LIKE Artemio Ricarte, Juan Cailles was not a native-born Caviteno. Both of them were schoolteachers on Cavite when the Revolution broke out in August 1896; and to be true to their teachings on patriotism or love of country they joined the Revolution against the Spaniards, and later fought in the Philippine-American War. It was these two historic incidents that marked them, in the public mind, as Cavitenos. The revolutionary history of Cavite would not be complete without mentioning their heroic sacrifices for the welfare of Cavite and the entire country.
Cailles had a spectacular military record. Starting as a private he became a brigadier general in seven months. Such a meteoric rise in the military field, of course, could only happen during a revolution. One account says that Cailles had risen from private to general in such a brief period of the time because of the “successive deaths in battle of the officers above him.” A more charitable story says that General Emilio Aguinaldo gave Cailles successive promotions based on his own merits.
In any case, Cailles was such a dashing and gallant military leader that made him a class by himself. In the famous Battle of Mabitac, in Laguna Province, on September 17,1900, Cailles’ troops outmaneuvered and routed a strong American contingent led by Colonel Chestham. Magnanimous in victory, Cailles allowed Chestham to recover from the field the bodies of eight slain American soldiers, together with all their personal belongings. This treatment provided a sharp contrast to the American despoliation of General Gregorio del Pilar’s corpse in the Battle of Tirad Pass on December 2, 1899.
Cailles had been teaching for five years in the public schools of Amaya, Tanza, and in Rosario, Cavite, when the premature discovery of the Katipunan in Manila forced Andres Bonifacio to take to the field of Balintawak and raise the flag of revolt. Cailles therefore lost no time in organizing a strong force made up of fathers of his own pupils. To them he remained Maestrong Cailles despite his successive promotions in military rank. He took part in many bloody encounters with the Spaniards, particularly in those engagements resulting in the deaths of his superior officers like General Candido Tria Tirona, Edilberto Evangelista, and Crispulo Aguinaldo, thus facilitating his rapid promotions to higher ranks to fill up the vacuum.
Born in Nasugbu, Batangas, on November 10, 1871, to Hipolito Cailles, A Frenchman, and Maria Campana, A woman of British-Indian extraction [another source says he had Mexican and Filipino parents], Juan Cailles graduated from the Escuela Normal run by Jesuits in Manila. Afterwards he became a schoolteacher in two towns in Cavite.
After serving as acting chief of operations in the first zone of Manila during the Philippine American War, Cailles was appointed by Aguinaldo as military governor of Laguna and half of Tayabas [now Quezon] province. The capture of Aguinaldo in Palanan, Isabela, on March 23, 1901 convinced Cailles that the war was lost, and so he surrendered to the American on June 20.
Cailles then directed his efforts toward rebuilding the country from the ashes of war. He served as governor of Laguna from 1901 to 1910,and again from 1916 to 1925. After his gubernatorial term, he was appointed representative of the Mountain Province in the Philippine Legislature in 1925 and reappointed in 1928. In 1931 Cailles was again selected governor of Laguna, and reelected in 1934.
It was during his term as governor that the Sakdal uprising flared up on May 2, 1935, in Sta. Rosa and Cabuyao, Laguna. The revolt was suppressed in record time, thanks to Cailles’ firm administration and revolutionary experience, Cailles had also a hand in the capture of Teodoro Agoncillo, ‘Terror of the Sierra.”
Cailles passed away on June 28, 1951, a victim of heart attack.
[Source: [1] Crisologo Villacarlos, “Gen. Juan Cailes,” In Prominent Cavitenos in Philippine History. Copyright by Esteban a. DE Ocampo, 1941; [2] Sol a. Gwekon, “ Juan Cailles; Grand Old Man of Laguna,” Hall of Fame, Manila Times, December 3, 1966; and [3] National Commission, Eminent Filipinos, 1965.]