Towards Bagumbayan: New Town, Killing Ground

THE ROOTS OF THE FILIPINO NATION by Onofre D.
Corpuz ©1989
Chapter 12
TOWARDS BAGUMBAYAN: NEW TOWN, KILLING GROUND
Without 1872 Rizal would be a Jesuit today; instead of writing
Noli me tangere he would have written something quite the
opposite. The knowledge of that injustice and cruelty stirred my
imagination even as a boy, and I swore to dedicate myself to
avenging those victims someday.... May God grant me the
opportunity one day to fulfill my vow. – Rizal to Mariano Ponce
and his colleagues in La Solidaridad (April 1889)
There was, in 1591, a native settlement just south of the Spanish city of
Manila. The work on the walls of the city had not been completed then.
When the south wall was finished the site of the settlement was just 300
paces away from the wall. The people in the settlement were the families
that had been forced to leave their homes in Manila, site of the old town of
Raja Soliman that the Spaniards had taken over for their city.
The natives called their settlement “Bagumbayan,” meaning “new town,”
with subtle intimations of fresh hopes in a new life. The people were
assigned to the Spanish king as a royal encomienda; we read from the
tribute reports for 1591 that Bagumbayan had a population of 1 900.
Bagumbayan was built on low ground turning into swamp as it met the
waters of the bay. Just south of it was the village of Ermita. South of
Ermita, in turn, was the village called by the Spaniards Malate. The name
of the place was really "Maalat," salty, because it used to be a fishing village
and the people produced salt, but the Spaniards called it their way. This
village of Malate was special; after the Spaniards had taken over Manila for
themselves the regime reserved the site of old Malate for the descendants of
the chiefs and princi pales of the old town of Manila. Immediately east of
Bagumbayan was more marshland with nipa palm groves. The east of this
tract is occupied in modern times by the undistinguished hulk of the city
hall of Manila.
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THE ROOTS OF THE FILIPINO NATION by Onofre D. Corpuz ©1989
In 1605 a summer house for the Spanish governorgeneral was abuilding
to one side of Bagumbayan. It would have a pleasant prospect across a
garden and ponds; this was to enable him to escape his ugly and depressing
quarters within the walls. Upon his death the next year the place was
bought by the Recollects, who built a convento. The site was secure because
by the 1630s part of the area had become the parade ground for the troops.
In 1644 the governorgeneral ordered the demolition of the convento for
its being too close to the walls. When his term was over however, the clergy
had their way again and built the church of Santiago. It was this church
which all Spaniards who lived outside the Intramuros had to attend. The
new church of San Juan de Bagumbayan, nearby, was for the natives. The
nipa groves next to Bagumbayan were still lush and thick during the 1750s.
During the latter years of this decade the governorgeneral tried anew to
have the churches torn down but the friars sought to have him
excommunicated, and he failed.
In the war of 1762 the British captured, first, the churches of Malate and
Ermita. From here they went on to take the churches of Santiago and San
Juan de Bagumbayan. The British army general reported of these edifices
that they “were much nearer the walls than the rules of war prescribe.”
They were key salients, and the cover that they provided the invaders sealed
the fate of Manila. After taking the city, of course, the British promptly
demolished the two nearer churches and cleared the area of Bagumbayan, so
that no trace remains of these structures nor of the old convento nor of the
old settlement today.
It was in Bagumbayan, now a clear field, where the surviving mutineers
of the Tayabas regiment were executed by musketry in 1843. For more and
more Filipinos thereafter, Bagumbayan would mean death, not life, not
hope, because thenceforth it became the Spanish regime's killing ground for
rebels and martyrs. The execution of three Filipino priests by the garrotte in
1872 made them the first symbols of the newborn Christian Filipino
nationalist movement.
Towards Politics: Reformers and Demonstrators
2
The first Filipino patriotic statements may be dated to the 1860s. After
the loss of the curacy of Antipolo to the Recollects the Filipino priests
continued to press their rights to serve as parish priests and not only be
assistants to the friars. For sometime now the latter had been steadily
taking over the curacies of the priests pursuant to a series of royal decrees
from Spain.
In 1864 Jose Apolonio Burgos, who was still only a deacon but would

eventually obtain two doctorate degrees from the University of Santo Tomas,
answered a particularly strong attack by a Madrid newspaper against the
archbishop, Pedro Pelaez, and the Filipino clergy. His reply, based on civil
and canon law, argued the disqualification of the friars from the ministry of
the parishes. It then proceeded to debate the racist opinions of the friars on
the Filipino priests, and finally to expose the former's attacks on the latter's
loyalty to Spain as merely another trick to set the civil authorities against
them.
Burgos work was entitled “Manifiesto que a la noble Nación Española
dirigen los leales Filipinos” (“Manifesto addressed by the loyal Filipinos to
the noble Spanish Nation”). The key to the reply was Burgos' identification
of his people as “Filipinos”. It was a new usage; Burgos used the term as a
name for a new group in the colonial population, a group to which belonged
not just natives but also Chinese mestizos, and not only these but also
Spanish mestizos and fullblooded Spaniards born in Filipinas. The new
meaning of the term began to enter common usage, at least in the patriotic
and reform literature, more and more from here on. It was by no means
universal usage: the friar orders and the peninsular Spaniards would persist
in naming the different subgroups separately, persist in calling the natives
“Indios” until the end of their regime.
Nevertheless, the more intelligent Spaniards were sensing not only the
new usage; they had begun to see in it a separation in identity between the
peninsular Spaniards on the one hand, and their colonial subjects, the new
Filipinos, on the other. We know that the archbishop of Manila sent a
lengthy memorial to the then regent of Spain in 1870. In this memorial the
archbishop reported that the feelings of the native priests against the friar
3
orders were “now taking on an antiSpanish character”. He warned that the
resentments of the priests would be spread “to their parents, relatives, and
to the whole Filipino people”. (“se dará a margen a que los sentimientos de
los Sacerdotes indígenas se propaguen a sum padres, parientes y a todo el
pueblo Filipino”.)
It Is useful to look at the situation simply. In Manila there were educated
Filipinos asking for reforms for Filipinas. We will come across the names of
several of these men shortly. For them it was Filipinas that was the
motherland. In Spain the Revolution of 1868 had produced a constitution
that provided for equality and civil and political rights. In Manila the
Filipinos asked that these rights be extended to Filipinos. But the grant of
equality and civil and political rights was viewed differently by the
Spaniards. In Filipinas. They controlled the political and economic life of the
colony. They were the Spaniards of the friar orders that possessed the vast
haciendas and completely dominated the parishes under them; besides the
friars, they were the lay Spaniards who normally held half of the executive
and military offices and middle positions in the civilian and military
establishments. They were all supported by the labor and substance of the
Filipinos. They did not treat any Spaniard who was not born in Spain as a
full Spaniard. They were the peninsulars; their motherland was Spain, not
Filipinas. For the Filipinos to ask for equality and civil and political rights,
in their eyes, was not only a threat to their position of dominance; it was no
less than sedition against Spain.
It is not possible to understand the relationships between the Filipinos
and the Spaniards of the 1860s and early 1870s without sensing the
intensity of the passions and interests, the hopes and suspicions, that
divided them. A note of that era says that the opinion held of the Filipinos
by the Spaniards boiled down to, and was based on, the following two
propositions:
The Filipino is a good Christian, a fair acolyte, a bad coadjutor,
and absolutely incapable of being a parish priest; and
The Filipino is a good soldier, a fair corporal, a bad sergeant,
and absolutely incapable of being an officer.
4
This was the picture of the Filipinos presented in Madrid, especially by
the friars through their lobbyists and newspapers, in order to justify
continued suppression of the Filipinos and to maintain the peninsulars'
dominance.
The protracted conflict between Filipino priests and Spanish friars over
the issue of secularization of the parishes suddenly spilled over into a much
broader and potentially dangerous arena. The precipitating cause of this
widened rift was the Revolution of 1868. Spanish patriotic literature
affectionately named this revolution “La Gloriosa”. In truth it was largely a
revolution of army generals but it gave birth to the Constitution of 1869,
which contained liberal provisions.
Although those provisions were not extended to Filipinas, the leading

Filipinos took encouragement from it and sought to campaign for equality in
law and for civil and political rights. For this purpose they organized
themselves into a reform group, the Comite de Reformadores. Their primary
concerns are reflected in the fact that the Comite had two subcommittees.
In the first were the priests Mariano Gomes, Jacinto Zamora, Agustin
Mendoza, Jose Guevara, Simon Ramirez, Mariano Sevilla, and Jose Burgos
under the latter's leadership.
Among the lay group were Ambrosio Rianzares Bautista, Joaquin Pardo
de Tavera, Maximo Paterno, Jose Ma. Basa, Enrique Paraiso, Manuel
Natividad, Angel Garchitorena, Jose Gonzales Esquivel de Esquivel, Martin
de Alpa, Manuel Genato, Jose Bonifacio Roxas, Andres Garchitorena, Fruto
Maniquis, and Vicente Salgado. The Comite was to campaign for reforms in
political and civil rights under the concept of the assimilation of Filipinas as
a province of Spain.2
The assimilationist reformers recruited youth members from the
students in the Universidad de Santo Tomas. These young men were imbued
with the reformist aspirations of their elders and worked as “auxiliary
soldiers” of the Comite. They were organized as La Juventud Escolar
Liberal (The Liberal Student Youth). Among their projects the members of
5
the Comite founded a paper in Madrid, El Eco Filipino, as a counterfoil to
one of the friar papers there, La Verdad, the paper whose attack on the
Filipino clergy had been answered by Burgos in 1864.
The students Felipe Buencamino of Bulacan, Paciano Rizal of Laguna,
and Gregorio Sansiangco y Goson of Malabon would pick up copies of El Eco
Filipino from the house of Esquivel and, posing as zacateros (peddlers of
zacate, grass for horse feed) and concealing the papers in the grass bundles,
distributed them to subscribers. They were supervised in this chore by
Florentino Torres and Rianzares Bautista. Buencamino was the leader of La
Juventud. Its members included: Sansiangco y Goson, Rizal (whose brother
Jose was eight years old in 1869), Gregorio Mapa, Bernabe Victorino,
Florentino Villaruel, Hermogenes del Rosario, Eduardo Munarris, Manuel
de Leon, and Basilio Teodoro. There were also three young priests: N.
Canda, Agustin Estrella and Juan Aniag.
Buencamino in his memoirs refers to the Comite as the first “Liberal
Party” in Filipinas, adding that “it became vigorous ... because it was
composed of the richest and wisest Filipinos, causing very serious worry
among the peninsular Spaniards especially among the friars”. The first open
and public activity of the Comite jolted the Spaniards, as we shall see, and
became an early link in a chain of events that led to a tragedy.3
The strain in the relationship between Filipinos and Spaniards surfaced
beyond concealing in 1869 with the arrival of the new governorgeneral
Carlos Maria de La Torre y Navacerrada in June. He was another army
general. He was a fugitive from a searchandarrest order of the old
government in 1867. That the times were going to be different was soon
clear to all: after his arrival in Manila he lost no time ordering the tearing
down of the bronze statue of Isabela II, which had been set up on a pedestal
of dark Romblon marble in Arroceros in 1860.
It is not surprising that the various factions in the charged atmosphere
in Manila saw La Torre not as the governorgeneral of an established
government, but as the agent of a radically new political bloc or dispensation
in Madrid. A study of La Torre's record (Rebanal y Ras, 1981) cites La
6
Torre's own perspective of the partisan factions: the friars, the peninsular
office holders, and the rich and ilustrado families.
The friars were afraid that La Torre would implement an 1835 law of
Spain which decreed the abolition (and state seizure) of the properties of the
religious orders; and another of 18 October 1868 which required the
governorgeneral to immediately approve all applications by members of the
religious orders, whether nuns or friars, for personal exclaustración (leaving
the cloisters or convent). There was also a decree of January 1869 declaring
“all the archives, libraries, and other artistic, scientific, and literary
collections of the cathedrals, chapters, cloisters, and military orders to be
national property.”
The officeholders hated La Torre because he represented the political

party that had ordered their dismissal; they were to be replaced by
partisans of the revolution. The majority of the peninsulars in Filipinas,
according to La Torre, was made up of the friars and the office holders both
civilian and military.
After the friars and office holders was a third group. La Torre says that it
included “at most two dozen rich creole and mestizo families and scarcely a
dozen persons of the more educated”; and that “together with the secular
priests they hoped for freedom of the press, representation in the Cortes,
takeover of the offices hitherto reserved for Spaniards, secularization of the
curacies, and abolition of the religious orders' properties.”
La Torre did not intend it, but his statement of the number of rich non
Spanish families was a telling judgement on the record of the regime: “at
most two dozen” rich families with “scarcely a dozen persons” of the better
educated, in the subject population of some 4,700,000 to 4,960,000
Christians during this period, and after three centuries of the Spanish
occupation.
Finally, La Torre expressed his opinion that the majority of the Filipinos
had no share in the political tensions and crises swirling above them,
although he recognized that they were the victims of much suffering and
7
oppression.
La Torre did not provide details, but he was not unaware that the
Filipinos were losing their lands. We know of the old custom of the small
landholders borrowing money for their operations and how they would lose
their landholdings to the lenders. The latter were the rich native and
mestizo families and the friar estates. A history of the English firm Smith,
Bell and Company (founded in 1853 in Manila) notes the “disadvantageous
conditions” of dealing with the friar orders. This was because the loan
relationship began with the landowner undertaking to deliver half of the
harvest to the lender, but ended with later agreements that the landowner
pay a stipulated sum of money to the lender, whatever the harvest was. In
times of poor harvests the native landowners would lose their lands to the
lender.
Inn the province of Cavite, where the Recollects and Domini cans were to
take over the secular curacies pursuant to the September 1861 decree and
where the friar haciendas were vast (aside from being near other friar
estates in Laguna), many landholdings had been lost to the friar orders. The
Cavitenos did not accept this easily, and the men of the dispossessed
families would leave the pale of the law and retire into the mountains and
forests. They were called tulisanes, brigands or outlaws, because they took
vengeance on the officials and those who became rich from being lackeys to
the Spaniards. Government efforts against these people would invariably
fail because the residents of the pueblos supported and protected them.
The leader of the tulisan groups when La Torre assumed office was
Casimiro Camerino. To the dismay of the peninsulars La Torre not only
declared an amnesty for Camerino and his followers; he organized them into
a “Batallon de Guias” as an auxiliary of the Guardia Civil (organized in 1867
as a paramilitary police) and named Camerino as commander with the
rank of colonel. This was in August 1869.4
In fact the peninsulars' displeasure over the Camerino case was minor
compared to the jolt and shock they felt as a result of three public events
that happened the previous month. Each event was seen and reported by the
8
antiLa Torre faction as a scandal, and the memory of them would create the
backlash that culminated in the martyrdom of the leading Filipinos in the
tragedy of 1872.
On 12 July 1869 a large group of residents of the Manila area led by
members of the Comite de Reformadores felicitated La Torre with an
evening serenade. It would seem to have been no more than a display of the
people's gratitude for the democratic actuations of the new governorgeneral.
The fortnightly El Eco Filipino of 17 October 1871 (in Madrid) reported that
the people paraded along the main streets of the Intramuros and gathered
in front of the palacio de Santa Potenciana, which was at that time serving
as the governorgeneral's residence. Here the serenade committee was
received and entertained by La Torre. El Eco Filipino was a liberal paper,
and its account stressed that the people and the manifestation were
peaceful, the entire affair orderly, and that La Torre was favorably
impressed.
The leaders of the serenade are listed by Rebanal from the Manila
newspaper El Porvenir (14 July 1869) as follows:
Joaquin Pardo de Tavera, doctor of laws, member of the council of
administration and professor of Spanish law;
Jose Icaza, alternate magistrate, Royal Audiencia;
Jacobo Zobel, property owner and member of the Ayuntamiento;
Ignacio Rocha, businessman;
Lorenzo Rocha, artist;
Angel Garchitorena, industrialist;
Andres Nieto, property owner;
Jose Cañas, landowner;
Jose Burgos, doctor of laws and curate of the Cathedral;
Vicente Infante, military warden; and
Juan Reyes, employee of the finance department.
If the liberal account of the serenade stressed its orderliness and

propriety, the report on the same affair by a peninsular Spaniard of Manila
called it farcical and seditious, participated in only by the lower elements of
Manila society. This report, by a lawyer and official of a Manila organization
9
that had been placed under investigation by La Torre for management

irregularities, was hysterical. It pictured the affair as “the most serious
attempt perpetrated in these Islands against the integrity of the Spanish
nation since their discovery.” It inexplicably added two names to the El
Porvenir list of the committee members, those of Manuel Genato and
Maximo Paterno. It referred to them as Chinese mestizos. It added that
most of the members of the organizing committee were also Chinese
mestizos, “although they style themselves or pass as Filipino Spaniards.”
After pouring more derision on the participants and the affair, describing
the former as of “low worth” and even the pennants and paper lanterns in
the serenade as of “worse taste,” it turned to the nonparticipants. It said
that the peninsulars did not take part. “Neither did the property owners,
merchants, lawyers, and officials of note, whether peninsulars or creoles;
nor even the mestizos and natives of status.”
There was another account, by a friar. Its language was less colorful, but
it even more strongly viewed the 12 July affair as a seditious act; it asserted
that the serenade was one of the primary causes of the Cavite mutiny of
1872. This account was after the event; it alleged that La Torre had made
promises of liberty to the serenaders; that the affair involved some creoles
and mestizos and natives; and lastly that it was characterized by ideas that
were contrary to those that had preserved Filipinas as a colony of Spain. It
claimed that no peninsular Spaniards took part in the serenade.
These sensationalist assessments are perpetuated in Montero y Vidal's
Historia General de Filipinas. This history's accounts of the popular
manifestations are little more than copies of the antiLa Torre reports. This
explains why Montero y Vidal's list of the committee members, although he
cites El Porvenir as his source, includes the added names of Genato and
Paterno as well as the notation that they were Chinese mestizos.
In September the official swearing of the oath of loyalty to the 1869

constitution was held throughout Filipinas. The rites in Manila were held on
the 26th. There is no mention in the official documents of incidents of a
political nature associated with the ceremonies. But the antiLa Torre
lawyer's account was another agitated story about a political manifestation.
10
It emphasized the VIVAS! to liberty and the constitution by “some recently
arrived Spaniards” (the new officeholders sent to replace the incumbents)
and by native Filipinos.
A third event took place during the last days of the month. It was the
celebration of the first anniversary of the revolution. La Torre duly sent an
official report to Madrid. It was a simple account. He wrote that in the
evening of the 29th the people and gobernadorcillos of the nearby pueblos
gathered at the Plaza de la Potenciana and that they shouted VIVAS! in
acclamation of Spain, the Cortes, the regent, the minister of the colonies,
and himself. He replied, he said, to the spirited hurrahs with "VIVA Espana
Madre natural de las Islas Filipinas!"
Again the antiLa Torre account reported the celebration in uninhibited
language. The proceedings were alleged to have been no less than an
“incitement to sedition.” The people were said to have proclaimed La Torre
as “the independent head” of Filipinas. The authorities were described as
“completely demented.” Montero y Vidal's account not just faithfully echoes
this narrative: it is embellished with unprovable details. Rebanal concludes
that it is evident that neither Montero y Vidal nor his source was witness to
the events he wrote about .5
The peninsulars' disgust over the events of 1869 was fueled into hatred
against La Torre and the new Filipinos during 18701871. The Revolution of
1868 was a triumph of Spanish liberalism and the new government in
Madrid instructed La Torre to set up a group to propose reforms in
Filipinas. One of the reforms called for the setting up of an advisory body to
the governorgeneral. It would be called the General Council and would have
a delegate from each province who would be chosen by its provincial board.
This moderate proposal, however, was ultimately disapproved.
At about this time (April) the authorities adopted a decision to rebuild
the Manila cathedral, still in ruins since the earthquake of 1863. This
necessitated the transfer from the cathedral crypts of the remains of Anda y
Salazar. The Spaniards venerated his memory in recognition of his
patriotism against the British a century before. The Filipinos admired him
11
for a different reason: during the 1770s Anda supported the Filipino priests
in the issue of the secularization of the curacies.
On the day of the ceremonies there was a procession attended by a

multitude in mourning dress; the procession started from the cathedral and
made its way to the church of San Agustin where the remains were to be
blessed before the transfer to the Franciscan church (which was to serve as
the cathedral during the rebuilding work). The crowd gathered inside the
church for the blessing. Then, when the Responsory was about to begin, a
young priest left his group; he had a wreath of flowers; he bowed
deferentially to La Torre as he solemnly made his way to the catafalque
where he lay the wreath. It had a long ribbon bearing the legend: “The
Secular Clergy of Filipinas to Don Simon de Anda y Salazar.” The people,
now in hushed surprise, watched a student step forward to lay a wreath on
the coffin. And then a group of gobernadorcillos representing their pueblos,
followed suit. An inquiry into the "scandal" was conducted but produced no
results, and the popular conclusion was that it had been Jose Burgos who
was responsible.
Meanwhile, scores of supporters of the new party in power in Madrid

arrived in Manila to replace the peninsulars in the colonial service. The
latter were identified with the old regime They blamed La Torre. Many of
the new arrivals harbored the antifriar sentiments that were then part of
Spanish 'liberalism.' Without realizing that their ideas had one impact when
expressed in the relatively structured politics in Spain and another in the
volatile situation in Manila, the newly arrived officeholder; circulated anti
friar and proliberal pamphlets and handbills. Some of these inevitably
found their way to the provinces.
Then in late 1870 a brace of decrees arrived from Spain for La Torre to
implement. Two dealt with some changes in education. The first established
the Instituto Filipino. It was to be a public – which meant a secular –
institution. Its offerings would include general secondary instruction in
conjunction with a curriculum of vocational education. The decree provided
that the Instituto would absorb some of the courses that were then offered in
a number of existing institutions, including the general secondary education
12
programs of the Jesuit schools Colegio de San Jose and Ateneo Municipal as
well as of the Dominican Colegio de San Juan de Letran. The other decree
provided for the conversion of the Real y Pontificia Universidad del Colegio
de Santo Tomas into the Universidad de Filipinas. The new university would
likewise be a secular institution, with its rector or president appointed by
the government. The Dominicans, who were primarily affected, led the
opposition to these and similar decrees on education. Since the issues
appeared to be serious, La Torre created a committee to consider the matter.
The members of La Juventud Escolar Liberal were reported to have

staged a riot in 1869 “aimed at the reorganization of the curriculum of the
University and of the University itself....” Artigas y Cuerva states that
Buencamino together with parents of students from various provinces were
arrested and imprisoned, The Comite, however, interceded with La Torre
and Buencamino was released from Bilibid prison where he had been
confined for eleven months.
Meantime, La Torre ordered the implementation of two other decrees

from Madrid: one calling for the inventory of the properties of Santo Tomas
and Letran, and the other a secret decree ordering that the application of
any friar or nun for exclaustracion or secularization be approved
immediately. The changes under the decrees did not last. The liberal
Spanish minister who promulgated them (Segismundo Moret) went out of
office in late December 1870, and his successor suspended most of them.6
It was now 1871. La Torre had written to Madrid in January to relieve
him from his post. In fact his patron in Spain had been assassinated the
previous month and orders for his relief had been signed nine days before
his letter was written. It was the custom for an outgoing governorgeneral to
write a memorandum for his successor for the latter's information, and La
Torre's "informatory memorial was dated March 1871. It summarized the
state of the regime as follows:
Unfounded anxieties on the one hand and absurd hopes on the other
continued among the partisan factions that La Torre found upon his arrival
in Manila. The government was in a bad state; there was insecurity in
13
Manila and in the adjacent provinces. As for the treasury it was bankrupt,
"without a real" to pay for the tobacco collections, the navy, the army, and
other urgent obligations. He said that his policy of government had been one
of morality and justice: giving equal audience to all; avoiding entangling ties
to any faction; governing in strict conformity with existing legislation and
not allowing discussion in the press of any changes in the political or
governmental system; correcting abuses wherever they occurred; and
consistently strengthening Spain's sovereignty and the colony's prosperity.
Montero y Vidal, who was bitterly antiLa Torre, had a totally different
summation of the latter's administration. He called attention to the
inflamed passions between La Torre's partisans and the enemies of his
destructive policies; he stressed the:
revived and unhealthy hate on the part of the separatist

creoles against their motherland, having glimpsed the
possibility of getting themselves rid of the Spaniards; the
disrepute in which authority had fallen as a result of his
show of democratic forms and his thoughtless actions; the
vanity of the Indios and mestizos on realizing their
numerical preponderance over the peninsulars
Montero y Vidal also stressed the damages incurred by the friar orders
from La Torre's hasty implementation of the education reform decrees, as
well as the grievous fears and anxieties for the future felt by the
peninsulars.
The widely differing assessments enable us to understand the passions
and enmities inflamed during La Torre's term. Bu all that is background.
What was truly important during the period was the progressive
surfacing of the Filipinos in politics. What was new during the La Torre era
was that the liberal reformers and the leaders of the priests were no longer
underground but ha emerged into some degree of prominence. The
contending factions were the same, more or less, as those of 1822 and 1843.
But now the Filipino liberal leaders were identified and working openly:
14
Jose Burgos, Joaquin Pardo de Tavera, and Maximo Paterno. The emergence
of Burgos was the most important development. The native priests were still
nameless in the accounts of 1822 and 1843. Only modern research has
revealed the early role of Mariano Gomes, collaborating with the creole
Pelaez in the cause of the priests (1849). Now Burgos had assumed the
leadership of the potentially most important political group in Filipino
society: the secular priests. This vital group had family ties with the
provincial principalia class. It was also multiracial. The progressive
affiliation or identification by the Chinese and Spanish mestizos and some
creoles with the native Filipinos emphasized the isolation of the peninsular
Spaniards. When the liberal elements of Manila sought to impress La Torre
with a show of solidarity and strength, Burgos was on the organizing
committee.
Another new development was that the move by some leading creoles to
make common cause with the Filipino priests evidenced their estrangement
from Spanish nationalism and their association with, or entry into, the
emerging Christian Filipino nation.
Moreover, during this period the leaders of the Filipino liberals and
priests were maintaining links and relations with the liberals in Spain,
primarily with elements in the press and in the Cortes. Agustin Mendoza,
curate of the rich Santa Cruz parish, sent 7,000 pesos to Rafael Labra,
Cubaborn liberal and delegate to the Cortes; the remittance was toward the
establishment of a newspaper to champion the interests of the Filipino
clergy. The brothers Jose and Pio Basa, Manila businessmen, whose sister
was married to the editorpublisher of El Eco Filipino, maintained an active
correspondence on political matters with their brotherinlaw. The brothers
Manuel and Antonio Regidor, Spanish creoles, were close associates of Labra
in liberal politics. Antonio was a doctoral candidate in the university of
Santo Tomas where Joaquin Pardo de Tavera was law professor.7
The newly surfaced Filipino leadership, including some men who later on
would be active in the Propaganda movement of the 1880s and 1890s, can
only be correctly viewed as an opposition bloc. Because many of them were
natives and mestizos they were looked down upon by the peninsulars of
15
Manila society, although we must note that one of them, Pardo de Tavera,
was of a noble Spanish family, more illustrious in ancestry than the
commoners who made up most of the peninsulars in Filipinas.
Further down, a different stratum of colonial society was inching its way
upwards into political participation. These were the gobernadorcillos and
principales and other residents of the pueblos around Manila. They were the
leading natives and Chinese mestizos of the lowermiddle and middle
classes, mobilized by the liberals for the purpose of making up a good crowd
for the serenade of 12 July, feeling good parading and serenading the
governorgeneral in front of his residence and being received by him. They
were no longer nameless folk in the crowd in a church procession
demonstrating the wonderful labors and achievements of the friars. They
were now actors in a process whose outcome they will not know, except that
they were acting for themselves. The surfacing of these people for the first
time in the political process was a critical advance in their education.
There is one point that must be clarified about La Torre. The standard
portrayal of La Torre in the histories is that of a liberal. But how do we
explain his decrees of January and October 1870 that exiled hundreds of
people, summarily called “vagrants, troublemakers, and those suspected of
having relations with the tulisanes,” to the distant island of Balabac and to
Mindanao? These deportation orders of La Torre were clearly in accord with
the despotic laws of the time, but he did not hesitate to issue them against
Filipinos. The notion of La Torre as a liberal is the result of a reliance on
Montero y Vidal, ignoring the fact that he provides abundant evidence of La
Torre's reactionary actions but had to describe La Torre as a liberal because
the liberals were seen as contributing to the erosion of Spanish dominion in
Filipinas. Montero y Vidal wrote of La Torre that the latter had “the
qualities which the leading separatists and revolutionaries approved of, in
their ill concealed desire that Spain lose the rest of her old overseas empire.”
This is far too general for a correct appreciation of the events then
happening in Filipinas. La Torre was a special kind of liberal. He had given
equal audience to the rival political factions in Manila, including the
reformist groups of natives and mestizos. He was the first governorgeneral
16
to do so. But we must understand what his liberalism meant. He belonged to
a political faction in Spain that championed constitutionalism and, for a
while, also republicanism. He advocated some civil and political rights in
Spain. The Spanish liberal faction to which he belonged characteristically
included elements that were anticlerical.
Visávis the Spanish friars La Torre the liberal roundly criticized their
“vices and defects.” Visávis the Spanish creoles, mestizos, and the Filipino
priests, however, La Torre was clearly a Spanish liberal who was a Spanish
patriot. Although he was aware of the injustices suffered by the Filipino
priests, he decided against them on the crucial secularization issue. He
described the demands of the liberal and reformist elements in Manila as
“foolish.”
La Torre indeed personally records that although the 1869 constitution
affirmed the liberty of the press and the free circulation of books and
periodicals, he prohibited press discussion of changes in the political and
government system. Even more to the point, he records that he once received
direct instructions from Madrid to adopt these constitutional principles in
his administration in Filipinas. But he demurred, observing that on this
matter the constitution provided that Filipinas be governed by special laws.
Since the Cortes had not yet enacted any such laws, he argued, he decided to
observe and enforce the old laws.
La Torre was also affected by the peninsulars' fear of sedition and

rebellion. He instituted censorship of the mail and ordered the interception
of letters from Europe and Hongkong addressed to several peninsulars,
creoles, mestizos and natives. Among the mestizos and natives whose letters
were intercepted were Jose Burgos and Jacinto Zamora, both priests of the
cathedral; Jose Guevara and Agustin Mendoza, Filipino parish priests of
Quiapo and Santa Cruz, respectively; and several of the lay reformists.
La Torre's analysis of the political situation in Manila led him to the

conclusion that, at least during his time, it was the friar orders that were
the foundations of Spanish rule in Filipinas. He therefore counseled Madrid
against implementation of the laws on secularization of friars and nuns, as
17
well as that on the abolition of the friar orders' properties. In all of these La
Torre was consistent and we have his own words for it: “Those who wish ill
upon the religious orders are the same persons who wish ill against Spain.”
La Torre's ambivalent liberalism easily crumbled before the realities of
Spanish interests. On a key issue directly involving the friars' vested
interests, he adopted a decidedly antiliberal position. The schools in
Filipinas, he said:8
only produce theologues and lawyers; these are the least needed
here. Besides, they are the origin of those who represent anti
Spanish interests. With the rarest of exceptions there are no
priests nor creole lawyers of any education or influence who do not
employ these, now and always, in creating all around themselves
the aspirations of independence.
La Torre was caught between the occasional anticlerical liberalism of his
superiors in Spain on the one hand and the reactionary intransigence of the
"frailocracy" (from fraile, friar) in Filipinas on the other. The liberal
governments in Madrid were shortlived and temporary, but reaction and
friar dominance in Filipinas were unrelenting, set and stiffened by the
thinking and habits of three centuries. When it came to keeping or losing
Filipinas he was not about to side with those who, in his eyes, imperilled
Spain's sovereignty.
A Mutiny and the Terror of 1872
La Torre's successor as governorgeneral was another Spanish liberal,

another army general, Rafael de Izquierdo (April 1871January 1873). The
policies he would adopt in Filipinas are clear from his position on the
conflict between the Spanish friars and the Filipino priests. He believed that
the influence of the friar orders had to be maintained; this influence must
never be lost to the secular priests. According to him the friars must be
upheld “at all costs” even if it meant the elimination of the secular clergy. In
his own words:
For this purpose it is necessary to cause that the secular clergy
18
disappear and that the regular clergy increase, which can only be
attained through the promotion and support of the colleges in the
Peninsula, and on the other hand limiting theological studies in
Filipinas; the archbishop and bishops for their part imposing stringent
requirements of intellect and virtue in the ordination of natives.
His administration began auspiciously, at least in the eyes of the

peninsulars. Izquierdo restored the palace protocol and etiquette that had
been modified by his predecessor along popular lines. There were the usual
problems to attend to. The volcano of Camiguin off northern Mindanao
erupted. Martial law was declared in Cavite and Pampanga as a measure
against the tulisanes. The people were reluctant to accept the old coins that
had the bust of Isabela and had to be told that these were as good as the
new ones without Isabela's bust, and so on.
In May 1871 Izquierdo decreed, in effect, the nullification of the previous
orders establishing the Instituto and secularizing Santo Tomas. At this
point the status quo ante would seem to have been restored, at least with
respect to the relations between the civil government and the friar orders.
But of course the regime and the people would never again be what they
were in the past. The new Filipinos who had emerged during the short
season of the La Torre term had in effect avowed in public that they were a
reformist political opposition; their ideals had been openly adopted by the
young students in the Dominicans' own college; and, portentously, the
gobernadorcillos of the heretofore quiescent pueblos around the capital city
were beginning to awake to political action. This last was ominous because it
revived memories of the year 1820 when the natives and mestizos of
Binondo and Santa Cruz had massacred the nonSpanish foreigners. Now
the old fear came back: that the Filipinos would eventually become aware of
their strength, their overwhelming superiority in numbers in the event of a
racial conflict.
The months passed. In October the regime ordered the implementation of
the orders governing the cedula personal pursuant to an 1863 decree of
Madrid. Every person who was subject to the tribute and to the prestacion
19
personal or forced labor service had to have a cedula as an identification
document; the requirement was to be effective on the 1st January 1872. The
government anticipated that the people might be led to believe that the
cedula entailed an additional money payment and that trouble might arise,
and so the friars and curates were asked to cooperate in informing the
people that they did not have to pay for their cedulas.
One thing led to another. The workers of the arsenal in the fort of Cavite
were by long practice recruited from the soldiers of the marine infantry. As
they were not entitled to retirement pay, they were allowed the benefit of
exemption from the tribute. This exemption was also extended to retired
men of the armada as well as to the marine infantry.
On 20 January, payday, the arsenal workers received reduced wages,

reportedly pursuant to an order of the civil governor. It was a Saturday,
exactly twentynine years to the day when the soldiers of the Tayabas
infantry regiment rebelled. That night mutiny broke inside the fort.
The British consul in Manila reported to his government on 10 March
1872:
On the night of the 20th January last the troops in garrison at Cavite
revolted and took possession of the fortress of that town. The Spaniards
residing in the fortress were killed, in all about eleven persons. The
mutineers numbered some 250 persons and were composed of native
artillery, infantry, marines, and a few of the workmen in the arsenal.
The telegram messages from the fort's Spanish commanders tell the brief
story of the mutiny and its ending. At 8:05 A.M. of 21 January the uprising
was still in progress; there had been firing all the previous night. At 11:00
A.M. government forces from Manila landed by the fort of Cavite; there were
some 200 rebels; they were surrounded. Subsequent messages reported the
arrival and participation of government gunboats in the attack on the fort.
At 4:21 P. M. it was reported that the rebels were breaking up and taking
flight. Next day, 22 January at 6:37 A.M., the telegraph message was:
“There is no firing.” At 7:00 A.M. 23 January the Spanish flag was hoisted
20
over the recaptured fort. The mutiny had failed.
Up to this point there was not much to differentiate the Cavite mutiny
from all other previous Filipino uprisings. There was the same obvious lack
of proper planning; the same want of organizational and logistics
arrangements; the same lack of provision by the rebels for joint action with
the people of nearby pueblos; and consequently, the same speedy
suppression of the uprising through the use of loyalist native troops.9
The foregoing is almost all that can be known for certain about the
mutiny: how it began, how it ended. Another paragraph of the British
consul's report tells in summary the status of the immediate aftermath. At
least 120 persons were arrested in Manila; among these were “twelve or
fourteen native priests, six or seven lawyers, and several wealthy traders, all
of them mestizos.” But the consul had to make an assessment for his
government, and for this purpose he was at a loss. He reported that he could
not ascertain what were the charges brought against the priests and the
other persons arrested; he could know nothing about the judicial
proceedings that were conducted; the involvement in the mutiny of those
arrested could not be established.
But the first arrests had been made on the 21st January; the court
martial had been issuing sentences since the 26th. The most famous
executions of those arrested had taken place on the 17th February. Yet the
consul, reporting on 10 March, had no hard data on the mutiny. The lack of
information on what happened could only mean that the arrests, the
charges, the courtmartial proceedings, and the sentencing were all
conducted in secret and that the regime went out of its way, for its own
unknown reasons, to keep the world from being informed of the truth. And
so the consul's report continued:
We are unacquainted with the charges brought against the clergy

and others who have been arrested and know nothing of the judicial
proceedings instituted against them, we are unable to discover the part
played by them in the late disturbances; the origin of the same must
therefore for the present be left more or less hidden in obscurity.
But whatever may have been the motives that promoted this
21
movement, it is evident that it was without organization and but very
limited in its ramifications; for we find that the native troops sent from
Manila fired on their brethren in arms at Cavite instead of assisting
them as they might easily have done had they been so disposed; that no
rumours of tumults were heard of in any of the towns or villages in the
interiors; that no manifestations against the government took place
among any portion of the native population at Manila; and that the
people even of the town of Cavite remained throughout passive
spectators of the scene.
The Cavite mutiny became different from all previous revolts and
uprisings in Filipinas. In the past, an uprising was quelled; it was followed
by amnesty or pardon, and every once in a while by the execution of the few
unschooled leaders. Now the regime arrested more than a hundred persons,
many of them educated and prosperous, including several members of the
clergy, and subjected them to courtmartial. The proceedings lasted for
months. It was the regime that made the mutiny different.
The arrests of the most prominent Filipinos began in Manila in the night
of 21 January – it was just twentyfour hours after the mutiny had begun,
and it had not yet been suppressed. The following were arrested:
Priests: Jose Burgos Jose Guevara

Mariano Gomes Miguel de Laza
Jacinto Zamora Toribio H. del Pilar
Agustin Mendoza Vicente del Rosario
Mariano Sevilla
Lawyers: Joaquin Pardo Bartolome Serra

de Tavera
Jose Basa Gervasio Sanchez
Antonio Ma. Regidor Pedro Carrillo
"Civilians": Enrique Paraiso Pio Ma. Basa

Jose Ma. Basa
Businessmen: Maximo Inocencio Vicente Zabala

Crisanto de los Balbino Mauricio
22
Reyes
Let us piece together what was not covered by the shroud of secrecy
placed upon the case by the regime. We have the courtmartial sentence –
not the record of the proceedings – on: Jose Burgos, acting canon, Manila
cathedral; Jacinto Zamora, parish priest of the cathedral; Mariano Comes,
parish priest of Bacoor, Cavite; and Francisco Saldua, described as a private
person. The crime of which they were convicted was:
conspiracy against the political constitution of the State, and of being
the authors of the military rebellion in the fort of Cavite on the night of
the 20th January last, all for the sole purpose of separating this
Archipelago from the Motherland, proclaiming therein a republic, and in
this manner directly attacking the integrity of the Monarchy.
The penalty was death; it was to be through strangulation by the garrotte
because hanging had been abolished in 1835. Coaccused with Burgos were
Enrique Paraiso, Maximo Inocencio, and Crisanto de los Reyes, private
persons. They were sentenced to imprisonment.
The sentence was promulgated on 15 February 1872. The decision was
forwarded to the governorgeneral on this same day. The condemned could
not enjoy any reprieve by grace of a delay on the part of the authorities. The
traditionally slowmoving colonial bureaucracy now worked like lightning.
The sentence was forwarded to the governorgeneral and he completed his
review and approved the decision, all on 15 February. The sentence on the
priests called for their degradation by defrocking, but this could be done only
by the archbishop and so the governorgeneral rushed the communication to
him informing him, that the execution was to take place two days later on 17
February at 8:00 o'clock in the morning.
It was still 15 February. Fighting for time, the archbishop returned his
reply the same day, telling the governorgeneral that he was entitled to form
his own judgment on the innocence or guilt of the priests. He asked that
orders be issued to have the proceedings of the trial sent to him. He ended
with a question: Should the Filipinos, a religious people, be confronted with
the perplexing and confusing spectacle of seeing priests put to death? But
23
the government's mind was made up. The proceedings were not sent to the
archbishop. He did not unfrock the priests. The execution was held as
planned.
The governorgeneral's refusal to furnish the trial records to the highest
ecclesiastical authority in Filipinas meant that nobody except those directly
involved in the trial, and least of all the public, was to know the truth. What
was the connection, if any, between the priests and the mutiny? All that the
public knew was that a trial was held. What was revealed and what was
established at the trial? The public was told nothing except the sentence.10
The most recent generally available material bearing on the mutiny is in
a compilation of documents including some that were originally owned by
Rafael Labra, the Cubaborn political figure who was active in Spain and
with whom some members of the Comité de Reformadores were in
correspondence.
The document is the record of the trial of Bonifacio Octavo. Octavo was a
Chinese mestizo. He identified himself as a second sergeant of the 1st
company of the 7th Princess Infantry Regiment in the fort of Cavite. He says
that he deserted in the early afternoon of 20 January 1872; he sailed to
Cavite Viejo, then proceeded to Imus, returned to Cavite Viejo, and thence
sailed to Bataan. Here he allegedly lived in the woods and barrios of that
province until he was captured in the second week of September 1872. His
interrogation lasted over 1828 September. The record included an alleged
confession.
The substance of the record of Octavo's alleged testimony is as follows: In
either November or December 1871 he was approached by marine infantry
corporal Pedro Manonson, who had an unsigned “official looking paper”
exhorting all the native troops to rebel against the Spaniards, and requiring
them to signify whether they were willing to do so. The source of this paper
was the civilian Francisco Saldua. The next afternoon Octavo met, in
Manonson's house at the main street of Cavite: a sergeant Madrid; an
unnamed artillery corporal; another corporal of the marine infantry; a
retired sergeant; a clerk in the Cavite arsenal named Vicente Generoso; a
24
civilian living in the fort named Leon; the latter's brother Tinong; and
Saldua.
Generoso presented to the group a piece of paper on which was written
the strength of Octavo's regiment that was available for the rebellion; Octavo
signed the paper. Two other corporals then arrived; they also signed the
paper, which was now referred to as an estimate of forces for the rebellion.
Madrid and the corporals of the marine infantry also signed. Octavo states
that Saldua told the group that the estimates of forces were for Father
Burgos and that the latter, with Father Mariano Gomes, Father Jacinto
Zamora, Father Guevara, “and many others were directing the rebellion.”
That same night Octavo met with the corporals “of his own 1st
Regiment”[sic] he had earlier identified his regiment as the 7th Princess
Infantry. The corporals said that the whole regiment was ready to answer
Octavo's call to revolt. He replied that he would lead the regiment. This was
the last time that Octavo spoke with Saldua and the others.
Octavo says that according to Saldua the aims of the rebellion were: the
killing of all Spaniards and the proclamation of the independence of
Filipinas, to be followed by the setting up of a provisional government under
the presidency of Father Burgos. The provisional government would also
include the priests Gomes, Zamora, and Guevara. Octavo assumed from this
that Burgos was the leader. Moreover, the provisional government would
rule until such time as a king would have been chosen.
Octavo testified that the rebellion was scheduled to begin on 20 January.
However, in answer to questions, Octavo testified ,that he did not know of
any signal agreed upon for the start of the rebellion. He did not know where
the first cry would be E sounded. But he testified that after the revolution
was won they were all to present themselves before Father Burgos who
would reward them with promotions; Father Burgos had promised that the
rewards would be high.
Octavo testified that he was not acquainted with any of the priests. He
had only known of Father Gomes when he was assigned to Bacoor on patrol
25
in 1857; he had seen Father Zamora !n the cockpit in Manila. With Father
Burgos he had no contact; of him he knew nothing. None of the priests had
said anything to him about the revolt. Saldua was the contact between the
Cavite men or soldiers on the one hand, and Father Burgos and the other
conspirators on the other.
Several times Octavo was asked questions about the conspiracy,

particularly about the priests and then about certain lawyers and
businessmen the interrogators were "feeding" him with names. But he
consistently pleaded ignorance of those details. However, he answered
questions about his movements during his desertion in Bataan. The
interrogation was suspended at this point.
During the resumption of the interrogation Octavo's answers became

more detailed and revealing. He testified that Saldua had told him that it
was Father Burgos in Manila who had collected all the money that was
needed for the revolution. Now Octavo had answers although altogether still
very sketchily, to questions about the signal for the revolt to begin, on who
would give the first cry, and about the operations assigned to various
military units involved. His answers on the kind of government after the
revolution became specific. He also said that he, Octavo, was to take over the
command of the fort of Cavite and that it was he who would deliver the fort
to Father Burgos' authority.
There is a confession of Octavo that is separate and apart from his

replies to the questions asked during his interrogation. He said that Saldua
and Madrid told him about four lawyers who, with Burgos and others, were
directing the rebellion. One of the four would “probably” be chosen king
upon the termination of the provisional government. He said that he had
heard the names of three of the four lawyers: Pardo, Antonio Regidor, and
Serra. Later he said that he had also heard the name of a fourth lawyer, a
certain Reyes from Pangasinan. Octavo's confession ended here.
But he allegedly decided to amplify his previous testimony and the

interrogation was resumed. Octavo then mentioned the names of three more
individuals involved in the conspiracy: Joaquin Basa, Bartolome Filoteo, and
26
a “Chimo” whom he “believed” was Maximo Inocencio.
We must bear in mind, when assessing the evidentiary value of Octavo's
interrogation and confession, that there could be no challenge or cross
examination. In fact the interrogation took place during September 1872. By
then the entire leadership of the Filipino clergy and liberal reformers had
been liquidated by execution and exile. The colonial regime never published
the proceedings of the courtsmartial, so that the defendants' pleadings and
testimony are not known. Nor did the regime publish its own proofs, if any,
of their guilt. Artigas y Cuerva, perhaps the leading student of the 1872
events, wrote (1911):
Up to this date, history has not given incontestable proofs that those
illustrious sons of Filipinas were guilty of the crime that sent them to
the scaffold; nor can it say now or in the future that the verdicts of the
military tribunals were based on authentic proofs presented in the trial,
because those documents do not exist or perhaps have been made to
disappear.
Even the staunch defender of the regime, Montero y Vidal, who had
sufficient time to gather documentary material about the episode (his
history was published in 1895), provided no material from the official
proceedings. He merely asserted that arrests were made on the basis of
depositions taken from some of the captured mutineers, in which the latter
were said to have “identified a number of the instigators with whom they
had conspired.” Arrests were also made, still according to Montero y Vidal,
based on “circumstantial evidence against others, for their actions during
the time of La Torre.”
The purely circumstantial nature of the socalled evidence against those
accused and punished, and the transparent effort to establish a connection
between the mutiny and their actions in the time of La Torre, are
established in a document cited by Artigas y Cuerva. This is Izquierdo's
written testimony which he furnished upon request by the courtmartial and
the prosecuting attorney. It is dated 8 February. Izquierdo wrote in reply:
27
Since 1869 there has existed in this Superior Government data
which are the basis for considering the cited priests as suspicious and as
occupied in schemes against Spain, most especially [then follow the
names of the priests] ... ; and that from confidential anonymous and
other sources (some of them indubitable) they are considered guilty, and
are the mouthpieces of the "Club Filipino"; and that some of them
especially the parish priests of Quiapo, Santa Cruz, and Bacoor were
severely admonished by the ecclesiastical governor, upon the instance of
the Superior Civil Governor, General La Torre, in January 1870.
It is evident from public knowledge and from confidential sources
that they are connected with the filibusteros of Madrid whose
newspapers are circulating throughout these Islands, as well as with
the Eco Filipino which is maintained and propagated by means of
subscriptions of those whom they have initiated; it is believed from their
public fame and from general public opinion that they were the
principal instigators of the insurrection in Cavite, for there is the same
information and precedents of the same period about the lawyers and
the rest of the individuals who are cited ... and very especially D.
Enrique Paraiso, retired employee, known in Manila for being anti
Spanish, a characteristic about which he always bragged....
Izquierdo's “testimony” is not admissible evidence in a proper court of

law. It consists only of suspicions and inferences and allegations and
hearsay and circumstantial irrelevances.
It is somewhat more useful to examine the internal evidence within the
Octavo testimony itself. And the truth of the matter is that the Octavo
material is simply not believable. His alleged testimony is suspect or
inconsistent even on matters about which he should have had direct
knowledge. From his words it is clear, for instance, that the corporals of his
regiment had been brought into the “conspiracy” ahead of him; nor is there
evidence that Octavo possessed any special leadership qualities.
Yet he testified that the corporals, who presumably had more knowledge
of the conspiracy than he did, asked him to lead the regiment. There were
other units in Cavite aside from his regiment that were allegedly involved;
these units had higher ranking noncommissioned officers such as the
sergeant, Madrid. But it was to be Octavo who would take command of
Cavite, the strongest fort after Manila, and deliver it to Father Burgos. No
28
person or group was identified as having the authority to fix the attack
objectives in the “rebellion” and the missions of participants. During the
first part of his interrogation Octavo deposed that he knew nothing of the
signals that would start the uprising; but then he cited a few sketchy items
when the interrogation was resumed.
Octavo's testimony on the directing leadership of the revolt was pure

hearsay. The alleged source of all his information was Saldua. Octavo could
not even answer the leading questions asked of him during the first part of
the interrogation. But then he was able to give out details after an interval,
when the interrogation was resumed. It is obvious that he had been coached
on what to say. He is alleged to have volunteered to “amplify” his earlier
testimony, at which he named lawyers whose names he “had heard.” He had
also stated for the record that he had met with Saldua and the others only
twice: “either November or December.” It is no wonder that, although he was
to take command of the fort of Cavite, he did not even know how the mutiny
was to begin!
It has been suggested that Saldua was “the immediate instigator of the
entire revolt.” But who was Saldua? What was his interest in the political
aims of a revolution? There is nothing in the scant material to indicate that
he was the instigator on his own initiative for his own purposes. He must be
seen, at most, as an agent provocateur in behalf of other parties. On the
basis of the Octavo material the alleged knowledge of the Cavite rebels
about the roles of Gomes, Burgos, and Zamora and about the rebellion's
goals was based on alleged statements of Saldua. A fragment of Saldua's
testimony during the courtmartial is cited by Artigas y Cuerva. Saldua
implicated Burgos and Jacinto Zamora. And then he (Saldua) alleged that
the government of Father Burgos undertook to supply warships, that these
warships were of the United States navy; and that Basa had told him,
Saldua, that Burgos had received a letter on the matter of the warships.11
These statements of Saldua are as incredible as Octavo's in so far as
external direction or involvement was concerned, both for being fanciful and
for want of corroborating evidence. Saldua appears to have been the regime's
principal witness against the priests in the courtmartial. But he was
29
accused with them and convicted with them. The trial was conducted in
secret. Then the regime ensured against scrutiny of the trial and its
proceedings by withholding all publication. And, finally, the regime silenced
its principal witness for all time by executing him.
An intriguing and significant aspect of the regime's actions on the Cavite
episode was that death was decreed for the priests, but only exile for the
lawyers and businessmen who were alleged to have been coplotters of the
rebellion. This was not consistent with Octavo's testimony that one of the
lawyers was to become king after the provisional government. Why, then,
were the lawyers meted out lighter sentences? Tormo Sanz, who studied the
case and focussed on the intervention by liberals in Spain toward the pardon
of the lawyers and businessmen, states that “it would seem logical to
conclude that the true instigators of the Cavite revolt were not the native
priests whom Izquierdo mistakenly executed but the freemasons....” This
conclusion exculpates the Filipino priests and offers a plausible explanation
for the disparity in the sentences. This explanation is that some or most of
the lawyers and businessmen were freemasons with ties to the Spanish
freemasons – these were influential in Madrid government and politics, and
the governorgeneral in Manila knew it. Besides, Izquierdo was a freemason
himself. Nevertheless, this view does not establish the motives of the
freemasons in allegedly promoting or instigating the mutiny; neither does it
suggest their involvement with any postmutiny political arrangements.
The mystery in the Cavite mutiny, one closer to home, is still the identity
of the principals of Saldua. In whose behalf, and in whose interests, did he
act?
On the basis of the appearance of events, the stir and passions in the
aftermath of the Cavite episode overrode all logic and legal niceties. The
mutiny by some 200 soldiers led by corporals and sergeants without any
demonstrated connections with native military units in Manila or
elsewhere, unsupported by any pueblos, was treated by the regime as if it
were the onset of a Filipinaswide revolution. If so, the number of people
caught in the net of the regime's punitive actions suggest that it acted out of
pure and simple panic and hysteria.
30
But the regime's revenge and the trial proceedings also showed an
orchestration that was possible only with power. It is therefore equally
possible that the adventitious uprising had been made into an occasion for a
frameup put together by the forces in power against imagined enemies. The
reformers and critics of the reactionary friar orders and other peninsulars
were sought out. They turned out to be the Filipino priests and liberals who
had surfaced, for a brief time in the sun, during the La Torre era. But they
were all far from the fort of Cavite.
On 26 January, just three days after the suppression of the mutiny, the
courtmartial passed sentences of death on fortyone of the mutineers. The
next day the governorgeneral approved the sentences but pardoned twenty
eight; nine were to be executed by musketry in Manila and four in Cavite.
The executions in Manila took place in the killing ground of Bagumbayan
the same day. The courtmartial sentenced another eleven on 6 February;
these sentences were commuted to life imprisonment.
The courtmartial reached back into the past. On 8 February it convicted
Casimiro Camerino. He was sentenced to death by the garrotte; he was
executed the following day.
On 15 February the fateful sentence on the three priests was handed

down. Gomes was the grand old man of the secular priests. He had been
assigned to the curacy of Bacoor almost fifty years earlier, in 1824. Bacoor
was among the seven secular parishes in Cavite that had been assigned to
the Recollects and Dominicans by the order of 1849. The friars never got the
curacy. Gomes served his Bacoor parish for more than four decades and was
never transferred or promoted by the archdiocesan authorities. Had he
accepted a promotion or a transfer the curacy would have become vacant and
become subject to takeover by the friars. It is certain that the dedicated man
elected to stay in Bacoor in order to keep the curacy a secular parish. Gomes
was a native and is said to have had Chinese or Japanese blood many
generations back. He was seventytwo years old.
Jacinto Zamora was born in Pandacan, Manila. He wrote in his

application for the first tonsure that he was a Spanish mestizo. He and
31
Burgos were classmates at San Juan de Letran and later at the University
of Santo Tomas while studying for their bachiller degrees. In the 1864
competitive examinations for vacant curacies Jose Maria Zamora obtained
the highest score; Jacinto Zamora was second; Burgos was third. There is a
story of Zamora's arrest to the effect that when the arresting officer went to
take him at his house, the arrest order was made out in the name of Jose
Maria Zamora. However, the officer discovered a note in the house which
read: “Big reunion. Come without fail. Friends will come well supplied with
powder and bullets.” With this evidence the officer crossed out “Jose Maria
Zamora” in the arrest order and wrote in Jacinto's name. In fact the note
was an invitation to a panguingue session from Father Duran, parish priest
of San Anton; panguingue was a popular card game and the incriminatory
“powder and bullets” was the colloquialism for gambling money. But it was
well known that Zamora had been a colleague and follower of Burgos since
their schooldays; he was also active in collecting funds from the priests for
the support of El Eco Filipino; and finally, Burgos himself had been arrested
in Zamora's own house. Burgos was visiting the priest Miguel de Laza, who
was sick and staying with Zamora. De Laza would also be arrested. Zamora
was thirtysix years old.
Jose Apolonio Burgos was born in Vigan, Ilocos Sur on 12 February 1837.
His father Jose Burgos was a Spanish colonel. The son's facial features
indicate that his mother, Florencia Garcia was not a fullblooded Spaniard;
she was in all probability a Spanish mestiza – although a document
presented by Quirino has Burgos' own statement that he was born of
Spanish parents. He obtained the doctorate in sacred theology from Santo
Tomas in 1868 and another doctorate, this time in canon law, in 1871. Pedro
Pelaez died in the great earthquake of 1863; Burgos had to have been one of
his students in the university.
Burgos had already gained notoriety for leading a student demonstration
that turned into a riot while still in Letran in 1860 and, more important, for
his 1864 manifesto in reply to an attack on the Filipino clergy. It was
natural that he was the leader of the priests' bloc in the Comité de
Reformadores, and was treated as such by the archbishop in 1870. After
sending his 1870 memorial to the regent of Spain, the archbishop called
32
upon Burgos and his brother priests to sign a pledge of “fidelity and
adherence” to Spain. Burgos gathered the signatures. But since the
memorial defended the rights of the Filipino priests in the archbishopric
and asked for amendments to the September 1861 decree, the pledge was
later treated by the enemies of reform as a seditious manifesto. It did not
matter. Burgos became a marked man on his own account in 1864. In order
to ensure his conviction the regime assigned a man who was his enemy to
act as his defense counsel; the latter entered a plea for clemency, saying that
Burgos had confessed his guilt! Burgos protested in vain.
Of the semiretired Gomes, the panguingueloving Zamora, and Burgos
whose star was on the rise, the latter most deserved the friars' enmity and
was the most qualified for elimination under the regime's definition of
sedition. When Burgos was sentenced to death by the courtmartial he was
just three days past his thirtyfifth birthday.
On 16 February, the doomed priests were transferred to an engineers

barracks that had a chapel. The next day at 7:30 A.M they were marched
between files of soldiers with fixed bayonets to the killing ground of
Bagumbayan. The archbishop had decided not to defrock them. Gomes was
strangled first then Zamora and then Burgos.
A document written in behalf of the Filipino clergy in 1900 states “as a
fact” that Saldua was executed just ahead of the three priests; it then
reports that, as Saldua was being killed, “among the expectant multitude
were heard the voices of women calling out that he had been pardoned, and
two women, his wife and mother fainted.”12
The courtmartial kept on issuing sentences until at least April. In mid
March the ship Flores de Maria had a notable load of passengers bound for
exile in the Marianas. A first group was made up of the following priests:
Agustin Mendoza, parish priest of Santa Cruz; Jose Guevara, parish priest
of Quiapo; Miguel de Laza, chaplain of the Cathedral; Feliciano Gomez,
nephew of the old priest Gomes; Anacleto Desiderio and Pedro Dandan (they
had both been cleared of complicity by the ecclesiastical authorities but the
courtmartial ignored the findings); Vicente del Rosario, an army chaplain;
33
Justo Guazon, coadjutor of the cathedral; and Toribio H. del Pilar and
Mariano Sevilla. Toribio was the elder brother of Marcelo H. del Pilar who
would be a leader during the Propaganda campaign in Europe in the late
1880s. Sevilla obtained his doctorate in theology from the Colegio de San
Jose in 1871 and was the army hospital chaplain. The last two were
convicted because letters from them were found in Burgos' possession.
With the priests was a second group. These were the lawyers Joaquin
Pardo de Tavera, Antonio Ma. Regidor, Mauricio de Leon, Enrique Basa,
Pedro Carrillo, and Gervasio Sanchez; and the businessmen Balbino
Mauricio, Jose and Pio Basa, Maximo Paterno, and Ramon Maurente.
The Spaniards in the Magallanes expedition had first passed by the

Marianas in 1521. They called the islands the Ladrones. After the regime
was established the islands were renamed after the Spanish queen Maria
Ana. The islands were administratively part of Filipinas, as were also the
Carolinas. After the Americans bought and occupied Filipinas they in turn
used the islands as a place of exile. Filipinos who were prominent in the
FilipinoAmerican war and who had not taken the oath of allegiance to the
United States, of whom the best known were Apolinario Mabini and Artemio
Ricarte, were exiled here. The principal island of the Marianas group is
Guam.
With the execution of the leaders of the Filipino priests in February and
the exile or imprisonment of the other leading members of the Comité de
Reformadores in March, the regime and its supporters would have felt
secure and satisfied. But Izquierdo was not only a Spanish patriot; he was
also a lieutenant general and had to review the last battle and take stock
and look to the next. On 27 March he addressed a long and confidential
letter to the provincials of the Augustinians, Dominicans, Recollects, and
Franciscans. This letter is cited in Artigas y Cuerva and it tells much, from
the Spanish viewpoint, of the political backdrop behind the Cavite episode
and how the regime regarded the future. We will summarize the main
points:
Izquierdo asked the friar orders to reflect on his letter and discuss it with
34
their respective councils. He gave stress to the mutiny, “with its horrors.” Its
eloquent lessons must never be forgotten. Then: “The interests of Spain in
Filipinas are sure in the present but not in the future.” Spain's interests
would be attacked from both inside and outside. Nobody could replace the
friar orders; none excelled them in their patriotism. But there are those who
believe that they had already done all that was to be done. One day, when
they least expect it, “the few who may be able” will leave Filipinas, but they
will do so with deep remorse and regret.
The friar orders, Izquierdo continued, honestly believed that they still
wielded great influence but in fact they no longer did. This influence “had
been snatched from them... The secular clergy, yes, the secular clergy has
taken over the influence and the prestige which the religious orders used to
exercise and which they have allowed to be taken away from them.” Some
friars were dreaming of past glories and believed in ridiculous concepts such
as: “that the native does not believe in the Mass. nor in the efficacy of the
giving of alms by the priest of his race; or that the latter's intelligence is
weak and his obedience blind; and that the power of the name 'Spanish' is
irreversible among the parishioners.”
Izquierdo continued: The enemies of the religious orders say that the
latter:
do not perform their duties with the zeal nor with the ardor and
evangelical enthusiasm that such elevated ministry demands. The
enemies of Spain add that the religious orders ... have completely left
the cure of souls to the coadjutors who are the ones who baptize, who
administer penance and communion, who assist in funeral duties, who
go for their religious duties everywhere day and night in good or bad
weather; ... while the parish priest [that is, the friar curate] lives in ease
and quiet in his house, collects the fees without complying with his
duties, attends only the grand religious functions or formalities and ...
often without going to the church, for he limits himself to the gallery or
assembly room of the parochial house aided and accompanied by the
priests of the region, to hold feasts – noisy and profane.
Izquierdo told the friars to “devote themselves exclusively to their sacred
ministry and not take an active part in politics as is happening now, for it
35
unfortunately divides our dear country.” He said that the proper politics for
the friar orders lay in the Gospel, different from the politics of the civil
authorities which has to do with the implementation of the laws. Finally,
Izquierdo stated that the friar curates must:
treat the [Filipino] coadjutors with respectful and paternal
consideration; ... bearing in mind that the coadjutors are indispensable
and if necessary this I order that the coadjutors live in the parochial
house, and be treated as brothers and not as servants.
We will return to Izquierdo's letter shortly.
In April the governorgeneral took precautionary measures by asking

Spain for more peninsular troops. The native artillery regiment was
disbanded. It was replaced by a regiment from Spain that arrived posthaste
in Manila on 8 July 1872.13
A great deal can be written about the aftermath of revenge and terror
that gripped Filipinas in 1872, but not much more that is based on fact can
be written to this day about the cause of it all, the alleged conspiracy that
produced the mutiny in Cavite, and the true involvement of the men who
were arrested and sent to prison or were exiled or executed by the regime.
The Spaniards had the truth but it chose to withhold it. More time, more
data, are needed to reach the truth and establish what really happened.
Meantime, we are left with an impression of sinister, dark, and vengeful
forces having arranged those unhappy events.
Unless the guilt of the victims of the terror of 1872 is reasonably

demonstrated pursuant to the laws of the regime at the time including the
issue of the jurisdiction of courtsmartial over priests and civilians their
innocence will have to be presumed. There was opinion at the time that they
could not have been guilty of the first part of the charge against them: that
they had conspired "against the political constitution of the State." How
could they be guilty of conspiring against a constitution that was not in force
in Filipinas? It is probable that the Madrid government ordered or approved
an information blackout on the case of the three priests because their
36
execution just two days after their hasty sentencing and the archbishop's
refusal or failure to defrock them had confronted it with an embarrassing
fait accompli contrived through irregular proceedings.
Who profited from the terror of 1872? It was not Spain and it was not the
Madrid government. The liquidation of the Comité de Reformadores was the
killing and elimination of men who sought the extension to Filipinas of the
Spanish constitution, who asked for the political assimilation of Filipinas as
a province of Spain. It was not the civil regime in Manila, and for exactly the
same reasons. This leaves the peninsulars in Filipinas, the Spaniards who
saw in the new Filipinos' reformist campaign the loss of their monopoly of
the officers' ranks in the military and of all the posts of any consequence in
the civil government service; but especially the friar orders because they had
the most to lose and the most to explain if a regime that provided for civil
and political rights were to be established.
But the lay peninsulars were temporary officers of privilege, their posts
vulnerable and dependent on the fortunes of the political parties in Spain.
And so this leaves the friar orders, whose profitable dominance of the
parishes and whose haciendas (except the Franciscans) would be threatened
under a regime of constitutional liberalism. Perhaps, after all, the terror of
1872 was the outcome of neither panic nor hysteria, but of importunate
pressures exerted by established, puissant, desperate, and selfish forces
upon a recently arrived and susceptible governorgeneral.
The terror of 1872 was a triumph of the friar orders. It wiped out the
leadership of the Filipino clergy and of the reform group. It was as if a
malignant blight or a heavy scythe had struck down the fairest plants in a
growing field. A long, long season would have to pass before a new growth.
But the field was fertile. The season of blight was long but it would have
an end. Izquierdo's letter to the friar orders had warned them that Spain's
interests were not secure in the future. He asked them to stop dreaming of
past glories, to stop believing that they no longer had to work at their
spiritual vocation. He told them that influence over the Filipinos had passed
from their hands into those of the Filipino clergy. And he told them not to
37
interfere in civil politics “for it unfortunately divides our dear country.”
The friars and other peninsulars could have gotten exactly the same
diagnosis as Izquierdo's from any thinking Filipino if they had only listened.
What happened next was what had happened in many other societies, many
other countries. Landmark events, shocking events, incline men to think in
terms of basic principles. Such thinking leads men to examine their past
and question their present life in terms of the good they aspire to and the
evils they wish to avoid. If they are unhappy with the present they construct
a desired future in their minds. The terror of 1872 led the Filipinos to
construct this future.
The Youth and the Terror
1872 left an indelible imprint and was an obsession to the next

generation of Filipino leaders. Apolinario Mabini, who would become the
intellectual of the second phase of the Revolution, said it best of all. He has
a moving interpretation of the execution of the three priests in the killing
ground of Bagumbayan. He noted that the friars controlled the regime and
sought to intimidate the Filipinos through the execution of the priests and
the annihilation of the reformist leadership. But instead of the old awe,
instead of a new fear, a hatred of the friars and the regime took hold of the
people because of their profound sorrow for the victims. This sorrow, says
Mabini, wrought a miracle:
It enabled the Filipinos to see their condition for the first time.
Feeling pain, they knew that they were alive, and so they asked
themselves what kind of a life it was that they led The awakening was
painful, and working in order to stay alive was even more so. But one
had to live. How? They did not know, and the desire to know, the anxiety
to learn and understand, took hold of and possessed the youth of
Filipinas.... The dawn of the new day was nearing.
Mabini's reading can be easily appreciated; he belonged to the generation
of the youth; he was eight years old in 1872.
A more personal statement of the impact of the killings on the mind of a
38
young Filipino was that of the national hero Jose Rizal, quoted at the
beginning of this Chapter. In 1891 he dedicated his second novel, El
Filibusterismo, to the memory of the three priests. Part of the dedicatory
follows:
The Church, by refusing to degrade you, has placed in doubt the
crime that has been charged to you; the Government by wrapping your
trial in mystery and shadows, creates a belief that there was error
committed in fatal moments; and all Filipinas, by venerating your
memory and calling you martyrs, shows that in no way does it recognize
your guilt.
Rizal was eleven years old in 1872.
Andres Bonifacio, founder of the revolutionary Katipunan, was inspired
by the martyrdom of the priests. The Katipunan was a secret patriotic
society dedicated to the awakening and liberty of the Filipinos, by arms if
necessary. It had the solemn rituals of a clandestine organization; the
password for second degree members was “GOMBURZA,” after the names of
the three priests. Bonifacio was not yet nine years old when they were put to
death.
Emilio Aguinaldo, who led the Filipinos in the successful revolution

against the regime, perpetuated 1872 in the proclamation of Filipino
independence in 1898. The proclamation listed a litany of abuses of the old
regime and called for the redemption of Filipinas, among others:
for the sake of those persons who, through mere suspicion, were
convicted ... at the instigation of the friars, without any form or
semblance of a trial and without the spiritual consolation of our sacred
religion; and likewise, for the strangulation from the same motives of
the eminent Filipino priests, Doctor Jose Burgos, Mariano Gomez and
Jacinto Zamora, whose innocent blood was spilled through the intrigues
of those socalled religious orders that simulated a military rebellion in
the night of 21 January 1872, in the Fort of San Felipe, pueblo of Cavite,
accusing the said martyrs of having started it....
The proclamation was drafted by Ambrosio Rianzares Bautista, one of
39
the members of the Comité de Reformadores. Aguinaldo was a boy of three
years in 1872.14
The old regime hung on for another quarter century. It was able to
survive because it had either destroyed or silenced the small group of
leaders of the emerging new nation. In order to stay it had to keep on
destroying and silencing the voices of protest. The reform movement was
therefore forced to go underground. In time the boys of 1872 grew into young
men. Another generation replaced the La Juventud Escolar generation. The
times stamped the new reform movement with a singular characteristic.
Fearing for their sons under the repressive regime at home, the rich families
sent the young men abroad. It was there, mostly in the atmosphere of
European liberal political thinking, that these young Filipinos matured
their ideas of reform and later on of national liberty; they worked with a
group based in Manila, and launched the Propaganda movement abroad.
We will note later, in the story of the Propaganda movement that began
in the 1880s, that the new Filipino leaders were no longer priests or Spanish
creole reformers. This means not only the obvious emergence of a new
generation. The leadership passed into the hands of native and Chinese
mestizo Filipinos. Moreover, the Filipinos' concerns now transcended those
of the native priests, because the issue of the secularization of the parishes
had become merged into the much broader concerns of the Filipino people.
As important as any other development was the awakening of the

gobernadorcillos into the politics that was inevitably intruding into their
lives. The gobernadorcillos were generally of limited schooling. They were
unlike the ilustrados who were universityeducated, often in Europe. The
gobernadorcillos were the link between the patriotic movement and the
common people of their pueblos.
We can understand that with the martyrdom of the three priests, the

seed of Christian Filipino nationalism took root in good soil. Like
mushrooms springing suddenly from the warm moist earth under a bamboo
thicket in the morning after a night of rain, ideas of political justice and
their young Filipino advocates appeared during the 1880s. The sequel to the
40
terror of 1872 was a period of repression, the age of filibusterismo, that in
turn was followed by the Propaganda movement, that produced the
Katipunan and the Revolution.
In the next chapters we will look at contrasting pictures of life in Manila
and in the provinces before we resume the story of the later events that were
linked to 1872, bringing more and more Filipinos to the killing ground of
Bagumbayan.
41
NOTES
Chapter 12
TOWARDS BAGUMBAYAN: NEW TOWN, KILLING GROUND
The quotation at the beginning is from Cartas Entre Rizal y Sus Colegas de la Propaganda, Vol.
II in "Escritos de José Rizal," Publicaciones de la Comisión Nacional del Centenario de José
Rizal (1961), 1 a Parte, #124. This compilation has two Parts or Partes, and the "#124" is the
number of the carta or letter. Subsequent citations to this source will be to: "Cartas de la
Propaganda," followed by "la" or "2a" Parte, and letter number.
1 The notes on the Bagumbayan settlement are taken from various scattered sources in BR;
consult the Index in Vol. LIV.
2 Re Burgos manifesto: Manuel Artigas y Cuerva, Los Sucesos de 1872, Reseña Histórica Bio
Bibliografia (1911), 86, and Note 1.
Re the two axioms about Filipinos: Felipe Buencamino, Sr., “Sixty Years of Philippine
History,” in the commemorative Aguinaldo Centennial issue of Historical Bulletin (January
to December 1969), XIII, 315316. The subsequent citations to this source will be as follows:
“Buencamino, in Historical Bulletin, XIII,” with page number.
A useful perspective on the Spanish Revolution is Edward Henry Strobel, The Spanish
Revolution, 18681875 (1898).
Re Comite de Reformadores: Artigas y Cuerva, 5556, 125; and Buencamino, in Historical
Bulletin, XIII, 317318.
3 Re La Juventud: Artigas y Cuerva, 3435 and Note, and 5556. R: El Eco and distribution of
the paper: Buencamino, in Historical Bulletin, XIII, 338.
4 Re La Torre and tenure in office: Jeremias Rebanal y Ras, El Gobernador de Filipinas Carlos
Maria de la Torre (1981).
Re statue: Montero y Vidal, Historia General, III, 290, Note, any 509510.
Re factions, according to La Torre: Rebanal, 31, 4345.
Re antifriar laws: ibid., 68, 70; Strobel, 3940; Montero y Vida Historia General, III, 549
550.
Re loans and loss of lands to lenders: Under 4 Flags (n.d ca. 1971), 21.
42
Re dispossessed landowners in Cavite, Camerino, and La Torre: Artigas y Cuerva, 89
95, 101.
5 Re serenade, oathtaking, and anniversary: Rebanal, 4650. The antiLa Torre lawyer was
Pedro Gutierrez y Salazar, official of the Real Casa y Hermandad de la Misericordia de
Manila, who operations were investigated by La Torre for irregularities in the management of
its funds, to the detriment of claimants; La Torre actions were sustained by Madrid. Gutierrez
wrote Las Proscripciones de Sila (remedio de) en Filipinas ... (1870). The friar account
Resena que demuestra el fundamento y causas de la insurreccibn de 20 enero en Filipinas....
(1872). It was written by Fr. Casimiro Herrero. These two works are the basis of Montero
Vidal, Historia General III, 502505, 510512.
6 Re instructions for La Torre to organize reform group: ibid., 518519. Re proposed general
council: Artigas y Cuerva, 7778.
Re plans, and happenings in the cathedral: ibid., 103104. Montero y Vidal is silent on
what happened during the church ceremonies: Montero y Vidal, Historia General, III, 522
523.
Re antifriar pamphlets: ibid., 504505. Re decrees of 1870: ibid 542543.
Re La Juventud riot; Artigas y Cuerva, 3435 and Note.
Re decrees suspended: Montero y Vidal, Historia General, III, 551, 556.
7 Re La Torre's informatory memorial: Rebanal, 4546.
Re summary judgment on La Torre: Montero y Vidal, Historia General, III, 551.
Re Father Mendoza contribution: Leandro Tormo Sanz, comp., 1872, Vol. XXIII of
Historical Conservation Society series (1973), pp. 3334, 113114. This compilation includes
items of correspondence between Manila liberals and their relatives or colleagues in Spain.
8 Re La Torre's October 1870 deportation decree: Montero y Vidal, H istoria General, III, 516.
Re quotation about La Torre: ibid., 499. Re La Torre's decisions, attitude toward friars,
priests: Rebanal, 6568, 6972, 7781.
Re instructions to La Torre to implement liberal policies, and his demurrer: ibid., 61. Re
censorship of mail: Schumacher and Cushner, Philippine Studies, XVII, 488493. Re
quotation on schools: Rebanal, 78.
9 Re Izquierdo on elimination of native clergy: ibid., 82. Re early period of Izquierdo's
government: Montero y Vidal, Historia General, III, 554556.
Our account of the background of the Cavite mutiny up to 20 January 1872 is based on
43
Artigas y Cuerva, 98102, citing Antonio Ma. Regidor, one of those arrested and deported.
There is a statement in LM., "Causes of the Dislike of the Filipinos for the Friars," in John
R.M. Taylor, comp., The Philippine Insurrection Against the United States (1971), I, Exh. 8, as
follows: "The native artillery soldiers stationed in the fortress of Cavite, as loyal as everyone
else to the Spanish government, aggrieved on being displaced by the Spanish artillery, and
workmen in the arsenal, also aggrieved by having been discharged, in spite of their many years
of service and their knowledge and experience, and replaced by Spaniards with higher wages
and without any knowledge of the work, while they and their families were left in poverty,
mutinied to the number of one hundred and fifty...." LM., author of this statement, was
evidently a spokesman of the Filipino clergy. The date of the statement is February 1900, and it
was originally in Spanish. Instead of citing this document in the text, we used Regidor' s
testimony as cited by Artigas y Cuerva; the latter is first hand, and is more detailed and in all
respects reasonable. Regidor also mentioned the reorganization of the artillery corps as a factor
causing the tense racial relations before the mutiny.
Re the British consul's report: De la Costa, Readings, 179180.
Re telegraph messages: Schumacher and Cushner, Philippine Studies, XVII, 500513.
10 The list of arrested persons is from Artigas y Cuerva, 115117, who says that it came from a
confidential communication of the civil governor of Manila. Re sentence on priests et al.:
Schumacher and Cushner, Philippine Studies, XVII, 522529; and Tormo Sanz, 9091, 168
169. Re actions taken by the governorgeneral and archbishop on 15 February: ibid., 9294,
170171.
11 Re Octavo material: ibid., 7390, 152168. The statement in Artigas y Cuerva on the absence
of documentary proof is in Artigas y Cuerva, 166. Re Izquierdo's written statement to the
court: ibid., 222225. Re Saldua as the instigator: Schumacher, 27. Re Saldua allegation on
warships: Artigas y Cuerva, 127128.
12 Re freemasons as the alleged instigators: Tormo Sanz, 11. Re Izquierdo a freemason: Artigas
y Cuerva, 236.
Re the 26 January sentences, and decisions of the courtmartial until 15 February: Montero
y Vidal, Historia General, 111, 568602, is the popular account of the mutiny and its
aftermath.
The archdiocesan records on Burgos, Gomez, and Zamora are in Quirino, Philippine
Studies, XXI; see also Schumacher, 1321. The story of Fr. Zamora's arrest is known, but
Artigas y Cuerva, 142, adds the detail about Fr. Duran.
Re Fr. Zamora collecting funds for El Eco Filipino: Taylor, I, Exh. 8.
Re Fr. Burgos visiting Fr. Laxa: Artigas y Cuerva, 141. Re enemy of Fr. Burgos appointed
by regime as his counsel in his trial: ibid., 135, and Note.
44
Nick Joaquin, A Question of Heroes (1977), 924, is both a curious assessmcmt of Burgos
et al. and an ambitious statement of the background and significance of the mutiny.
The citation to the 1900 document is to Taylor, I, Exh. 8. 13 Re Flores de Maria exiles:
Artigas y Cuerva, 162, Note. Re Izquierdo letter: ibid., 174193.
14 Re Mabini' s interpretation: Apolinario Mabini, La Revolucion Filipina, Nos. 45,
Documentos de la Biblioteca Nacional de Filipinas, comp. Teodoro M. Kalaw (1931), II, 283
284. The compilation owes its title to that of the last piece, written during Mabini' s Guam
exile (January 1901February 1903).
Re Rizal's dedication: Jose Rizal, El Filibusterismo, centenary ed., Vol. V in "Escritos de
José Rizal, “Publicaciones de la Comisión Nacional del Centenario de Jose Rizal (1961).
This is an offset version of the original edition published in Ghent in 1891.
Re Katipunan password: Teodoro M. Kalaw, The Philippine Revolution (1909), 1011.
Re 1898 proclamation of independence: The Independence Day National Committee, Act
of Proclamation of Independence of the Filipino People, Cavite Viejo, 12 June 1898 (1971).
This source has the facsimiles of the text of the proclamation and signatures; the printed
Spanish text; and also English and Tagalog translations.
45

Towards Bagumbayan: New Town, Killing Ground

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Towards Bagumbayan: New Town, Killing Ground

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THE ROOTS OF THE FILIPINO NATION by Onofre D.

In 1864 Jose Apolonio Burgos, who was still only a deacon but would

Although those provisions were not extended to Filipinas, the leading

The officeholders hated La Torre because he represented the political

If the liberal account of the serenade stressed its orderliness and

that had been placed under investigation by La Torre for management

In September the official swearing of the oath of loyalty to the 1869

On the day of the ceremonies there was a procession attended by a

Meanwhile, scores of supporters of the new party in power in Madrid

The members of La Juventud Escolar Liberal were reported to have

Meantime, La Torre ordered the implementation of two other decrees

revived and unhealthy hate on the part of the separatist

La Torre was also affected by the peninsulars' fear of sedition and

La Torre's analysis of the political situation in Manila led him to the

La Torre's successor as governor­general was another Spanish liberal,

For this purpose it is necessary to cause that the secular clergy

His administration began auspiciously, at least in the eyes of the

On 20 January, payday, the arsenal workers received reduced wages,

We are unacquainted with the charges brought against the clergy

Priests: Jose Burgos Jose Guevara

Lawyers: Joaquin Pardo Bartolome Serra

"Civilians": Enrique Paraiso Pio Ma. Basa

Businessmen: Maximo Inocencio Vicente Zabala

Several times Octavo was asked questions about the conspiracy,

During the resumption of the interrogation Octavo's answers became

There is a confession of Octavo that is separate and apart from his

But he allegedly decided to amplify his previous testimony and the

Izquierdo's “testimony” is not admissible evidence in a proper court of

Octavo's testimony on the directing leadership of the revolt was pure

On 15 February the fateful sentence on the three priests was handed

Jacinto Zamora was born in Pandacan, Manila. He wrote in his

On 16 February, the doomed priests were transferred to an engineers

The Spaniards in the Magallanes expedition had first passed by the

In April the governor­general took precautionary measures by asking

Unless the guilt of the victims of the terror of 1872 is reasonably

1872 left an indelible imprint and was an obsession to the next

Emilio Aguinaldo, who led the Filipinos in the successful revolution

As important as any other development was the awakening of the

We can understand that with the martyrdom of the three priests, the

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La Torre's successor as governorgeneral was another Spanish liberal,

In April the governorgeneral took precautionary measures by asking