EXCEPT FOR SPAIN, NO OTHER

COUNTRY IN THE WORLD HAS

SPREAD THROUGHOUT AN
INFLUENCE ON THE PHILIPPINES
THAN AMERICA.
IN FACT, THE EFFECTS
OF THE DECADES-
LONG AMERICAN
RULE OF THE
COUNTRY CAN STILL
BE CLEARLY SEEN IN
OUR SOCIETY, FROM
THE WAY WE EAT,
DRESS, SPEAK, ETC.
• Bagaman hindi maikakaila na malaki ang naitulong ng
Amerika sa ating bansa, huwag din nating kalimutan ang
mga oras na ang US ay sumira at nag traydor sa
Pilipinas. Bukod sa mga gawa ng Kabaitan na madalas na
maitampok, dapat nating alamin ang madilim na mga
kabanata ng kasaysayan ng Filipino-Amerikano.
AMERICA LIED
ABOUT GIVING
INDEPENDENCE TO
THE PHILIPPINES.
• As history would tell us, America essentially deceived and lied its way into occupying the
Philippines. With promises of independence and sovereignty, the Americans gained the
cooperation of the Filipinos who were yearning to be free from Spain.
ITS OCCUPATION OF
THE PHILIPPINES WAS
PRIMARILY SELF-
SERVING.
• Coined by US President William McKinley, “benevolent assimilation” refers to the American
policy of absorbing the Filipinos into their culture out of their magnanimous desire to
“civilize” them. As the policy would have it, Filipinos are too uneducated and uncivilized
to govern themselves, hence the need for American intervention.
THE AMERICANS
COMMITTED
NUMEROUS WAR
CRIMES AGAINST
FILIPINOS.
• Perhaps the darkest chapter of the country’s history with the US concerns the
devastatingly bloody Philippine-American War. Also known as America’s “Forgotten War”
or “First Vietnam,” the conflict saw the outgunned and outmanned Filipinos fight against a
better-armed and better-trained American force. And as what usually happens in wars,
atrocities ( Kabangisan) are bound to happen.
• Massacres also occurred, as what happened during the infamous Balangiga and Moro
Crater Massacre. The first one happened after General Jacob Smith ordered his men to
turn Samar into a “howling wilderness” and kill all the male children ten years and over as
retaliation for Filipino guerrillas wiping out the American garrison in Balangiga.
THEY EXPLOITED
AND VILIFIED REAL
FILIPINO HEROES.
• With organized Filipino resistance effectively waning in the late stages of the Philippine-
American War, the Americans looked to pacify the Filipinos and ensure their
cooperation—and what better way to do so than to sponsor and vilify some famous
Filipinos.
• For one, they heavily promoted Jose Rizal as a “model hero” since he was a patriot who
disavowed violent revolutions in favor of reforms—music to the new colonizer’s ears.
FILIPINOS FACED
DISCRIMINATION
HERE AND IN THE
STATES.
• We already know how the Americans, in their bid to colonize the Philippines, generally
looked down on Filipinos as a group of uncivilized brown savages in need of higher
education. That discriminatory attitude, unfortunately, did not recede even after the
Philippine-American War ended.
THE US ABANDONED
FILIPINOS—AND
AMERICANS—
DURING WORLD
WAR II.
• One may call it a “strategic retreat,” but to the thousands of Filipino and American forces
holed up in Bataan and other parts of the country when Japan invaded the archipelago
during World War II, the move essentially constituted abandonment.
IT BROKE ITS
PROMISE TO FILIPINO
WAR VETERANS.
• After the war, many Filipino soldiers were expecting to receive the same benefits as their
American counterparts as promised by the US. After all, they had just fought—and
suffered—side-by-side with the Americans against the Japanese.