The National Defense Plan: Internal and External Dilemmas in the face of Time

By Jose Mathew P. Luga

The goal to make the Philippines an independent nation has long been the aim of our nationalists,
whether only in party name or in reality. Ironically, it was this very desire to push for independence that
resulted to the delay of national defense. Furthermore, priority over maintaining domestic peace always
took precedence during the not so peaceful years of the pre-war Philippines, increasing budgetary
limitations already present against the growth of a Philippine Army. Add to this politics 1 and lack of
foresight, the country was surely “doomed before they started to fight.” 2

The Process of Forming the Philippine Army

The Philippine Army has long been in existence even before the creation of the Bureau of National
Defense – various precedents can be seen in our history; from the Carabineros de Filipinas and Tercios
de Guardia Civil of the Spaniards, until the Katipunan and the Army of Liberation, of the Filipino forces.
However, it was under the Americans that we see the slow formation of a more “professionalized”
army, compared to the previous precedents mentioned.

The formation of the Philippine Army was to be made by the Philippine Commonwealth with the passing
of Bill 735, An Act Creating the Bureau of National Defense. 3 It was to be passed by the National
Assembly as the first Philippine Commonwealth Act the country passed and signed in December 21,
1935 – and which to this day is still the Philippines’ basic defense law. 4

The Bill, according to the former Vice-Governor of the Philippines and Secretary of Public Instruction
Joseph Ralston Hayden;

“… was ambitious and sought to cover especially the training of officers, creating an officers’
and enlisted reserve corps, providing for compulsory military education in schools, colleges,
and universities, and providing funding for scholarships in military and naval schools in the
United States and other countries.” 5

The passing of the said bill did not go smoothly though, since there were numerous questions raised
against the National Defense. For one, the Philippine budget was not generous enough to provide for a
large standing army that will be useless in peacetime. Hence, there were calls to make the army
efficient, “attaining maximum effectiveness at minimum cost.” 6 Also, there were problems about how
the army will be built – through a democratic system, monarchial system, or that of a system modeled
after the Swiss and the Australians, where there will be a small regular force with a citizenry that was

1
That being the love-hate relationship between Manuel Luis Quezon and Douglas MacArthur, as discussed by
Ricardo Trota Jose throughout his work, The Philippine Army 1935-1942 which from this point onwards shall be
referred to as TPA (Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press, 1992).
2
General Wainwright in Jose, TPA, 214.
3
Ibid., 28.
4
Jose, “The Beginnings of the Philippine Army” in Milagros C. Guerrero, Under Stars and Stripes: Kasaysayan
The Story of the Filipino People Volume 6 (Hong Kong: Asia Publishing Company Limited, 1998), 284.
5
Joseph Ralston Hayden, The Philippines: A Study in National Development (New York: MacMillan, 1942), 735.,
in Jose, TPA, 28.
6
Opined L. Siguion Reyna, technical adviser to the secretary of interior from Jose, TPA, 31.
trained for fixed periods.7 A more pressing problem was what will the core of the army be? Will it be
made from scratch or will at absorb existing institutions such as that of the Philippine Constabulary (PC)
or that of the Philippine Scouts (PS)?

Early Defensive Plans

The answers to most of these questions were provided by General Douglas MacArthur who was
appointed as the military adviser to the Commonwealth. MacArthur planned to make use of a small
regular force which will be buoyed by a large reserve force which will be trained in two batches per year
– 20,000 per batch, generating 40,000 reserve force per year. 8 Furthermore, the said force shall put
stress on smaller units and shall not rely on organic transportation equipment for increased mobility.

The problem was that due to the extreme constraints placed on budget, the army which was envisioned
must be restricted to an annual budget of P 16 Million per year, way off from the P 22 M mark
conservatively drafted by MacArthur’s assistants Lt. Cols. Dwight D. Eisenhower and James Ord. 9 The
result of such curtailment was the lack of any efficient Philippine Airforce or Navy, sticking to a small
number of planes and boats with heavy reliance on infantry regiments – not to mention that the
envisioned size of the total army was barely larger than the existing number of the PC then. 10 The goal
was for any invading force to “not land” rather than “not pass.” Also, the core of the said army will be
comprised of the Philippine Constabulary, to which the additional burden of foreign defense above its
policing duties was to be expected.11

This plan to found the Philippine Army on a so-called “Citizen Army” 12 did slowly grow in the first three
years of the Commonwealth. Since registration into the army was mandated by in the 1935 Constitution,
regulations and registration for male citizens, preferably single, began from April 1 to 7, 1936. The turn-
out of registrants was 153,489, a full 20,440 over expected numbers as provided by the statistics office
of the time (citizenry computations were probably from the Bureau of Census). 13

Officers were also trained to keep with the demand of increasing reservists, resulting to the creation of
the Reserve Officers Service School in branches such as U.P., and in Camp Henry T. Allen at Baguio City. 14
The Reserved Officer Training Corps program was also implemented in leading universities of the
country to bolster reservist officers’ numbers, and was eventually required in all schools to prevent
privileged children from transferring schools to avoid the said military duty. 15

7
Ibidem.
8
Jose, TPA, 77.
9
Dwight D. Eisenhower, Diary of the American Military Mission in the Philippine Islands), 27 December 1935
entry., in Jose, TPA, 234.
10
With the limited budget, the expected standing army which could be sufficiently maintained would number to 930
officers and 7,000 men, from Jose, TPA, 34.
11
Ibid., 33.
12
Ibid., 53.
13
Ibid., 55.
14
Ibid., 79.
15
Ibid., 59.
Nagging Problems of the Philippine Army

Yet, despite of the gains made in the early years, the Philippine Army continued to face familiar
problems tracing as early as the 19 th century. The Spanish Tercios de Guardia Civil was known for its
harsh policies and their arbitrary activities of taking the law into their hands. 16 This old practice of the
Tercios de Guardia Civil seeped into the Philippine Constabulary (PC) since a moderate amount of
former Guardia Civil officers found enlistment into the PC ranks and this unfortunately also influenced
the later Philippine Army (PA), made evident in cases of unprofessionalism 17 -- cases of disciplinary
problems and instances of overstepping one’s Constabulary authority plagued the early years of the
PC.18 These unprofessional acts of the PA will include the formation of cliques (tayo-tayo system) which
will, for some time, prevent the proper admonition of officials with fraudulent backgrounds until the
creation for court martials and the first efficiency boards in 1938. 19

In addition, the PA continued to rely on outdated military equipment due to military constraints. In
1936-37, the use of World War I dated Enfield rifles was the only option the army had. These were of
British design and were too big for Filipinos to wield and the ideal Springfield rifle were too expensive to
procure. As late as October 1941, the military equipment remained outdated, with only 97 British World
War I 75-mm guns scattered throughout Luzon. Also, there were only 52 2.95-inch pack howitzers built
to be moved by horseback. Visayas and Mindanao were left to juggle with whatever weapons were to
be set aside for them.20 All these equipment dilemmas are further exacerbated by the lack of proper
training facilities due to the lack of engineers – for the time, nipa and bamboo huts as cantonment areas
would do.21

The materials and equipment needed to mount a proper defense of the Philippines against foreign
threat of invasion will be made worse by the internal arrangement that the nucleus of the PA had in
relation to the domestic affairs in the islands. The Social situation in the Philippines throughout the
“Pistaym Period” did not improve – in fact it remained worse. A bulk of the Filipino Population during
the Commonwealth Period only received P9 - 14.00 of monthly wages (almost 7M people out of the
8M), with most of them coming from the agricultural sector. Furthermore, they usually did not get their
pay on time, resulting to frequent uprisings and the formation of other Filipino movements calling for
improved conditions (e.g., Papa Faustino in Panay, Tayug Uprising in 1931, Sakdal Uprising). 22

With such movements threatening to destabilize domestic peace, the Philippine Constabulary had to
frequently participate in the quelling of the said movements and rather than the PA getting the increase
in funds, it was actually the PC that benefitted as a result from such domestic unrests during the early
days of the Commonwealth until 1941.23

16
Ibid., 8.
17
Jose., TPA, 69.
18
Cesar P. Pobre, History of the Armed Forces of the Filipino People (Quezon City: New Day Publishers, 2000),
102.
19
Ibid., 123.
20
Constant L. Irwin to USAFFEE Chief of Staff, 1 october 1941 and endorsements, RG 2, MacArthur Memorial in
Jose., TPA, 204.
21
Ibid., 203-204.
22
Luis Camara Dery, “The Myth of ‘Pistaym’ Prosperity” in The Journal of History, 32-33 (1987-1988): 1-14.
23
Jose, TPA, 116-117; 187.
Finally, the lack of foresight on MacArthur’s part proves to be another fault in the lack of preparation of
the Philippine Army. His initial plan to “ensure such an excellent defense of each portion of Philippine
territory that the cost of its subjugation would exceed the potential rewards accruing to any aggressor”
did not deter the Japanese Imperial Army to occupy the Philippines. As the Philippines seems to have
moved backward in military warfare, the Germans have deployed a new strategy in conquering lands
quickly – blitzkrieg. Relying on both Aerial Assault and Artillery Bombardment, followed quickly by
Armored and Mechanized Infantry resulted to the quick demise of any country that did not have
modern equipment. With the quick conquest of Poland, Quezon gradually lost faith in MacArthur’s
defense plan – which was not abetted by the latter’s failure to answer Quezon’s quizzing about how the
country will sufficiently defend Mindanao under his older proposed plan. 24

MacArthur’s blunders only continued with his appointment as the head of the newly formed United
States Armed Forces in the Far East. Contrary to the original plans laid out by War Plan Orange 3, and
later the Rainbow Five, he modified the arrangement of Philippine defenses from the proposed holing
up in Bataan and Corregidor to consider beach defense as the first phase. Arguing that he would be
ready by January of 1942, the Japanese did not give him the chance to prove his wisdom and proceeded
to attack the country on December 8, 1941 a few hours after the sinking of Pearl Harbor. War had
dawned upon a country unprepared.

Civilian Defense Blunders

Aside from the blunders MacArthur committed in the defense preparation of the Philippines, another
issue of equal importance was who was to be put in charge in defending the Philippines – The Philippine
Commonwealth or the United States Government? Numerous Filipino political commentators agreed
with Quezon’s idea to pass the burden to the United States, to which Salvador P. Lopez plainly writes in
his column, “the U.S. has an obligation to defend the Philippines.” 25

The United States, in their part, appears to have given in to this popular sentiment, as reflected in the
Annual Report of the United States High Commissioner to the Philippine Islands, noting that “Clearly the
‘active’ military and naval defense of the Islands lay within the responsibility of the United States Army
and Navy.” This sentiment is not shared however with respect to the defense of the civilian population,
stating that “civilian agencies must assume responsibility for the ‘passive defense’ of the civilian
population, embracing measures taken for their general protection and welfare” 26 which later bore fruit
to the Civil Emergency Administration (CEA). In order to make the CEA successful, proper administrative
lines were conceived, and through the Executive Order No. 335, the CEA was established along with its
organizational chart – one of which was the need to establish;

“A city emergency committee in each chartered city, composed of the city mayor as chairman
and various city officials as members. ‘This committee shall organize local units for emergency
purposes as prescribed for municipalities.’” 27

Aside from creating such organizational charts, different activities and exercises for civilian preparation
were conducted prior to the bombing of the Philippines. For instance, practice black-outs were
24
Ibid., 138-139.
25
Herald (10 August 1940), in Jose, TPA, 167.
26
The Fifth Annual Report of the United States High Commissioner to the Philippine Islands (Washington: United
States Government Printing Office, 1943), 12.
27
Ibid., 14.
instituted with the first one being conducted in Manila area on July 10. In addition, the building of
underground bomb-proof shelters was envisioned. This was a problem for Manila though since its low-
lying character made it impracticable hence, the need to establish evacuation centers. One of these
envisioned evacuations sites was Baguio City, 28 and this made sense due to its mountainous terrain
being in direct opposite to the vulnerable lowlands of Manila.

Yet, even these civilian defense plans and practices were not put to use at the actual outbreak of the
war. Due to the impossibility of knowing where the enemy would come, the Baguio evacuation center
was made difficult to execute due to it being one of the first places bombed in the first day of war.
Furthermore, the same lack of supplies and equipment plagued the CEA – for instance, the lack of gas
masks for general civilian use.29 Even the very character of the civilians involved in the said defense drills
reflected the lack of preparedness and commitment the Philippine Army had – practice blackouts
became opportunities for promenading and practice evacuations as picnics. 30 Hence, when war broke
out, particularly in Baguio, the civilians were caught unprepared, thinking that the bombers were
actually American planes and when the bombs were dropped, all evacuation plans and drills were
thrown out the window.31

Internal Dilemmas: The National Defense’s undoing

“Procrastination on our part might spell disaster.” The then Head of the Committee on National
Defense, Claudio Sandoval, stated these words during the debate over the passing of the said bill in
1935. Unfortunately, these internal bickering and lack of budget, not to mention lack of foresight, and
mental preparedness in the part of the civilians, resulted to the caught-off-guard attitude of the
Philippines upon the outbreak of war. External realities did not permeate the mentality of the important
actors in the administration of the Army, resulting to delayed mobilization and changes in plans, and it
was only in mid-June to July, when most of the reservists were being accelerated into active duty that
the Philippine Army was truly preparing for war. 32 Even civilian preparations were began too little too
late, resulting to the panic that swept the country during the December bombings of Baguio and Davao.
Yet, as Professor Ricardo Trota Jose would put it, “… despite of all the errors, bad timing, and shortages,
the Filipino officers and men did what they could, and in many cases, more.” 33 If it were not for these
things that we did right, on the fly, we may have seen a longer Japanese interregnum.

28
The Sixth Annual Report of the United States High Commissioner to the Philippine Islands (Washington: United
States Government Printing Office, 1943), 22.
29
Ibidem.
30
Ricardo Jose, The Japanese Occupation: Kasaysayan Volume VII (Hong Kong: Asia Publishing Company
Limited, 1998), 17.
31
Jose Mathew P. Luga, “Kwento ni Lola: Ang Buhay ni Generosa Santos-Pangan sa Lungsod ng Baguio noong
Ikalawang Digmaang Pandaigdig.” In Shuntug: Mga Kabundukan sa Kasaysayan at Kalinangang Pilipino, edited
by Lars C. Ubaldo. (Manila: ADHIKA ng Pilipinas, Inc. and National Commission for Culture and the Arts, 2015).
32
Ibid., 188.
33
Ibid., 214.