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.

LAST PLENARY SESSION

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in separate and, at times, rival communities, speaking different
dialects and possessing different customs and local usages. Then
a foreign power subdued them and imposed upon them its
authority, its religion and its laws. The Filipinos suffered
the loss of everything dear to their hearts-the gods of their
religion, the characters of their alphabet, the essence of the
political and civil institutions on which they were reared, their
thriving commercewith nearby countries-all the vestiges of
their ancient culture. But far from diminishing or being annihilated, as has happened to people in other parts or the world,
the Filipinos maintained intact their racial unity, and upon it
laid the foundations of their own nationality. They did not
refuse the admission of new elements of culture, but appropriated them; they did not disintegrate but strengthened instead,
their material and spiritual one-ness. Despite the difficulties
and sufferings arising from changed laws and beliefs and from
the ravages of pirates and epidemics which depopulated entire
communities, the Filipinos multiplied and survived, and what
is more striking, at the end of the nineteenth century, they rose
again and emerged into a new nationality ever anxious to regain
its lost rights and liberties.
The same experience repeated itself more recently with the
advent of American occupation. Decimated by war and impoverished by the paralyzation of their agriculture and trade,
the Filipinos were again subdued and were given a new political
constitution, a new code of laws, a new language, and new
practices and usages. The disarrangements to which the new
order of things have given rise need not be retold; The Filipinos, far from allowing themselves to be overcome by the
consequent difficulties, did overcome them, and made the best
out of new political and social institutions implanted, and of
the instrumentalities of government granted to them. They
exercised their powers and rights with ability and discretion;
gave all the proofs needed to demonstrate their capacity. They
multiplied, grew and progressed in all lines and ways toward
their national aggrandizement. In spite of the benevolent
policy pursued and the alluring benefits offered in exchange of