JOSE
BASA Y ENRIQUEZ (1843-1912)
The first of four Cavite delegates to the Malolos Congress, 1898-1899,was Jose Ma. Basa y Enriquez, a noted lawyer, jurist, writer, reformer, educator, and patriot. He held the distinction of being deported twice for his revolutionary activities, but fortunately he was pardoned in each instance.
Basa was first exiled to Guam for alleged complicity in the Cavite Mutiny of 1872, which was magnified by the Spaniards into a “revolt” evidently to implicate the three Filipino priests, Mariano Gomes, Jose Burgos, and Jacinto Zamora twenty years later, in 1892, he was exiled again, this time to Mindanao.
Basa’s other distinction is that he was mentor of Emilio Aguinaldo in the latter’s second year in segunda ensenanza in the Basa private school in San Roque, then a municipality of Cavite Province.
Born in San Roque on August 16, 1843, the son of Francisco Basa, a shipbuilder employed in the Cavite arsenal, and Felipa Enriquez, a businesswoman, young Jose obtained his early education in his hometown. He then continued his studies in the Colegio de San Juan de Letran in Manila, after which he moved on to the University of Sto. Tomas where he obtained his LL.B. degree. Basa was one of the first lawyers of Cavite.
Basa was banished to Guam after the Mutiny of 1872 along with a large batch of lawyers, priests, and businessmen. However, he and some colleagues escaped from exile, eventually landing in Spain where they later obtained a royal pardon. Returning to the Philippines in 1874, he was again deported in July 1892 to Mindanao on the same boat that took Rizal to Dapitan. They were not allowed to communicate with each other. Two years later, Basa was pardoned, leaving Rizal behind Dapitan.
As Cavite was under the full control of Filipino revolutionists, Basa was duly elected delegate to the Malolos Congress, which convened on September 15, 1898. He remained a delegate of Congress even after the revolutionary capital was transferred to Tarlac, Tarlac in July 1899. he was later appointed by General Aguinaldo as director of justice of the central government.
After the termination of the Philippine-American War (1899-1901) Basa was appointed judge of the court of first instance of his legal erudition he was appointed chairman of the bar examining committee.
Married twice, Basa had seven children by his first wife, Mamerta Alberto, and four by his second wife, Asuncion San Agustin. He died of old age on May 7, 1912.
[Sources: (1) Emilio Aguinaldo, Mga Gunita ng Himagsikan, Copyright by Mrs. Cristina Aguinaldo Suntay, Manila, 1964; and (2) Prominent Caviteños in History, Copyright by Esteban A. de Ocampo, 1941.]