Sakdalista
The Sakdalista movement was founded by the writer Benigno Ramos in 1930. The name of the movement is derived from the Tagalog word "Sakdal", which means "to accuse" and a nod to the J'Accuse…! editorial of the French novelist Émile Zola. The movement's platform was centered upon immediate independence, estate redistribution, taxation reductions, and greater governmental transparency. The movement lasted until 1935, when the Sakdalista leaders organized an active uprising that quickly failed, causing the party to dissolve. The movement is estimated to have had 20,000 formal members that influenced hundreds of thousands of Filipinos in the early 1930s.
Identity of the movement
The central goal of the Sakdalistas was simple: they wanted complete and immediate independence from the United States, which they believed would be the most effective means towards the alleviation of crippling taxation. The movement was born out of frustrations with corruption and inequality. Benigno Ramos described these sentiments in a December 1930 editorial: "In Manila we see our so-called leaders growing fat and rich on money amassed from taxing the poor. They have fine automobiles and fine homes for themselves, but for us they have only fine and empty words. They have learned to promise as much as the Americans and to deliver as little."People joined the Sakdalista movement for a variety of reasons. The party fearlessly exposed the wrongdoings of politicians, was truly compassionate about the poor and oppressed, was uncompromising in its stand on independence, and possessed integrity in terms of living up to its record of not being after the people's money. Its members perceived the movement as being very honest, as it was founded by a small group of modest middle-class citizens.
The party had a truly hopeful vision of the future. The Sakdalistas believed that, if independence were gained, the government would be able to right all of its past wrongs by giving land back to the landless, looking after the workers' welfare, nationalizing industries, providing youths with truly Filipino educations, setting up a pro-people judiciary, and keeping a close watch on the performance of politicians. The consensus was that this would all result in citizens not committing crimes because of a new independent standard of life where everybody would be rich, happy, and comfortable.
Benigno Ramos
Benigno Ramos spent his youth and formative years working as a poet, schoolmaster, government clerk, and newspaper editor before he was hired by Manuel Quezon to become a full-time translator for the Senate in 1917. He spent thirteen years as an influential speechwriter and orator, and in the process he amassed a small but solid following of political admirers by speaking for Quezon at party functions in Manila and Bulacan.A falling out with Quezon in June 1930 caused Ramos to resign from his government positions at the request of the Senate President. Ramos began publishing the Sakdal newspaper, thus founding the Sakdalista movement. After managing the paper for four years, Ramos made the strategic shift towards actively campaigning for Sakdalistas to get seats in government positions rather than simply pushing critical writings through the newspaper. The Sakdalistas had several unexpected electoral victories throughout the 1934 general election, making Benigno more famous than ever.
Ramos observed the massive failure of the May 1935 uprising from Tokyo. He refused to acknowledge the loss, and countered, "we know the American Government in the Islands is so strong that revolt against it means suicide. But what else can we do?" Ramos' response to the uprising cut his power, and public opinion quickly shifted against him.
He permanently moved to Japan in order to continue his work on Filipino independence by forming the Ganap political party. Ramos spent the years 1939 to 1942 in jail for illegal solicitation of money, and after his release he helped found the Kalibapi and Makapili political organizations. He possibly died in a plane crash in 1946, but the details of his death remain unknown.
History of the movement
Origins
In February 1930, an American teacher working in the Philippines, Mabel Brummitt, made racist insults toward several high school students, referring to them as "a bunch of sweet potato eaters" and "monkeys". In retaliation to the teacher's racist comments, the students staged high-profile walkout protests. Benigno Ramos found that he was sympathetic to the students' cause, so he decided to participate in the protests.Ramos was an eloquent high-level government employee, and his vocal dissent was at odds with the beliefs of future Filipino president Manuel Quezon. Quezon was a senator at the time, and also served as Ramos' employer and mentor. He insisted that Ramos resign from his government positions upon hearing about his participation in the protest, and on June 18, Ramos acquiesced.
Angered by the government's response to the protest, Ramos decided to establish a newspaper that would serve as a pulpit to air his criticisms of the current Filipino regime. Using personal funds as well as donations from friends and admirers, the first issue of his fortnightly newspaper, Sakdal, was published on June 28, 1930. The distribution of this first issue signaled the formal beginning of the Sakdalista movement.
1931–1932
The paper consisted of defenses of weak, impoverished, and exploited citizens in the Philippines. Any critic of the current regime was able to contribute editorials to the paper, and circulation grew to 18,494 subscribers by the end of 1931. The paper depended upon government-sanctioned mailing privileges, and so thus the writers were sometimes forced to avoid sensitive topics at certain tense moments at the risk of having their voices silenced completely. In addition to regularly printing criticism of officials, Sakdalistas collected donations for exiled sympathizers, boycotted foreign goods, and gave speeches at the request of various organizations in locations ranging from Pampanga to Zambales to Marinduque.In 1932, the organization raised enough funds through donations in order to buy their own printing press, which streamlined the publication process. Near the end of the year, Sakdal subscribers raised several thousand pesos to send Benigno Ramos on a diplomatic trip to the United States in order to protest the Hare–Hawes–Cutting Act in front of Congress. Ramos would bring copies of Sakdal with him to disperse along the way in order to rally foreign sympathizers to his cause.
Hare–Hawes–Cutting Act
The Hare–Hawes–Cutting Act originated with rural American farmer political action committees. The American PACs believed that Filipino imports posed great dangers to their economic welfare during the Great Depression. The law would subject Filipinos to official American tariffs and commence a ten-year transition towards independence. The Sakdalistas believed that ten years was an excessively long waiting period, and thus vehemently disapproved of the bill. The Filipino Nacionalista Party was in favor of the act, which was eventually approved by the United States Congress in early 1933 after a veto from President Herbert Hoover was overturned.1933
Ramos left for the United States on April 10, and Sakdal editor Celerino Tiongco became the acting manager of the newspaper in his absence. Ramos toured through California, Utah, and Denver over several months, finally arriving in Washington D.C. in July. To the Sakdalistas' dismay, Ramos was unable to stop the passage of the Hare–Hawes–Cutting Act because of his leisurely pace through the west. He had arrived to the capital too late to act.Ramos' ineffective tour caused a great sense of frustration within the Sakdalista party. The management concluded that their standard methods of political demonstration and critical press were not going to be effective in advancing towards independence. Furthermore, the incumbent legislators in the Philippines were certainly not going to change their minds on the subject. Considering the fact that the country's general election was set to occur the next year, they decided that the only way forward was to form their own political party and gain official seats in congress. Thus, the official Sakdalista political party was formed in mid-October, 1933.
1934
Chapters of the movement were established all across the Philippines in preparation for the June Senate and House elections. The Sakdalistas made a credible showing, winning all three seats that they ran for in the House of Representatives. A Sakdalista became governor of the Marinduque province. Additionally, "n Laguna, Bulacan, Rizal, and Cavite, the party's candidates for municipal offices made remarkable showings and won more than a score of important posts." These numerous victories were certainly not strong enough to truly challenge the Nacionalista's support of the Tydings–McDuffie Act, but they were enough to move the Sakdalista movement into the limelight and illustrate the extent of rural discontent in the Philippines.The Nacionalista party quickly realized the true power of the Sakdalista movement. They immediately resolved petty intra-party differences in order to close ranks and politically exclude the Sakdalistas. To counter this political obstacle, Ramos traveled to Japan in November in an attempt to gain foreign support after his failed tour through the United States.