<figure class="image-550">
<img src="https://cdn.kahimyang.com/resources-29/aguinaldo-hawes.webp" loading="lazy"
alt="Black-and-white composite photo: General Emilio Aguinaldo in a white barong, standing on a porch, next to a formal portrait of U.S. Senator Harry B. Hawes in a suit." />
<figcaption>
General Emilio Aguinaldo (left) and U.S. Senator Harry B. Hawes (right), whose July 1931 exchange helped set the Philippines on the path toward independence.
</figcaption>
</figure>

<h2>
The Senator Who Came to Listen
</h2>
<p>
That senator was <b>Harry B. Hawes</b> of Missouri, a Democrat who had arrived in the Philippines in the summer of 1931 on a fact-finding mission of his own devising. Hawes wanted to see for himself whether Filipinos genuinely wanted independence, or whether the demand was, as skeptics in Washington liked to suggest, largely the rhetoric of an ambitious political class. He was no stranger to the independence question. Along with Representative Butler B. Hare of South Carolina and Senator Bronson M. Cutting of New Mexico, Hawes had been drafting what would eventually become the <a href="/kauswagan/articles/876/today-in-philippine-history-january-13-1933-the-hare-hawes-cutting-act-was-passed" class="news_link">Hare-Hawes-Cutting Act</a>, the first American law to set an actual timetable for Philippine independence.
</p>
<p>
Hawes's visit became a genuine popular event. On <time datetime="1931-07-31">July 13, 1931</time>, Manila staged what organizers called the largest independence demonstration the city had ever seen: a parade in the senator's honor that, by police estimates, drew roughly a quarter of a million participants and onlookers, filing down Padre Burgos Street and spilling out onto the <a href="/articles/3053/the-history-of-luneta-a-symbol-of-philippine-heritage" class="news_link">Luneta</a> while Hawes and his delegation looked on from the steps of the Legislative Building.
</p>
<p>
Two weeks later, on July 28, Hawes addressed a joint session of the Philippine Legislature directly. His message was candid rather than celebratory. He told the assembled Filipino lawmakers that independence would bring real burdens along with it - the likelihood of higher taxes, the loss of preferential trade with the American market, and the sober responsibilities of running a sovereign state without the cushion of U.S. protection. But Hawes was equally blunt about the alternative. He dismissed the idea of pushing independence off by fifteen, twenty, or thirty years as no plan at all, but a delaying tactic dressed up as caution.
</p>



<h2>
Aguinaldo's Rebuttal
</h2>
<p>
It was this speech that Aguinaldo answered the next day. His response accepted Hawes's premise that independence carried costs, but rejected the implied conclusion that the Philippines should therefore wait. Aguinaldo's own case rested less on economics than on a reading of the international mood: he believed the world had entered an age of "growing harmony, peace, and international brotherhood," one in which established powers would hesitate to bully a small, newly independent state. It was an argument that, in hindsight, badly underestimated the coming decade - Japan's invasion of Manchuria was only weeks away, in <time datetime="1931-09">September 1931</time>, and the international order Aguinaldo invoked would collapse into militarism and war within ten years. But in the summer of 1931, with the Great Depression reshaping American politics and a rising chorus of voices on both sides of the Pacific calling for a resolution to the "Philippine question", his optimism reflected a widely shared hope among Filipino nationalists that the moment for full sovereignty had finally arrived.
</p>
<p>
Aguinaldo's stature gave the statement weight well beyond that of an ordinary politician's remark. He was, by 1931, the most storied surviving figure of the revolutionary generation - the man who had <a href="/kauswagan/articles/1177/today-in-philippine-history-june-12-1898-aguinaldo-formally-proclaimed-the-philippine-independence-in-kawit-cavite" class="news_link">proclaimed Philippine independence</a> from Spain at Kawit, Cavite, on <time datetime="1898-06-12">June 12, 1898</time>, led the short-lived First Philippine Republic, and then fought on as the central figure of Filipino resistance during the Philippine-American War until his capture in 1901. Three decades later, having taken the American oath of allegiance and retired from active political life for a time, he remained a powerful symbolic voice on the independence question, and his interventions were closely watched by both Filipino nationalists and American colonial officials.
</p>
<h2>
Why 1931 Was a Turning Point
</h2>
<p>
Aguinaldo and Hawes were not debating in isolation. Their exchange sat at the head of a chain of events that would, within a few years, actually deliver a framework for independence. Later that same year, the Philippine Legislature dispatched what became known as the OsRox Mission - the ninth in a long series of "independence missions" Filipino leaders had sent to Washington - headed by Senate President Pro Tempore <a href="/kauswagan/articles/1273/today-in-philippine-history-september-9-1878-sergio-osme-a-sr-was-born-in-cebu-city" class="news_link">Sergio Osmeña</a> and House Speaker <a href="/articles/3302/manuel-roxas-biography-born-january-1-1892" class="news_link">Manuel Roxas</a>. Working alongside Hawes, Hare, and Cutting, the mission helped shepherd the Hare-Hawes-Cutting bill through Congress. It passed in <time datetime="1932-12">December 1932</tiime>, was vetoed by President Herbert Hoover, and then became law on <time datetime="1933-01-17">January 17, 1933</time>, after Congress overrode his veto - the first American statute ever to set a concrete date for Philippine independence.
</p>



Aguinaldo's 1931 Case for Philippine Independence


On July 29, 1931, Aguinaldo answered Sen. Hawes' warning, arguing the Philippines was ready for independence despite the risks. Read the full history.

July 29, 1931: General Aguinaldo claimed the Philippines is ready for independence

A Statement Forged in Response