BALDOMERO AGUINALDO (1869 – 1915)
The first cousin of General Emilio Aguinaldo and his right hand man. General Baldomero Aguinaldo was the president of the Magdalo Council, which was established in Imus, Cavite. With Baldomero holding the top executive position, Emilio was free to concentrate his genius on the military effort to foil Spanish attempts to recapture Cavite from the Filipino revolutionists and eventually free the country from alien domination.
This was the thinking Of General Emilio Aguinaldo when he chose Baldomero as head of the Magdalo Council of the Katipunan, which carried his symbolic name Magdalo, and later of the rebel government in Imus. Parenthetically, Emilio Aguinaldo could head the government himself, just as he had headed the initial Magdalo chapter; but he chose to serve as tiniente general abanderado, relinquishing the administrative work to Baldomero, confident that it was in the military field that he could be of the greatest service to the country in arms.
In April of 1897, after Easter Sunday, President Emilio Aguinaldo, in an effort at reconciliation following the ill-fated Tejeros Convention, gave all cabinet positions in the Revolutionary Government to the Magdiwang leaders except that of secretary of finance which he reserved for Baldomero Aguinaldo. Then, again, in his first post-Hongkong cabinet set up on July 15, 1898, Emilio Aguinaldo designated Baldomero secretary of war and public works. On January 2, 1899, about three weeks before the proclamation of the First Philippine Republic, Aguinaldo formed a new cabinet with Apolinario Mabini as president of premier. Baldomero Aguinaldo retained his position as a secretary of war.
At the outbreak of the Philippine-American war on February 4,1899, Baldomero Aguinaldo was designated commanding general of the Southern Luzon forces.
Always working hand in hand with his cousin Baldomero Aguinaldo was one of the signers of the Biak-na-Bato Constitution and of the pact of the Biak-na-Bato. When Emilio Aguinaldo left for Hongkong to begin his exile, Baldomero was left behind in Biak-na-Bato to supervise the implementation of the terms of the Pact, especially the payment of Spanish indemnity to the Filipino revolutionists.
Baldomero Aguinaldo was the author of war in the court martial of Andres and Procopio Bonifacio. He signed with President Emilio Aguinaldo the latter’s commutation of the death verdict on the two ill-starred brothers.
One of the nine children of Cipriano Aguinaldo and Silvestra Baloy, Baldomero Aguinaldo was born on February 27,1869,in Binakayan, Kawit. Cipriano was a younger brother of Carlos Aguinaldo, father of Emilio. Baldomero was in his senior year in law in the University of Sto. Tomas when he quit studying. Before the outbreak of the Revolution Baldomero successively held the positions of directorcillio, then register of deeds, and finally justice of Kawit.
Baldomero Aguinaldo was married to Patrona Reyes of Imus, Cavite, by whom he had two children, Leonor and Aureliano. Leonor became the wife of Virata, former vice president of the University of the Philippines and father of Prime Minister Cesar E.A. Virata.
He was the first president of the Association de los Veteranos de la Revolution Filipina. He died on February 4, 1915.