APOLONIO DE LA CRUZ
(1864-1897)
Early Katipunan
Martyr
Apolonio de la Cruz was on of the early plebeian heroes who responded to the call of motherland to serve unselfishly and offer their lives in the struggle for independence.
There is litter information about the
early life of de la Cruz viuda de Lammoglia, offer that Apolonio was born
sometime in 1864 and was the only child of Felipe de la Cruz who had her
origins in Bigaa, Bulacan. Around the year 1884, de la Cruz who was about
twenty years old, married Apolonia Gallardo, a daughter of a Guardia Civil. They had three children,
Emigdio, who was born in 1885, Victor in 1889 and Segunda, who were born in
1895.
Like a number of other workers at the
painting office of the Diario de Manila
where he worked as foreman, Apolonio de la Cruz was a member of the Katipunan,
the secret revolutionary society that drew heavily from the working class of
its affiliates. With Mapaghiganti (to
avenge) as nom de guerre, he was the treasurer of the Katipunan chapter in
Tondo,
The news paper Diario de Manila was
published by the Ramirez y Compañia that
was located at Num. 40 Calle Beaterio, corner Num. 1 Calle Magallanes in
Intramuros,
Apolonio de la Cruz was a leader in
these clandestine activities and held the rank of Jefe. He attended the historic meetings of the chiefs of the
Katipunan in
Sometime before the existence of the
Katipunan was exposed in August 1896, he had a petty, if covert, rivalry with a
Visayan co-worker, Teodoro Patiño, who was in-charge of tool and equipment. Patiño who was not a Katipunero, was a troubled, and
troublesome person. Before he worked at the printing plant, he was a streetcar
conductor. Addicted to vice of gambling, he wagered further a day’s receipts at
the cockpits and lost all his money. In his attempt to recoup his losses, he
wagered further without money and again lost. He barely escaped from the crowd
of irate bettors.
Patio’s rivalry with De la Cruz had to
do with a two-peso increase in wages that one of them expected to receive from
the plant’s general manager, the Spaniard La Front. Since Patiño was close to
La Front, it seems certain that the increase would be given to him. This was
resented De la Cruz, not mention his co-Katipuneros de la Cruz decided to write
La Front an anonymous letter accusing Patiño of secretly selling some of the
office equipment. Naturally, this incensed Patiño, who must have suspected the
identity of the letter-writer.
Apparently, it was this incident that
prompted Patiño to expose the Katipunanto the authorities, and his motive was
clear enough: revenge. However, it was his sister, Honoria, a certain Tor
Teresa de Jesus, a Visayan nun, who prodded him to do so through Father Mariano
Gil, an Augustinian priest. His sister lived in an Augustinian orphanage in
Mandaluyong.
Father Gil, who had long suspected the
secret society’s existence, lost no time in locating the Spanish authorities,
which then raided the printing press on
The unexpected discovery of the
Katipunan advanced the timetable for the launching of the Philippine
Revolution.
As for De la Cruz, he was executed by
firing squad on February 6, 1897 together with nine other comrades in the
Katipunan, namely Roman Basa, Teodoro Plata, Vicente Molina, Hermenegildo de
los Reyes, Jose Trinidad, Pedro Nicodemus, Feliciano del Rosario, Gervasio
Samson and Doroteo Dominguez.