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.

66 INDEPENDENCE CONGRESS PROCEEDINGS

scious of the responsibilities of a free existence. Although
the Filipino merchants have already had a chance to express
themselves in an unmistakable way their stand for Philippine Independence in the First National Convention of the
Filipino Merchants which, at these same dates last year, met
under the auspices of the Chamber of Commerce in the Philippines when I presided, it is a fine idea to renew and ratify before
this Independence Congress our desire to demand immediate,
complete and absolute independence as well as our act of unconditional adherence to our pro-independence fight in the actual
fashion.
It is evident that what the country needs in facing the
responsibilities of its own government are orientation and
organization. They are two forces needed in the order of
things and are urgent in the economical order. If we have
not paid as much attention in the past, as we should have
done, to tracing systematically a definite orientation for our
economic development; if our economic conscience could not
express itself in the decided and constructive form that it
manifests now, it was due not only to the marked emphasis
which we gave to politics that claimed the greater efforts, but
also primarily to our actual half-way state, which prevents
us from promoting the material development of the Philippines as an independent nation.
Fortunately, since some years ago, without changing in the
least our desire to enjoy soon the fruits of our own sovereignty,
we have observed an enormous transformation in the matter
of national obligations, and it is now evident that we have a
desire to acclimate ourselves to the atmosphere which prevails
in intensifying our economic advancement. It is not unknown
to you the fact that the Chamber of Commerce in the Philippine Islands, as the authorized mouthpiece of the Filipino mer-
chants, has at one time assumed in this respect a very aggressive
leadership, without forgetting to be moderate and prudent, in
order to free the economic conscience of the Filipinos from the
state of drowsiness, to which it is subjected for years, and to
awaken it to the necessity of putting its best efforts to the job
of increasing the productive wealth of the Nation.