Taft Commission

Taft Commission ( tagalog Komisyong Taft ) is called in the Philippines, the Second Philippine Commission appointed by U.S. President William McKinley on March 16, 1900. It should implement the proposals of the Schurman Commission and establish the first civilian colonial administration. After returning from Taft in the U.S., it was only called Philippine Commission. She worked until the Philippine Autonomy Act 1916 came into force and the Commission was replaced by the Senate of the Philippine legislature. This in turn was replaced in 1935 by the Parliament of the Commonwealth of the Philippines, the Commonwealth Congress.

The Commission consisted first of five members; the first chairman of the later President of the United States William Howard Taft was appointed, who became the first civilian Governor-General on 4 July 1901, the Chair held until 31 January 1904. Other members of the Commission were Henry Clay Ide, Luke Edward Wright, Dean Conant Worcester, and Bernard Moses. The Commission's task was to develop a civilian administration, promote economic development and the association of the Philippines as U.S. colony to establish a free public education system and to promote land reform. In order to establish a civilian colonial administration, 1901 157 laws were passed from September 1900 to July. Through this, the administration of the provinces and municipalities were reorganized, the constituted civil judiciary, including the Supreme Court adopted a civil code, established a public service and laid the foundations for the establishment of a police force. After the adoption of the Philippine Organic Act in July 1902, the membership was further increased and more and more Filipinos have been appointed to the Commission. This was the upper house of the bicameral legislature. The House of Commons was the Philippine Assembly, whose first election was held on 30 July, 1907. The first Filipino to advise the Commission were Cayetano Arellano, Benito Legarda, Florentino Torres Pardo de Tavera and the later members of the Commission were. Gregorio Araneta was 1902, the first Minister of Justice of the Philippines. 1904, the Commission mandated Felipe G. Calderon, draw the first civil penal code.

There were in the Philippines to 1902, 93 % of land in state ownership, the Commission opened the country to private investors from the United States. She sold land to U.S. agricultural companies to layout of plantations of tobacco, industrial hemp and sugarcane. At the same time negotiated Taft with the Vatican and the Spanish monastic orders and bought these about 1660 square kilometers of 7.2 million U.S. dollars. It was intended to land reform, would have had by every Filipino is entitled to 16 acres of farmland; this reform was never fully implemented. 1909 passed the U.S. Congress the Payne Aldrich Tariff Act; this saw before, duty free import of agricultural products from the Philippines, such as rice, sugar and tobacco in the United States. The 1913 adopted Underwood Tariff Act lifted all restrictions on to export products duty-free from the Philippines to the United States. These measures tied the Philippines directly into the U.S. economy, so that in 1920 already 70 % of exports went to the Philippines to the United States and 65 % of imports from the USA came.

The most lasting element of the Taft Commission's work was the establishment of a public education system in which every Filipino free access to education was guaranteed. It primary schools were established, which provided free schooling up to the fourth grade. Which provided the basis formed that the Philippines has achieved a literacy rate of over 95 % at the beginning of the 21st century.