"Sentries may frequently be more useful by standing and watching
what goes on than by walking their posts ..."
--Constabulary Manual

IN 1913 the old guard members of the Philippine Constabulary--the bush veterans who had conquered jungle and made the country safe for American citizens--reaped the usual reward for such service. With the arrival of Governor-General Francis Burton Harnson, the Constabulary was the sole surviving monument of the old traditions. Under Harrison, a system of too rapid Filipinization took place, and members of the Philippine government service found themselves ejected in middle age from the army and civil lists of the Philippines.

Out of touch with their homeland and weakened by years of malaria and jungle warfare, the old campaigners found themselves the victims of a cleverly worded law that forced their retirement. This law provided that every American official and government employee who applied for retirement within three months could retire with a bonus of one year's pay. The result was eviction by wholesale of Constabulary officers.

But in the southern islands, a nucleus of old veterans remained to carry on the bloody work of the pacification of the Moros. They were men apart in a materialistic world; they fought for the joy of fighting, with an ideal of service before their eyes and a vision of the Philippines that were to be. And to those Constabulary riflemen of two decades ago, the rubber planters and plantation men of Mindanao owe their existence today.

Captain Vernon Whitney became Governor of Jolo. In assuming the position, Whitney was undertaking the leadership of a jungle province that was the oldest battleground in the world. Men of every creed and color had tried to occupy the city of Jolo and its environs. Few had succeeded in impressing governmental discipline upon the Moros. Esteban Rodriguez de Figuoea had gestured feebly with the Moros in 1578 before falling to a kris blade in Mindanao. Behind him, great Spanish names had appeared, briefly to gesture with death. Shadowy figures for the most part, and deep in the finality of oblivion: de Sande, the religious fanatic; Juan del Campo, Caspar Gomez; Juan de la Jara, the amorous; and Captain Paches, a magnificent figure for an hour, before he relaxed in death on the outpost walls at Caldera.

History yields the names of the Moro campaigners reluctantly. Lorenzo de Olaso was one ... a glittering figure in armor, advancing too near the walls of Jolo to go down before a whining spear . . . Cepeda, leaving 400 Moro dead on a reddened field, falling in turn at a bloody ambush on Tawi-Tawi .... Valiant Spaniards, feeding their bodies to the Moros but replaced and replaced by others as valiant.

This Moro capital of Jolo had been assaulted by Spain on sixteen occasions, five of which resulted in the occupation of the city. It required Spain 298 years to establish a civil government within the walls of Jolo; and of the 321 years of struggle for the city, it was held by the Moros for 290 years and by a Spanish garrison for 31 years. Whitney was taking over a position that was full man-size.

After the battles of Bud Bagsak and Talipao, the Moros were of uncertain temper. There was no withdrawing from the struggle; if the Mohammedan official army was broken, the mood for battle was still strong in the air. The patrols reported that often the mere sight of Constabulary bayonets was sufficient to start amucks on their course of death.

Shortly after Whitney became Governor, reports began to sift into headquarters of trouble between two Moro Datus at Bual on the eastern end of the island. Whitney was no swivel-chair Governor. Hastily he ordered out the launch Jewel and proceeded to Bual. He found the Moro marketplace a scene of apparent peace and quiet. His interpreter, a Moro named Arolas, questioned the people for a few moments and then asked permission to visit friends on the beach.

The Moro did not return, and Whitney set off down a coconut palm shaded trail in search of him. The Governor was moving slowly, as one leg was almost lifeless from his severe wound at Sahipas Cotta.

Nearing the beach, he met two Moros in the trail who approached him with the information that his interpreter had been wounded and was in need of attention. Then they were upon the Governor with bared bolos.

But Whitney, giant in size and magnificent in personal combat, acted with the instinct of the born fighting man. As the Moros rushed him he reached for one and with a simultaneous motion, tucked the Moro under his arm with the left hand while his right drew a .45 and blew out the brains of the other. Whitney then placed the muzzle of his revolver to the ear of the other Moro and the affair was finished in five seconds.

But the Governor was not unscathed. While Whitney was firing at the second Moro, the Mohammedan he held captive under his left arm had squirmed an arm free and laid open Whitney's back from shoulder to spine. A month in the hospital and he was on the job again . . . with a prestige of value as a fighting man that was to win him the highest measure of success of any governor of Jolo of those early days.

The disarming of the Moros was splendid in theory, but almost impossible to execute without great blood-shed. The Moro had borne arms for centuries, in a land where the bearing of an edged blade was the sign of manhood. It was a privilege that his Sultans and Datus had encouraged; and to a Moro, the guarding of a privilege is a jealous rite.

The Constabulary was under orders to take every barong, campilane or kris they encountered in the course of a patrol. It was desperate, bloody work. In speaking of this law Lieutenant Tiffany writes in detail:

"It was a terrible thing to take the barong away from a Joloano Moro. You were taking away his visible masculine characteristic. You made him a woman and less than a woman. Most any Constabulary officer could kill a Moro and take his blade. Some officers did. It was all a part of the day's work to them. When they met a Moro wearing a barong they called for the blade. If he resisted or started to run, they shot him and entered it in their report. But to take a weapon from a Moro required skill and patience, and I could not find it in me to kill them in cold blood because they stood on their tribal rights.

"To reverse the situation: if Mexicans swarmed across the border and started killing every American who refused to give up his gun we would call them barbarians and fight them to death with teeth and pitchforks. So I had sympathy with the Moros and sought to make it easy for them. But I had my orders.

"I would be leading a patrol across Jolo, with perhaps six to ten soldiers. We would see a Moro cutting through a field and notice that he carried a blade. The carved mahogany handle would tell us it was a fighting weapon. I would hail him.

"He would approach and I would try to remonstrate with him. I would tell him that the world was full of men--real men--who did not carry barongs. That it was against the law and he must give it up. Sometimes he did. Sometimes he would approach, and when he would see the soldiers his eyes would begin to glisten with excitement. When I saw that he was going to make a run for it, I would order the men to fix bayonets. The sight of the blades and the rattle of the bayonet as it went on the barrel usually tripped the poor fellow off. He would whirl and charge, deciding that life without a barong was not worth living.

"The Moro soldiers would not be sorry for him as they shot him down. They knew that he wanted to die. Sometimes he would cast himself upon the bayonets. Being a Moro, he preferred to die on a blade. Yes, disarming Moros was a sad and messy business."

The mere killing of Moros was not to solve the problem of Sulu. The highest type officers in the Constabulary--men like Tiffany and Whitney and Fort and Wood,--were quick to see that. Nor was the Moro to be bluffed. The work of the Constabulary was developing into bona fide police work. The old time fighting man and combat officer were giving away now, whenever possible, to the diplomat and advisor, but there was no love for Americans in Jolo. The mountain-top battle of Bud Bagsak was the high tension spark that set the whole island aflame. The Moro recovers quickly from a defeat in the field. War is a game, and a worthy antagonist makes the game better worth the playing. And these Americans were worthy antagonists. Here were no soldiers cowering behind walls of stone . . . here were young fighting men who sought the open fields of cogon grass to meet the Moros on their own ground.

The result was a reversal of the modes of warfare in the Moro country. The Mohammedans dug in--the Americans went in after them. All over the country cottas began to spring into being, thick-walled forts of packed earth and rock, defended by firing pits and slashing krismen. Sometimes the Constabulary patrols were able to surprise the natives in the act of constructing a cotta. A few sticks of dynamite and the fort would go up in ruins ... a week later and a passing patrol would see a new fort erected on the ruins of the old.

Shortly after Bagsak, two cottas sprang up overnight, almost, in a ravine near Jolo. The 16th and 24th Scout Companies and a mountain battery under Lieutenant Dillman were ordered out to raze the forts. The Scouts were under command of Lieutenants Walker and Conroy.

For hours the Scouts pumped shrapnel and solid shot into the cotta of Tahil. The Moros on the walls laughed as the shells bit into the walls. Dillman was getting no results from the cannon fire other than a strengthening of the bamboo walls. A squad of dynamite bombers was ordered into action, and the walls began to collapse. Handling the dynamite bombs was a tricky business. There was always a chance that a Moro bullet would set off the caps, and the fuses were cut very short to prevent the Moros from throwing them back on the troops.

As the wall collapsed the Scouts went over the top and bashed in the Moro's heads with rifle butts as they emerged from their firing pits.

A hundred yards away the cotta of Jahanal was still under attack. The Scouts had to dig their way into the fort while a squad of riflemen kept the walls clear of Moros. When an entrance had been made in the fore walls the Scouts were unable to capture the fort, as the Moros were in position to lop off the heads of the attackers as they crawled through the small opening. Walker worked a squad of men and a mountain gun against the side of the fort and pumped shrapnel at point-blank range into the cotta. The Moros were ground to bloody powder, and the Scouts entered to finish off the remainder in hand-to-hand battle.

In the whole history of the Mohammedans there is no evidence of unwillingness on their part to die in battle. As the disarming process continued, the hot-heads banded together again, and when the Star and Crescent hung low on the horizon above the Southern Cross the signs were right for another resistance to American authority.

It was on the summit of Bud Talipao, near Maimbun, that the Moros gathered for another of their last stands. Talipao was to be the Mountain of Destiny, and through all the southern islands swept the word that Allah was standing by to deliver a miracle. Rice thrown into the air would turn into bees that would swarm down the mountainside to sting the Americans. While the Americans were fighting the bees, the bolomen would rush them and Sulu would be delivered.

The assault on Mount Talipao was begun on October 24, 1913. Major Shaw of the Scouts led the attack, which got under way early in the morning of a day that was still and sultry and uneasy. The companies deployed through the high cogon and moved up and over the first rise of ground. Not a Moro was in sight. Not a shot was fired until the troops had moved 200 yards up the slope.

Then the Moros came. With a yell, they unsheathed the terrible barongs, and the mountain side was colored with the bounding figures dressed in green and blue jackets and orange and red turbans. Fifty Mohammedans made up that first assault, and the line stood firm to receive them. They fell, riddled with bullets, without inflicting casualties. The Scouts pushed up the mountain. Another fold in the mountain disgorged half a hundred fanatics. The rifles grew hot as the Scouts faced charge after charge of frantic krismen. It was desperate work, with death for the soldier who missed the fast moving targets.

At the summit of the mountain the troops came out to see the rifle pits of the defenders and the main body of the Mohammedans. As they fixed bayonets for the last charge, the Moros were outlined against the sky, throwing rice into the air. The Moro leader, a fine individual marksman, seized a Krag rifle and opened fire on the Scout line. Six bullets from that deadly rifle found the hearts of Scout soldiers.

The advance halted. Major Shaw, leader of the attacking force, saw that the eviction of the Moros as the result of a charge across open country would cost enormously in life. He ordered a squad of riflemen to maintain a hot fire across the pit where the concealed Data marksman was hidden. This enabled Lieutenant Conroy to dash close to the trench and throw in an improvised dynamite bomb.

But the Moro was ready for him. There was a blur against the sky as the bomb came back, to explode in the faces of the attackers. Conroy threw another bomb, fuse shorter this time. Again the bomb came back, hurled by the Moro, to explode in the air. Then Conroy, the bomber, prepared a bomb with a fuse that was timed to cause an explosion in five seconds. Signaling the troops to pour in a terrific volley, Conroy sprinted to within thirty feet of the rifle pit, touched a match to the fuse and tossed the bomb to the waiting Moro.

In that manner ended the third decisive victory of the Americans over the Moros in Sulu. But that exploding bomb that sent a Moro patriot to Paradise did nothing to quiet the mood for battle that remained.

Mindanao was swarming with malcontent Moros who were at grips with the patrols in all parts of the provinces of Lanao and Cotobato. Juramentados with shaven heads were running the jungles of Basilan, less than fifteen miles from the American headquarters at Zamboanga. In the city of Jolo, juramentados were penetrating the town almost at will. The records of the day tell of the visit of one juramentado who penetrated the walls and killed nine persons before he was blasted out of existence by combined fire of the guard post.

But there was another side to the embattled Moros--a side that is rarely considered in any estimate of these Mohammedans. That was their undoubted ability as businessmen. The Sulu Moro has had the benefit of many centuries of traffic with the white man, and he has brought to these sessions a native craft that is the birthright of the Malay. As a fighting man or a financier, the Moro must take a high rank.

The establishment in 1936 of a tentative Philippine Commonwealth Government to replace the American colonial experiment brings to light certain financial transactions remaining to be settled by the new regime in the Philippines. They concern the emoluments of that Royal Financier, the Sultan of Sulu.

The Sultanate of Sulu came into being in the year 1450 with the accession of one Sayid Abu Bakr, a recent and persuasive arrival from Borneo. Abu and thirteen of his successors were individual entrepreneurs, dependent upon the bounty of the country and the efforts of the pirate squadrons in that matter of filling the royal treasury. They achieved a certain measure of success, but with far greater effort than was necessary in the later years of the dynasty.

It was not until the crowning of Alimud Din I, about the year 1735, that the full benefits of civilization became apparent to the Sultans of Sulu. True, during the reign of the sixth Sultan, he who had been called Mohammedul Halim, the Spaniards had arrived in force before the capital city of Sug (now called Jolo), and opened negotiations for contact. The Spanish commander, Don Estevan Rodnguez de Figuroea, bore with him a letter from the Spanish Captain-General, Francisco De Sande, containing instructions as follows:

"You shall repair to the Island of Sulu and you shall there bargain with the natives as to what tribute they shall pay, which shall be in pearls . . . you shall take from them only what is necessary for food and the provisioning of your ships for the return voyage ... if the natives of this place shall give tribute, you shall act according to the usual custom -- namely, you shall place one-half to the account of our Majesty, whilst the other half shall be distributed among the soldiers."

The Sulu Moros were singularly irresponsive to this beneficient Spanish suggestion, and the idea was regretfully abandoned by Figuroea.

This then, had been the extent of the Spanish contact, with the exception of desultory conflict, until the year 1746, when the Sultan Alimud Din I became suddenly aware of the benefits of outside financial assistance. He granted, therefore, the admission of Jesuit missionaries to Jolo, and wrote to the Spanish Captain-General with a request for 6,000 pesos, 1,600 pounds of gunpowder, and 1600 pounds of nails.

The nails were for the construction of suitable quarters for the priests of Spain--this in a country where the houses are built of nipa palm, lashed together with vines! The need for the gunpowder remained unexplained in the Sultan's letter. Sometime later, when Mu'izzud Din II had usurped the Sultanate, the need for the gunpowder became increasingly plain to the Spaniards, for the year 1753 was the bloodiest in the whole history of Moro piracy. The nails were used with telling effect, and the conquistadores spent weary hours picking them from various portions of their anatomy. They had made splendid charges for the brass cannon of the Moros.

The next monetary concession of importance to be made by the Spanish government to the Sultan of Sulu, occurred in the year 1836, coincident with the signing of a commercial treaty prepared by Captain Jose M. Halcon. Its provisions related to the payment of port duties by Spanish craft anchoring in the Sulu capital at Jolo:

Article 5--Spanish craft in Jolo will pay the following duties:

It may be seen from the above that the Spanish foothold in Sulu was insecure, and very financial in nature.

By the year 1851, the Sultans of Sulu were demanding a place of dignity on the Spanish official payroll. It was made plain to the Spanish authorities that the Moro pirates had been singularly inactive, and that an outbreak might be expected at any moment. The Spaniards took the suggestion kindly and a new treaty came into being, signed and sealed on April 30 of that same year. After some haggling, the amount of the Sultan's salary was established at 1500 pesos per annum. In addition, he received an "adequate Royal Title" from the Spanish King.

Four years later Sulu pirates burned the town of Zamboanga.

Affairs drifted along in desultory manner for several years, but in 1878 it was decided that the salary of the Sultan was not sufficient to guarantee order, and another treaty was signed in July of that year. The new deal provided for an annual salary of 2,400 pesos for the Sultan, and it was signed: I, Don Domingo Moriones y Murillo, in the name of his Majesty the King of Spain, Alfonso XII, whom God keep, do confirm and ratify the above Act of Pacification and Capitulation, in all parts."

Even that was not sufficient to secure a lasting peace treaty, and the Moro wars continued on without interruption until that day in May, 1899, when the Spanish garrison lined the pier to watch the landing of the first American troopers under Captain Pratt.

The dollar displaced the peso in Sulu. Brigadier-General J. C. Bates now undertook the arrangement of the Sultan's financial subsidy in the name of the Government of the United States. The Bates Agreement of August 20, 1899, was the result of the negotiations, and it provided an annual retainer to the Sultan of three thousand American dollars. The Sultan thus found the change in paymasters most beneficial.

It should be mentioned also that His Majesty, in his other capacity of Sultan of North Borneo, was in receipt of a substantial payment from the British Borneo Trading Company, thereby acquiring a familiarity with currencies of two great nations.

This pleasant association with the American eagle, as pictured on American currency, was continued until March 21, 1904, at which time the Sultan visited amiably with Governor William H. Taft in Manila and succeeded in having his financial remuneration increased to the sum of $6,750 each twelvemonth.

It is understood that he built a wing on the Palace in commemoration of the Manila trip . . .

The payment was continued in that sum, notwithstanding the anguished protests of the Sultan from time to time. In 1911 his Majesty visited Singapore, where, after viewing the splendors of the Malaysian potentates, he returned sadly to Sulu to draft an impassioned note to the American authorities. The Sultanic message asked for a pay increase on the ground that the "influence of the American trusts had greatly increased the general cost of living."

The plea fell upon unsympathetic ears.

This then, is the present status of the Sultan of Sulu: salaried man of the Insular government; subsidized man of the British government, and with these things, an appointment as Senator in the Philippine legislative body. Sultan Jamalul Kiram, who passed to the scented gardens of Paradise in 1937, had seldom attended the sessions and had never been known to raise his voice in opinion. His opinions in regard to Philippine independence and the possible general effects upon the circulation of currency would have been interesting.

In the early hours of payday, it was said that the Sultan could be found sitting in an automobile outside the doorway to the government paymaster's office, waiting with a slight degree of regal impatience for his monthly emolument.

But successful financier that he is, it will be as a fighting man that the Moro will best be remembered by the historian. With his cousin, the pulajan of Samar and Leyte, he belongs in that select class of men who are born for battle. Pulajan and Moro lived according to the law of their land and the code of their country.

Better than anyone else has Stanley Portal-Hyatt summed up this law of the Philippines: "The law of the Bolo has the crowning merit of simplicity. It has but one clause--that the spoil shall go to the man with the longest reach. Possibly the process is crude but at least, it is speedy and final. Judge, jury, counsel: the bolo takes the place of all of these; and there is no appeal, at any rate in this life. The law of the Bolo also has the merit of antiquity. It was in force when the Spaniards annexed the archipelago; it is in force there today; and probably it will still be in force when not only this generation, but half a dozen of its successors as well, have passed away. Not because the law is perfect--no law is, but because it is so admirably suited to local conditions. Half the trouble in the Islands has been because white men do not recognize this elemental code."

It was against that background that Constabulary and Scouts played out that stirring period of American martial history that is represented by the endless patrols.

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Original publication © 1938 E. P. Dutton & Co., Inc.

Filipiniana Reprint Series © 1985 Cacho Hermanos, Inc.

This publication (HTML format & original artwork) © 2001 Bakbakan International.

Transcription courtesy of Ashley Bass.