Lagon, Mon Carla Mariano, Furla Coleen

Manzo, Angela Monica Sabino, Ma. Alyssa Andrea

Buenavista, Reena

Cholera and the Origins of the

American Sanitary Order in the Philippines

INTRODUCTION
Icebreaker: Pictionary
What it is: Originally a board game, but it’s become a common classic, and you don’t need to
buy the game to play your own version. It’s a drawing word-guessing game for groups of any
age.
What you need: You’ll need something to draw on, like a big pad of paper and marker, a chalk
board and chalk, or a wipe-off board and dry erase marker. Or even just a stack of blank paper.
How to play: The game is pretty simple: players take turns silently drawing different things
while their team tries to guess what the drawing is. Teams compete against each other to have the
most guessed words and win the game. The way you set up the game can vary; pictionary allows
for a lot of flexibility. For this post, let’s pretend you’re going to play with a big group divided
into two teams. Once you have your slips of paper ready, fold them up and put them in a bowl or
hat. Then divide your players into two teams.

If you have one drawing surface, have teams take turns sending up a player to pick a word from
the hat and draw it in a pre-designated amount of time. If the team guesses the word before the
time runs out, they get a point. (Or, if you want to designate hard and easy words at the
beginning, you could assign different point values to different words.) Then the other team takes
a turn. If you have two drawing surfaces, you could have each team send up a player and have
them draw the same word at the same time (hiding their drawings from the other team). First
team to guess the word wins the round.

Background of the Author

Reynaldo "Rey" Clemeña Ileto (born October 3, 1946) is a Filipino historian known for his
seminal work Pasyon and Revolution: Popular Movements in the Philippines, 1840-1910 first
published in 1979. He is an Honorary Professor at the Australian National University and
currently lectures at the Nanyang Technological University and the University of the Philippines.
 Ileto specializes in Asian history, religion and society, postcolonial studies, and the
government and politics of Asia and the Pacific.
  Ileto finished his undergraduate degree at the Ateneo de Manila University and received
his Ph.D. in Southeast Asian History at Cornell University in 1975.
 Ileto is known for his interdisciplinary approach combining history, literature,
anthropology, cultural studies, and politics.
 His father is former Department of National Defense (DND) Secretary and Vice Chief of
Staff of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) Rafael Ileto.

PRESENTATION PROPER

Buenavista, Reena S.
(PAGES 125-129)

The American Colonial Rule: A Blessing or a Curse?

 Historians T.A Agoncillo and M.C. Guerrero
-Narrated some details of the Philippine American war of 1899-1902, highlighting the
Filipino struggle for independence
-Revealed how the battle was not yet over after the capture Emilio Aguinaldo for the
guerilla warfare continued that was led by General Miguel Malvar
-The distinction between nationalist and colonial writing collapses.
*These two authors having anti-colonial stance except with regards about health
and welfare
-The task of educating the people in the ‘elementary principles of hygiene and sanitation’
*Filipinos’ ignorance and superstitions
Two Distinct Series in Philippine Historiography
 The 1899-1902 War of Resistance
-Struggle for independence from colonial rule

 The 1902-4 Cholera Epidemic

- A chapter in the saga of Scientific progress
- Filipino intelligentsia order the triumph of reason and science over superstition and
backwardness
- Victory over cholera (1902-3)
The Disjunction of Medical Progress in a Colonial War and Pacification Campaign
 Most accessible accounts of cholera epidemics are authored by the architects of the anti-
cholera measures
- The Commissioner of Public Health, Dr Victor Heiser
 - The Secretary of the Interior, Dean Worcester
*The resistance to his Cholera campaign conflated with superstition and
backwardness concealing the issue of colonial domination
*His eyewitness account of a famous battle between American and Filipino forces in
1989, in which he presented Filipinos as an impersonal beings highlighting the Americans.

The Cholera Epidemic

 The arrival of Hongkong in Manila with Cholera on its bill of health – 14 March 1902
 Civilian and military personnel try to contain its spread
 American troop movements contributed to its spread to different places
- Nueva Caceres, southeastern part of Luzon
- Pagsanjan and Majayjay
- Mariquina Valley east of Manila
- Pasig river arteries
- The provinces of Laguna, Batangas, and Tayabas

 Reopening of the ports, spreading back the Cholera into the country
 Cholera claimed its victims from all levels of society, including:
-American soldiers and residents, prominent Filipinos, Chinese, and Spaniards.
*Well-equipped hospitals
-Unintelligent class
*Bad sanitary conditions
*Overcrowding
*Poor diet
 War, the cholera, and famine conditions came together
-Connection of Cholera epidemic with war is muted

Mariano, Furla Coleen S.

(PAGES 129-133)

Preparation of ricefields and the reopening of the rice-trade networks

 General Bell, having asserted that there was ‘absolutely no hunger within territorial limits
of the brigade, and no suffering on that account’, admitted that rice was being imported
into the region.
 Rice aid would enable the people to eat until September harvest, but the region would
only get back on its feet with the normalization of rice production.
 Bell’s optimism was soured by complicating factors such as rinderpest, locusts, and
cholera.
The case of Calamba and its adjacent towns illustrates connection between food problem
and the new round of restrictions occasioned by cholera.

 Calamba had been the headquarters of the republican Division of Southern Luzon,
commanded by General Juan Cailles.
 In 1899, fierce battles between U.S forces and various defence perimeters around
Calamba resulting in the destruction of the irrigation works.
 No rice had been planted around that town since 1900.
 Before Malvar’s surrender, rice had been allowed to enter from neighbouring towns at
regular market prices.
 Suddenly cut off by unexpected quarantine regulations made necessary by the appearance
of cholera.
 Border between Calamba and rice-rich Binan, in particular, was ‘assiduously guarded’.

Numerous accounts of how quarantine lines disrupted the flow of food from surplus

 The quarantine was ‘absolutely useless’ noted Chief Quarantine Officer J. C. Perry,
owing to smuggling of food.
 It was ultimately a choice between dying of hunger or dying of cholera.

Rinderpest

 First appeared on the eve of 1888 cholera epidemic, had destroyed more than ninety
percent of the work animals.
 Only continued rice aid, which Malvar himself petitioned for in August, prevented
‘suffering’ from turning into a ‘demographic disaster’.
 Sanitary work came in on the heels of General Bell’s military offensive in December
1901.
 As Heiser candidly admits, ‘because they had to protect their troops, they decided that
something must be done about cholera’.

 Americans were not disposed to tolerate obstacles to health measures.

 The rationale for the Army’s intervention was to cleanse the regions, to eradicate the
dual scourge of killer germ and popular stubbornness.
Germ Theory or The doctrine of specific aetiology of disease

 The germ theory gave rise to a kind of aggressive warfare against disease-causing
microbes, which had to be eliminated from the stricken individual and from the
community.
 Between 1875 and 1900, French and German bacteriologists identified the organisms
involved in any of serious infections like cholera, typhoid, and tuberculosis.
  American surgeons and sanitation personnel, had just witnessed the glimmer victory over
disease in their own country when they confronted the cholera in the Philippines.
 The tropical environment, the war, and the obdurate populace in particular, were regarded
as petty obstacles to the implementation of an unsullied knowledge backed up by science
and history.
 Between 21 June and 3 July, 650 died of cholera before the native authorities decided to
report the situations to the Americans.
 Within a week, ‘the surgeons and soldiers sent there had stopped the ravages of the
cholera’.

Lagon, Mon Carla V.

(PAGES 133-137)

Cholera’s War via Military Lines

 In this part, the experimentation happen wherein surgeons tried different drugs to find
cur.
- Magic Bullets which contains Bacillus
- Benzozone, the widely used drug that time
- Benzoyl-Acetyl-Peroxide, Guiacol Carbonate, Calomel, Potassium Permangante, To
per cent tannic Acid and Dilute Sulphuric Acid
- Occurrence of Force
Search and Surveillance Operations
 As being observant in this point is a must, Worcester assigned surgeons to enable a more
substantive solution.
- The Army Volunteer Brigades
- Presence of Opposition Increased
- The Introduction of the Stern Figure of the American Army
- “To rule with a Rod of Steel”
- The Man and the Profession Stood First in the Philippines
Combat Zones
 Issue of Confinement
- Quarantine
- Cholera was first discovered in the Farola District
- Manila and provincial tows used as detention camp
- The Lack of Enlightenment of People
- Confinement over Cholera
 - Rumours from Manila to Cebu
1. Abuse
2. Murder (Poisoned Vino)
- Tales about Strychnine Poisoning
Notion in American Medicine
 The Contrary of Beliefs regarding Sickness and Treatment
- Modes of Resistance
1. Rumours
2. Concealments
3. Evasions
- Ignorant Classes
- The Visitation and Attachment Rules
- Filipino Doctors who practice their “Mixed Treatments”
- Contacts to detention camps have been resumed
The Transparency
 July 1, detention in houses
 May 23, Batangas and Laguna’s forcible detention
First Weeks of the Epidemic
 The Primary Actions Performed
- Detention Camp
- Burned Houses (Nipa-Palm Construction)
- Proposed Idea of an American Teacher in Cebu
Burned Houses Rumours
 Purpose: Future dwellings and warehouses of rich Americans
- Due for it being abandoned after due to thorough disinfection
Government Order 66
 The Rule of Disinfection
- Nipa Houses would be burned
- Houses constructed of wood were to be disinfected
- Nipa House in a Barrio of Calamba
- $4624.39 by The Philippine Commission Government
The Disappearance of Cholera
 May 23
Sabino, Maria Alyssa Andrea D.
(PAGES 137-141)

 1882
- Manila, 13,000 - 34,000 death toll remained unburied.
- San Lazaro district experienced a filled of (gasses of putrefying flesh) unpleasant
smell.
- The government interviewed battalion of engineers to help bury the dead (en masse)
in group.
 1888
- crowded city slums abandoned.

 1902
- By July end, tondo cemetery were filled with cadavers(corpse) and further burials
were banned.
- American government worried that underground water tables would be infected, that
is why no mass graves would be dug those time.
- The government preferred efficient solution which is cremation.
- Filipinos didn’t agree to the cremation because it commit tremendous mistake from
those superstitious beliefs. They rather scoop out a trench under a house in which to
bury the dead, or throw the body in the nearest swamp.

 1902
- fear of cremation combined with fear of house burnings and fear of detention, forced
poor families to bury bodies in backyards, under woodpiles, or out in the rice fields at
night or even throw them into Pasig river.
- July 1, board of health provide burial regulations, owing the religious prejudices
against the cremation they are enable to bury their dead in simple wooden coffins in
seven feet deep and not less than 3 feet. However, only two adult members or friends
of the family could accompany the body. And no services, funeral processions or
bands were to be allowed.

 Town of Pila, Laguna

- Citizens supervise the digging of about twenty graves daily, ten for grown persons
and ten for children, they had to obtain burial permits from the American
commanders and see to it that no excess people accompanied the corpses to the
cemetery

 Ibaan, Batangas
- Infected houses were required to display red flag but natives gave no heed to this
warning and to them the presence of the flag was seemingly only a kind of joke.
Observers saw this as a sign of fatalism and ignorance.
 - The towns were the scene of conflicts between army surgeons and native officials.
Trouble usually erupted when local officials were accused of being incompetent or
uncooperative.

 In one Laguna town, members of the local health board were imprisoned for ('criminal
laxity)', that is, not reporting cases to the army surgeon.
- In the few provinces and towns where success in stamping out the cholera was
reported, credit was given to army surgeons on detail with the local boards.

 Brief report from San Pablo Laguna

- States that the army surgeon, Major Isaac Brewer, was engaged in a bitter fight with
the mayor over the handling of the epidemic.
- Religious objects had been stored under guarantee of safety by the American
commanding officer.
- Priests had always taken charge in past epidemics.
- The town was transformed into one of the three largest concertation camps in
southwestern Luzon.
- Even before the cholera the mortality and malarial fever had been enormous in the
San Pablo zone.

Manzo, Angela Monica M.

(PAGES 141-144)

 Pila – was able to escape food supply problems namely rice surplus since the population
was only a quarter of San Pablo.
The Example of Pila shows:
1. Truce- agreement between enemies to stop fighting in a certain period of time.
-Norm of Colonial Health and Sanitation to provoke popular resistance in turn for
agreement on elimination of detention, burnings and cremation, and turning over
of disease control to Filipino doctors and local authorities. Filipinos were given
the space to come to terms with colonial state power.
2. New Colonial Order- from the classic pattern of Philippine principalia-
dominated and sanitary to a world of uncontrollable and disordered elements.

 Ladronism- after Malvar’s surrender, all forms of the armed resistance were labelled as
“Ladronism”.
 Religious Fanaticism- labelled to incorporated religious beliefs and rituals.
Mariquina Valley Quarantine Restrictions by the Filipino provincial medical officer and
American counterpart at the end of July.
- Past harvest had been poor.
- War conditions had hindered planting in the past 3 years.
- Crop has been destroyed by locusts.
- Quarantine prevents farmers from preparing their fields.
- Tenants were forced to pay their annual rent. CROP OR NO CROP
Foothills of Mount Banahaw
- Laguna, Tayabas, and Batangas were unrest in 1902 because some towns might have
been concentrated again. Post Malvar like Pope Ruperto Rios and Katipunan Chief
Macario Sakay were reportedly roaming these hills in late 1902 and 1903.
Curanderos
- Curers, rather than licensed physicians and the first recourse of the farmers in the
region.
- American Doctor: described as a men and women who do not constitute a class or a
class like medicine men of the tribe, but similar to the barber surgeons in Europe
which doctors were located.
- Prescribed cholera medicine extracted from MANUNGAL TREE/Samandera
Indica which can be seen grown in Tayabas Province.
- Medicinal Treatment + Rituals (guiding spirit).
- Condition of Treatment: to take pilgrimage to Mount Banahaw in fulfillment of
making panata or pledge to supernatural beings.
The Prescribed Healer
- The normal life of people was distressed by eliminating garrison commanders, heath
officers, teachers, and justified in light problems posed by ignorance and superstition.
Problems in late 1914
1. Unending Supply of healers such as “Queen of Taytay”.
2. Another Cholera outbreak in 1905
3. Healers Possessed
4. Pilgrimages of Banahaw and Antipolo VS. Fanaticism.

Sources were silent.

- Such phenomena spelled danger for the Filipino and American Representatives like
the new colonial order. People were being warned from the sources of infection but
one ritual gathering ends it for what they were warned into sources of disorder.
- Cholera cases and deaths were declined in Luzon on September and October.
- Strong Typhoons were lashing the islands and the resulting volume of water washed
the streams and banks.
 - Cholera was seemed to follow the course of great visitation in 1882, but other health
officials disagreed upon declining the cases to American health sanitation measures to
prevent further serious outbreak from local conditions were effective.
The actual role of the American health sanitation measure was to close a chapter of the
Philippine-American war.

WRAP-UP

Activity: KAHOOT QUIZ

In order to conclude the group’s presentation, they will assess what their classmates have
learned from their session through conducting a Kahoot quiz.
To host a kahoot live in class, the group will need a big screen so everyone in the
classroom can see. Questions and answer alternatives will be displayed on the shared screen,
while students answer on their devices.
In Classic mode, each student joins and answers every question individually on their own
device, competing for top score against all of their peers. The questions will be about the article
discussed by the group, entitled “Cholera and the Origins of American Sanitary Order in the
Philippines” and will be formulated by the group members themselves.

Reference:
Ileto, R. C. (n.d). Cholera and the Origins of American Sanitary Order in the Philippines In D.
Arnold (Ed.). Imperial Medicine and Indigenous Societies (pp. 125-148). Manchester,
New York: Manchester University Press