TARA, VOTE!

A Short History of Philippine Suffrage

Discover our origin through Philippine suffrage. The journey of our right to vote was a bumpy one. It went in fits and starts from Spanish times to World War II. This online exhibit, tracing a discontinuous history until 1946, seeks to strengthen our sense of valuing a hard-won right. This right was fully realized only when it was granted to the Filipino majority–without elitist requirements, with the achievement of Philippine independence and with the inclusion of women in democratic self-rule. Suffrage did not come to us easily. Voting today, hence, can be regarded as an act of love. To choose our leaders, to choose to change the course of our national destiny, is to act on our love of country. This exhibit celebrates our suffrage history with a rallying cry—on election day, let’s get to the polling booths: Tara, vote!

Dubious Elections Under Spain

The pueblo in the early Spanish period was the main administrative unit made up of barangays. The regime appointed natives in government posts. The barangay cabezas were chosen from the principalia, the datu class prior to the conquest.

Source: Onofre D. Corpuz, The Roots of the Filipino Nation, vol. 1 (1989), p. 179 (Access at FHL)
Request the image: The East Indies (1656). Carlos Quirino Collection, FHL.

In the seventeenth century, the gobernadorcillo, or pueblo head, represented Spanish king’s power and held this post for a year. The regime held elections for the gobernadorcillo, while the barangay cabeza took up the post either through popular vote or by appointment.

Source: Onofre D. Corpuz, The Roots of the Filipino Nation, vol. 1 (1989), p. 174. (Access at FHL)
Request the image: Rural scene (ca. 1730). Bibliotheque Nationale de Paris Collection, FHL

Conflict between native factions made elections hard when Spanish rulers tried to form an electoral body within the pueblo. In 1642, an ordinance assigned a body of cabezas to nominate the gobernadorcillo. This process was not immune to manipulation by the pueblo’s spiritual leader: the friars.

Source: Onofre D. Corpuz, The Roots of the Filipino Nation, vol. 1 (1989), p. 181 (Access at FHL)
Request the image: Friars in a Jose Honorato Lozano print (ca. 1860). Eleuterio Pascual Collection, FHL

Source: Onofre D. Corpuz, The Roots of the Filipino Nation, vol. 1 (1989), p. 166 (Access at FHL)

Friars meddled in the elections. A common Spanish-era practice was to hold elections not at the townhall or casa real but at the convento or friar’s residence. Spain frowned on the practice so much so that an ordinance against it was made in 1758.

Source: Onofre D. Corpuz, The Roots of the Filipino Nation, vol. 2 (1989), p. 185 (Access at FHL)
Request the image: Convent of the Shrine of the Santo Niño (1914). FHL

The friars’ power thrived well into the revolutionary era. In the 1800s, Filipino claims on the body politic sprang from the native clergy’s demand for a place in the church. Such nationalist claims grew bolder with the Propaganda Movement seeking representation in Spain’s central government, and later with the Katipunan seeking independence from Spain itself.

Source: Milagros Guerrero and John Schumacher, S.J., Reform and Revolution, Kasaysayan, vol. 5 (1998), pp. 10-26; and 79-89 (Access at FHL)
Request the image: Gomburza in the Vigan Diorama (1872). Ayala Museum Collection, FHL

Leaders recruited by the Katipunan saw in the revolution a chance to wrest power from friars. Even before so-called American tutelage, Filipino democratic capacity was shown in Emilio Aguinaldo’s decree proclaimed on October 31, 1896. Town officials were to be chosen by vote, and municipal units, linked to the central government through congress delegates.

Source: Milagros Guerrero and John Schumacher, S.J., Reform and Revolution, Kasaysayan, vol. 5 (1998), pp. 179-181 (Access at FHL)
Request the image: Revolutionaries under Mateo Luga (ca 1900). Fred Carter Collection, FHL

Pax Americana’s Restricted Suffrage

After Spain ceded the Philippines, the United States placed the Philippines under martial rule in 1899. A year later, the commission governing the country reported that its people were not capable of suffrage. Only in 1907 did Filipinos have share in national governance through the creation of the National Assembly.

Source: Onofre D. Corpuz, The Roots of the Filipino Nation, vol. 2 (1989), pp. 465; 540-549 (Access at FHL)
Request the image: Church in Dumanjug. Cebu (early 1900s). Fred Carter Collection, FHL

Beyond the pacified Philippine pueblos, Mindanao was placed under military governor and named “the Moro Province” in 1903. Women had no right to vote, and it was not until independence advocacy began to bear fruit with the 1935 constitution, that presidential elections were held.

Source: Teodoro Agoncillo, The History of the Filipino People, 8th edition (2012), pp. 262-263;
Onofre D. Corpuz, The Roots of the Filipino Nation, vol. 2 (1989), p. 510-519
Request the image: Maranao natives (1903), FHL

In the 1900s municipal and provincial elections, the requirements limited the right to vote to men. The voting man had to own property, to read and write, or to have held past office. Another requirement, as shown in the “Elector’s Oath,” was allegiance to the United States.

Source: Annual Reports of the War Department (1901), p. 135. (Access at FHL)

Source: Philippine Commission, quoted in The Roots of the Filipino Nation, vol. 2 (1989), pp. 537; 657n25 (Access at FHL)

The first formal elections for municipal officials were in 1901, and for National Assembly officials, in 1907. Both Filipino candidates for local government positions and the voters came from the class of elites.

Sources: Michael Cullinane, Ilustrado Politics (2003), pp. 149-171; Milagros Guerrero, Under Stars and Stripes, Kasaysayan, vol. 6, (1998), pp. 28-37; Onofre D. Corpuz, The Roots of the Filipino Nation, vol. 2 (1989), pp. 541-549 (Access at FHL)
Request the image: Cockfighting in Ormoc, Leyte (1900s). Fred Carter Collection, FHL

William H. Taft advocated that the Filipino electorate be “gradually enlarged.” This direction, he believed, would win for the colonial government the support of “educated, wealthy, and conservative Filipinos.” Taft headed the Philippine Commission during the first formal elections. “The restrictions upon the suffrage,” Taft wrote in 1902, “would secure a fairly intelligent body of representatives in the popular assembly.”

Source: William H. Taft, The Philippines (1902), pp. 94; 107-108 (Read online); Rene Escalante, The Bearer of Pax Americana (2007), p. 110-111 (Access at FHL)
Request the image: The First Civil Governor: William H. Taft. (1902). FHL

Another clue to limiting Filipino suffrage comes from Jacob Schurman in 1900. Marking an ambivalence toward Filipino self-rule, it may be useful to hear him in translation via the poet Louie Jon Sanchez: “Nagsasabi kahit ang mga pinakamakabayan na hindi makakatitinding ang Filipinas sa ngayon. Kailangan nito ng aruga at proteksiyon ng Estados Unidos. Ngunit, sa tingin nila, kailangan ng Filipinas ang mga ito upang balang araw, makapagsarili na at maging malaya. Sapagkat hindi makatwirang paglalarawan ng katotohanan ang hindi iulat na ganap na kalayaan—kalayaan matapos ng walang tiyak na panahon ng pagsasanay sa ilalim ng mga Americano—ang hangad at layon ng matatalinong Filipino ngayon na mariing tumututol sa mungkahi na kalayaan sa kasalukuyang panahon.” Restricted suffrage was aligned with “an undefined period of American training.”

Source: Quoted in Homer C. Stuntz, The Philippines and the Far East (1904), 162 (Access at FHL). Translation commissioned by FHL.
Request the image: American soldier with Indian doctor (1901), University of the Philippines Collection. FHL

Empowering Women to Vote

Moving closer to independence, a plebiscite to ratify the constitution occurred in May 1935. On November 15 that year, the Commonwealth of the Philippines was founded along with the presidential inauguration of Manuel L. Quezon.

Source: Teodoro Agoncillo, History of the Filipino People, 8th edition (2012), pp. 365-366 (Access at FHL)
Request the image: Inauguration of the Commonwealth (1935). FHL

Fighting for the women’s vote began as early the independence movement at the start of American occupation. In 1902, suffragette Clemencia Lopez journeyed to America to lobby for both Philippine independence and women’s equality.

Source: Lisa Prieto, “A Delicate Subject,” The Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era (2013).
Image: Clemencia Lopez, portrait from The Story of the Lopez Family. (1904). FHL (Read online)

Filipino women’s equality “is not a new thing,” Clemencia Lopez said. “It was not introduced from Europe, but was innate, and the natural expression of the love and respect which a man ought to feel toward his mother, his wife and his daughters.”

Source: Lisa Prieto, “A Delicate Subject,” The Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era (2013), p. 224. Speech originally printed in The Woman’s Journal (June 7, 1902).
Image: Filipina vendors in the early 1900s. Agnew Collection, Wisconsin Library

Source: Purisima Katigbak, “The Fight for Women’s Suffrage,” Kasaysayan, vol. 6 (1998), pp. 196-197. Cf. Katigbak, Legacy, Pura Villanueva Kalaw (1983), pp. 42-47; 81-85. (Access at FHL)

In a 1907 lecture the newspaper El Tiempo quoted at length, Pura Villanueva states that “women, by their extraordinary talent, their subjugating beauty, their decided courage, and their virile spirit, have often caused changes in the social scene.”

Source: Purisima Katigbak, Legacy, Pura Villanueva Kalaw (1983), pp. 80. Kasaysayan: The Story of the Filipino People
(Access at FHL)
Request the image: Pura Villlanueva as the muse of wine (1910). FHL

When the 1935 Philippine Constitution was ratified on May 14 that year, women voted for the first time. The constitution retained the literacy qualification for voters but removed elitist requirements. It held provisions for women’s suffrage, but also imposed a condition.

Source: Milagros Guerrero, Kasaysayan, pp. 163-166 (Access at FHL)
Request the image: Magazine Stand (1943). FHL

The 1935 constitution stated that only through another plebiscite should women be given suffrage. The condition was that at least 300,000 Filipinas should declare their wish for the right to vote. Women won that right on April 30, 1937, the date of the plebiscite,

Source: Milagros Guerrero, Under Stars and Stripes, Kasaysayan, vol. 6, (1998), pp. 166-168 (Access at FHL)
Image: Illustration from the Philippines Free Press (1937). Quezon Family Collection, FHL.

Dubious Elections Under Japan

Source: Teodoro Agoncillo, The Fateful Years, vol. 1 (1965), pp.384-390; Ricardo T. Jose, The Japanese Occupation, Kasaysayan vol. 7 (1998), pp. 101-108 (Access at FHL)

All political parties were dissolved in December 1942. Replacing them was the propaganda party known as KALIBAPI, or Kapisanan sa Paglilingkod sa Bagong Pilipinas. When Filipinos began to carry out civil policy, they were merely following military officials’ orders.

Source: Teodoro Agoncillo, The Fateful Years, vol. 1 (1965), 363; Ricardo T. Jose, Kasaysayan vol. 7, The Japanese Occupation (1998),101-116 (Access at FHL)
Image: Japanese sentry at Bataan’s Balanga Cathedral (April 1942). Ricardo T. Jose Collection.

September 4, 1943 marks the apparent return of civil governance with the promulgation of a new Philippine constitution. Jose Laurel had called for its ratification with the slogan “One Nation, One Heart, One Republic.” A new republic was founded with Laurel as its president. The National Assembly elected him on September 25 that year.

Source: Ricardo T. Jose, The Japanese Occupation, Kasaysayan vol. 7 (1998), pp. 144-145; 235-238 (Access at FHL)
Image: Cover page of Nippon-Philippines (1943). FHL. (Read online)

The show of civil rule in 1943 tried to make good on the prime minister Hideki Tojo’s promise to grant Philippine independence within Japan’s sphere of influence. During one Tojo visit, however, Filipino crowds greeted him with cheers of “Bangkay,” playing with the exclamation “Banzai.”

Source: Ricardo T. Jose, The Japanese Occupation, Kasaysayan, vol. 7 (1998), pp. 129-138 (Access at FHL)
Image: Nippon-Philippines Nos. 13-14, 1943, p.9. FHL. (Read online)

Source: Teodoro Agoncillo, The Fateful Years, vol. 2 (1965), pp. 983-991; Ricardo T. Jose, The Japanese Occupation, Kasaysayan vol. 7, (1998), pp. 142-144 (Access at FHL)

The 1943 constitutional provisions on human rights were deceptive. In practice, according to historian Teodoro Agoncillo, Japanese commanders ruled the towns from their garrisons. Punishments meted out without consulting civil authorities.

Source: Teodoro Agoncillo, The Fateful Years, vol. 1 (1965), 419-420. For section on 1943 rights provisions, see his The Fateful Years, vol. 2 (1965), p. 990-992. (Access at FHL)
Image: Mountain Province (1942). Ricardo T. Jose Collection.

The national assembly members who elected Laurel were not chosen by popular vote. KALIBAPI officials at a provincial level were supposed to elect delegates to the national assembly. But historian Rico Jose doubts if such elections were ever held.

Source: Ricardo T. Jose, The Japanese Occupation, Kasaysayan, vol. 7 (1998), pp. 123-124 and 144-145. (Access at FHL)
Image: Japanese propaganda projects normalcy (1943). Nippon-Philippines. FHL. (Read online)

In late 1944, American planes returned to Davao and Manila skies. Filipino resistance revived as air strikes started blotting out the red sun that Japan shone on its Philippine territory. Filipino and American allies declared victory over the Japanese on September 3, 1945.

Source: Ricardo T. Jose, The Japanese Occupation, Kasaysayan, vol. 7 (1998), pp. 169-170; 267-268.; 298. (Access at FHL)
Image: B-24 bombers bound for Legaspi (December 1944). National Archives and Records Administration.

A Continuing Liberation

On April 23, 1946, a year after Liberation, we held our first elections as an independent country, making Manuel Roxas president. The campaign Roxas ran was not especially strong on safeguarding economic autonomy. For instance, the 1946 Parity Agreement, which Roxas did not oppose, gave Americans the same rights as Filipinos to the country’s natural resources.

Source: Abraham Chapman, “A Note on the Elections” (1946), 193; 196-197; M.N. Querol, “Osmeña or Roxas?” The Philippine American (April 1946): 7-10; Diokno, Up from the Ashes, Kasaysayan, vol. 8 (1998), pp. 7-9. (Access at FHL).
Image: Filipino family (1944). World War II Album 2856, Wisconsin Library.

Other issues related to independence seemed to cloud electoral judgment. By voting certain leaders to power, Filipinos could not stop the flood of American products free of duty and quota, into the Philippines. No plebiscite was held to decide on letting the United States set up military bases in the country.

Source: Diokno, Up from the Ashes, Kasaysayan, vol. 8 (1998), 15-17; 45-50; 31-35 (Access at FHL)
Image: Joint session of the Philippines Commonwealth Congress (1945). Ricardo T. Jose Collection.

Postwar male culture continued to doubt the validity of female empowerment. Attacking how “dulcet election promises” can fool voters, one writer opines: “We do not propose to comment on the female portion of the electorate, content with the observation that since their enfranchisement, there has been a terrible world war.”

Source: Bienvenido Paguio, “Democracy’s Finest Hour” The Philippine American (April 1946),
p. 58. Read “The Philippine-American” (February 1946) online
Image: Ice cream cart at Pateros (1945). Ricardo T. Jose Collection.

Historically, the Filipino electorate is quite young. That may explain its exuberance. As a right won after long struggle, voting today can be seen as an act of love, a love tested by past foreign constraint and tested still by hard choices: the love of country.

Image: Philippine statue of liberty at the independence day parade (July 4, 1946), Ricardo T. Jose Collection