LUIS AGUADO (1863 – 1896)
Luis Aguinaldo, 33, was one of the Thirteen Martyrs of Cavite who were arrested by the Spaniards as an aftermath of the uprisings in San Francisco de Malabon (now General Trias), Noveleta and Cavite el Viejo (now Kawit) on August 31, 1896. Occurring one after the other within a period of five hours, 10 A.M to 3 P.M these three-armed incidents constituted the “First City of Cavite”, the local counterpart of the “City of Pugad Lawin” on August 23.
All the thirteen suspects were rounded up on September 3 after an Imus dressmaker, Victoriana Sayat, revealed to Victorina Crespo, wife of Spanish Governor Parga, that her townmate, Severino Lapicario, chief warden of the provincial jail in Cavite, and his friends were plotting a revolution. The information was immediately relayed to Parga, who lost no time in ordering the arrest of 34 suspects, 21 of whom, including Julian Felipe, the would be composer of the Philippine National Anthem, were subsequently released after being held incommunicado for more than nine months in Fort San Felipe, in the old town of Cavite (now Cavite City).
However, a Spanish military court tried those indicted on September 11, ostensibly defended by 13 Spanish army officers, one for each of the accused, and in a matter of four hours (5 to 9 pm) the trial was finished. A verdict of guilt was inevitable because the defense “admitted the guilt of their clients instead of showing the insufficiency of the evidence to convict them.”
At 12:45 past noon of September 12, the 13 patriots were brought out of their cells and taken to the Plaza de Armas, lined up, and executed by a firing squad. Their bullet-riddled bodies were loaded aboard three carabao carts and dumped into a common grave in the Catholic cemetery of Caridad. Later, families of the dead interred in separate niches seven of the martyrs; namely Maximo Inocencio, Victoriano Luciano, Francisco Osorio, Luis Aguado, Huho Perez, Jose Lallana, and Antonio San Agustin. But the rest – Agapito Conchu, maximo Gregorio, Alfonso de Ocampo, Eugenio Cabezas, Feliciano Cabuco, and Severino Lapidario – remained unclaimed in their common grave.
Ten of the 13 martyrs were freemasons; four were freemasons as well as Katipuneros, one a free thinker, and the last neither a freemason nor a Katipunero nor a free thinker.
Aguado was born in Bacoor in 1863(?), the son of Luis Matri Aguado, a captain in the Spanish navy, and a Tagalog lady, Luisa, from Binakayan. He was a maestro de viveres (chief of supplies) in the Cavite arsenal. Aguado supplied Severino Lapidario, one of the 13, the money with which to buy arms and bolos.
He was married to Felisa Osorio, sister of Francisco Osorio and eldest daughter of Antonio Osorio, a Christianized Chinese businessman reputed to be the richest in Cavite at the time. Some time later, the widow Felisa Osorio, would be the third wife of Daniel Tria Tirona. She was also the sister of Leonardo Osorio, third governor of Cavite under the American regime.
(Sources: (1) E. Arsenio Manuel, Dictionary of Philippine Biography, Vol. 2. Quezon City, 1955; (2) Gregorio F. Zaide, Great Filipinos in History, Manila, 1970; (3) “The Thirteen Martyrs.” Cavite Independence September 1, 1956; and (4) Prominent Caviteños in Philippine History. Copyright by Esteban A. de Ocampo, 1941.)