CAVITE: SEEDBED OF REVOLUTION
Historians have not bothered to explain
why Cavite, of all provinces, became the “cockpit” of the Philippine
Revolution. For purposes of effective scholarship – scholarship from the
Filipino point of view – it is important that this question in the Philippine
history be resolved here and now. Why was the Revolution primarily of Cavite,
i.e., started in Cavite and carried on through all the five years of bloody
fighting (1896-1901) by Cavite’s mga anak
ng bayan (sons of the people)? This is a term used by Filipino
revolutionists to distinguish them from the criollos
and Spanish mestizos who led the revolution in Latin America, taking advantage
of the chaotic political situation in Spain.
The Philippine Revolution, it is well to
remember, was carried on by Indios or
natives; and it was the first successful revolution by a brown people in the
history of mankind. Parenthetically, it was a Revolution with a distinctly
Caviteño accent.
What were the factors that made the
Cavite the nerve center of the Philippine Revolution? An in-depth research into
the many strands that make up the fabric of Philippine history reveals the
following prominent factors:
1. Friar Lands. Briefly, the lands owned by the Spanish friars or
religious orders in Cavite exceeded the total agricultural area in the
province. Specifically, the friar lands in Cavite, shortly before the outbreak
of the revolution, totaled 47,111 hectares compared to only 40,881 hectares of
agricultural land. In other words, the friars occupied not only all arable
lands in the province but also some seven thousand hectares of numerable lands
like home sites, pasture lands, fish ponds, hunting grounds, etc. Moreover, o
private individual in the province owned a square foot that he could call his
own. All Caviteños working the land, the land that produce food or the stuff of
life, were either iquilinos (leaseholders),
kasamas (tenants), or jornaleros (agricultural workers). Thus
there were no native caciques or hacenderos in Cavite.
The friar lands in Cavite constituted more than one-forth of the
total friar land holdings in the Philippines. These friar lands were the
following: the Imus Estate (owned by Augustinian recollects), 18,419 hectares;
Naik hacienda (Dominicans), 7,922 hectares; Sta. Cruz de Malabon (Dominicans),
8,902 hectares; and San Francisco de Malabon (Augustinians), 13,000 hectares.
The question is how did these religious orders acquire such vast landed
estates?
Take the case of the Imus Estate, the richest
rice-growing area in the province, comprising parts of the municipalities of
Imus, Bacoor, Kawit, and Dasmariñas. Planted to rice and sugarcane, the estate also
included orchards, saltbeds, fisheries, beach lands, and urban and rural lots.
Assessed at S 1,605,303 at the turn of the century, the estate was crisscrossed
by rivers, canals, underground ditches, and dams.
One version says that the Recollect
father took over the lands through a gradual process of deception, starting
from the extension of the irrigation facilities to adjoining rice lands
originally owned by the natives of Imus. Previously, a wealthy Spaniards had a
large area in Imus where he raised horses. He built many dams to insure
irrigation of the grass grown for horse fodder. Farmers in the neighborhood
availed themselves of the irrigation facilities for which the Spaniards charged
a nominal fee.
When the Spaniard left for Spain he
transferred the administration of his land to recollect curate of Imus. In the
course of time the administration changed hands from one lay brother to
another, under the supervision of the friars, and the fee for the use of
irrigation facilities became known as “rent” for the land, which eventually
included irrigated and nonirrigated areas on the mountain sides. Since they had
ready access to government offices, the friars surreptitiously had all the
lands properly titled in the name of the Recollect religious order.”
However, another version shows no
irregularities in the Recollect acquisition of the vast Imus Estate. The record
reveals that the lands constituted successive grants made under three Spanish
governors-general; namely, Santiago de Vera (1584-1590), Gomez Perez Dasmariñas
(1590-1593), and Luis Perez Dasmariñas (1593-1595).”
Clerical usurpation of lands is also evident in the
acquisition of the Naik Hacienda, the titles to several landholdings being
contested by one Pastor Poblete, a native of that town.
To
Caviteños the sight of overly opulent Spanish friars owning vast tracts of
lands, mostly usurped from the native owners, in contravention to the
fundamental tenets of their ministry, especially the teaching that one cannot
serve both God and mammon, must have produced a traumatic experience that can
never be erased from their minds. No wonder such painful experience, like
slowly glowing embers, suddenly spurted into a giant conflagration that was the
Philippine Revolution.
The
question of excessive friar lands certainly topped all other factors in Cavite
that brought about the revolution.
2.
Galleon trade and shipbuilding. Another factor that rankled like a wound in the
memory of Caviteños was the galleon trade and its companion piece,
shipbuilding. From 1571 when Miguel Lopez de Legaspi conquered Manila and began
the formal colonization of the Philippines until Mexico’s declaration of
independence from Spain in 1821, a span of 250 years, the Philippines was ruled
by Madrid through Nueva Espana (New Spain) or Mexico. Manila at the time
of Spanish contact was already a thriving emporium of Asian trade.
Silks
of all kinds, raw and woven damasks, taffetas and cloths of every texture,
embroideries and porcelains from China; pearls and precious stones from India;
diamonds from Goa, cinnamon from Ceylon, and pepper from Sumatra and Japan;
eloves, nutmeg, and other spices from the Moluccas; wool and carpets from Ormuz
and Malabar, camphor from Borneo, balsam and ivory from Cambodia – all these
articles of trade were brought to Manila for barter or exchange. The Spanish
conquistadors immediately saw the immense profitability of transporting these
goods across the Pacific Ocean for exchange with the silver from Mexico and
Peru. Soon they left the urgent need for ships to ferry these Oriental wares.
In
1587, sixteen years after Legazpi as the capital of the Philippines had
proclaimed Manila, Governor Santiago de Vera wrote the King of Spain bewailing
the lack of vessels to transport the great quantity of goods that had
accumulated in Manila. He informed Philip II that he had already built a
500-ton galley, and several others were under construction for the trading
fleet.
The
vessels that were used to transport the Oriental goods to Acapulco, the port of
entry and departure in Mexico, were known as galleons. Shipwrights in Cavite
constructed the first galleons, the Espiritu Santo and San Miguel. Cavite labor
conscripted through polo bore the brunt of burden in cutting and hauling
timber from the mountains to the shipyards at Cavite el Puerto (now Cavite
City). It was a most difficult job in which whole towns in adjacent areas had
to be depopulated of able-bodied males to facilitate the transport of huge
logs. Polo laborers were supposed to receive token wages, but even the
paltry amount sometimes could not be paid from the national treasury, so that
they had to be content with four pesos’ worth of rice provided by the villages
where the workers had been recruited.
In
addition, the building of each galleon meant, on the average, the loss of
several thousand-draft workers dying of malnutrition, disease, and cold in
vermin-infested jungles where ship timber could be found. One galleon normally
required the labor of 8,000 to 10,000 workers for three months, nearly half of
who became casualties before the ship construction could be finished. Thus,
behind the building of each galleon, which gave huge profits to only a few
highly placed Spaniards in Manila, including the governor and his favorites, a
sprinkling of clergymen in the higher echelons, and scores of merchants, was a
tale of woes and sacrifices for t5he Caviteños nearly everyone of whom welcomed
the outbreak of the revolution.
3.War
Service. Aside from the conquest of the Philippines, by a skillful combination
of the sword and the cross, Spain had also dreams of building an Oriental Empire.
Her colonial appetite was insatiable. She had plans to conquer China and Japan.
In 1573, just two years after the conquest and founding of Manila by Legazpi,
who actually became the first Spanish governor of the Philippines, Capt. Diego
de Artieda assured Philip II that he could undertake an exploratory expedition
to China with but two ships, 80 shoulders and enough provisions and
ammunitions. Two years later, Capt. Juan Pacheco de Maldonado asked the king to
give him 500 soldiers and ample supplies for an exploration and conquest of
China, Japan, the Lechios, and the islands of Escauchu. Governor Guido de
Lazares himself, who succeeded Legazpi, wrote the Spanish king that he could
extend the Spanish empire to Japan, given enough ships, soldiers and supplies.
It
was this spirit of overly ambitious Spanish conquistadors that led the
involvement of the Philippines in wars with neighboring Asian countries,
costing thousands of lives of Filipinos, a considerable number of them
Caviteños, all for the service of the Spanish king. Among these wars were the
following:
1)
The invasion of Borneo
in 1578 by Governor Francisco Sande (1575-1580) involving an expedition of 40
ships, 1500 Filipinos and several hundred Spaniards, and continued by his
successor, Governor Gonzalo Ronquillo de Penalose (1580-1583) mainly to prop up
to tottering regime of Sultan Sirela, twice disposed by his usurper brother.
2)
Spanish expeditions in
1582 and 1585 to the Portuguese-controlled Moluccas, this time involving three
large ships and numerous smaller craft, 300 Spaniards, and 1500 Filipinos.
3)
Then anti-Dutch and
anti-British expedition to the Moluccas under Governor Perez Dasmarinas
(1590-1593) and his son Luis Dasmariñas, involving 100 vessels, 1,000
Spaniards, and 400 Manila harquebusiers, 800 Bisayans, 400 Chinese rowers which
ended in a dismal failure because of Chinese mutiny and massacre of the
Spaniards, including Governor Dasmariñas.
4)
The series of Spanish
expeditions to Cambodia lasting seven years, 1596-1603, which ended in another failure.
5)
Spanish war with Siam
in 1624 because the latter had signed a treaty of alliance with the Dutch,
Spain’s mortal enemy.
6)
A Spanish-Filipino
expedition to French Indo-China in 1857-1861, involving 1,500 men to help
France, a Spanish ally, in the conquest of the country and to avenge the murder
by the natives of a Spanish missionary, Bishop Diaz.
Needless to say, these wars waged by
Spain took a great toll of Filipinos recruited in the service of the Spanish
king, in addition to the polo or forced labor provided for in the
colonial statute. Being just a next-door neighbor of Manila, Cavite so much
from these successive recruitments, resulting in considerable depletion of its
manpower. Many of the Caviteños drafted for the various expeditions never returned
home, causing a deep-seated trauma on the part of their families, friends and
neighbors that eventually had to find retribution in the Philippine Revolution.
4.Rise
of the middle class and principales. The proximity of Cavite to the nation’s
capital, Manila, which was formally opened to the world trade in 1834, thirteen
years after the abolition of the galleon trade resulting from Mexico’s
declaration of independence from Spain, contributed to the development of a
middle class in the province. As gateway to Manila, Cavite became the point of
convergence of merchants of all nations, notably the Chinese, doing brisk trade
in what was called Cavite el Puerto. A great number of these Chinese merchants
soon settled there, and through intermarriage with natives produced a mestizo
class known as sangleyes (Chinese term for traders). By reason of their
superior economic standing, these Chinese mestizos, now integrated into the
Filipino mainstream, acquired higher education, even sending their children
abroad to study in Spanish and other European universities.
By
and large, this accretion of Cavite society made up the principalia or people
of means who constituted the highest rung in the local administrative hierarchy
although the lowest in Spanish bureaucracy. It was from the principalia that
the gobernadorcillos (later capitanes municipal) and cabezas de barangay, the
real prime movers on the municipal level, were selected and drafted into the
public service. By law the gobernadorcillos were supposed to have as working
knowledge of Spanish, but whatever deficiency they might have in this regard
was promptly remedied by the appointment of technical assistants such as
directorcillos, usually college students in Manila who were unable to finish
their studies.
Reduced
to mere cogs in the Spanish colonial bureaucracy, the gobernadorcillos and
cabezas of Cavite, who constituted the final channel of communication between
the native population and the higher echelons of the government, were the first
to feel hurt by any form of Spanish discrimination and other forms of
injustice. No wonder they constituted the leadership of the revolution in the
province. The poor illiterate masses instinctively followed the principalia
(not necessarily ilustrados), giving the struggle against Spain a genuinely
popular character, and insuring its eventual success. The few ilustrados, of
course, including the native secular clergy, were easily absorbed in the
emencipation movement.
5.
British occupation of Manila, 1762-1764. Assessing the significance of the
British occupation of Manila in 1762-1764 after a 12-day siege, historians
conclude that the tradition of Spanish invincibility, which former American
governor-general describes as Spain’s “greatest asset in dealing with the
Filipinos,” came to an end. Emboldened by Spanish defeat, the Filipinos, long
victimized by Spanish oppression, burst into armed uprisings such as those in
the Ilocos, Pangasinan, Cagayan, Laguna, Batangas, Tayabas, Cebu, Panay,
Camarines and Zamboanga. In this respect, says one historian, the British
occupation had far-reaching effects on the course of Philippine history.
For
the Caviteños in particular, the British occupation and easy defeat of the
Kastilas (Spaniards) not only opened their eyes to the possibility of
overthrowing Spanish rule but also provided another reason why Cavite should be
in the forefront of the revolution against Spain. For 48 hours, according to
one Spanish writer, Manila was raped by British conquerors. “The drunken
soldiery committed great outrages, violating women, robbing houses, and
destroying works of art in church and public edifices, assisted in the
nefarious act by Chinese vandals and prisoners whom the British impudently set
free.”
The
Augustinian church and other churches in Manila bore the brunt of enemy
pillage. There was nothing that British General William Draper and Admiral
Samuel Cornish, commanders of the joint invasion of Manila, could do since the
sacking of conquered territory was then sanctioned by prevailing practices of
war. The looters pulled down the sacred images, ransacked the chests, and
desecrated the graves of illustrious Spaniards. Four hundred houses were burned
in Tondo and Binondo after despoiling them of valuable silverware, furniture,
and works of art.
Being
just adjacent to Manila, Cavite was also simultaneously raped by British and
Espy marines. While there is no estimate of the losses suffered by the
Caviteños, it could be that they constituted more than half of the 941
defenders killed or wounded as claimed by the British. The Caviteño losses were
primarily caused by Spanish ineptitude and inability to provide adequate
protection from enemy attacks, including Moro piracy, which continued
throughout the Spanish regime in the islands. The thought of previous
sufferings rankled in the memory of Caviteños, who were quite sensitive to any
form of oppression, and at the proper time they rose as one man overthrowing
the hated Spanish rule.
6.
Cavite mutiny of 1872. The execution on February 17, 1872 of Fathers Mariano
Gomes, 73, a Filipino-Chinese mestizo, Jose Burgos, 35, a Philippine-born
Spaniard and Jacinto Zamora, 37, a full blooded native of Pandacan, Manila for
alleged complicity in the mutiny, on January 20, of about 200 Filipino soldiers
and workers in the Cavite arsenal, has been described as “judicial murder…that
shocked the Filipino people into nationhood, as did no other single event in
the nineteenth century. Indeed, February 17, 1872, has been called the birthday
of the Filipino nation.”
The
40,000 Filipinos who saw the execution, went home, all convinced that the three
priests were innocent and died true martyrs; and “in their indignation they
forgot tribal differences and regional barriers, and they joined together as
one people to fight for a common cause.’ In the iniquitous execution of the
three priests Rizal, about eighteen years later would see a kind of racial
oppression, the priests being indios, which would make the natives “clasp hands
and make common cause” or “embrace and call one another brothers.” Eventually,
the natives forgot their ethnic origins, such as Tagalogs, Ilocanos, Bisayans,
etc. and began calling themselves Filipinos. If anything, the GOMBURZA (acronym
for Gomes, Burgos and Zamora) execution was a great turning point from native
tribalism to Filipino nationhood.
But
what historians have overlooked is the fact that prominent Caviteños, people
who made history for their province, were among the casualties of 1872. There
was Carlos Aguinaldo, father of General Emilio Aguinaldo and many times
gobernadorcillo of Cavite El Viejo (now Kawit); who was arrested and tortured,
as a consequence of which half of his body was paralyzed. He never recovered,
and six years later, on October 6, 1878, he died.
Mariano
Alvarez, founder of the Magdiwang Council of the Katipunan in Cavite, was
likewise arrested by the Spaniards and tortured, allegedly for his association
with Father Burgos whose autographed picture was found in Alvarez’ possession.
Thanks to the intercession of an influential friend, probably a Spaniard,
Alvarez was not executed or banished to the Marianas.
The
most prominent Caviteño to be deported to Guam, for alleged complicity in the
“Affair of 1872,” was Jose Basa y Enriquez (1843-1912), a noted lawyer,
educator, writer and reformer. It was in Basa’s school in Cavite where young
Emilio Aguinaldo, unable to resume his studies in the Letran College after the
cholera epidemic of 1882, studied for some time before completely dropping out
of school.
Another
Caviteño deportee to Guam was Silvestre Legazpi, who served as general
treasurer of the Revolutionary Government. Legazpi was married to Panteleona
Aguinaldo, sister of General Baldomero Aguinaldo, secretary of finance in the
first Aguinaldo cabinet formed after Easter Sunday of 1897. Legazpi was one of
the 26 Filipinos who joined General Aguinaldo in his exile to Hongkong. An
unresconstructed rebel even under the American regime, Legaspi was one of the
57 Filipino patriots deported by Military Governor Arthur MacArthur on January
7, 1901. Among his fellow deportees were Apolinario Mabini, Artemio Ricarte,
Pio del Pilar, Mariano Llanera, and Maximo Hizon.
But
certainly, the youngest victim of the Cavite mutiny was Emilio Aguinaldo
himself. In the confusion arising from the arrival in Kawit of a Spanish
cavalry unit from Manila, as part of the reign of terror sparked by the mutiny,
the child, Emilio, hardly three years old, was hidden in the bushes on the
river bank behind their house in Kaingen, while his caretaker, a cousin named
Eugenio Valerio, jumped into the water, swimming safely to the other side of
the river. After the Spanish soldiers had passed by, cousin Eugenio came back
and found the boy safe but swollen all over, suffering from high fever caused
by bites of giant ants called hantiks.
As
if fated by destiny, it was these victims of mutiny of 1872 who were to play
stellar roles in the Revolution of 1896.
7.
Secularization Movement. By virtue of patron to real (royal patronage), the
Archbishop of Manila was authorized to visit or inspect all parishes in the
country, whether managed by secular or religious priests, the latter belonging
to the regular orders (Dominicans, Augustinians, Recollects, etc.). The Jesuits
belonged also to the regular orders-the Society of Jesus-but they were not
friars. Bishop Domingo Salazar, the first head of the Catholic Church in the
Philippines, who had been a missionary for 40 years in Mexico, wanted to
enforce the right of visitation by their own superiors in the order, and the
secular priests to the Manila Archbishop.
In
1878, Archbishop Santa Justa, supported by Governor General Jose de Raon
(1765-1770), gradually secularized the parishes vacated by the friar-curates.
In view of the prevailing scarcity of priests, he launched a crash program for
the training of priests. The archbishop ordained as many Filipino seculars as
were needed to fill existing vacancies even after a little training. The
expulsion of the Jesuits from the Philippines in 1768 accelerated the
secularization. Unfortunately, a number of Filipino seculars proved unfit for
the priesthood, stirring up numerous complaints against their hasty ordination,
The
secularization was suspended by the royal decree of December 11, 1776. Governor
general Rafael Maria de Aguilar (1793-1806) in 1805 authorized the appointment
of Spanish regulars to the vacant parishes of Santa Rosa (in Laguna), Imus
(Cavite), and Las Piñas (Morong). The secularization movement received a second
blow when a royal decree was issued on July 8, 1826, ordering the return to the
regulars of the parishes taken from them since the time of Governor Simeon de
Anda (1762-1764),
The
movement received a greater blow on March 9, 1848, when, under another royal
decree, seven parishes in Cavite were transferred to the regulars; namely,
Bacoor, Kawit, and Silang to the Augustinian Recollects; Sta. Cruz de Malabon
(now Tanza), San Francisco de Malabon (now Gen. Trias), Naik, and Indang to the
Dominicans. Finally, a royal decree was issued on September 10, 1861, compensating
the Recollects with parishes around Manila for the loss of their missions in
Mindanao, which were given back to the Jesuits upon their return in 1859. All
the parishes given to the Recollects, including that of Antipolo. “The pearl of
the curacies,” happened to be occupied by Filipino seculars. The Filipino
clergy, now highly educated and well trained for the priesthood, fought back,
causing a dialectical change in the secularization movement. Henceforth, the
issue would become one of the filipinization of all the curacies, with the
ultimate goal of national independence.
The
friars in the Cavite Mutiny implicated fathers Gomez, Burgos and Zamora,
leaders of the movement, for the sole purpose of halting the filipinization
movement, which would mean the end of the friar rule in the country. But as far
as the Caviteños were concerned, the transfer of the seven Cavite perishes to
Spanish regulars was enough fuel to their growing anti-Spanish sentiment which
would burst into a holocaust thirty-seven years later in the Revolution of
1896.
8.
Father Mariano Gomes. The man who did most to pave the way for the revolution
in Cavite was, strangely enough, not a Caviteño but a priest from Sta. Cruz,
Manila, Fr. Mariano Gomes (1799-1872). A brilliant student, he was ordained
priest at age 25. He said his first mass on May 28, 1824, and five days later
he was assigned to Bacoor, Cavite, where he spent the next 48 years attending
to the spiritual and material needs of townsfolk.
Coming
from a well-to-do couple, Father Gomes spent his own money in undertaking road
building constructions and organizing a cooperative bank without collaterals
and interest on loans. As vicar forage, Gomes rallied all priests in Cavite and
nearby provinces behind the movement seeking the revocation of the royal decree
of 1879 giving seven parishes of Cavite to Spanish regulars or friars. In the
hands of Father Gomes, the secularization movement was converted into a
movement for filipinization of all curacies, ultimately leading to national independence.
Glossed
over by historians is the fact that Gomes exercised a decisive influence on the
lives of two men – Luis Parang and Eduardo Camerino – who kept alive the
revolutionary tradition of Cavite. Parang led the agrarian revolt of 1828, and
Camerino that of 1869. Assuming the role of peacemaker, Gomes personally went
to the mountain hideout of Parang and convinced him to come down with him to
the Malacañang Palace where the governor general (probably Mariano Ricafort,
1828-1830), in his desire to end the long-smoldering revolt, signed a Tratado
de Malacanang (Treaty of Malacañang), not only granting amnesty to Parang and
his followers but also suspending the projected increase of land rent by
religious corporation in Cavite, thereby preventing the ejection of tenants
from their farms on account on failure to pay land rent due to poor harvest.
Having
succeeded in putting an end to the Parang revolt, Gomes was again instrumental
in the peaceful settlement of the Camerino revolt of 1869. It is quite possible
that Gomes had previously met liberal Governor-general Carlos Maria de la Torre
(1869-1871) during the Malacañang reception of July 12, 1869, where the
Governor was “serenaded” by Filipino leaders, priests and students to express
their appreciation and gratitude for his liberal policies including, among
others, the abolition of press censorship, free discussion of political
problems, and suppression of flogging of military deserters.
De
la Torre personally went to Cavite in 1869 and there met Camerino at the
recollect estate house in Imus. Consequently, he appointed Camerino chief of a
new police force called Guias de la Torre (Aides of de la Torre), and granted
amnesty to his followers. Thereafter, Camerino, now a free man, was constantly
associated with Fr. Gomes. This association, unfortunately, proved to be his
undoing because the friars, implicating Gomes, Burgos and Zamora in the Cavite
Mutiny, did not hesitate to have Camerino arrested. On February 8, 1872,
Camerino was executed, but eleven of his men composing the Guias de la Torre
were each given ten-year sentence for complicity in the mutiny.
It
is difficult to visualize the Philippine Revolution breaking out in Cavite
without the preliminary groundwork made by Parang and Camerino, “notorious
bandits” in the eyes of the establishment but patriots to their people, who had
come under Gomes’s “tutelage.”
9.
Character of Caviteños. Caviteños are predominantly of Malay stock mix with
Chinese and Spanish minorities through informal unions or marriages. Rizal’s
description of the Malays may well apply to the Caviteños as part of the
Tagalog ethnic group. He says that they possessed a “delicacy of sentiment” not
to be found among Westerners. “They sacrifice everything – liberty, ease,
welfare, name – for the sake of an aspiration or a conceit . . . (and the least
word which wound (their) self-love they forget all the sacrifices, the labor
expended, to treasure in their memory and never forget the slight they have
received.”
Perhaps
referring to the GOMBURZA execution as a “general affront by the Spaniards
against a whole race,” Rizal says the Filipinos “wiped away their own feuds and
united against a common enemy – their former protectors, now their exploiters
and executioners.”
Speaking
of their behavioral patterns and traits, one scholar says that “the Caviteños
have always been known for their pride and daring ways. The Latin zest for life
is there – most conspicuous in the array of colors, bands of music, and
sumptuous banquets during fiestas. Pintakasi or cockfight tournaments took the
place of the Spanish bullfight . . . “
The
scholar also notices “a high degree of irritability among Caviteños, frequently
exhibited in hotly contested political elections, often accompanied by fraud
and bloodshed . . . Alienation from the establishment find expression in overt
acts of violence, machismo, and related manly virtues of physical prowess,
daring and guile.”
Banditry
has become almost an institution in Cavite, the traditional home of insurgency,
says James Leroy, an American author. “That banditry has always had in it an
element of revolt against friar rule or civil tyranny . . . is unquestionable.
That it has more closely assumed a political aspect against Spanish rule, and
during the war against American sovereignty, is also apparent.”
What
Leroy overlooked is the fact that banditry in Cavite has always had some
element of mass support. The Caviteños has been especially sensitive to
injustice, whether committed by foreigners or local tyrants. Take the case of
Leonardo Manicio, alias Nardong Putik, who was regarded by most Caviteños as
the local Robin Hood. He had escaped the national penitentiary and taken refuge
among the poor farmers of Cavite, living in a life of a “free man,” until he
was shot to death one morning presumably by double agents disguised as
bodyguards.
Nardong
Putik was contemporary version of Parang and Camerino. However, in the case of
the latter two “bandits,” the character was set in bolder and more positive
relief because it prepared the province, psychologically and emotionally, for
the greater challenge to their personal machismo- the Revolution of 1896.
10. Masonry in Cavite. The idea of the Age of
Enlightenment- liberty, equality, and fraternity- found their first seedbed in
Cavite. These ideas considered revolutionary in the Philippines in the context
of the last century of Spanish rule, were brought here by Spanish marines at
Cavite el Puerto, the home base of the Spanish Far Eastern Fleet, who were
Freemasons before coming to the Philippines.
The
first masonic lodge in the Philippines, called Logia Primera Luz Filipina, was
established in Kawit in 1856, thirteen years before Aguinaldo was born, by two
Spanish naval officers, Jose Malcampo, who later became an admiral and governor
general (1874-1877), and his friend, Castro Mendez Nuñez, operating under a
charter from the Grand Oriente Lucitano, the Masonic Grand Lodge of Portugal.
Later,
another lodge mainly composed of German and other foreign Masons was
established under a charter from Hong Kong. The first secretary of the new
lodge was a highly cultured Filipino (a Spaniard born in the Philippines) named
Jacobo Zobel y San Gomez.
A
preponderant majority of the leaders of the Philippine Revolution were Masons
including Aguinaldo and Bonifacio. According to general Baldomero Aguinaldo,
president of the Magdalo Council, there were some 300 Katipuneros at the
outbreak of the Revolution.
11. The thirteen martyrs of Cavite. The Revolution
started in Cavite on August 31, 1896. Two weeks later, on September 12,
thirteen prominent Caviteños, ten of them being Freemasons and Three
Katipuneros, were executed by a Spanish firing squad in Fort San Felipe,
Cavite, for the alleged complicity in the uprising. It was a repeat performance
of the GOMBURZA execution of 1872 in so far as the summary character of the
trial was concerned. The thirteen accused were tried by a Spanish military
court and given Spanish army officers for counsel. But instead of defending
their clients, the army lawyers "admitted the guilt" of the accused,
in what maybe regarded as the weirdest trial in history. The execution followed
immediately, and the bloody corpses were promptly loaded in three carabao-drawn
carts and dumped into a common grave in the Caridad Cemetery.
The
execution of thirteen influential Caviteños was clearly aimed checking the
spread of the uprising that had started a few days earlier in Cavite el Viejo
(now Kawit), San Francisco de Malabon (now Gen. Trias), and Noveleta, but the
opposite happened: in less than a week's time all municipalities of Cavite had
taken up arms, and about four weeks later, after the battles of Binakayan and
Calero on November 9-11, Spanish sovereignty in the province was no longer
visible except in the narrow strip of land known as Cavite Arsenal, home base of
the Spanish Far East Fleet.
A
feeling of indignation at the travesty of justice under Spanish rule,
exacerbated by a racial antagonism, caused the Caviteños to join hands and
flight to overthrow the tyrannical alien regime. The death of the thirteen
martyrs, as in the GOMBURZA execution twenty-four years earlier, was a great
Spanish blunder. If the GOMBURZA killing " shocked the Filipino into
nationhood," the death of Cavite's thirteen martyrs was, indeed, a
decisive step forward the birth of the Filipino emancipation in Kawit, the
mother town of Cavite, on June 12, 1898.
The
Cavite Mutiny of 1872 was the opening curt of the struggle for the Filipino
emancipation; but the execution of the thirteen martyrs of Cavite on September
12, 1896, rang down the curtain for the Spanish regime in the Philippines.