Unofficial letters of an official's wife [by] Edith Moses.

UNOFFICIAL LETTERS OF

The public meetings of the Commission were
held in the theater and I attended several sessions. The box provided for us was really a
box, and the air was so bad that I did not
enjoy it. There was a large audience of natives
present including alcaldes and teniente alcaldes,
consejales, sindicos, secretaries, and so on, from
thirty-three pueblos of Panay, one hundred and
forty-nine in all. They rejoiced in most sonorous
names, as for example, Francisco Madeista, Marcario Supersticioso, Petronillo Villahermosa, Sinforoso Cartegena, Anselmo Nacionales Orbe, Francisco Armada Intrepido. Many of the questions
and their answers brought out the difference between our ideas and those to which these people are
accustomed. One speaker, for instance, suggested
that presidentes might appoint delegates who had
special training for the work to attend the quarterly
meetings in their place. The answer was that the
object of the quarterly meeting was to enable the
untrained presidente to learn from the more experienced. In speaking of the ratio of salary between
the presidente and secretary of a pueblo, one somewhat shabby-looking representative thought the secretary ought to have proportionally more because he
was usually a poor man and did all the work, while
the presidente was rich and had comparatively little
to do. He was told that it was not the purpose of
the Commission to restrict the position of presidente
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