Evaluation of American Colonial Policy on …iaast.org/upload/6310A0715054.pdfAbstract — Rice (sn: Oryza sativa) has been the staple cereal food not only of the Filipinos but in

Abstract—Rice (sn: Oryza sativa) has been the staple cereal food

not only of the Filipinos but in all of Asia long before the coming of

European colonizers. In the Philippines, early Spanish missionaries

recorded in their chronicles of events the planting and harvesting of

rice in their community. Most of the farmlands planted with rice are

those areas situated near the mouth of rivers and other inland bodies

of water. These include the areas of Manila and its surrounding

regions of south and central Luzon.

In the three centuries of Spanish colonization, the focus was more

on trade and commerce rather than agricultural production. It was

only in 19th century that the Spanish government gave substantial

support to encourage agricultural production but mostly on “high

value crops” for export. Rice and other traditional agricultural

products like coconut were almost left behind.

When the Americans replaced the Spaniards as colonial masters of

the Filipino, agriculture is placed as one of its priority economic

programs. The American insular government promoted the so-called

scientific way of agricultural production through mechanization

method. Nueva Ecija which was one of the earlier provinces that were

pacified by the Uncle Sam’s troops became a large experimental

station of American policy on agriculture, most notably on rice

production.

This paper will specifically describe and illustrate the general

situation of rice production in Nueva Ecija during the American

colonization of the province, from 1902 to 1940 by identifying and

discussing the programs initiated by the American colonial

government related to rice production in Nueva Ecija and the impact

of these programs to the economic condition of the province in

particular and the country in general

This study will also highlight the significant contributions of

Nueva Ecija in Philippine economic history emerging from being a

third class province during the Spanish colonization to becoming the

country’s top rice producing province during the American period.

Keywords—rice production, economic history, Nueva Ecija,

scientific agriculture

I. NUEVA ECIJA BEFORE THE AMERICAN PERIOD

The province of Nueva Ecija known during the early part of

the Spanish colonial period as Upper Pampanga (together with

some parts of southern Tarlac province) was later carved-out

from Pampanga and converted into a “comandancia militar”

(military district) in 1705 by Governor Fausto Cruzat y

Jay B. Villafria, Jr., Instructor III, Department of Social Sciences, College

of Arts and Sciences, Central Luzon State University, Science City of Munoz,

Province of Nueva Ecija, Philippines, Tel. No. +63-906-2471-778, Email:

[email protected].

Gongora in honor of his native town in Andalucia named

Ecija.1

In 1818, the territory was expanded to include areas in the

Pacific Coast and the Sierra Madre including the Polilio Island.

Three decades later, the comandancia was formally

reorganized to become a regular province completely separated

from its mother province of Pampanga. Upon its conversion,

Nueva Ecija annexed some pueblos in Pampanga that include

the present day municipalities of Gapan, Cabiao, San Isidro,

San Antonio and Aliaga.2

From its vast and large land territory, Nueva Ecija

drastically shrink its terrestrial jurisdiction when in 1853,

Baler, Casiguran and other towns of the present-day province

of Aurora were taken to form another district. In 1856, Palanan

was taken out followed by Binangonan and Polilio Island in

1858. And finally in 1901 during the first year of American

colonization, the municipalities of Umingan, Rosales, San

Quintin and Balungao were annexed by Pangasinan.3

The Augustinian friars established the cabecera of Gapan in

1595 but some accounts claimed that as early as 1590, a

mission parish was already founded in the nearby pueblo of

Cabiao.4. By the early 1800s, Ilocanos from Ilocos region

began migrating in the northern pueblos of Umingan, San

Quintin, Balungao, Rosales (now all part of Pangasinan),

Cuyapo, Nampicuan and Talugtug. The second wave of

Ilocano migration came in 1870s and 1880s.

The province especially the southern areas were under the

tobacco monopoly from 1766-1880 wherein farmers are

obliged to plant and harvest tobacco plants under a definite

quota and sell them to the Spanish colonial government at a

fixed price set by the government itself. The tobacco

production in Gapan for instance in 1870 produced a total of

73,941 fardos with a net value of 106,787 pesos.5

Nueva Ecija’s commercial exports during the 1870s were

consist of tobacco, lumber, forest wild products, dried venison

and to some extent, some significant amount of rice, After a

1 McLennan, Marshall S. 1980. The Central Luzon Plain: Land and

Society on the Inland Frontier. Quezon City: Alemar-Phoenix Publishing

House, Inc. p.176 2 Ibid. 3 Ibid. 4 Ibid.p.177

5 De Jesus, Ed C. 1980. The Tobacco Monopoly in the Philippines:

Bureaucratic Enterprise and Social Change, 1766-1880. Quezon City:

Ateneo De Manila University Press. p.207

Evaluation of American Colonial Policy on

Agriculture: The Case of Rice Production

Industry in Nueva Ecija, Philippines, 1902-1940

Jay B. Villafria, Jr.

2nd International Conference on Agriculture, Environment and Biological Sciences (ICAEBS'15) August 16-17, 2015 Bali (Indonesia)

http://dx.doi.org/10.17758/IAAST.A0715054 42

decade, the province became an important supplier of rice in

Manila.

II. THE COMING OF THE AMERICANS

American troops first reached Nueva Ecija on May 1899

when General Henry Lawton made a great push toward

Aguinaldo’s troops who retreated from San Isidro to

Cabanatuan. Aguinaldo’s tactical plan was to make the

province a defensive ground against the advancing Americans.

Gen. Antonio Luna, Aguinaldo’s chief military tactician

objected to this and decided to hole himself in Bayambang,

Pangasinan. On June 5, 1899, Gen. Luna was assassinated in

Cabanatuan by Aguinaldo’s soldiers.6

The Malolos Congress was convened by Filipino

revolutionaries on January 1899 to give a stamp of legitimacy

to Aguinaldo’s government. Nueva Ecija was represented in

that Congress by Jose Santiago who was elected to become

delegate and Epifanio Delos Santos of Morong and Gregorio

Macapinlac of Pampanga who were both appointed.7

Guerilla warfare became prevalent in the province as

Aguinaldo continued to elude the advancing American forces.

An American army headquarters was established in San Isidro

led by Col. Frederick Funston while Novo Ecijano resistance

fighters were led Generals Urbano Lacuna, Pantaleon Garcia

and Manuel Tinio.

Finally, in 1901, guerilla leaders surrendered and accepted

the authority of the American civil government under William

H. Taft. On June 11, 1902 the provincial government of Nueva

Ecija was established with Epifanio delos Santos as governor.

Except for the clerks and messengers, high local government

officials of the province were not born in Nueva Ecija although

they already became residents of the province.

III. AGRARIAN SITUATION IN NUEVA ECIJA

Agriculture became the prime basis of the Philippine

economy at the beginning of the 19th

century when the symbol

of personal and national economic status shifted from labor

(slaves) to land, primarily agricultural lands. These agricultural

lands were mostly haciendas owned by the Spanish friars and

managed by the inquilinos while actual works in the fields

were done by the kasama. This economic system on land

production continued up to the coming of the Americans when

they attempted to overhaul the land ownership system to

improve agricultural production.

Economic historian Onofre Corpuz described the relations of

the hacendero-inquilino-kasama system in most haciendas in

Luzon especially on those areas planted with rice:

“The hacienda saw the advantages of leasing out a few fairly

large tracts to the inquilinos (lessees) instead of assigning

small plots to families. The hacienda owners thus relieved

themselves of the tedious chores of recruiting and dealing

with the workers; the lessees brought in their own men.

Because they belonged to the pueblo elite, each had their

6 Gleeck, Lewis, Jr. 1981. Nueva Ecija in American Times: Homesteaders,

Hacenderos and Politicos. Manila: The Historical Conservation Society. p.3

7 Ibid. p.5

own followers or kasamahan who depended upon him as

their patron; the latter included the lessee’s poor relations.

The inquilino allocated the lease tract among his men,

called kasama. He supported them and their families during

the lean months before the crop was in, and the members of

the kasama families worked as servants in his household the

whole year round. The custom was for 10 percent of the

harvest to be paid to the hacienda as rent; the kasama and

the inquilino were entitled to equal shares in the balance; but

the kasama often got nothing and was more deeply in debt to

the inquilino because the advances he received from the

latter during the lean months exceeded his customary

shares.”8

Haciendas in Nueva Ecija during the late 19th

century were

actually owned by provincial elites “predominantly of Spanish

and Chinese mestizo stocks.”9 The largest hacienda, the Sabani

Estate now comprising the town of Gabaldon has an area of

6,000 hectares with 3,000 heads of cattle.10

Since none among

the haciendas in Nueva Ecija was owned by the friars, the

estates were retained to the hacenderos during the time that the

American government purchased tracts of friar lands in

neighboring provinces of Bulacan, Pampanga and Manila.

The continuing hold and control of traditional economic

elites to the farmlands resulted to several peasant uprisings

during the American period. In Nueva Ecija, an Ilocano

migrant named Pedro Kabola11

planned a massive armed attack

on the seat of municipal government of San Jose, Nueva Ecija.

His plan was foiled by the military intelligence operatives.

Other agrarian-related revolts spread and continued in

Pangasinan and other areas of north, central and south Luzon.

IV. AMERICAN POLICY ON RICE PRODUCTION IN NUEVA

ECIJA

The American civil government encouraged the people of

Nueva Ecija to cultivate public lands for rice and other crops

via the homestead program. The program was created by virtue

of the Public Land Act promulgated on October 7, 1903.

Tagalogs and Kapampangans were adamant to comply with

this act but the Ilocanos who migrated in group to the province

“successfully resolved the primary Filipino objection to the

homestead program.”

As part of American policy of provincial development,

priority was given to the promotion of “mechanized

agriculture” to minimize the effect of pest infestations,

typhoons and other natural calamities. Government assistance

were provided in terms of rice seedlings and galvanized iron

sheets to minimize the impact of locusts attacks in the

ricelands.

8 Corpuz, Onofre D. 1997. An Economic History of the Philippines.

Quezon City: University of the Philippines Press. pp.115-116 9 McLennan, Marshall S. “Changing Human Ecology on the Central Luzon

Plain: Nueva Ecija,1705-1939” in McCoy, Alfred W. and De Jesus, Ed C.

1982. Philippine Social History: Global Trade and Local Transformation.

Quezon City: Ateneo De Manila University Press. p.69 10 Ibid.p.67 11 Kabola’s failed armed revolt which is supposed to take place in San

Jose, Nueva Ecija as well as other peasant uprisings during the American

occupation were narrated and discussed in Sturtevant, David. 1976. Popular

Uprisings in the Philippines, 1840-1940. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.



TABLE I

RICE CULTIVATION AND PRODUCTION IN THE PROVINCE OF NUEVA ECIJA

FROM 1902-1930

Source: McLennan, Marshall S. 1980. The Central Luzon Plain: Land and

Society on the Inland Frontier. Quezon City: Alemar-Phoenix Publishing

House, Inc. p. 250

Note: clean rice means milled rice packaged into cavan. 1 cavan is equal to

50 kilograms.

Table 1 shows the increasing area of lands utilized for rice

production in the province of Nueva Ecija. The increase is

attributed to the increasing number of migrations mostly of

Ilocanos coming from north Luzon to settle in areas where

large tracts of land are suitable for rice production like San

Jose, Talavera and Bongabon. Take note however that

production of clean rice (milled rice) cannot sustain its

increasing trend. The production for the year 1912 for example

has been drastically decreased by 75 percent compared to the

preceding year. The drastic decline can be attributed to

locusts/pests infestations and severe weather disturbance that

occurred during that particular period.

V. DEVELOPMENT OF INFRASTRUCTURES

One of the problems faced by the American civil

government in developing the agricultural capacity of Nueva

Ecija is its very “appalling hardships” to be accessed and to be

travelled.

These deplorable conditions of accessibility and safety

prompted the provincial and insular government to facilitate

the construction of railway in Cabanatuan in 1905 and passing

through key municipalities of the province. Chinese rice

traders and millers followed suit and put up trading businesses

in the province. The railway connection lessened the

production costs of rice farmers and other businessmen in the

province. The governor of the province reported a 75 percent

reduction of transportation cost and great improvement of

commerce in the province.12

12 Gleeck. p.36

In 1912, the provincial government of Nueva Ecija loaned

from the national government in Manila the following amount:

P30, 000 for the construction of the North-South highway;

P180, 000 for the construction of four major bridges; and, P15,

000 for the construction of road from Cabanatuan to Aliaga.

Public schools of the towns of Guimba, Licab, San Antonio,

Penaranda, Jaen, Nampicuan, Cabiao, Sta. Rosa, San Leonardo

and Bongabon were also constructed as well vital and

connecting roads in the north and south portions of the

province.13

The Talavera irrigation system costing at around more than

P1 million and completed in 1924 is designed to irrigate

10,000 hectares of farmlands. A mini-pumping station was also

built in Cabanatuan serving 6,000 people in need of potable

water at the cost of P111, 302.14

.

VI. EDUCATION AND TECHNOLOGY

Public education was introduced in the province in 1902.

One of the Thosmasites, Mr. Clark James who later became

provincial treasurer of Pangasinan served as public school

teacher in the province from 1902 to 1907. Language barrier

became problems for American teachers so Filipino teachers

were recruited by the Philippine Commission to teach in public

schools offering a salary from P8 to P40 per month. In 1905,

an intermediate school was founded in San Isidro and named

after civil governor Luke Wright.

The significant move of the American colonial government

which directly impacts the majority farmers not only in Nueva

Ecija but in the entire archipelago as well as in neighboring

Asian countries was the establishment of the Munoz

Agricultural School in 1907, officially named as Central Luzon

Agricultural School (CLAS). The inception and foundation of

CLAS “throws much light on both the educational and

agricultural policies of the US government in the

provinces…”15

CLAS which was later converted into college in 1950 and

much later to become one of the leading universities in the

field of agriculture and rural development is situated in Munoz

town covering more than 600 hectares of then wild forests with

“succession of swamps and mud holes interspersed with

swollen streams.”16

The school division superintendent of Nueva Ecija Clinton

Whipple became concurrent administrator of the newly-

established agricultural vocational school. He outlined the

three basic objectives of CLAS: 1) Prepare young boys for

training in practical as well as scientific knowledge in

agriculture; 2) Serve as a pilot school for the training of

scientific method in farming to connect the product of the

school to the farm; and, 3) Elevate farming to the rank of a

science or profession.17

In 1913, 180 students were accepted in CLAS. Entry to this

renowned vocational institution was not that easy. Physical

13 Ibid. pp.40-41 14 Ibid. p.47 15 Ibid. p.57 16 Roque, Anselmo S. 1997. CLAS…CLAC…CLSU…Through the Years.

Munoz, Nueva Ecija: Central Luzon State University. p.5 17 Ibid.



strength is of the most important requisite for each applicant is

asked to carry a 50-kilogram cavan of palay. Rigorous and

Spartan way of living were strictly implemented prompting one

American observer that CLAS which is supposed to be a

civilian educational institution is implementing a military-style

discipline. In 1921, the first batch of graduates marched to

receive their four-year secondary agricultural curriculum.18

.

VII. THE BEGINNING OF COMMERCIAL RICE ECONOMY IN

NUEVA ECIJA

The commercialization of rice as prime product of the

province made its first manifestation in the hiring of labor to

work in the farmlands. Planting starts during the wet season

between May and June upon the first rain of the southwest

monsoon (habagat) which officially marks the end of dry

season.19

McLennan described the typical series of activities of

rice cultivation and production from planting to harvesting in

Nueva Ecija:

“The seedbed is harrowed into muddy grass, while the seeds

are soaked for twenty four hours to begin germination and

then sown broadcast. Fields to be transplanted are also tilled

after rain has made them easier to work. Plowing occurs

once or twice, depending on the physical condition of the

soil. Right after the final plowing, the first harrowing, known

as basag or pabasag (breaking of clods) takes place. The

field may then be flooded for a week or two to rot weed roots.

Harvesting begins with the onset of dry season in the latter

part of October and lasts through January. Initially, the

Ilocanos in Nueva Ecija harvested with the rice knife or

rakem (yatab), an instrument common to much of insular

Southeast Asia, while the Tagalogs had long before become

acculturated to sickle. The rakem required almost five times

the man-hours to bring in the harvest as the Tagalog lincao

or palot, but its use reduced the number of grains lost from

panicle and the number of grains scattered in the harvesting

and almost eliminated the collection of extraneous weeds.

The stalks are cut near the base when the sickle is used, as is

the case today, and several panicles making up a sheaf called

bigkis or pinangco are left lying in the field to dry for one or

two days. They are the stacked in a larger bundle called

sipok and finally on a large stack called mandala, with the

panicles turned into the center of the stack to sweat and dry.

After sweating for two or three weeks, the palay is ready to

be threshed.”20

Threshing or the process of separating the rice grain to its

straw is the next process. In the early part of the 20th

century,

rural rice farmers in Nueva Ecija practice three ways of

threshing. The first one was to place the unthreshed palay out

on a buri mat and trample upon the sheaves. The second

method was to beat the sheaves against a cart, a fence or some

other object. The third way was to use carabaos which were

tied to a pole around which sheaves of rice would be scattered.

18 Ibid. 26 19 McLennan.1980. The Central Luzon Plain. pp.256 20 Ibid. pp.256-25

A boy or a man would then drive the animals round and round

the pole while the palay trodden underfoot.21

In the 1920s, steam threshers (tilladoras) were brought by the

Americans from the United States and the ones who bought

these mechanical equipment were big hacenderos to facilitate

large-scale threshing processes in big ricefarms. With the

introduction of mechanical threshers, the palay Iloco, a variety

of bearded rice brought by the Ilocanos when they migrated to

Nueva Ecija was eventually disappeared for this rice variety is

not suitable for mechanical threshing. Rakem was also

replaced by sickle.22

TABLE II

PALAY PRODUCTION IN NUEVA ECIJA BY MUNICIPALITY IN 1913 AND 1938

Source: McLennan, op.cit. p. 253

Modernization and mechanization of agriculture became the

battle cry of the insular government in Manila in order to attain

food sufficiency in the aftermath of rice shortage in 1911 and

1912 that occur not only in the Philippines but also in other

southeast Asian countries. Nueva Ecija adopted the

development of rice mono-culture wherein all farmers are

encouraged to prioritize the cultivation and production of rice.

As early as the middle of 19th

century, Chinese traders

owned several ricemills in Gapan but mostly of crude

condition and have small capacity as compared to the

American-introduced steam- and petroleum-driven rice mills.

In 1903 to 1913, Nueva Ecija had six rice mills – two in

21 Ibid. p.257 22 Ibid.p.258



Cabanatuan, two in Gapan, one in Santa Rosa and one in San

Isidro. In 1935, in the early year of the Commonwealth

government, 42 rice mills are in the province distributed in the

following municipalities: Cabanatuan, thirteen; Gapan, ten;

three in the municipalities of Cabiao, San Antonio and Santa

Rosa; two in San Jose; and, one in the municipalities of

Cuyapo, Guimba, Jaen, Munoz, Penaranda, San Isidro, Sto.

Domingo and Talavera.23

The success of rice milling business during the American

period in Nueva Ecija depends on four basic requirements or

prerequisites: 1)efficient collection and deliveries of palay

(unmilled rice) to the mill and to the market by the use of

trucks; 2)the availability of enough, conducive and wide space

for warehouses to allow the accumulation of palay stocks to

ensure continues operation; 3) mill should be sufficient in size

to sustain the economy; and, 4)availability of capital to cope

up with the changing price of palay and rice.24

The farmers on the other hand are obliged to sell all its

harvests to palay traders to pay its debts, buy basic needs and

savings of cash in case of emergency. The farmers then who

toiled on the land, produce rice for national and local

consumptions were forced to buy their rice for family

consumption in the local market.25

The town of Cabanatuan which was later converted into

chartered city in 1939 became the milling and trading center of

rice in the province while the municipalities of Gapan, San

Jose, Munoz, Cuyapo and Guimba “emerged as important

concentration points in the movement of rice from producer to

ultimate consumer.”26

Chinese millers and traders controlled

the movement of rice and palay from the province to Manila

where the so-called Tutuban Rice Exchange controlled the

wholesale and retail distribution of rice in the capital.

VIII. CONCLUSION

The emergence of commercial rice production in Nueva

Ecija which catapulted the province as the country’s rice

granary during the American period is a combination of

economic, historical, political, social and environmental

factors.

The cultivation of rice in the vast farmlands of Nueva Ecija

has been the traditional economic activity of the people as

early as during the Spanish period although the southern areas

of Gapan, Cabiao and San Isidro were subjected to the tobacco

monopoly. The series of Ilocano migrations from Ilocos and

Pangasinan contributed significantly to the initial manifestation

of commercialization of rice production by working on fields

as farm laborers then permanently settled down in the

farmlands via the homestead program of the American insular

government.

The province is one of the areas in Luzon to be pacified

earlier by the Americans although pockets of resistance were

recorded but did not last long for guerilla leaders in the

province like Manuel Tinio, one of Aguinaldo’s trusted

confidante, surrendered to the Americans, managed a hacienda

23 McLennan.1980. The Central Luzon Plain. p.259 24 Ibid.p.260 25 Ibid.p.261 26 Ibid.

and eventually became a political cacique of Nueva Ecija. The

Partido Federalista, a political party advocating close

association to the United States commanded a strong influence

among the province traditional economic elites like Epifanio

delos Santos, Crispulo Sideco and Pablo Padilla.

Programs initiated by the American insular government

particularly on education focusing on the application of

scientific agriculture proved to be a boon to further till and

develop the land for rice production. The establishment of

Munoz agricultural school later to be named as Central Luzon

Agricultural School (CLAS), the construction of main and

feeder roads to establish the connection of the province to the

capital Manila and other infrastructure projects like irrigations

accelerated the growth of rice production in the province

thereby boosting its economic status.

On the other hand, the Americans failed to address the

economic inequality between the rich hacienda owners

(inquilinos or caciques) and the tenant-farmers (kasama). The

Americans needed the political support of Nueva Ecija’s

economic elite to ensure the political stability in the province.

The elites in return asked the United States to protect their

economic interests. On the micro level therefore, the hacienda

owners who later diversified into rice millers and traders were

the ones who gained much on the economic benefits of

commercial rice production in the province..

BIBLIOGRAPHY

[1] Araneta, Salvador. 1953. “Imperative: An Agricultural Policy in the

Philippines” in Philippine Studies. (1953) Vol.1. No.1. pp. 16-30.

Quezon City: Ateneo De Manila University.

[2] Bureau of Census. 1904. Census of the Philippine Islands 1903.

Washington: Government Printing Office.

[3] _________________. 1960. Philippine Statistics, 1903-1959.

Manila.

[4] Corpuz, Onofre D. 1997. An Economic History of the Philippines.

Quezon City: University of the Philippines Press.

[5] De Jesus, Ed C. 1980. The Tobacco Monopoly in the Philippines:

Bureaucratic Enterprise and Social Change, 1766-1880. Quezon

City: Ateneo De Manila University Press.

[6] Gleeck, Lewis, Jr. 1981. Nueva Ecija in American Times:

Homesteaders, Hacenderos and Politicos. Manila: The Historical

Conservation Society.

[7] King, John Kerry. 1953. “The Politics of Rice” in Foreign Affairs.

(April 1953) Vol.31. No.3. pp. 453-460. Council on Foreign

Relations.

http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/20030978

[8] McCoy, Alfred W. and De Jesus, Ed C. 1982. Philippine Social

History: Global Trade and Local Transformation. Quezon City:

Ateneo De Manila University Press.

[9] McLennan, Marshall S. 1969. “Land and Tenancy in the Central

Luzon Plain” in Philippine Studies. (1969) Vol.17. No.4. pp. 651-

682. Quezon City: Ateneo De Manila University.

[10] ___________________. 1980. The Central Luzon Plain: Land and

Society on the Inland Frontier. Quezon City: Alemar-Phoenix

Publishing House, Inc.

[11] Porter, Catherine. 1938. “Philippine Rice Control Showing Result”

in Far Eastern Survey, Vol. 7, No. 5 (Mar. 2, 1938), pp. 53-55.

Institute of Pacific Relations.

[12] Roque, Anselmo S. 1997. CLAS…CLAC…CLSU…Through the

Years. Munoz, Nueva Ecija: Central Luzon State University



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Evaluation of American Colonial Policy on …iaast.org/upload/6310A0715054.pdfAbstract — Rice (sn: Oryza sativa) has been the staple cereal food not only of the Filipinos but in