The Insular Government evolved from the
Taft Commission, or Second Philippine Commission, appointed on March 16, 1900. This group was headed by
William Howard Taft, and was granted legislative powers by President
William McKinley in September 1900. The commission created a judicial system, an educational system, a civil service, and a legal code. The legality of these actions was contested until the passage of the
Spooner Amendment in 1901, which granted the U.S. president authority to govern the Philippines. The Insular Government saw its mission as one of tutelage, preparing the Philippines for eventual independence. On July 4, 1901, Taft was appointed "civil governor", who also named his cabinet at his inaugural address. Military Governor
Adna Chaffee retained authority in disturbed areas. On July 4, 1902, the office of military governor was abolished, and Taft became the first US
governor-general of the Philippine Islands. The
Philippine Organic Act disestablished the
Catholic Church as the
state religion. In 1904, Taft negotiated the purchase of of church property for $7.5 million. Despite this, the Insular Government failed to investigate the land titles of the friars' and restore them to the patrimony of the Filipinos. The Insular Government then established a land titling system for these lands, but due to a small surveyor staff, a lot of parcels of land remained untitled. Two years after the completion and publication of a census, a general election was conducted for the choice of delegates to a popular assembly. An elected
Philippine Assembly was convened in 1907 as the
lower house of a
bicameral legislature, with the
Philippine Commission as the
upper house. The 1909 U.S.
Payne–Aldrich Tariff Act provided for free trade with the Philippines. Every year from 1907, the Philippine Assembly (and later the
Philippine Legislature) passed resolutions expressing the Filipino desire for independence.
Jones Law Philippine nationalists led by
Manuel L. Quezon and
Sergio Osmeña enthusiastically endorsed the draft
Jones Bill of 1912, which provided for
Philippine independence after eight years, but later changed their views, opting for a bill which focused less on time than on the conditions of independence. The nationalists demanded complete and absolute independence to be guaranteed by the United States, since they feared that too-rapid independence from American rule without such guarantees might cause the Philippines to fall into Japanese hands. The Jones Bill was rewritten and passed a
Congress controlled by Democrats in 1916 with a later date of independence. The Democratic Party in the United States had strongly opposed acquisitions of the Philippines in the first place, and increasingly became committed to independence. The election of Democrat
Woodrow Wilson, who advocated a constitutional government in the Philippines as a step towards independence, in 1912 opened up the opportunity. He appointed
Francis Burton Harrison as governor, and Harrison replaced mainlanders with Filipinos in the bureaucracy. At his departure in 1921, of the 13,757 government bureaucrats, 13,143 were Filipinos; they occupied 56 of the top 69 positions. The
Jones Law, or Philippine Autonomy Act, replaced the Organic Act. Its preamble stated that the eventual independence of the Philippines would be American policy, subject to the establishment of a stable government. The law maintained an appointed governor-general, but established a bicameral Philippine Legislature to replace the elected Philippine Assembly (lower house); it replaced the appointive Philippine Commission (upper house) with an elected senate. Filipino activists suspended the independence campaign during the
First World War and supported the United States and the
Allies of World War I against the
German Empire. After the war, they resumed their independence drive with great vigour. On March 17, 1919, the Philippine Legislature passed a "Declaration of Purposes", which stated the inflexible desire of the Filipino people to be free and sovereign. A Commission of Independence was created to study ways and means of attaining liberation ideal. This commission recommended the sending of an independence mission to the United States. The "Declaration of Purposes" referred to the Jones Law as a veritable pact, or covenant, between the American and Filipino peoples whereby the United States promised to recognize the independence of the Philippines as soon as a stable government should be established. American Governor-General Harrison had concurred in the report of the Philippine Legislature as to a stable government. The Philippine Legislature funded an independence mission to the United States in 1919. The mission departed
Manila on February 28 and met in America with and presented their case to Secretary of War
Newton D. Baker. US President
Woodrow Wilson, in his 1921 farewell message to Congress, certified that the Filipino people had performed the condition imposed on them as a prerequisite to independence, declaring that, this having been done, the duty of the U.S. is to grant Philippine independence. Neither Congress nor
Warren G. Harding, Wilson's successor as president, acted on Wilson's recommendation. In 1921, US President Harding sent
William Cameron Forbes and
Leonard Wood as heads of the Wood-Forbes Commission to investigate conditions in the Philippines. The Commission concluded that Filipinos were not yet ready for independence from the United States, a finding that was widely criticized in the Philippines.
Road to commonwealth status After the first independence mission, public funding of such missions was ruled illegal. Subsequent independence missions in 1922, 1923, 1930, 1931, 1932, and two missions in 1933 were funded by voluntary contributions. Numerous independence bills were submitted to the US Congress, which passed the Hare–Hawes–Cutting Bill on December 30, 1932. US President
Herbert Hoover vetoed the bill on January 13, 1933. Congress overrode the veto on January 17, and the
Hare–Hawes–Cutting Act became US law. The law promised Philippine independence after 10 years, but reserved several military and naval bases for the United States, as well as imposing tariffs and quotas on Philippine exports. The law also required the
Philippine Senate to ratify the law. Quezon urged the Philippine Senate to reject the bill, which it did. Quezon himself led the twelfth independence mission to Washington to secure a better independence act. The result was the
Tydings–McDuffie Act of 1934 which was very similar to the Hare–Hawes–Cutting Act except in minor details. The Tydings–McDuffie Act was ratified by the Philippine Senate. The law provided for the granting of Philippine independence by 1946. The Tydings–McDuffie Act provided for the drafting and guidelines of a
constitution for a ten-year "transitional period" as the
Commonwealth of the Philippines before the granting of Philippine independence. On May 5, 1934, the Philippines Legislature passed an act setting the election of convention delegates. Governor-General
Frank Murphy designated July 10 as the election date, and the Convention held its inaugural session on July 30. The completed draft Constitution was approved by the Convention on February 8, 1935, approved by US President
Franklin Roosevelt on March 23, and ratified by popular vote on May 14. The first election under the new 1935 constitution was held on September 17, and on November 15, 1935, the Commonwealth was established. ==Governor-general==