Birds of Prey

During the first decade of American colonial rule, several newspapers continued the
struggle for independence through print, among them El Renacimiento, first published
in September, 1901, Muling Pagsilang and El Grito del Pueblo/Ang Kapatid ng Bayan.
El Renacimiento was established by Rafael and Jose Palma, Fernando Ma. Guerrero
and Cecilio Apostol, all of whom, except for Palma, had studied law at the University
of Santo Tomas and unlike the ilustrados during the Spanish colonial period, had not
gone abroad. It was only Palma, however, who had joined the Katipunan. All four had
earlier joined Antonio Luna’s revolutionary newspaper, La Independencia.
The editors of El Renacimiento, also called “the consistent nationalists,” believed

in the following: that the Federalistas did not represent the Filipino people; that there is
a need to opppose the penetration of American culture in the Philippines, specifically
the imposition of the English language, and Spanish influence in Philippine culture
that should be idealized.
On October 30, 1908, El Renacimiento published the editorial “Birds of Prey,” by

Fidel A. Reyes. Although Dean Worcester, Secretary of the Interior, was not named
as the target of the editorial’s criticism, it obviously alluded to him, with references
to his inclination for zoology and ethnology, his interest on the natural resources
of the Philippines and his links to capitalists. Worcester sued the writer Reyes, the
newspaper director Teodoro Kalaw, the owner Martin Ocampo and the journalists
Faustino Aguilar and Lope K. Santos. After six years of trial, on January 9, 1909,
Ocampo, and Reyes were sentenced to six months of imprisonment and a fine of 2,000
and one fifth of legal costs, and Kalaw to nine months imprisonment and a fine of
3,000, while the cases against Aguilar and Santos were dismissed. After appeals, the
Supreme Court on December 22, 1909 upheld Ocampo’s conviction, cleared Reyes,
and increased Kalaw’s sentence to twelve months. The US Supreme Court upheld this
decision in 1914. They were, however, pardoned by Governor General Francis Burton
Harrison.
Worcester also filed a civil suit and was awarded 60,000 by the defendants,
effectively running the newspaper out of business. Ocampo later put out another
newspaper in 1910 called the Renacimento and Kalaw effectively ran for the Second
Philippine Assembly.
For you to fully understand why the editorial incensed the American colonial
government and why this was a significant moment in the history of Philippine
journalism, here is the editorial:
The Editorial:
BIRDS OF PREY2
‘On the surface of the globe some were born to eat and devour, others to be eaten
and devoured.
‘Now and then the latter have bestirred themselves, endeavoring to rebel against
an order of things which makes them the prey and food of the insatiable voracity
of the former. At times they have been fortunate, putting to flight the eaters and
devourers, but in the majority of cases they did not obtain anything but a change
of name or plumage.
‘The situation is the same in all the spheres of creation; the relation between the
ones and the others in that dictated by the appetite and the power to satisfy it at the
fellow creature’s expense.
‘Amongst men it is very easy to observe the development of this daily

phenomenon. And for some psychological reason the nations who believe
themselves powerful have taken the fiercest and most harmful creatures as
emblems; it is either the lion, or the eagle, or the serpent. Some have done so by
a secret impulse of affinity and others in the nature of simulation, of infatuated
vanity, making themselves appear that which they are not nor ever can be.
‘The eagle, symbolizing liberty and strength, is the bird that has found the most
adepts. And men, collectively and individually, have desired to copy and imitate
the most rapacious bird in order to triumph in the plundering of their fellow-men.
‘There are men who, besides being eagles, have the characteristic of the vulture,
the owl, and the vampire.
‘Ascending the mountains of Benguet to classify and measure the skulls of

the Igorots and study and civilize them, and to espy in his flight, with the eye of
the bird of prey, where are the large deposits of gold, the prey concealed amidst
the lonely mountains, to appropriate them to himself afterwards, thanks to legal
facilities made and unmade at will, but always for his own benefit.
‘Authorizing, despite laws and ordinances, an illegal slaughtering of diseased
cattle in order to derive benefit from the infected and putrid meat which he himself
was obliged to condemn by virtue for his official position.
‘Presenting himself on all occasions with the wrinkled brow of the scientist
who consumes his life in the mysteries of the laboratory of science, when his whole
scientific labor is confined to dissecting insects and importing fish eggs, as if the
fish of this country were less nourishing and less savory, so as to make it worth the
while replacing them with species coming from other climes.
‘Giving an admirable impulse to the discovery of wealthy lodes in Mindoro, in

Mindanao, and in other virgin regions of the Archipelago, with the money of the
people, and under the pretext of the public good when, as a strict matter of truth, the
object is to possess all the data and the key to the national wealth for his essentially
personal benefit, as is shown by the acquisition of immense properties registered
under the names of others.
‘Promoting, through secret agents and partners, the sale to the city of worthless
land at fabulous prices, which the city fathers dare not refuse, from fear of
displeasing the one who is behind the motion, and which they do not refuse for
their own good.
‘Patronizing concessions for hotels on filled-in land, with the prospects of

enormous profits, at the expense of the blood of the people.
‘Such are the characteristics of the man who is at the same time an eagle who
surprises and devours, a vulture who gorges himself on dead and putrid meats, an
owl who affects a petulant omniscience, and a vampire who silently sucks the blood
of the victim until he leaves it bloodless.
‘It is these birds of prey who triumph. Their flight and their aim are never
thwarted.
‘Who will detain them?
‘Some share in the booty and the plunder. Others are too weak to raise a voice
of protest. And others die in the disconsolating destruction of their own energies
and interests.
‘And then there appears, terrifying, the immortal legend: MANE, TECEL,
PHARES.’3

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During the first decade of American colonial rule, several newspapers continued the

The editors of El Renacimiento, also called “the consistent nationalists,” believed

On October 30, 1908, El Renacimiento published the editorial “Birds of Prey,” by

‘Amongst men it is very easy to observe the development of this daily

‘Ascending the mountains of Benguet to classify and measure the skulls of

‘Giving an admirable impulse to the discovery of wealthy lodes in Mindoro, in

‘Patronizing concessions for hotels on filled-in land, with the prospects of

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