QUOTE
Already on the 1.7. 1902 a legislative assembled was promised, which would come into being after two years providing good conduct, of which the upper chamber would still consist of the five Americans and three elected Filipinos, while the lower chamber would already consist of elected owners of property who were able to speak english or spanish (realized on the 16.10.1907). The destruction of clerical estates over 2500 acres followed, as well as a political amnesty. The future path to Home-Rule from the right of conquest, from 1902 until 1922, is now guided by the no longer to be eliminated american promise of „immediately when the islands are capable“ the lex lata was superseded by the lex ferenda, but still with the question of the correct point in time, and with step-by-step concessions. The more the colony is developed, the more it approaches the pursued goal, the american promise, but a goal which is only pursued in part: that of complete independence.
Already here and there national leaders (e.g. Don Manuel Quezon, Preseident of the Senate) are making veiled threats to receive a deadline of 6, 10 or 15 years maximum. The rising influence of educated Filipinos on the administration can not be denied, but has also recently received setbacks through questionable financial actions. The fast growth of the population to 12 million in the security of civilized institutions supports the tendencies in the United States to liberate the Philippines ( tendencies which are stronger in the Democratic than in the Republican Party) because one rightly fears, that through the growth of the Filipino population as american citizens, a third race question of the United States would be tragicly provoked. The Jones Bill for example, suported by the the democratic party promises increasing autonomy, but one would generally want to at least keep a naval base and permanent economic hegemony.
A commission of inquiry of Wood-Forbes, anticipated with great hopes, however had an ambivalent opinion on the maturity of the Philippines for self-administration. At least the chairman, Leonard Wood, an experienced man, was appointed as Governor. After the unstable tendencies in the beginning, the unimpassioned, almost scientific Geopolitics of the United Staes in the Philippine Question is typical for the new geopolitical methods in the Pacific, methods which are probably used for the first time. This is the current state of the constituion of the Philippines and the relations of the United Staates to her east asian „possession“. This is also a foundation of a new development in international relations with great repercussions in the future.
The Philippines have, as yet unacknowledged, a function in state's law and international relations of being a „measuring device“ for Pan-Asian pressures and national psychology, through her exposed location as a focus; being at the touching point of the Malayan Cultural sphere with the Chinese and Malaio-Mongolian-Japanese ones, being the most important bridge between the northern and southern East Asian territorial arches, as the only part of east asian cultures ruled by the racially distinct New World across the Ocean. Geopolitically, she is through geography, climate, race and settlement part of South East Asia, but in questions of power, global communications and economy she is forcefully oriented towards the anglosaxons; against the worldly power of the church, but still a good catholic, and culturally mostly related to spanish South America. That is why she has become the medium for the transnational, south-east Asian territorial organization of all essentially related tropical countries, at first in the field of legal studies, but she has also become an important supporter of East-Asian Unity and Pan-Asian ideals (Asia for the Asians). The "Asian Legal Protection Community" [must look it up, no fr*ckin idea if this still exists???] was first convened 1919 in Manila, 1920 in Tokyo and 1921 in Shanghai, has received its strongest input from the Philippines; the representatives of the Legal sciences of India, Thailand, Indonesia, China and Japan followed the lead of the Filipinos, who in the presence of American and Japanese officials now could hold speeches which had previously brought Rizal before the spanish, and Aguinaldo before american rifles.