Philippine Islands in the 1930s
The Philippine Islands in the 1930s were characterized by significant political developments and a growing movement for independence from United States control. Following the Spanish-American War, the U.S. established governance over the Philippines, which led to a pro-independence sentiment among Filipinos, particularly through the Nacionalista Party led by Manuel Quezon and Sergio Osmeña. During this decade, the push for political sovereignty intensified, spurred by the hardships of the Great Depression and growing isolationist sentiments in the U.S. that favored independence to reduce economic competition.
In 1932, the U.S. Congress attempted to legislate Filipino independence through the Hare-Hawes-Cutting Act, but it faced resistance and was ultimately rejected by the Filipino assembly. The subsequent Philippine Independence Act, passed in 1934, set a timeline for independence while retaining significant U.S. military presence. The political landscape was further complicated by economic dependencies and racial tensions, as many Filipinos faced discrimination in the U.S. due to rising xenophobia.
By the end of the decade, President Quezon had assumed substantial control amid fears of Japanese expansionism in the region, seeking early independence for the Philippines as global tensions escalated. Hence, the 1930s were a pivotal time for the Philippines, marked by a struggle for autonomy and the looming threat of external aggression.
Philippine Islands in the 1930s
Identification Archipelago bordered by the South China Sea to the west, the Philippine Sea to the east, and the Celebes Sea to the south
A colonial territory of the United States since 1898, the Philippine Islands yearned for political independence during the 1930’s. American recognition of the Philippines in 1935 as a self-governing commonwealth was a triumph for the Filipino people overshadowed by fears of economic destabilization and Japanese expansion.
Relations between the United States and the Philippine Islands were often strained during the 1930’s. Historically, the stated rationale for U.S. involvement in the Philippines was to foster economic development and prepare the islands for democratic independence. The United States originally attained control of the Philippine Islands after the Spanish-American War in the Treaty of Paris of 1898. After quelling a bloody, proindependence, Filipino insurgency from 1899 to 1902, the United States created a new legal system, appointing an American governor-general to administer the affairs of the islands. In the decades that followed, a strong proindependence movement emerged that defined the Philippine Islands during the 1930’s.
Movement for Independence, 1930-1935
From the time of its establishment in 1907, the Nacionalista Party dominated politics in the Philippines. Two of its party leaders, Manuel Quezon and Sergio Osmeña, shaped the future of the islands during the 1930’s. Although the Nacionalista Party platform called publicly for immediate independence, Quezon and Osmeña quietly postponed the push for political sovereignty during the 1920’s, attempting to develop the islands’ economic infrastructure before separation from the United States.
In 1930, while apprehensive of economic turmoil and foreign threats that would arise with independence, the Filipino citizenry made passionate demands for political sovereignty. In February of that year, approximately two thousand Filipinos participated in a rally for independence in Manila. Acting on this national fervor, the general assembly of the Philippines sent a delegation to Washington, D.C., to negotiate a timetable on independence.
As the Philippines lobbied for its political freedom, the U.S. Congress already favored independence for the territory. Specifically, many isolationist politicians favored separation to stopimmigration from the Philippines and to prevent economic competition with the islands. With this purpose, in December, 1932, the U.S. Congress passed its first legislation on Filipino independence, the Hare-Hawes-Cutting Act. Subject to ratification by the Filipino general assembly, the bill made the Philippines a self-governing commonwealth and granted complete independence after ten years. In turn, the act stipulated that the U.S. would retain its military and naval bases in the Philippines and keep an American governor in Manila for the duration of the transition period. On January 17, 1933, four days after President Herbert Hoover vetoed the bill with the view that the territory was not yet economically prepared for sovereignty, Congress overrode the president’s veto and sent the bill to the Filipino legislature for approval.
The bill met resistance in Manila. This was largely a result of the political rivalry between Quezon and Osmeña. From 1931 to 1932, Osmeña led the Filipino delegation in Washington, D.C., while Quezon was sidelined, ill with tuberculosis. Fearful of losing influence, Quezon argued that the Hare-Hawes-Cutting bill would damage the Filipino economy and violate its national sovereignty in its preservation of American military bases. The Filipino assembly, consequentially, rejected the Hare-Hawes-Cutting Act in 1933, and Quezon set out for new talks in Washington, D.C.
In these new negotiations, Quezon sought to hasten the date for Filipino independence but preserve the economic benefits the Philippines received as a U.S. territory. While largely unreceptive to Quezon’s influence, the U.S. Senate passed the Philippine Independence Act (also known as the Tydings-McDuffie Act) on March 24, 1934. The new law, almost identical to its predecessor, stipulated that the United States would remove its military bases after independence and later negotiate the possibility of a naval base. Furthermore, the law set stringent restrictions on immigration from the Philippines, classifying all Filipino natives in the United States as aliens and implementing an annual immigration quota from the former territory at fifty people.
In spite of this, the Filipino general assembly unanimously approved the new law and convened a constitutional convention to create a new government in July, 1934. By February of the following year, the convention finished its new constitution with the approval of both the Filipino citizenry and President Franklin D. Roosevelt. In the autumn of 1935, the populace voted in elections for a new government, with Quezon running for president and Osmeña for vice president. The pair easily won the election. Shortly after, the Philippines was inaugurated as a self-governing commonwealth in front of 500,000 cheering Filipinos on November 15, 1935.
Economic Problems and Racial Tensions During the 1930’s
In 1930, the Great Depression dramatically increased American support for Filipino independence. After the October, 1929, stock market crash, isolationist politicians criticized the Philippines particularly as a costly dependency that hurt American businesses. Resenting the duty-free importation of Filipino sugar and coconut products, powerful American producers lobbied Congress to grant the islands independence and, then, enact costly tariffs on Filipino imports to prevent economic competition.
For its part, the Filipino elite were gravely concerned that such American measures would destroy the economic productivity of the Philippines. After decades of duty-free trade, Filipino economic development was largely dependent on the United States. For example, the United States alone bought 90 percent of Filipino exports in 1934. Although the Philippine Independence Act would phase in tariffs gradually, the new Filipino government worried that any implementation of tariffs would derail the islands’ progress.
Equally unnerving to Filipino leaders, xenophobic sentiments against Asian immigration in the United States caused tensions in the first years of the 1930’s. Many Filipinos, free to resettle in the American mainland before 1934, had moved freely to the United States; more than fifty-six thousand Filipinos resided on the American mainland by 1930. These immigrants often experienced discriminatory treatment from Caucasians, which aggravated race relations and provoked anger in the Philippines. At the peak of these tensions in the fall of 1929 and winter of 1930, Filipino laborers were the victims of at least thirty violent attacks in the United States. In the years that followed, the U.S. Congress not only sought to strengthen immigration restrictions but also launched a repatriation campaign to return Filipino immigrants to the Philippines, financing the voluntary repatriation of more than two thousand Filipinos from 1934 to 1940.
Japanese Threat, 1935-1940
After 1935, President Quezon was greatly concerned over the threat of an expanding Japanese empire. Japan had invaded Manchuria in 1931 and embarked on a full-scale invasion of China six years later. With American war planners viewing the Philippines as too expensive to defend, Quezon was fearful that the United States would abandon the Philippines in a war with Japan. General Douglas MacArthur, however, disagreed, stressing the importance of the islands for American security. MacArthur assured the Filipino government that it could repel any invasion and helped prepare a Filipino defense force of 400,000 reservists from 1936 to 1938. In spite of this, Quezon, disillusioned with the possibility of repelling any massive invasion, engaged the Japanese diplomatically during the late 1930’s, traveling to Tokyo in 1937 and 1939.
Impact
As the 1930’s closed, President Quezon utilized strong executive powers in the Filipino constitution to assume almost total control of the Philippines. Urgently seeking to guarantee Filipino neutrality in any conflict with Japan, Quezon petitioned President Roosevelt in 1939 to grant independence early to the Philippines by 1940. The American leader refused. In the last days of 1939, the foreboding shadow of an expanding Japanese empire was cast on the Philippine Islands.
Bibliography
Brands, H. W. Bound to Empire: The United States and the Philippines. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992. Scholarly and readable, this work utilizes government documents to analyze Filipino-American relations from the Spanish-American War into the 1990’s.
Dolan, Ronald, ed. Philippines: A Country Study. Washington, D.C.: Library of Congress, 1993. First sixty-five pages of this book offer a unique and succinct summary of Filipino history from 1521 to 1990.
Golay, Frank H. Face of Empire: United States-Philippine Relations, 1898-1946. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1998. Published in cooperation with the University of Manila; analysis of how American involvement shaped the future of the Philippines.
Karnow, Stanley. In Our Image: America’s Empire in the Philippines. New York: Random House, 1989. Detailed summary of American involvement with the Philippine Islands from the 1890’s to the 1980’s.
Ngai, Mae M. “From Colonial Subject to Undesirable Alien: Filipino Migration in the Invisible Empire.” In Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern America. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2004. Analysis of Filipino immigration to the United States during the 1920’s-1930’s.
Schirmer, Daniel B., ed. The Philippines Reader: A History of Colonialism, Neocolonialism, Dictatorship, and Resistance. Boston: South End Press, 1987. Collection of primary documents from Filipino history that is good for research purposes.