Talk:History of the Philippines (1898–1946)

message: Does anyone have a copy of the coat of arms from this period, the maiden in front of the volcano? It would be a nice illustration. Chris 13:37, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: coat of arms

message: This article popped up on my watchlist when two  templates were deleted without explanation. I took a look at the sections from which these templates were deleted, and then at the whole article. 
This article is a real mess, and looks like an example of content forking.  It contains numerous maintenance tags which have gone unanswered for several months and overlaps several other, better articles covering similar subject matter, contradicting those other articles on various points (Philippine Revolution, Spanish-American War, Philippine-American War First Philippine Republic, Philippine Commission / Schurman Commission / Taft Commission, Commonwealth of the Philippines, Second Philippine Republic, probably other articles as well. Some of those articles are better than others. IMO, all of them are better than this article.).
The existence of this article in its current state reflects badly on Wikipedia.  Is anyone working on fixing the numerous problems in this article? It looks to me as if this would be better off recast as a summary style article giving a brief overview of material covered by articles such as those I've mentioned and providing  links to them. Comments? -- Boracay Bill (talk) 05:47, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: This article is a mess

message: I've started a substantial rewrite of sections of this article. I started at the top and am proceeding downward in chronological order, working from related WP articles and sources cited therein. The tone what I have written thus far differs markedly from the tone of other related articles, but I think I am being faithful to the sources from which I'm getting the information.
I expect that there may be disagreement about what I'm writing, and would like to invite and encourage interested editors to look at what I am doing and comment on it.  What I have done so far is at User:Wtmitchell/Sandbox. Please comment at User talk:Wtmitchell/Sandbox. -- Boracay Bill (talk) 09:21, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Working on a substantial rewrite

message: I've integrated my first-cut rewrite of the early sections of this article by completely replacing the first two sections with my rewritten version covering the same time period. I am working solely from online sources, and I no doubt have not seen some of the sources on which the parts I've replaced were based.  There is some major controversy here between the Aguinaldo source and the Worcester source. What other sources I've found tend to support Worcester, and he certainly supports his side of the points in controversy strongly -- he provides much discussion about this which I have not drawn into the article.
It made sense to me to reorganize the header-lovels of other sections, and I've done that.  I've also converted the References section into separate Notes and References sections.  I will probably take a break from this article for at least a few days unless something pops up on my watchlist which looks like it needs an answer.  -- Boracay Bill (talk) 04:45, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: First-cut rewrite of early sections integrated

message: If anyone is interested, I'm continuing work on this article by moving on to the Philippine-American war period.  To avoid confusing the main article with in-progress drafts, I'm doing this at User:Wtmitchell/Sandbox. Please comment here and/or at User talk:Wtmitchell/Sandbox. -- Boracay Bill (talk) 22:14, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Continuing work, moving on to Phil-Am war period

message: I'm done with ongoing major rewrite work. There is still some work and a lot of polishing needed.  Some of the detail in this article probably needs to be moved into more detailed subject-focused articles which it references with  or with inline wikilinks. I've probably requoted too much material from the sources I've cited.  I think I'm done with heavy rewriting heavy rewriting, though.  I think and hope that I've improved the article. -- Boracay Bill (talk) 02:31, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Done with major work

message: I just placed this proposal in Talk:Armed Forces of the Philippines#World War II Veteran Benefits for Filipinos:
Please comment here -- Boracay Bill (talk) 07:17, 11 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: The ''World War II Veteran Benefits for Filipinos'' section

message: Introduction needs to mention the Philippine-American war.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.104.44.94 (talk) 12:57, 25 March 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: add philippine american war

message: The subject section speaks of the effect of the Rescission Act of 1946. It makes the point that Filipinos who fought in defense of the United States against the Japanese (the vast majority fighting in the Philippines, which was a US territory at the time) were US nationals. However, the closing sentence reads, "Of the 66 countries allied with the United States during the war, only Filipinos were denied military benefits."  This strikes me as a WP:POV cheap-shot against the U.S.
If there is an intended implication here that the US paid military benefits to allies other than the Philippines, it should be stated in a bit more detail and cite-supported. If there is no such intended implication, whatever this sentence does intend to imply should be stated more explicitly.
Incidentally, my own take on this without studying the history, is that the passage of the rescission act was probably related to the recognition of Philippine independence which took place in the same timeframe. At first blush, it seems to me that the rescission act was ill-conceived. However, I suspect that there is an unmentioned back-story here which, if there is, should be mentioned here and covered in some detail in the Rescission Act of 1946 article. -- Boracay Bill (talk) 08:12, 11 April 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: World War II Veteran Benefits

message: In the Tensions escalate section, there is a source-supported assertion beginning "three days later", saying that three days after General Otis's January 4, 1899 publication of his abridged version of President McKinley's Proclamation of Benevolent Assimilation, Aguinaldo published a statement said to be "close to a formal declaration of war". I have the book cited as a supporting source (), and it solidly supports that, including the title of Aguinaldo's statement, the characterization of it, and the quote from it used in the article.
However, I've just come across another source (this one previewable online), , which says that Aguinaldo's statement (also partially quoted there) was published "[a]s hostilities began". I take this as meaning February 4, or very shortly thereafter. That makes a lot more sense to me.
I should also mention that I have a copy of another source () which quotes in its entirety a very different response by Aguinaldo dated January 5, 1899 and issued (it explicitly says) "as a reaction to" Otis's January 4 proclamation.
This is the first time I have encountered such a situation, and I'm not sure how to deal with it. I'm inclined to move the mention of Aguinaldo's statement down into the Outbreak of general hostilities section, to associate it with those events and to cite the Denson source in support. I'm also inclined to add a footnote citing the Wolff source, containing information about the difference between the two sources regarding the timing of the statement. I'm also inclined to add info about Aguinaldo's 5 Jan response to Otis's 4 Jan proclamation, citing the source I mentioned supporting that.
Comments? Suggestions? Wtmitchell  (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 11:17, 17 August 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Miller's presence and actions in Iloilo are described in  (not previewable online), which says that after Iloilo's business community petitioned Otis on 13 December for American occupation of the city to prevent it being burned by revolutionaries, on 24 Dec Otis ordered Miller to proceed to Ilolo and occupy the city, sure that the mission would be peaceful. Linn goes on with details of what apparently degenerated into confusion and stalemate, with Otis torn between instructions from McKinley to demonstrate US Sovereignty and also to avoid provoking war, leading to Miller and his troops departing Iloilo on 6 January to return to Manila -- arriving back on 2 February after 94 days at sea without having landed. The term "Fog of war" comes to mind. Wtmitchell  (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 05:25, 19 August 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Conflict between two sources on a significant point 

message: I rewrote the intro to make it shorter and cleaner without removing the neutrality.  I hope that I succeeded. If I didn't please let me know, or revert my changes. i think that the opening only needs to be a quick sign-posting of the coming article and phrases like "acquired sovereignty" to maintain neutrality are unnecessary.  --Bruce Hall (talk) 08:46, 7 April 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Rewrote the intro 

message: http://books.google.com/books?id=6OwbAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA400&lpg=PA400&dq=Yung+lo+governor+luzon&source=bl&ots=pn2TtAVUkL&sig=uMKrSu0xBuC8G2DqI3_rb2zIJ3o&hl=en&sa=X&ei=cL53ULGEM8rD0AHZ6YHABA&ved=0CF4Q6AEwCTge#v=onepage&q=Yung%20lo%20governor%20luzon&f=false
http://books.google.com/books?id=OicwAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA12&lpg=PA12&dq=Yung+lo+governor+luzon&source=bl&ots=4PTShGmSEo&sig=zPgXPgANggXzgZ59OWHbiYkIWDY&hl=en&sa=X&ei=cL53ULGEM8rD0AHZ6YHABA&ved=0CFMQ6AEwBzge#v=onepage&q&f=false
http://books.google.com/books?id=fLstAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA1605&lpg=PA1605&dq=Yung+lo+governor+luzon&source=bl&ots=6_She5kX70&sig=h07ePLwPWUvrU967t7a_PBH4rYY&hl=en&sa=X&ei=TMF3UKjZD4qn0AGwjICQDQ&ved=0CFcQ6AEwBzha#v=onepage&q=Yung%20lo%20governor%20luzon&f=false
http://books.google.com/books?id=fLstAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA1605&lpg=PA1605&dq=Yung+lo+governor+luzon&source=bl&ots=6_She5kX70&sig=h07ePLwPWUvrU967t7a_PBH4rYY&hl=en&sa=X&ei=TMF3UKjZD4qn0AGwjICQDQ&ved=0CFcQ6AEwBzha#v=onepage&q=Yung%20lo%20governor%20luzon&f=false
http://books.google.com/books?id=WH8KAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA146&lpg=PA146&dq=Yung+lo+governor+luzon&source=bl&ots=ZrDch8jkwm&sig=MXgKLMtOyjUbuCyT5zO9pd_8MmU&hl=en&sa=X&ei=TMF3UKjZD4qn0AGwjICQDQ&ved=0CF0Q6AEwCDha#v=onepage&q=Yung%20lo%20governor%20luzon&f=false
Rajmaan (talk) 04:14, 8 June 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Military forces stationed 

message: Here and here I've reverted recent WP:bold edits by user Shhhhwwww!!. This needs to be discussed before such major changes are made. I'll begin the discussion below. These reversions were done in the spirit of WP:BRD, and this is the D part of that.
These edits would have made a significant change in the organization of material presented in this article and in the (1521-1898) article which precedes it in the historical timeline. The change would be to begin this article not with the outbreak of the Spanish–American War in April 1898 but, instead, with the declaration of Philippine independence by Emil Aguinaldo's newly proclaimed insurgent dictatorial government (soon to be recast as a revolutionary government) on June 12 of that year. It seems to me that the events in the Philippines which grew out of the Spanish-American War, including Aguinaldo being returned to the Philippines from exile in Hong Kong by George Dewey and the re-ignition of the revolution against the Spanish colonial government which the pact of Biak-na-Bato had placed more or less on hold in 1897, fit better in this article than in the (1521-1898) article.
Some of the changes made by Shhhhwwww!! to the material as it was reorganized in the edits I've reverted need to be discussed too, but let's establish a consensus about the demarcation point between the two articles before getting into that. Wtmitchell  (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 05:54, 7 August 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree that May 1 1898 makes a much clearer cut between the Spanish and American colonial period.  Because of the May 1 battle, the battle for Philippine independence shifted from a Spain-Filipino conflict to an America-Filipino one and the Philippine Revolution entered a second stage that we now call the Philippine-American War.  I thank User:Shhhhwwww!! for the edits. It is not easy deciding how to divide epochs of history and this is something that we definitely need to reach a consensus on. This one I think should be divided by the arrival of Dewey in the Philippines -- much like the pre-Spanish and Spanish periods are divided by the arrival of Magellan.  --Iloilo Wanderer (talk) 03:36, 8 August 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bold edits to two articles by user ''Shhhhwwww!!'' 

message: https://archive.org/details/cu31924023112620— Preceding unsigned comment added by Milktaco (talk • contribs) 09:51, 16 August 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Drive-by comment after seeing this section relocated: I take this as a suggestion that Moro Province deserves a mention and some WP:SS summarization here. In a quick look, I see no mention in that article or in this one of Mindanao, etc. under Spanish colonization, and little mention in the History of the Philippines (1565–1898) article  Wtmitchell  (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 10:15, 14 August 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  The Department of Mindanao and Sulu�� at the second Philippine Exposition : January 31 to February 14, 1914 (1914) 

message: This has been discussed in various talk pages and touched on in some revisions of various articles as those articles developed. One place where it is currently mentioned is in the Philippine declaration of independence and establishment of Philippine governments section of the now-current version of this article (starting with "Writing retrospectively in 1899, Aguinaldo claimed ..."). I am revisiting this here after seeing this column headed What could have changed our history in the June 12 (Independence day) edition of the Philippine Star. That column puts a slant on this which I have not seen previously. In particular, that column says that Aguinaldo "invented the white 'lie' that the Americans had promised independence if they fought against Spain." The column cites a book titled Insurrectos in support, but I see here that Google Books subtitles that book A novel about the Philippines. I've downloaded the ebook, and see that the final sentence of the Preface reads, "Some events have been romanticized to add flavor to the story". See also Jose Alejandrino on Insurrectos on YouTube. I don't think that there's enough solidity here to support changes to this or other articles regarding this, but I thought that it merited talk page mention. 
See also  (possibly relevant) Wtmitchell  (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 03:46, 19 June 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Revisiting the alleged offer of independence by the U.S. 

message: Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified 5 external links on History of the Philippines (1898–1946). Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
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*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20060822045537/http://pinas.dlsu.edu.ph/history/history.html to http://pinas.dlsu.edu.ph/history/history.html
*Corrected formatting/usage for http://www.nscb.gov.ph/secstat/d_popn.asp
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20120326014901/http://law.upd.edu.ph/plj/images/files/PLJ%20volume%2060/PLJ%20Volume%2060%20supplemental%20issue%20-012-%20Treaty%20between%20spain%20and%20the%20United%20States.pdf to http://law.upd.edu.ph/plj/images/files/PLJ%20volume%2060/PLJ%20Volume%2060%20supplemental%20issue%20-012-%20Treaty%20between%20spain%20and%20the%20United%20States.pdf
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When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.
Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 16:13, 3 April 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  External links modified 

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thread_title:  A Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion 

message: Here, I've just adjusted the indent level of the World War II veteran benefits section outward, as that subtopic does not belong in the Independence (1946) section. There is still a problem, though.
The article still places the Commonwealth era (1935–1946), the Japanese occupation and World War II (1941–45) and the Independence (1946) sections at the same indent level. logically, going by the headings, the last two should be subtopics of the first one. I would have adjusted those two indent levels inward, but I think that it would be better to change the section heading of the first one to something like Philippine Commonwealth (1941-1946), and to give a bit more coverage there of the government in exile. There is a bit of information about that in the Commonwealth of the Philippines article, but the Philippine Commonwealth government in exile probably should have a full section there and fuller coverage in a standalone article. Wtmitchell  (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 09:52, 9 January 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: I've gone ahead and WP:BOLDly changed the section name Commonwealth era (1935–1946) to Philippine Commonwealth (1935–1946) (note the 1941 vs. 1935 correction from the heading I mistakenly suggested above). I haven't done anything re the coverage of the government in exile. Wtmitchell  (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 10:26, 11 January 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Indent levels and Commonwealth era 

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thread_title:  A Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion 

message: I recently added a mention of the 1907 flag law (apparently we have the stubbiest stub at Flag Act (Philippines)) because it was presented in the source within the context of ongoing hostilities. It was introduced to clamp down on separatist sentiments, which is why I included it in the post-1902 hostilities section. The text of the law, which includes this context, can be seen on the officialgazette or wikisource. CMD (talk) 14:45, 4 February 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: Discussed on user talk page. CMD (talk) 01:04, 12 February 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  1907 flag law 

message: Included in this additionby @JHBW was, "Under the Treaty of Paris, the United States agreed to respect existing property rights." I effectively reverted that part of the addition here, having failed in a quick attempt to confirm it. @Chipmunkdavis restored it here, calling my attention to Article VIII of the treaty. I'm not tagging or re-reverting this, but Article VIII is in fairly dense legalese and, though it seems to me as if this interpretation is reasonable, it also seems to me as if this is unsupported interpretation of a primary source made in Wikipedia's editorial voice (WP:OR). Excessive concern over minor details? OK, call me a pedant. Wtmitchell  (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 09:38, 21 May 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: Hi Wtmitchell, that text was originally added by me, and was drawn from Elections and Democratization in the Philippines. It has a section "Preservation of the Existing System of Landownership", which opens "The basic elements of early US land policy in the Philippines...beginning with the 1989 Treaty of Paris. This treaty...committed the US to nonetheless respect the inherited [excerpt from Chapter VIII]. Without disturbing these prior holdings, the Americans introduced the Torrens titling system in 1902." CMD (talk) 09:54, 21 May 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks. I saw the cite of the Franco book at the end of the para and wondered about that but couldn't verify it online. With this hint, I've found this. There's no pageno info there, though, and the book is cited elsewhere in the article in support of other points. If I had a copy of the book or could find info online to do it, I would try to convert those cites to page-numbered shortened footnotes linked to a full cite of the book, but if I had some ham I could make a ham and egg sandwich if I had an egg and if I had some bread. Oh well. Thanks again. Wtmitchell  (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 10:44, 21 May 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: No page info for me either unfortunately, but I have access online to that section. Let me know if you want a longer quote, it also covers the 1904 church land issues already covered in this article. CMD (talk) 11:22, 21 May 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Property rights 

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thread_title:  A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion 

message: In the current article, the early sections of this article covering the Spanish–American War and the Philippine–American War contain 31kb of prose, not including the quoted text which presumably adds a significant amount more. It's an important period, but putting that much focus on 4 years within the 48-year scope of this article does not leave space for the rest of the time period. (31kb + quotes is more than enough for its own article.) Given this, the current text for these periods needs to be greatly compacted into WP:Summary style on this article. That said, it's detailed text that shouldn't be lost. I see a couple of options, one would be creating a brand new article on the period, perhaps also pushing it back to include the earlier Philippine Revolution. This would be a simple solution, but would overlap with existing articles significantly and thus would require work on those articles too. Another option would be to merge it to the existing articles, namely Philippine Revolution and Philippine–American War (the text here would not fit within the broader scope of Spanish–American War). These two articles are quite long already, however in both cases they are mostly history articles as it stands, so merging duplicated content might leave both articles not much longer than they are now. Personally I'd lean towards merging for the moment, unless that makes the two mentioned articles significantly longer. CMD (talk) 09:32, 14 August 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: My impression is that all of the major articles on Philippine history are overlong, there is way too much overlap between them, not enough attention paid to WP:SS, too many instances of content which should be in detail articles being missing from there but appearing in what should be summary articles instead, and some instances of conflict over detail between articles. All of that needs a hard look, and it's way too much for me to take on -- I'm glad to see you looking at it. As far as organization goes, the current division line at 1898 seems wrong to me, but that may be just because it falls in the middle of what has become an area of interest to me. I tend to think of 1892 to 1935 as a unit, running through the early part of the revolution against Spanish rule (Katipunan / revolution + Tejeros + Biak-na-Bato), the post BnB exile, the impact of the SpanAm war including the restarted revolution, the PhilAm war, the 1902 Organic act + Taft Commission, Jones Law in 1916 + Philippine Assembly, Tydings-Mcduffie in 1935 + Bicameral legislature. Maybe that unit ought to end at one of those earlier milestones or go on to include the Commonwealth and WW-II periods and run to independence in 1946, but that's not the way I think of it. Those educated in the Philippines probably think of it differently. I'm American, and the schooling I had in the US pretty much skipped over all of that; I learned what I know of it by reading about it while I was living in the Philippines. Don't take this a restructuring suggestion -- it's a drive-by comment. Wtmitchell  (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 16:56, 15 August 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Overdetail on early years 

message: This edit caught my eye, and prompted this edit by me to tone down what looked like WP:POV WP:OR there. I remarked in the edit summary of my edit that this source, introduced into the article by that edit, appeared to be highly POV but based on fact. I see that it is located at a URL at worldfuturefund.org/wffmaster/[...] (a dead link from a partial URL there, for illustration), and I'm having trouble relating it to the site indes at that website and considering it as a part of that website as a cited source. I think that the sourcing needs to be clarified in the article. Wtmitchell  (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 10:38, 5 November 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Source "U.S. WAR CRIMES IN THE PHILIPPINES" 

message: This edit, inserting a , caught my eye. Here, I have replaced that tag with a clarifying footnote. The wording of the footnote could stand improvement but, hopefully, it is clear. This is a significant point, but it is a small detail in the context of this article topic. Detail articles expanding on this would include Philippine-American War, United States Military Government of the Philippine Islands and Taft Commission. I'll probably take a look at what is in those other articles re this detail. Wtmitchell  (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 12:39, 17 April 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Transition from US military government to civil government 

message: Was it not an occupation? 2601:58A:8881:E7A0:79BC:C560:36D4:EFF5 (talk) 12:10, 19 September 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Question, "US occupation of Philippines"?  The current article title with years "History of the Philippines (1898–1946)" is confusing.