Note 99 — THE PHILIPPINES, 1860–1898—SOME COMMENT AND BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTES

Because the friars are so much to the fore in all the discussions of these events, we must not overlook the part played by governmental abuses, as already described. The Civil Guard, given a more extensive organization and scope of action during these closing years of Spanish rule, by its abuses (committed, for the most part, by Filipinos upon their own fellows) played probably the foremost part in drawing odium upon the government.99 Next to police abuses, and sometimes allied with them, were the misuses of the powers of local government (with which alone the great majority of the people came into direct contact), especially in regard to the levy of forced labor; and here again, the humble Filipino’s complaint was chiefly against his own fellow-countrymen of power and position. But, summing up all the administrative abuses and all the evils of the government system, we are still left a long way from agreement with the friars’ assertions that the masses loved them and that governmental abuses were the sole cause of rebellion.100