LUKBAN
But for a political coincidence, the episode probably would have left Waller otherwise unscathed. But the Governor of the Philippines at the time, William Howard Taft, was a mortal enemy of Maj. Gen. Chaffee and his military policy with which Waller was inextricably involved. In 1911, when Waller became eligible for Commandant of the Marine Corps, Taft was President and chose instead William P. Biddle who, as a major, had sat on Waller’ s court-martial. 3
But was Waller truly innocent of the charges as the military court had declared? In his arguments, Waller said the porters were conspiring to mutiny. Hence, their execution. But the facts contradicted him as the porters voluntarily returned to camp after the tragic march, carrying the hapless Marines’ rifles and ammunition. No one however told the military court about this or spoke in behalf of the porters. It had simply relied on the statements of military men who testified in behalf of Waller and Day.
Perhaps, in closing, the US had made a convenient scapegoat of the retiring Brig. Gen. Jacob Smith as the person responsible for the excesses committed by their soldiers in the hinterlands of Samar. But as the records would show, Smith was only the last in the long list of commanders implementing American colonial policy and its harsh, brutal and repressive measures, ranging from food blockade, the establishment of garrisoned towns, the use of torture to exact information from suspected rebels, burning, pillaging and destruction of villages, food items, and killing of work animals … acts admitted in their official reports. Smith became the impersonation of an American officer gone haywire, the favorite poster boy of critical American press. His statements were echoed in cartoon editorials in many of these newspapers of the period, encapsulating and dramatizing some elements of American neo-colonial policy.
Casualties of War
By the time American President Theodore Roosevelt formally declared the end of Philippine-American War on July 4, 1902, the casualties numbered 4,200 Americans dead and 2,800 wounded. Those of suspected insurgents reached 20,000 killed, while Filipino noncombatants numbered 200,000 dying from disease, famine and other effects of war.
The overall cost in human lives of American actions in the Philippines was horrific. One scholar has concluded concerning the American occupation that“… in the fifteen years that followed the defeat of the Spanish in Manila Bay in 1898, more Filipinos were killed by U. S. forces
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