TODAY IN THE PAST

June 21, 1901, William H. Taft is appointed first civil governor of the Philippines. During his term, he undertakes the purchase, for the Insular Government the large tracts of agricultural land from the religious orders, and declares them public domain for sale to tenants.

How did these friar estates come into the possession of the colonial government?

In 1902, President Roosevelt sent Taft to Rome to negotiate the withdrawal of the friars from the Philippines and the purchase of their landed estates.

The Pope refused to agree to either proposal but in December 1903, before Governor Taft's term ended, he finally succeeded in reaching an agreement with the religious corporations in Manila to buy 410,000 acres of their landholdings for some seven million dollars.

The Philippine Commission passed the Friar Lands Act which prescribed the conditions for the sale and lease of the friar estates, preference to be given to some sixty thousand tenants who worked the land.

The purchase of the friar haciendas was a shrewd political move designed to gain the goodwill of the Filipinos and thus help reconcile them to American sovereignty.

However, the government obviously had no serious intention of implementing the declared objective of giving preference to the tillers, for by insisting on setting a selling price which would allow it to recover the purchase price plus the interest on the bonds it had floated to raise the cash, it in effect put the land beyond the reach of most tenants.