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.]

 

 

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