Reports made by the guardia civil were not questioned, but were accepted without support even in cases of the killing of prisoners alleged to have attempted to escape, or of men evading arrest.

This method of eliminating without trial citizens deemed to be undesirable was applied with especial frequency in the suppression of active brigandage, and latterly during the revolution against Spain.  Prisoners in charge of the guardia civil were always tied elbow to elbow.  They knew full well that resistance or flight was an invitation to their guards to kill them, and that this invitation was likely to be promptly accepted.

In the investigation of crime the members of this organization arrested persons on suspicion and compelled them to make revelations, true or false.  Eye-witnesses to the commission of crime were not needed in the Spanish courts of that day.  The confession of an accused person secured his conviction, even though not made in the presence of a judge.  Indirect and hearsay evidence were accepted, and such things as writs of habeas corpus and the plea of double jeopardy were unknown in Spanish procedure.

The guardia civil could rearrest individuals and again charge them with crimes of which they had already been acquitted.  I have been assured by reliable Filipino witnesses that it was common during the latter days of Spanish sovereignty for persons who had made themselves obnoxious to the government to be invited by non-commissioned officers to take a walk, which was followed either by their complete disappearance or by the subsequent discovery of their dead bodies.

It naturally resulted that the members of the guardia civil were regarded with detestation and terror by the people, but their power was so absolute that protest rarely became public.  The one notable exception was furnished by Dr. Rizal’s book entitled “Noli Me Tangere,” which voiced the complaints of the Filipinos against them.  There is not a vestige of doubt that hatred of them was one of the principal causes of the insurrection against Spain.

In 1901 the American government organized a rural police force in the Philippines.  It was called the Philippine constabulary.  The insurrection was then drawing to a close, but there were left in the field many guerilla bands armed and uniformed.  Their members sought to excuse their lawless acts under the plea of patriotism and opposition to the forces of the United States.  In many provinces they combined with professional bandits or with religious fanatics.  Various “popes” arose, like Papa Isio in Negros.  The Filipinos had become accustomed to a state of war which had continued for nearly six years.  Habits of peace had been abandoned.  The once prosperous haciendas were in ruins.  War and pestilence had destroyed many of the work animals, and those which remained continued to perish from disease.  Asiatic cholera was sweeping through the archipelago, and consternation and disorder followed in its wake.