The Heart of Electrical Empire: Meralco and Its Employees in the American Colonial Philippines

In 1902, William H. Taft, Governor-General of the Philippines, placed development of electric services at the center of his modernizing plan for Manila. American investors soon took a Spanish electrical system and quickly placing an American imprint on it. The utility became the Manila Electric Railroad and Light Company, or Meralco, a symbol of American colonial capital. This paper situates Meralco and its workers against backdrop of the United States’ “electrical empire”: the infrastructural and labor arrangements that sought to literally build U.S. imperial power with electric current. In the case of the American colonial Philippines, the business electrical empire was carried out by an investor-owned utility. Meralco’s leadership used the same rate-setting, capital-raising, and managerial practices that investor-owned firms deployed in the mainland US. They deployed these standard practices in a distinctive colonial environment to extract profit from Manila residents. Many perceived the exorbitant rates of the firm for streetcar fares and electric power service as evidence of profiteering, made possible by undue American influence. Meralco’s own workers, mostly local Filipinos, were some of the utility’s harshest critics—such as in 1932, when they led a petition effort to force a rate cut. A series of strikes and protests during the insular period, shows how Filipino workers, American managers, and U.S. colonial officials engaged in a series of battles over electric power service and the political meaning of utility business practices. Meralco’s business and labor practices continued to structure the Philippines electrical power industry after independence. From the early 1930s, Meralco executives were planning for the after of American occupation. The legacy of colonial business practices laid the groundwork for 1970s US-led development programs.