Note 2 — Chapter IX · PHILIPPINE INDEPENDENCE

In his pretty little romance, “Mariang Makiling,” he utters this protest against forced military service in the Philippines and indicates the effect it had on the people:

“Meanwhile, the time of the Spanish army’s conscription came. God knows the young men dreaded it, and how their mothers hated it! Youth, home, family, feelings, and sometimes honor itself, good-bye! Seven or eight years of such soldier life was brutalizing. The military despotism relied upon the lash. Such a prospect seemed to the youth a long night that would sap away the fairest portion of his life. In it would be horrible nightmares, and from it he would awake old, useless, corrupted, bloody, and cruel. So dreaded was the draft that some have been known to cut off their two fingers in order to exempt themselves from military service. Others pulled out their front teeth (in the days when the cartridge had to be bitten off). Still others fled to the mountains and became bandits. Not a few even committed suicide.”—Dr. Craig’s translation. ↑