PANTALEON GARCIA (1862-1936)
ONE
OF the trusted Caviteños appointed by General Emilio Aguinaldo to epresent the
province of Albay in the Malolos Congress, General Pantaleon Garcia, according
to one biographer, was quite “close to General Aguinaldo.”
He was with
Aguinaldo in the seesaw Battle of Pasong Santol, in barrio Salitran,
Dasmariñas, Cavite; he was one of the two generals en trusted with the defense
of Imus, the revolutionary capital of the Magdalo government; he accompanied
Aguinaldo in the Long March to Biak-na-Bato after the fall of the “Little
Republic of Cavite” in Maragondon; he fought with Aguinaldo in the Battle of
Puray, Montalban, dealing the Spanish forces a crushing defeat; he was
appointed by Aguinaldo one of the five brigade commanders for the assault on
Manila in the beginning of the Philippine-American War; and he was promoted to
major general upon his appointment as commanding general of all Filipino forces
in Central Luzon.
But in later
life, long after the Philippine Revolution had receded in the distance and
politics became the immediate concern of most Filipinos, the political pendulum
swung to the other side and General Pantaleon Garcia became identified with the
group of bloc of then Senate President Quezon, a minor figure in the
Revolution. General Garcia, in a startling statement, revealed that before the
death of General Antonio Luna on June 5, 1899, he (Garcia) had “received a
verbal order from General Emilio Aguinaldo that I will lead the projected
assassination of General Luna, which would be done at Cabanatuan, Nueva Ecija.
It so happened that I had not yet fully recuperated from my illness, so that I
was unable to perform that order. After some days passed I received the news
that General Luna was murdered at Cabanatuan by the soldiers from Kawit.”
An intensive
research disclosed that when Garcia made the statement in 1033, he was
sergeant-at-arms of the Philippine Senate of which Quezon was the president,
and that about this time the Aguinaldo-Quezon political controversy was already
going full blast with the Commonwealth presidential election barely two years
away. Evidently the Garcia statement had political undertones tending to
becloud the image of General Aguinaldo. The Garcia statement should therefore
be viewed in the light of the Aguinaldo-Quezon political controversy.
Born in Imus,
Cavite on July 27, 1862 (another source says 1856), Garcia finished the normal
course in the Escuela Normal under Jesuit teachers in Manila. He taught in
Silang, Cavite before the Revolution. In February 1897 Garcia led a group of 30
men in a successful attack on Spanish positions, capturing several enemy
trenches. His military ability caught the attention of Aguinaldo who
thenceforth entrusted him with important military missions.
When Aguinaldo
on November 12, 1899 decided to abandon the last revolutionary capital in
Tarlac, Tarlac, and launched an all-out guerilla war against the Americans, he
appointed Garcia as the commanding general of all Filipino forces in Central
Luzon.
Garcia was
captured by the Americans in Jaen, Nueva Ecija, in May 1900 “while pretending
to be gravely ill in bed.” Married to Valeriana Elises by whom he had three
children, Garcia served as municipal president of Imus, 1903-1905, and justice
of the peace, 1906-1907. Later on he was appointed superintendent of the Colonia
Agricola in Cavite. He died on August 16, 1936.
[Sources: (1)
Benjamin M. Bolivar, “A Historical Study of Imus,” unpublished M.A. thesis,
1965; (2) National Historical Commission, Eminent Filipinos, Manila,
1965; (3) Sol H. Gwekoh, “Pantaleon Garcia: General of Two Wars,” unpublished
manuscript dated 1972, Archives Section, Main Library, Gonzales Hall,
University of the Philippines; (4) Vivencio R. Jose, The Rise and Fall of
Antonio Luna. University of the Philippines, Philippine Social Science
and Humanities Review, 1971; and (5) Talambuhay ng Magigiting na Lalaki
ng Kabite, Jimenez Collection, Kawit, Cavite.]