00:48.6
the First Philippine Republic which between 1898 and 1902 aspired to rule an independent Philippines.
00:57.8
So in today's video, let's learn more and dig deeper about the history
01:01.8
and the legacy of Asia's very first independent constitutional republic.
01:19.2
Welcome back to another history video. It's me Kabeer Arroyo, your friendly Pinoy historian.
01:24.4
And in this channel, if you're new to my channel, I make videos about our people's history,
01:28.8
culture, and everything in between. So if you like learning about the Philippines,
01:32.7
Southeast Asia, and beyond, don't forget to like, share this video, comment down below,
01:37.8
and please, please subscribe. But before we begin today's topic, here's a few reminders.
01:43.9
Today's video is just an introduction to this topic, so check out the links below for a list
01:48.2
of sources and recommended readings. And this video is actually an updated version of an older
01:53.2
video I made about this topic many years ago. So if you would like to support my channel and
01:57.4
my research, please be my patron on Patreon, be a member of my YouTube channel, or get copies of
02:03.0
any of my books, coloring books and ebooks, or any of the merch linked down below. Maraming salamat po.
02:09.4
So what exactly was the first Philippine Republic? I mean, what is it all about? Let's find out.
02:16.6
So the first Philippine Republic was a short-lived republic that was established
02:20.7
in the Philippines following the Filipino Declaration of Independence back in June 1898.
02:27.1
And after many years of fighting for their freedom, the Filipino Revolution was victorious
02:32.4
in liberating the Filipino people from 300 years of Spanish rule. The Filipinos formally
02:38.2
proclaimed their independence on June 12, 1898. And by August, the Filipino revolutionaries
02:44.7
effectively controlled most of their country. By this time, Emilio Aguinaldo ruled by decree
02:50.9
as the first officially recognized president of the republic. And it was practically a
02:56.2
dictatorship until a democratic constitution was put in place. And so elections were held
03:01.8
between the rainy months of June and September in 1898. And the plan was to elect representatives
03:08.2
for seats in the Revolutionary Congress, which was meant to be the country's first
03:13.0
national legislature. And so on September 15, 1898, this congress representing the different
03:19.0
provinces of the Philippines met in the quiet town of Malolos, Bulacan. And the first item on
03:24.6
their agenda was to write a constitution for the independent Philippines. And by September
03:30.2
29, the so-called Malolos Congress ratified the Declaration of Philippine Independence,
03:36.3
reaffirming the proclamation that was made in Cavite back on June 12. And then by January
03:42.4
of 1899, the new constitution was ratified and put into effect. This constitution, also
03:48.5
known as the Malolos Constitution, or more accurately the Constitución Política de 1899,
03:56.5
became the basic law of an independent Philippines. It established a democratic
04:01.5
republic and placed the sovereignty of the islands back to the Filipino people.
04:07.0
It guaranteed the civil liberties of the people and the separation of church and state. It also
04:12.6
included the protection of what we would now call civil human rights against the abuses of
04:18.2
those in power. And as such, the first Philippine Republic was inaugurated with much celebration
04:23.7
and fanfare. After all, it is considered to be the first constitutional republic in Asia.
04:29.6
But don't get me wrong, there have been many other earlier states in Asia that can practically
04:34.5
be considered republics in a broader sense. But in terms of a modern-day constitutional
04:39.0
republic that most of us are familiar with today, the first Philippine Republic is widely
04:43.8
considered by experts to be the very first modern-day democratic constitutional republic
04:49.8
in Asia. So back to 1898, Emilio Guinaldo was quoted expressing his dream for the nation
04:56.2
to live under the democratic regime of the Philippine Republic, free from the yoke of
05:01.4
any foreign domination. However, these hopes and dreams of an independent republic would
05:07.4
soon be challenged. Sadly, merely a month before the constitution was officially ratified,
05:13.3
the Spaniards formally sold the Philippines to the United States on December 10, 1898.
05:19.4
The Americans, who were once the allies of the Filipino people in their fight for independence,
05:24.3
were by now the invaders threatening to take away the very freedom they earned with their
05:29.5
blood. By February of 1899, the Philippine-American War would erupt between the first Philippine
05:35.2
Republic and the United States. The war would prove to be a prolonged agony for the Filipino
05:40.6
people, the ghosts of which still haunt the islands and its people to this day. It was
05:45.1
a bloody war that resulted in a violent occupation of the Philippines and what we would consider
05:51.3
a merciless genocide of its people. Formally, the first Philippine Republic ended towards
05:56.6
the end of 1901, after the capture of Emilio Guinaldo in March of the same year. And by
06:02.5
1902, the United States would officially declare an end to the war, or what they called the
06:08.2
Filipino Insurrection. However, the fight against US imperialism in the Philippines
06:13.9
would continue on for at least another decade. And if you think about it, in many ways, the
06:19.4
struggle continues to this day. But what exactly led to the establishment of Asia's very first
06:26.4
constitutional republic in the Philippines? You know, what was happening in the Philippines?
06:31.6
So the background to the advent of the first Philippine Republic was over 300 years of
06:36.4
Spanish colonial rule across the Philippines. The Spaniards first began colonizing the
06:41.5
archipelago in the late 1500s. But it had been a fraught process. In fact, the major
06:47.7
northern island of Luzon was only brought firmly under Spanish rule by the end of the
06:53.4
17th century. And the island, which dominates the south of the archipelago, aka Mindanao,
06:59.9
proved to be a major challenge. In Sulu and Mindanao, the Muslim sultanates held out and
07:05.0
indeed brought the war to Spain over control of the many islands of the Visayas, aka Central
07:10.8
Philippines. It is also worth mentioning that within the 300 years, the three centuries of
07:15.5
Spanish rule in the Philippines, there were over 200 revolts and anti-colonial uprisings that were
07:21.4
recorded throughout the islands. But eventually, over time, the Spaniards cemented their control
07:27.3
over many parts of their archipelago. But by the 1700s, the colonial community itself,
07:32.6
the Spaniards living in the Philippines, had begun to view themselves as distinct
07:37.3
from the Spaniards in Spain. And this was compounded in the early 19th century
07:41.8
by the many wars of independence across the Spanish empire in the Americas.
07:46.9
So long story short, by the mid-1800s, there was a growing movement amongst native Filipinos,
07:52.5
along with the colonial community of Spanish descent and those of mixed heritage, to try to
07:57.4
establish an independent Philippines, one which could benefit from its own resources rather than
08:03.4
being robbed of its wealth by the colonial power in Madrid. So by the 1890s, a growing number of
08:09.4
independence movements had emerged in the Philippines, most notably the Katipunan,
08:14.5
a revolutionary anti-colonial movement led by Andres Bonifacio and inspired by the writings
08:20.9
of José Rizal. And so in August of 1896, when the Spanish government learned of the existence
08:26.9
of the Katipunan movement, Bonifacio called his fellow Katipuneros to attack the colonial
08:32.0
seat of government in Manila. And the rebellion spread quickly across the archipelago, led by
08:37.3
the followers of the Katipunan, along with the other revolutionary groups that emerged elsewhere.
08:42.5
So by the end of autumn of 1896, the Spanish colonial government in Manila was facing armed
08:48.6
insurrections in most of the provinces it controlled. So by the spring of 1897, the
08:53.8
Katipunan movement and the Philippine Revolution had reached a sufficient point that presidential
08:58.6
elections were held for an independent Philippine government. And the war with the Spaniards
09:03.5
continued on with different parts of the archipelago held by the Filipino revolutionaries
09:08.5
while the areas under Spanish control continued to dwindle. Emilio Aguinaldo served as its first
09:14.4
head of state between 1898 and 1901. Although many would argue that this honor should have
09:19.9
been given to the father of the revolution, Andres Bonifacio. But anyway, following Aguinaldo's
09:25.8
capture and eventual surrender to the Americans, Miguel Malvar would become the unofficial
09:31.9
president of the first republic. And he held this position for several months between 1901 and 1902.
09:38.2
And as mentioned, the Malolos constitution was also promulgated and came into effect on the 22nd
09:44.5
of January 1899, with the Republican Congress, the Malolos Congress, convening in the town of
09:50.2
Malolos in Central Luzon. So how exactly did it fall? Why did the first Philippine Republic
09:57.2
cease to exist within just a few years? On the 15th of February 1898, the USS Maine,
10:04.2
a U.S. Navy ship, was sunk in Havana, Cuba. The incident, which was a byproduct of the Cuban
10:09.5
Revolution against Spanish rule on the Caribbean island, was taken as an excuse by the government
10:15.3
of the United States to declare war on Spain. In one of the most naked acts of imperialism ever
10:21.1
practiced by the U.S., the Spanish-American War was fought for the U.S. to effectively
10:26.6
seize control of Spain's few remaining colonies. Over the next several months,
10:31.1
the United States sent troops to seize control of Cuba, Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines.
10:36.7
And thus, just as the Philippine Revolution was developing into an independent Philippines,
10:42.0
the revolution became entangled with the conflict between Spain and the United States. The
10:47.6
revolutionary government in the Philippines now viewed the U.S. as naturally an ally against the
10:53.4
Spaniards. But in the process of accepting American aid, the Filipino revolutionaries
10:59.3
would effectively simply swap one imperial overlord for another. And the Treaty of Paris,
11:05.2
which was signed on December 10 of 1898, brought the Spanish-American War to an end after just
11:10.8
over six months of fighting, in which the Spaniards had been widely and roundly defeated
11:16.4
by the United States. However, rather than ensuring the success of the Philippine Revolution,
11:21.9
the Treaty of Paris effectively ceded the Philippines from Spain to the U.S. Rather
11:27.9
than acquiring independence, the Filipino revolutionaries now face a much more powerful
11:34.1
colonial overlord. For some weeks after the signing of the Treaty of Paris, the revolutionaries
11:39.4
held out some hope that the United States government would grant a large amount of
11:44.1
independence to the archipelago. But it was soon realized that this would not be the case.
11:49.9
And thus, on the 4th of February, 1899, the First Battle of the Philippine-American War
11:56.1
erupted between the First Philippine Republic and the United States. A battle that pitted
12:01.8
15,000 Filipino soldiers against 19,000 American troops. This fierce battle, however,
12:08.6
only lasted till the end of the following day, before the Americans emerged victorious. However,
12:15.3
it was also just the beginning of a much longer war between the Filipinos and the Americans.
12:21.8
The Philippine-American War would drag on for three years, before the revolutionaries were
12:27.6
largely defeated by the American imperial regime. The Philippine-American War was the
12:32.3
first major colonial war that catapulted the United States as a world power. You know,
12:37.6
it became a template for U.S. expansion and imperialism from the Vietnam War to Iraq and
12:44.2
even Afghanistan today. Indeed, the Philippine-American War was oftentimes referred to
12:50.2
as the First Vietnam. It was indeed a bloodier war that immediately followed the much-romanticized
12:57.0
Spanish-American War. And you know, because of the massive number of casualties and the
13:01.9
atrocities that followed the war, the Philippine-American War is also considered a genocide.
13:08.8
Now, the exact number of casualties has been debated in the past century. But according to
13:14.2
the official numbers, 4,200 American soldiers and more than 20,000 Filipino fighters were killed in
13:22.0
combat. But the violence was not confined within the limits of the battlefields. You know, despite
13:29.2
the conservative claims that only 200,000 Filipino civilians lost their lives during the war,
13:35.1
the total number of victims, you know, this is far bigger. In fact, multiple sources, historians,
13:43.6
even U.S. military officials and oral traditions acknowledge that by 1902, on the island of Luzon
13:51.5
alone, about 600,000 Filipino people were killed in the slaughter. And this alone is three times
13:59.4
the conservative number recognized by the United States. Now, Filipino historians also believe that
14:05.8
at the very least, the number of civilian casualties in the Philippines actually reached
14:11.1
1.4 million people. And given that at the beginning of the war, only about 9 million people lived in
14:17.5
the Philippines, if we think about it, 1.4 million Filipinos killed was about one-sixth of the total
14:24.8
population of the archipelago. And on paper, the war may have officially ended in 1902. But the
14:31.1
merciless violence and the conflict continued on for almost two decades. And within these decades
14:37.8
of darkness and violence, scholars also believe that up to 3 million Filipinos lost their lives
14:44.6
as a result of America's imperial ambitions in the Philippines. Three million people! That is
14:50.2
about a third of the archipelago's population before the war. But sadly, most people today
14:56.0
have forgotten about this. Most Filipinos are not even aware of this bloodshed. In the end,
15:01.6
you know, officially on paper, the conflict was somewhat brought to an end when the United States
15:07.4
made some concessions through the Philippine Organic Act of 1902, through which a Philippine
15:12.4
assembly was created, granting the archipelago a limited, a very limited amount of self-determination.
15:19.9
And with this, one might say that the first Philippine Republic came to an end as the
15:24.8
revolutionaries of 1896 laid down their arms in 1902. But as mentioned earlier, the war and the
15:31.7
merciless violence and conflict and genocide continued on for almost two decades. And it was
15:38.6
only on November 15, 1935 that the Commonwealth of the Philippines was inaugurated. And this
15:44.6
basically allowed for a certain degree of self-government while still being a colony of
15:49.3
the United States. So basically, it was like how Puerto Rico is today minus the US citizenship.
15:55.8
And in the end, though direct US rule over the Philippines would prove to be somewhat short-lived
16:01.0
compared to the Spaniards, much like the Spaniards, the United States faced a bloody war against
16:06.7
Muslims in Sulu and Mindanao for decades to come. While the islands were eventually also occupied
16:13.4
by the Japanese during the Second World War, a period that also saw the establishment of the
16:19.0
Second Philippine Republic on October 14, 1943. Now on paper, the Second Republic was supposed
16:25.5
to fulfill the promises of the First Philippine Republic and independent Philippines free from
16:30.7
Western imperialism. However, in reality, the Second Philippine Republic was not truly independent.
16:37.8
It was effectively a puppet state controlled by the imperial government in Tokyo. Now following
16:44.2
the end of World War II, US President Harry S. Truman issued Proclamation 2695 on the 4th of July
16:51.9
1946. And this finally granted independence to the Philippines. And thus, 50 years after the
16:59.3
First Philippine Revolution set in a chain of events that ushered in the establishment of the
17:05.0
First Philippine Republic, the Third Philippine Republic finally and officially achieved independence
17:11.7
for the nation. And today, the world recognizes the Fifth Philippine Republic as an independent
17:17.5
nation-state, with its sovereignty resting upon its diverse multi-ethnic people. However, many
17:25.0
experts and activists today would argue that the Philippines today is not truly independent.
17:32.0
Because historically speaking, the relationship between the Philippines and the United States
17:37.7
has been criticized by many as a form of neo-colonialism, a new form of imperialism
17:44.2
in which the Philippines continues to be subservient to the whims of the superpowers
17:49.8
like China and the United States. And thus, one can say that the promises of the First Philippine
17:56.6
Republic of a genuinely independent Philippines are yet to be fully achieved. Okay, so was the
18:04.6
First Philippine Republic really a failure? I mean, was it an epic fail at creating Asia's
18:10.3
very first modern democratic republic, you know, back in the 1800s? Not exactly. And here's why.
18:17.4
The First Philippine Republic may have only lasted for a few years, but its legacy survives
18:23.0
to this day. It has proven to the world that the people of what is now the Philippines have
18:28.3
always been capable of self-determination. They've always been fit for self-rule. Indeed,
18:34.9
it was evidence of the Filipino people's triumphant victory against three centuries
18:40.9
of colonialism and their determination to fend off foreign domination and imperialism.
18:47.5
And although it was not perfect, I mean, let's be honest. No republic in history has ever been
18:53.1
perfect. Definitely not the Philippines today, nor the United States, and not even ancient Rome
18:58.5
where the word republic comes from. And honestly, we can even make a separate future video just about
19:04.5
the failures and the weaknesses of the First Philippine Republic. So let me know in the
19:09.1
comments if that is something you would like to see on this channel. But yes, although it
19:14.1
was not perfect, the First Philippine Republic had many of the fundamental elements of modern-day
19:20.6
nation-states and present-day democracies. For example, it had a strong executive branch,
19:27.0
a congress to balance it out, an independent judiciary, and its own army. I mean, it even
19:32.7
included the establishment of a public university for the people. And this was back in the 1800s.
19:38.5
But perhaps more importantly, it guaranteed the protection of the rights of the people.
19:44.1
The Monolos Constitution of the First Philippine Republic was a testament to the aspirations and
19:49.8
the capabilities of the Filipino people for democracy, liberty, and justice. Indeed,
19:56.4
it was a beautiful reminder that the diverse multi-ethnic people of the Philippines are
20:01.6
capable of building their own modern democratic nation, capable of their own greatness,
20:08.1
capable of envisioning a free Philippines, and thus laying the foundations for a brighter future
20:15.6
for the Filipino people, for our people. You know, as opposed to being seen as uncivilized
20:21.8
and savages by both the Spanish Empire and the United States. In fact, along with the
20:27.4
Philippine Revolution, the First Philippine Republic was a beacon of hope for many colonized
20:33.5
and occupied people in Asia. Now, unknown to many, many independence movements were inspired
20:39.8
by the Philippine Revolution and the First Philippine Republic. An anti-colonial revolution
20:45.1
would soon spring all across Asia in the century that followed. Indeed, from China to Malaysia,
20:51.4
from India to Indonesia, and many more, the lessons of the Philippine Revolution and the
20:57.4
First Philippine Republic were an inspiration for many in the region across Asia and the Pacific
21:04.0
to fight for their freedom and to establish their own modern and democratic societies.
21:11.1
Now again, this video is just an introduction into this fascinating topic. So if you want to
21:15.5
learn more and dig deeper, make sure to check out my series of videos and my playlist about
21:20.6
the Philippine Revolution and independence. And I also wrote an entire book about these topics
21:26.1
and the solidarity between Filipinos and African Americans in the events surrounding the Philippine
21:31.0
American War. So make sure to check them out, my videos and playlist, and my book in the links
21:35.3
down below. And that is it for me today. So let me know what you think about today's topic in the
21:40.1
comments below. And if you like this video or learn a thing or two, don't forget to like, share
21:44.1
this video, comment down below, and please, please subscribe. But of course, before we go, today's
21:49.8
shout-out goes to Mike Legaspi of New York City, Hello Short from India, Bernie Mac of Cavite,
21:56.6
Aisha from Malaysia, and Bella of Canada. And of course, special thanks and special shout-out to my
22:03.1
patron Brian from San Francisco. You know, this video would not be possible, this channel would
22:08.3
not exist without the love and the support of all my patrons, subscribers, and viewers like you
22:13.8
throughout these years. Kaya naman, maraming maraming salamat po, daghang salamat, dakalpong salamat, at yaman na.
22:20.6
See you next time! Or in Tagalog, kita kits! And in Kapampangan, miki tits! And in Binisaya, kita aita!
