Narratives, Shifting Cultivation, and Knowledge Projects in the Philippines, 1901–1941: A Cautionary Tale

ABSTARCT

Information and empire are closely connected. In this article, I introduce a number of knowledge projects initiated by the Bureau of Forestry in the Philippines during the period of American rule from 1901 to 1941. These included the development of typologies of forest law violators, surveillance of forest communities, agroforestry schemes, public relations efforts, and the creation of a legal infrastructure to support prosecution of forest law violators. All of these projects related to the aim of the bureau to contain and control small farmers, a group that competed with their own dreams of creating scientifically managed forests in the country. The story of these knowledge projects, and the misleading nature of the narrative that propelled them, serves as a more general warning of the fallibility of dominant knowledge-production systems and the concomitant need to engage constantly in their critique.

KEYWORDS:

• Knowledge projects
• epistemology
• narratives
• forestry
• Southeast Asia
• Philippines

Notes on contributor

Brendan Luyt is associate professor at the Wee Kim Wee School of Communication & Information, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. He received both his MLIS and PhD from the University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada. He also holds an MA in Political Science from Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada. His research focuses broadly on the social and policy landscape of information access. At the present time he is especially interested in the study of the history of information institutions, Wikipedia as a social phenomenon, print and reading cultures, as well as issues in scholarly information and communication.

Notes

1. Dave Muddiman, “Information and Empire: The Information and Intelligence Bureau of the Imperial Institute,” in Information History in the Modern World, edited by Toni Weller (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), 108.

2. James Scott, Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998), 3.

3. Bernard Cohn, Colonialism and Its Forms of Knowledge (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1996), 5–11.

4. Christophe Bonneuil, “Development as Experiment: Science and State Building in Late Colonial and Postcolonial Africa,” Osiris, 15 (2000): 258–81; Bhangya Bhukya, “‘Delinquent Subjects’: Dacoity and the Creation of a Surveillance Society in Hyderabad State,” Indian Economic and Social History Review, 44, no. 2 (2007): 179–212; Heather Hogg and May-Britt Ohman, “Turning Water Into Power: Debates Over the Development of Tanzania's Rufiji River Basin,” Technology and Culture, 49, no. 3 (2008): 624–51; Andrew Goss, “Decent Colonialism? Pure Science and Colonial Ideology in the Netherlands East Indies,” Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, 40, no. 1 (2009): 187–214; Gregg Mitman and Paul Erickson, “Latex and Blood: Science, Markets, and American Empire,” Radical History Review, 107 (2010): 45–73; Michitake Aso, “Patriotic Hygiene: Tracing New Places of Knowledge Production About Malaria in Vietnam,” Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, 44, no. 3 (2013): 423–43.

5. Reynaldo Ileto, Knowing America's Colony: A Hundred Years From the Philippine War (Honolulu: Center for Philippine Studies, School of Hawaiian, Asian and Pacific Studies, University of Hawaii at Manoa, 1999), 28.

6. Vincent Rafael, White Love and Other Events in Filipino History (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2000), 19–51.

7. Warwick Anderson, Colonial Pathologies: American Tropical Medicine, Race, and Hygiene in the Philippines (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2006), 104–29.

8. George Ahern, “The Utilization of a Tropical Forest,” Proceedings of the Society of American Foresters 7 (1916): 26.

9. The Makiling Echo was a mimeographed staff magazine published by the Bureau of Forestry and distributed to its employees as well as government and educational institutions in the Philippines and the United States. Among its aims was to serve as a kind of instructional (scientific and moral) institution for the bureau's employees working in very remote areas. See Brendan Luyt, “The Makiling Echo: The Multiple Functions of a Staff Magazine in the American Tropical Empire of the Twentieth Century,” Library & Information History, 30, no. 1 (2014): 20–40.

10. R. F. Wendover, “The Kaingin System and the Settling of Mindanao,” Makiling Echo, 7, no. 2 (1928): 4.

11. Ibid., 5.

12. Louise Fortmann and Sally Fairfax, “American Forestry Professionalism in Third World: Some Preliminary Observations,” Economic and Political Weekly, 12 August (1989): 1839–44.

13. George Ahern, Annual Report of the Director of Forestry, 1909–1910 (Manila: Bureau of Printing, 1910), 8.

14. Ibid.

15. W. F. Sherfesee, Annual Report of the Director of Forestry, 1915 (Manila: Bureau of Printing, 1916), 36; Arthur Fischer, Annual Report of the Director of Forestry, 1916 (Manila: Bureau of Printing, 1917), 28.

16. Beverly Grindstaff, “Creating Identity: Exhibiting the Philippines at the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition,” National Identities, 1, no. 3 (1999): 245–63; Paul Kramer, The Blood of Government: Race, Empire, the United States, and the Philippines (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2006); Mark Rice, “His Name Was Don Francisco Muro,” American Quarterly, 62, no. 1 (2010): 49–76.

17. Ahern, Annual Report, 1909–1910 (Manila: Bureau of Printing, 1910), 16.

18. Ibid., 16.

19. “Subdistrict of Cabanatuan,” Mountain Echo, 2, no. 2 (1920): 16; “Dacanay Is Heard: A Philippine Forest School Graduate Attending University of Montana Forest School,” Mountain Echo, 1, no. 2 (1919): 2.

20. Sherfesee, Annual Report, 1915, 36.

21. Ibid., 18.

22. Wendover, 11.

23. Arthur Fischer, Annual Report of the Director of Forestry, 1923 (Manila: Bureau of Printing, 1924), 16.

24. Arthur Fischer, Annual Report of the Director of Forestry, 1924 (Manila: Bureau of Printing, 1925), 18.

25. “District No. 12, Forest Station, San Jose, Mindoro,” Mountain Echo, 1, no. 9 (1919): 20.

26. Florencio Tamesis, Annual Report of the Director of Forestry, 1932 (Manila: Bureau of Printing, 1933), 140.

27. Arthur Fischer, “Forest Conservation,” Makiling Echo, 1, no. 1–2 (1922): 6.

28. O. W. Pflueger, “The ‘Kaingin’ Problem in the Philippines and a Possible Method of Control,” Makiling Echo, 8, no. 1 (1929): 15.

29. Severo Oliveros, “Costs and Returns of ‘Kaingin’ Cultivation in the Makiling National Botanic Garden, Agricultural College, Laguna,” Makiling Echo, 11, no. 3 (1932): 135–53.

30. “Locusts and Forest Destruction,” Makiling Echo, 11, no. 2 (1932): 4.

31. H. M. Curran and A. P Racelis, “Possible Profit From Planted Forest on Marginal Agricultural Lands in the Philippine Islands,” Makiling Echo, 13, no. 2 (1934): 76.

32. Nicanor Lalog, “Financial Results of Ipil-Ipil Plantation (Leucaena Glauca),” Makiling Echo, 15, no. 1 (1936): 44.

33. Wendover, 7.

34. James Gillis and Carlos Sulit, “The Caingin Menace,” Makiling Echo, 1, no. 1–2 (1922): 14.

35. Oliveros, 140.

36. Ibid., 152.

37. Teodoro Delizo, “Costs and Returns of ‘Kaingin’ Cultivation in the Makiling National Botanic Garden, Agricultural College, Laguna (Part II),” Makiling Echo, 13, no. 4 (1934): 244.

38. George Ahern, Special Report (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1901), 11.

39. Sherfesee, Annual Report, 1915 (Manila: Bureau of Printing, 1916), 34; “Catanduanes May Also Have a Station,” Mountain Echo, 1, no. 7 (1919): 17; Arthur Fischer, Annual Report of the Director of Forestry, 1927 (Manila: Bureau of Printing, 1928), 12.

40. “Forest District No. 12, Headquarters, Calapan, Mindoro,” Mountain Echo, 1, no. 7 (1919): 25.

41. George Ahern, Annual Report of the Director of Forestry, 1908–1909 (Manila: Bureau of Printing, 1909), 6.

42. Ahern, Annual Report, 1909–1910, 8.

43. Fischer, Annual Report, 1923, 30.

44. Arthur Fischer, Annual Report of the Director of Forestry, 1920 (Manila: Bureau of Printing, 1921), 22.

45. Ibid., 23.

46. Arthur Fischer, Annual Report of the Director of Forestry, 1929 (Manila: Bureau of Printing, 1930), 12.

47. George Ahern, Annual Report of the Director of Forestry, 1905–1906 (Manila: Bureau of Printing, 1906), 13.

48. “Forest District No. 3 Headquarters, Baguio, Mountain Province,” Mountain Echo, 1, no. 3 (1919): 11.

49. Bureau of Forestry, The Forest Manual (Manila: Bureau of Printing, 1904), 45.

50. George Ahern, Annual Report of the Director of Forestry, 1906–1907 (Manila: Bureau of Printing, 1907), 16.

51. Ahern, Annual Report, 1908–1909, 8.

52. Sherfesee, Annual Report, 1915, 38; Fischer, Annual Report, 1916, 27; Arthur Fischer, Annual Report of the Director of Forestry, 1917 (Manila: Bureau of Printing, 1918), 18; Fischer, Annual Report, 1921 (Manila: Bureau of Printing, 1922), 2.

53. Fischer, Annual Report, 1917, 15, 22; Arthur Fischer, Annual Report of the Director of Forestry, 1923 (Manila: Bureau of Printing, 1924), 20.

54. Fischer, Annual Report, 1921, 13–14. The bureau conveniently forgot to mention that the use of tax receipts had been, at least in the past, one accepted means of asserting ownership of land (Bureau of Forestry, Forest Manual, 46).

55. Fischer, Annual Report, 1923, 14.

56. Ibid., 19.

57. Fischer, Annual Report, 1924, 16.

58. Arthur Fischer, Annual Report of the Director of Forestry, 1929 (Manila: Bureau of Printing, 1930), 152.

59. Fischer, Annual Report, 1922, 27.

60. Fischer, Annual Report, 1923, 34.

61. Fischer, Annual Report, 1922, 15.

62. Pflueger, 14.

63. Fischer, Annual Report, 1916, 20–21.

64. Ibid., 20–21.

65. Fischer, Annual Report, 1917, 10.

66. Arthur Fischer, Annual Report of the Director of Forestry, 1918 (Manila: Bureau of Printing, 1919), 51.

67. Arthur Fischer, Annual Report of the Director of Forestry, 1919 (Manila: Bureau of Printing, 1920), 33.

68. “Technical Notes,” Makiling Echo, 1, no. 1–2 (1922): 19.

69. Fischer, Annual Report, 1922, 54.

70. Pflueger, 22–23.

71. Fischer, Annual Report, 1924, 35.

72. Tamesis, Annual Report, 1932, 448–49.

73. Fischer, Annual Report, 1924, 45.

74. Pflueger, 24.

75. Fischer, Annual Report, 1929, 67.

76. Ibid., 67.

77. Arthur Fischer, Annual Report of the Director of Forestry, 1928 (Manila: Bureau of Printing, 1929), 54.

78. Arthur Fischer, Annual Report of the Director of Forestry, 1930 (Manila: Bureau of Printing, 1931), 470.

79. Wendover, 12.

80. Arthur Fischer, Annual Report of the Director of Forestry, 1936 (Manila: Bureau of Printing, 1937), 48.

81. Fischer, Annual Report, 1916, 19.

82. Fischer, Annual Report, 1919, 12.

83. P. San Buenaventura, “Saving the Forests,” Sunday Tribune Magazine, 12 April (1931): 2.

84. Ibid., 18.

85. Ibid.

86. Ibid.

87. While radio would have been an excellent medium to reach rural populations where rates of literacy were unlikely to be high, in this case the choice of radio station, KZIB, located in and serving the capital, was not so inspired.

88. “Placido Dacanay Delivers a Radio Talk at Station KZIB, March 21, 1941,” Forest Leaves, 2, no. 8 (1941): 2.

89. Ibid., 4.

90. Ibid.

91. Ibid., 4–5.

92. Ibid., 5.

93. “The Deforesters or Kaingin Makers,” Makiling Echo, 2, no. 4 (1923): 20–21.

94. “The Cebu Advertiser on Forest Conservation,” Forest Leaves, 2, no. 4 (1940): 3.

95. “Forest District No. 11,” Mountain Echo, 1, no. 9 (1919): 19.

96. Ibid.

97. Richard Wendt, “Philippine Fiesta and Colonial Culture,” Philippine Studies, 46, no. 1 (1998): 3–23; Doreen Fernandez, “Pompas y Solemnidades: Church Celebrations in Spanish Manila and the Native Theatre,” Philippine Studies, 36, no. 4 (1988): 403–26.

98. Richard Darton, “A Bourgeois Puts His World in Order: The City as Text,” in The Great Cat Massacre (New York: Basic Books, 1984), 107–44.

99. Lorenzo Tuano, “Forest School Float, Symbolic,” Forest Leaves, 1, no. 3 (1939): 5.

100. “Most Original Float,” Forest Leaves, 1, no. 5 (1940): 15; “District No. 7,” Forest Leaves, 2, no. 3 (1940): 13.

101. “Public Relations, District 5,” Forest Leaves, 2, no. 6 (1941): 7.

102. Jose Nano, “Kaingin Laws and Penalties in the Philippines,” Philippine Journal of Forestry, 2, no. 2 (1939): 87–92.

103. Ibid., 90–91.

104. Bureau of Forestry, Manual of Procedure (Manila: Bureau of Printing, 1932), 193.

105. Ibid., 191.

106. Ibid., 194.

107. Ibid.

108. Ibid., 195.

109. Ibid., 196.

110. Ibid., 198.

111. “Forest District No. 8,” Mountain Echo, 1, no. 4 (1919): 23.

112. “Forest District No. 4,” Mountain Echo, 1, no. 8 (1919): 19.

113. “Forestry Students to Conduct Trial,” Manila Daily Bulletin, 9 March (1920).

114. Fischer, Annual Report, 1922, 30–31.

115. Fischer, Annual Report, 1928, 9.

116. David Kummer, David, Roger Concepcion, and Bernardo Canizares, “Environmental Degradation in the Uplands of Cebu,” Geographical Review, 84, no. 3 (1994): 266.

117. Ibid., 273.

118. Michael Dove, “The Epistemology of Southeast Asia's Anthropogenic Grasslands: Issues of Myth, Science and Development,” Southeast Asian Studies, 35, no. 2 (1997): 223–39.

119. Siva Vaidhyanathan, “Afterword: Critical Information Studies: A Bibliographic Manifesto,” Cultural Studies, 20, no. 2–3 (2006): 292–315.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Brendan Luyt

Brendan Luyt is associate professor at the Wee Kim Wee School of Communication & Information, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. He received both his MLIS and PhD from the University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada. He also holds an MA in Political Science from Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada. His research focuses broadly on the social and policy landscape of information access. At the present time he is especially interested in the study of the history of information institutions, Wikipedia as a social phenomenon, print and reading cultures, as well as issues in scholarly information and communication.