Proceedings of the first Independence congress : held in the city of Manila, Philippine islands, February 22-26, 1930 / Published under the direction of Dean maximo M. Kalaw, executive secretary, University of the Philippines.

LABOR SECTION

303

people in the Ilocano regions and the central Visayas, where
the density of population varies from 400 to 500 a square mile,
to go into regions like Mindanao and Palawan, where we
scarcely have five to ten people to the square mile.
Under the present system, in which no continuity of policy
has been adopted for the proper redistribution of our population, it will be impossible to encourage interisland migration
to and colonization of our sparsely settled regions. A definite policy and a continuous appropriation must be provided,
in order to encourage the people to go into the sparsely populated regions of the Islands. This is not enough, however;
we cannot dump these people into the wilds of Mindanao or
Mindoro to cultivate their lands, raise their crops, and later
find themselves without hope of being able to market the products of their industry. We must prepare the community into
which we send them by providing them with healthy surroundings and a system of transportation,.so that they will
not be isolated from other communities with which their interest and work have definitely bound them.
After Prof. Macaraig, Don Joaquin Balmori next
spoke as follows:
THE DIGNIFICATION OF LABOR AS A FACTOR
FOR NATIONAL STRENGTH
By Don JOAQUIN BALMORI
MR. CHAIRMAN, FELLOW CONGRESSMEN:
Assigned, and with much honor, by the organization committee of the first independence congress to be one of the
speakers in the sessions of the Labor Section, I was pleased
in a way about the imposition intrusted, because this shows
that it does not only recognize the participation of the working element in our struggle for liberty, but also it gives us a
chance to express our point of view about the vital problem
of our independence. It is not a secret to any one that the
Filipino laborers in all the many campaigns which have taken
place, since the days of the Revolution up to the present, from