THE month of August is “tiempo muerto” (time of death) or “tigkiriwi” (twisted time). This deadliest month of the off milling season in Negros means a scarcity of work or no work at all in the haciendas. No work is equivalent to no money, no food and the survival of the workers is uncertain and that includes the endurance of their dignity.
Hacienda workers plant cane points, cultivate the young grass and cut sugarcane stalks during the milling season. Sugar from the mill exudes money for the hacenderos, millers and traders. The hacienda workers receive a small fraction as legal payment for their hard work.
The first generation hacendados and hacenderos from Iloilo who acquired hundreds of hectares of land in Negros sometime in 1840 became the “buena familias,” who were able to educate their children in Manila schools or even abroad to become “buen hijos and hijas,” the “ilustrados and culturistas” of their time.
The semi-feudal haciendas of the landlords referred to the acreage and the “jornaleros” with their families who wholeheartedly gave their canine devotion to the sugar barons who owned them. The workers were made to understand that they are the extended family members of the hacendados. They were provided with nipa huts and allowed to have vegetable gardens at the back of their huts.
How did the sugar industry in Negros rise? When the galleon trade ended in 1815, those who were formerly engaged in it began investing in large sugarcane plantations in the different provinces of the country. Negros became the country’s principal main sugar producer, and the Ilongo planters were the wealthiest among the regional elite.
The sugar industry was good and became better in 1914 when World War I caused the closure Panama Canal. The Americans realized that the Philippines was their safe and stable source of sugar. In 1916, the price of sugar leaped three times compared to 1912 ushering a golden era particularly to Silay, the Paris of Negros.
From then on, sugar production steadily increased. It was just interrupted by the Philippine Revolution but the uprising did not bring big damage to the industry. When Luzon started the revolution, the Negros hacendados and hacenderos were still silent and enjoyed the trust and confidence of the Spaniards until November 5, 1898, when Negros had its zarzuela revolution.
By the first decade of the twentieth century and the start of the American colonial rule, the sugar industry had recovered and started modernizing. Negros sugar barons realized that the Americans could be good partners in sugar business better than the Spaniards who handled the galleon trade.
Foreign and domestic investors started to construct modern centrifugal mills to replace the obsolete “molino de sangre” and the “maquina de vapor horno economico.” This was a response to a guaranteed U.S. market for Philippine sugar after the successful lobbying with the active participation of hacendado politicians from Negros who belonged to the powerful sugar block.
The U.S. Congress passed the Payne-Aldrich Act granting a quota of 300,000 short tons of duty-free sugar to the Philippines, and later free trade was established between America and the Philippines, an American colony. The colonial government organized the Philippine National Bank in 1916. (To be continued.)