EMILIO
AGUINALDO (1869-1964)
Only a full-length biography can do justice Emilio Aguinaldo, who liberated his county and people from more than three centuries of Spanish domination. His life spanned nearly one century – nine five years – doubtless he most significant period in the history of the Philippines.
Ironically, to this day only a small minority of Filipinos appreciate Aguinaldo’s immense contribution o his country. In fact as President Ferdinand E. Marcos said during Aguinaldo’s necrological rites on February 15, 1964, “he (Aguinaldo) had been pilloried and maligned… but kept his silence in quiet dignity.” Aguinaldo just ignored the slanders against him because “ he knew that his cause had triumphed. For he had molded with his hands and watered with his blood, the first Republic established by a brown people.”
It was Aguinaldo who led the Philippine Revolution from beginning to end. By the time Aguinaldo proclaimed Philippine independence on June 12, 1898, in Kawit, Cavite, there were close to 5,000 Spanish prisoners of war in the concentration camp of Filipino revolutionists; by mid-December, when the Malolos congress had already approved the Malolos Constitution, there were more than 12,000 enemy prisoners of war under Filipino custody.
Spain had already lost her sovereignty in the Philippines when the Treaty of Paris was signed by Spanish and American “peace” commissioners on December 10, 1898. The Philippine Revolutionary Government under Aguinaldo through its lone emissary, Felipe Agoncillo, vehemently protested against the treaty, asserting that Spain had no legal right to cede the Philippines to the United States after having lost the country to Filipino revolutionists, and that the United States, being an ally of the Filipinos against a common enemy, the Spaniards, had no moral right to accept such a cession. Nor had the United States the legal right to conclude a treaty with Spain without the consent of the Filipinos.
From December 10, 1898 to the end of January 1899, the treaty could not be ratified by the U.S. Senate because many American senators claimed it was unfair to the Filipinos. They realized that the violated the cardinal principle enshrined in the American Declaration of Independence that “all men are created equal.” Such was the situation when an American soldier shot and killed a Filipino soldier crossing the bridge in San Juan del Monte on the night of February 4,1899. The incident started Filipino – American hostilities.
The American press, inspired by the McKinley administration, played up the San Juan incident, making it appear that it was the Filipinos who starting the shooting. On February 6 the U.S. Senate ratified the Treaty of Paris.
The ensuing Philippine-American war was, of course, a mismatch. Washington military planners had predicted a complete rout of the Filipinos in a couple of months. They were mistaken. For Aguinaldo launched an unconventional war – the first guerrilla war in Asia – which kept more than 70,000 American soldiers at bay for more than two years, February 4, 1899 to march 23, 1901. Not until Aguinaldo was captured through treachery did this unequal combat end with the victor (the United States) earning the “hatred of the Filipinos which centuries can never erase”.
The Filipinos, by showing their firm determination to defined
their newly- won liberty, had proved to the world that they deserved to be free. On July 4, 1846, the American Government under the Truman administration issued a proclamation recognizing the Independence on the Philippines. Doubtless it was the same independence proclaimed by Aguinaldo on June 12,1898, that the American government restored to the Filipino people.
The seventh child of Carlos Aguinaldo and Trinidad Famy, Emilio Aguinaldo was born on March 22,1898. He finished his early studies in his hometown, then went to San Juan de Letran College in Manila where he completed only two years of segunda ensenanza.. The outbreak of a cholera epidemic in the city forced him to return home. He never went back to his classes. He was a school dropout.
This great handicap notwithstanding, Aguinaldo became a leader in his community. He served as cabeza de barangay of Binakayan for several terms until he was elected capitan municipal of Kawit..
On the morning of January 1, 1895 Aguinaldo was sworn in capitan municipal in the presence of the principalia of Kawit; in the evening of the same day he was inducted into freemasonry, in the Pilar Lodge of Imus, Cavite. He adopted the symbolic name Colon, after the famous Italian Catholic navigator, Christopher Columbus. In mid-March his bosom friend, Santiago Alvarez, accompanied him to a house in Tondo, Manila, where he was inducted into the Katipunan revolutionary society by the supremo, Andres Bonifacio. His symbolic name in the Katipunan was Magdalo, after the patron saint of Kawit.
Bonifacio went to Kawit to inaugurate the Magdalo chapter of the Katipunan. He appointed Aguinaldo head of the chapter. Because of its rapid increase in membership The Magdalo was soon converted into a council, which now included several towns of Cavite. Bonifacio praised Aguinaldo for being a good capitan municipal whose great personal influence made it possible to recruit many members for the Katipunan. It was Aguinaldo who was inducted into the Katipunan such great revolutionary figures as the three Riego de Dios brothers (Emiliano, Mariano, and Vicente) of Maragondon; Marcelino Aure of Mendez, Ambrocio Mojica of Indang, Vito Belarmino of Silang, Gregorio Jocson of Naik, and many others. In his own words, Aguinaldo was capitan municipal by day, and a Katipunero organizer by night.
Then came the “Cry of Pugad Lawin” on August 23, 1896, followed a week later by the San Juan del Monte Fiasco (August 30). The Katipunan revolt under Andres Bonifacio ended right then and there. The next day, August 31, came the “Cry of Cavite,” culminating in the liberation of San Francisco de Malabon (now General Trias), Noveleta, and Cavite el Viejo (now Kawit). Through the Katipuneros provided the leadership of the uprising in the Cavite, the masses of the people who joined were non-Katipuneros. In just a few days all of Cavite, except the Spanish arsenal, fell into the hands of the revolutionists.
Clearly the revolution had outgrown the Katipunan. What was needed was a full-fledged revolutionary government to carry on the struggle to a successful conclusion. The Tejeros convention was held on March 22, 1897 to form this revolutionary government. Without lifting a finger, Aguinaldo was elected in absentia president of the new government. He defeated Andres Bonifacio and Mariano Trias, both of the Magdiwang. Bonifacio, chairman of the convention, could not take his defeat in good grace. He nullified the result of the convention, and then made preparations to set up a separate government and army. Evidently, this was the beginning of a counter-revolution. Bonifacio was arrested, tried by a court martial, and found guilty of sedition and treason. He was sentenced to die by execution. Aguinaldo promptly commuted the death verdict to banishment at Pico de Loro, a high mountain base of the revolutionists in Maragondon, but strong pressure by his senior generals and prominent citizens compelled him to withdraw his commutation order. Andres Bonifacio and his brother, Prodopio, were executed on May 10, 1897. The rest is history.
Aguinaldo died after a long illness at the Veterans Memorial Hospital in Quezon City on February 6, 1964, about six weeks before his 95th birthday.
(Source: Alfredo B. Saulo, Emilio Aguinaldo: Generalissimo and President of the First Philippine Republic – First Republic in Asia Quezon City, Phoenix Publishing House, Inc., 1983. This 562-page book is the product of two and a half years research into primary sources, including three-ton “Philippine Insurgent Records,” a collection of revolutionary documents captured during the Philippine-American War (1899-1901), which was turned over by the United States to the Philippine government in 1957.)