章 19: Start of the Industrial Revolution
Before the signing of the treaty, the nation's leaders were actually wary that a European power might try to take the country as another one of their colonies, namely the German Empire as they had shown the intention during the Spanish-American War.
Thankfully, both Britain and France pledged to maintain the status quo that the treaty will create, which means making sure that the Philippines remain independent and neutral.
The pledge by both European powers gave the Philippines room to focus more on other policies rather than the military, although they did give importance on upgrading the country's defensive capabilities
During the years after Philippine Independence, the country had created its first state owned weapons manufacturing facility with the some support from the Japanese, and other European educated Filipinos. Although this facility initially only produced the newly introduced Luna Rifles.
Aside from the rifles, the government started its multi-decade program of rebuilding the navy, first through commissioning other countries to build it for them while the government tries to design their own, and slowly build the shipyard capable of producing the vessels. They aim to make the country able to produce its own warships in fifteen to twenty years for smaller vessels like torpedo boats, or torpedo boat destroyers, and in twenty-five to thirty years for larger vessels like the cruisers, or battleships.
Before the rebuilding plan, the branch had a couple of small vessels called a steam launch, five other donated merchant ships, and a steamship, later called the Filipinas, captured from the Spanish after the crew mutinied, though these were wiped out by the Americans except for the Filipinas.
The government also allowed the army to send its soldiers to other friendly nations like Japan to learn military tactics. Britain also helped in this regard by inviting the Philippine Army to train in British Malaya, and India to learn about European military formations, and tactics, although their reason is more on making it hard for their regional rivals to invade the islands rather than genuinely helping the Filipinos.
The government also jumped on an opportunity to learn about wars between larger countries through the war between Japan and the Russian Empire. They asked the Japanese government for permission to send observers so they could acquire various insights on ground and naval warfare.
Artemio Ricarte for the army, and Pascual Ledesma of the navy, both assigned by the executive, along with their aide-de-camp, and other handpicked members of the military were allowed to observe behind the frontlines.
The lessons learned by the army is then put into practice by helping the Chinese in their own revolution as a fulfillment of a promise Aguinaldo's government made to Sun Yat Sen.
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In the civilian sector businesses, and industries are slowly being created in areas near the ports made by the Americans which increased the trade going in and out of the towns within a few kilometers.
Although the business environment has slowly become more friendly to western owned businesses, the earlier restrictions on westerners gave rise to an invisible line in many port regions where most businesses near the port are owned by Asians, or Filipinos of European descent while those farther are a mix of both.
More towns were created in various provinces through an executive order as part of the industrialization plan. These new towns are planned to become industrial centers and stood on land that had minimal agricultural activity.
Since some of these planned towns have little to no routes to the ports, the government started the construction of infrastructure like roads, and railways to allow businesses and factories to be setup in these areas.
The Ferrocarril de Manila a Dagupan is one such project which had its name changed to Ferrocarril de Nacional Filipinas and its existing line, the Manila-Dagupan line, is planned to extend up to Legazpi in Albay near the southern tip of Luzon Island.
As local universities didn't have engineering faculties before, the government had to hire foreign engineers for this project as the country lacked the amount of people with the expertise required to plan, and develop such grand projects.
The same set of plans are conceived for Mindanao to allow for the use of the island's vast natural resources. This is also to connect the towns in Southern Mindanao to the Western coast. from the town of Davao to Zamboanga, allowing most of the people of the island to easily trade with the British, and Dutch.
As for the Visayas islands, plans for railways were also conceived, but on a smaller scale which confines the railways on the major islands of the region making it have the least potential earning. This made the railway projects for the islands have the least priority, although the regional government focused heavily on road, and transport infrastructure which made the region the top in terms of road quality, and mass transport capabilities.
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Many of the wealthier families currently residing in the country, including those of European descent, invested in these government led projects, especially on the transportation sector as they foresee these being more profitable in the future.
Some of these families also capitalized on the initially anti-western sentiment of the government and took out loans to venture into the extraction of natural resources for domestic consumption, and exports.
A handful of those of European descent even made a couple of investments on the ports.
As their profits grew and their partnerships with western businesses gave them the technology, and know-how to transform the raw resources to manufactured goods, they eventually ventured into medium and large scale industries industries.
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As The Philippines entered its industrial revolution, changes had to be made when it comes to dealing with western nations. The government realized that being reluctant on dealing with western businesses meant that shortages on needed resources will be hard to overcome.
They need to do what what Japan did during the latter half of the 19th century, they opened up to western nations who then helped Japan transform into the regional power it eventually became.
The changes in foreign policy allowed The Philippines to slowly recover from the recent wars and slowly transform itself from a pre-industrialized nation to an industrialized one.
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