MANNERS AND MORALS IN THE PHILIPPINES

New Zealand Tablet, 10 April 1919, Page 19

MANNERS AND MORALS IN THE PHILIPPINES

, (By. John J. Thompkins.)

c 'lit 7 / ■' : A marked change has taken place in the character | of the Filipino. His, ..gentleness, the respect . of, vtjio c young for-, the aged and of , all for those in authority were beautiful traits which are fast disappearing. .The Filipino of fifteen-years ago was gentle, polite, 0 respectful, and submissive to lawful authority, It is ? pleasant and admirable to, meet even now t representa- ; tives of the, former typfyip the distant barrips fe ydth-vi drawn from the triumphant march of American civilisation. More than one American-has spoken to me of . the sad deteriof^ti oll \ylpch has -so rapidly cpnje about j in the Filipino character. The late elections . for goyer- r , nors, assemblymen, and so on, had hardly taken place j when from all parts of this section of the country cries of protest arose against the elected candidates. One , leading lawyer attached to the Government service ex*- , pressed surprise that the Filipinos had learned to per* -j petratei frauds in the short time that they have had the | ballot-.. He was speaking of a place where mayoralty elections were annulled because of the fraud that had been practised. . , v ; . , ~ - , If .the moderate ideas v ■inculcated in the s .public , schools are ..partly at least accountable for such condi- i tions, what may we expect from the more r “advanced I and modern” methods of the Government’s Philippine 1 1 University The really demoralising instruction given \ there is sufficiently evident from the following facts contained in. a letter to Manila Free Press: - “Last year students were required to study inter , - olios Ibsen, G. Bernard Shaw, Thomas Hardy, and George Meredith two ephemeral decadents, one sexual ■ pessimist, and the last that splendid but abstruse genius s who devoted his intellect to gilding the philosophic pill. To-day, my heart is hot within me at .the sight of this * year’s amazing syllabus, a Barmecide mental feast in- - deed. The student is to make acquaintance with the p Buddhist doctrine. Why? To what end? We have ; ignored and therefore slighted the Christian faith in our schools, the. one and.only spiritual plough that has tilled the Malayan mental soil to produce the harvest of Malayan Christians called Filipinos. We insult the Filipino student by inviting.him to ignore the faith of his fathers and to devote his attention to Buddhism. This in passing. . I prefer a more serious charge. To put the autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini into the list of.. books required to be studied by the University students is a sin against youth, which is unpardonable. The Filipino is mentally docile, imaginative, and sympathetic. He is going to accept Cellini as a hero worthy of imitation, or recognise him as a damnable scamp who . has initiated him into a knowledge of vice which he never would otherwise learn.” Protestantism, or rather its offscouring in the Philippines, has produced in Vigan a vile, filthy sheet, which respectable Americans would not wish to touch , even with, tongs. A greater element of evil in this proselytising are the young,-ladies who have taken up preaching. Most of them, I think, are from the poorest classes. Some have not gone to school at all, or have been through only a few grades; others have finished the seventh grade,, and then, for lack of support, have taken to ~preaching.Whereas before they were in utter destitu- ■, tion, their.new occupation now enables them to dress like senorgs. Meantime they make a house-to-house campaign and attack Catholic doctrine. If they have*few followers or “converts” they nevertheless leave the black trail, of doubt and indifference behind them. Poverty, is offering its victims to Protestantism, and . many pf them become in time its well-dressed andloquacious , predicadorep. . v With this incessant proselytising.; with 500,000 chilW tills Uieassaui/ pxoseij wamg , wim amdren in our public schools growing up, I may say, without any religions training, \yith the open denial of hell ip the. Yigan JPxptestant paper with the fear of * God and of eternal punishment disappearing, need we be surprised if suicide and other vices increase? An apalling indifferentism 'is hovering, perhaps surely - g- settling,- over the Philippine Islands,