When the American arrived in Mindanao, two of the regions that became focus of rubber (Castilloa elastica) propagation were Basilan and Davao. But it was in the former that large-scale planting of the tree species started under the auspices of Dr. James Walter Strong (1874-1950), a dental surgeon in the U.S. medical corps assigned in Basilan and later had two Filipina wives.
The rubber tree is native to native Central America and South America.
After his discharged from the Navy in 1906, Strong, who had a total of 13 children (including a stillborn) from two marriages, promptly established dental practice in Zamboanga City. It was during his professional stint as doctor that he met numerous scientists, including a noted botanist from the University of Santo Tomas, a certain Father Zamora (not the martyred one).
Inspired by his conversation with the padre, Strong, acknowledged as the ‘father of the Philippine rubber industry,’ started experimenting with rubber plants and in 1910 established the Basilan Rubber Plantation as J.M. Menzi Corp. as partner. Seven years later, he sold his entire stocks to his partner and formed the American Rubber Co. using capital drawn from San Francisco, California, sources.
As a model farm, the Strong plantation was frequently visited by Commonwealth president Manuel L. Quezon and his vice-president, Sergion Osmeña, Gehn. Douglas Macarthur, and the American governor-generals and high commissioners assigned in the Philippines at the time.
Strong, in a report made in 1911, wrote:
“The first Castilloa brought into the islands was introduced by the San Rafael Plantation Co., of Basilan, in 1905, and has made phenomenal growth; some of the trees measuring 32 inches in circumference 1 yard from the ground, with a corresponding height and crown. Castilloa is perhaps the most handsome of the three rubbers now growing in the Province.
“This rubber has not been planted so extensively as either of the other two, Daao District and Basilan having a few thousand. It is making wonderful growth in both localities, and will probably be more extensively planted. Castilloa has not been a general favorite in the East, as it does not come into bearing until 8 or 10 years of age and its rubber hardly up to the standard of either Para or Ceara. It is propagated from seed, and stands transplanting better than either Para or Ceara. It may be propagated by cutting but this is hardly practicable.”
The establishment of rubber plantations was also recommended “on the Agusan River, in the subprovince of Butuan, in the subprovince of Bukidnon, in the Moro Province, and anywhere in the southern half of Palawan without serious danger from heavy wind storms, and with all other conditions of climate and soil favorable.” This was contained in the 1911 report of the Bureau of Insular Affairs titled “Rubber-growing Industry of the Philippine Islands.”
Aside from labor shortage that affected rubber plantations, the entry of foreign investments was sadly told by John A. Fowler, United States Trade Commissioner, in a speech delivered before the American Chamber of Commerce of the Philippines on May 29, 1923.
“As far as I have been able to learn, there has been no positive action taken to attract this capital to the Philippine Islands, although there are ample lands available in Mindanao suitable for the production of rubber. The papers from the United States tell of positive action being taken by the authorities in Brazil to get this capital into their country. It is not a small matter to make the United States relatively independent for its rubber supply. It would involve the development of a million or more acres of rubber lands that would produce revenue for the local government to cover an important part of its annual expenses.”
On the other hand, as foreign investments started to trickle into the islands to boost the rubber industry, Great Britain became a killjoy when it adopted a policy that imposed heavy levy on the rubber produced in the tropics.
D.R. Williams, in an article ‘Investment in the Philippines,’ published in the September 1924 issue of The American Chamber of Commerce Journal, wrote:
“The possibilities of the Philippines as an investment field are unquestioned. They produce or co-produce practically every tropical product known to commerce. Importations by the United States from the tropics or semitropics for 1923 totalled $2,000,000,000…
“Basilan… has its own controlled source of domestic supply, it will become the victim, with increased frequency, of the needs or cupidity of competitor nations more fortunately situated. A patent illustration of what portends was brought home to our people early in 1923, when Great Britain levied an export tax on rubber grown in her tropical possessions, with result that Americans learned-most of them for the first time-that while the United States consumes 75 per cent of the world supply of rubber, Great Britain controls 85 per cent of world production.
“Of the tropical domains of the earth, 40.38 per cent, with area of 8,258,970 square miles, are independent; 9.00 per cent, with area of 12,167,970 square miles, are owned or administered by foreign powers, while but 0.62 per cent, with area of 125, 992 square miles (which includes the Philippines roughly 115,000 square miles) are owned by the United States.
“Under existing conditions Philippine products have free entry to the United States, giving them this very considerable leeway over like products grown in and imported from foreign countries, insuring a permanent and to all intents unlimited market.”
