The Philippines and Iraq.

(From Philippine Daily Inquirer)

Byline: Denis Murphy

PARALLELS between the American invasion of the Philippines in 1898 and last year's invasion of Iraq are striking. By comparing the two events, people here might gain some understanding of what is happening and why it is happening in that distant and very different world.

Both the American war here and the Iraq invasion were hotly contested in the United States before military action was taken. A large segment of the American public opposed the occupation of the Philippines because they believed it violated their Constitution, the country's traditions and the human rights of Filipinos. Mark Twain was a prominent voice in the opposition. More people in Congress opposed the old war than those who opposed the one in Iraq.

At first the American soldiers who landed in Cavite, and the Americans who rolled into Baghdad, were welcomed by the people. They became unpopular in the Philippines when it was clear they had simply replaced the Spanish as colonizers. A long, bloody war of at least six years began during which 250,000 Filipinos died of wounds or of hunger and disease related to the war. A similar struggle may now be underway in Iraq.

Not all Filipinos resisted, just as not every Iraqi resists now. The elite soon made its peace with the Americans here. The resistance was strongest in the provinces around Manila and in parts of the Visayas. The Filipino Catholic clergy proved to be more anti-American than they had been anti Spanish. Many priests were jailed and tortured.

The role of the Muslim clerics in Iraqi politics and the resistance puzzles non-Muslims, but comparisons can be made with the Catholic priests of resistance times here. They, too, played leadership roles, though they didn't seem to be directly involved in the fighting. The administrator of the Cebu Diocese refused to recognize the American government. The parish priest of Balangiga knew of the coming attack on the Americans and perhaps had attended planning meetings, but he left the town a day or so before the attack for two reasons, we are told: to avoid the coming violence, as if he opposed it; and, on the other hand, to remove the occasion of revealing to the people his disapproval of their action, as if he didn't want to stop the attack. His opinion might have been decisive.