belong, historically, to a different yet almost forgotten breed of Filipinos, portrayed in many ways to be--
--Filipinos born during the American territorial period between April 11, 1899 and July 04 1946 following the ratification of the Treaty of Paris (concluded December 10, 1898) and the cession of Las Islas Filipinas by the Spanish Crown to the United States of America for 20 million Dollars;
--Filipinos born in the outlying possession and U.S. territory of the Philippine Islands and, by 1934, in the Commonwealth of the Philippines, over which the United States was sovereign;
--Filipinos mandated to “owe allegiance to the United States” and, conversely, “entitled to the protection of the United States”;
--Filipinos over whom the United States exercised the rights of sovereignty and jurisdiction under a policy of “Benevolent Assimilation”;
--Filipinos designated by U.S. laws with the racist oxymoron status of non-citizen ”American nationals” at birth, but to be “considered as if they were aliens” of foreign birth (legalizing a “supposition contrary to fact”), with the sole intent of placing them all, now regarded by law as “aliens by supposition,” and hence subject to U.S. immigration laws.
--Filipinos who validated their “allegiance to the United States,” ennobled its tie to birthright, by defending, as a Call to Duty, American territory against the onslaught of Japanese invaders in gory battlefields of WWII and, proudly bearing the Stars and Stripes Japan humiliated after Bata-an Fell, waged a relentless Guerilla War of Resistance unparalleled in the annals of unconventional warfare.
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