{"id":7965,"date":"2015-12-11T15:51:59","date_gmt":"2015-12-11T07:51:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.quezon.ph\/?p=7965"},"modified":"2022-01-25T20:26:30","modified_gmt":"2022-01-25T12:26:30","slug":"luna-timeline","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.quezon.ph\/2015\/12\/11\/luna-timeline\/","title":{"rendered":"Antonio Luna: A Timeline of Readings"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/a><\/p>\n Introduction<\/strong><\/p>\n Recently, I came across the Heneral Luna Study Guide<\/a>, which is an interesting effort to engage teachers.<\/p>\n I am sharing a timeline I have compiled of key events and accompanying literature on the life of Antonio Luna. Some of the items in the timeline came from The World of 1898: The Spanish-American War<\/a>. The purpose of the timeline is to add additional readings, from the perspective of friends, critics (and enemies) and historians, on Luna and his times.<\/strong><\/p>\n Events and trends placing events in Luna’s life in context are in italics.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n See also Part I<\/a>, Part II<\/a>, and Part III<\/a> of a Graphic Timeline of the Philippine-American War, from the Presidential Museum and Library. See also The Philippine-American War<\/a>.<\/p>\n Antonio Luna is born.<\/p>\n Edwin Francisco, UP Science and Society Program<\/a>:<\/p>\n Antonio Luna de San Pedro y Novicio-Ancheta was born on October 29, 1866 in Urbiztondo, Binondo, Manila. He was the youngest of seven children of Joaqu\u00edn Luna de San Pedro, from Badoc, Ilocos Norte, and Spanish mestiza Laureana Novicio-Ancheta, from Luna, La Union (formerly Namacpacan).[3] His father was a traveling salesman of the products of government monopolies. His older brother, Juan, was an accomplished painter who studied in the Madrid Escuela de Bellas Artes de San Fernando. Another brother, Jos\u00e9, became a doctor.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Cavite Mutiny.<\/em><\/p>\n Bachelor of Arts, Ateneo Municipal de Manila. Studied two years at the University of Santo Tomas, earning first prize for the paper,\u00a0Two Fundamental Bodies of Chemistry.<\/em><\/p>\n In\u00a0The Roots of the Filipino Nation<\/em>, O.D. Corpuz writes:<\/p>\n The reports during the period also refer to an incident that occurred in Pangasinan in May 1884. The official story was that the pueblo officials of Santa Maria, Binalonan, and Urdaneta conspired to lead a group of bandits to sack one of the towns, and that the disturbance was speedily quelled.<\/p>\n If Buencamino’s testimony is correct, the investigation and trial were \u201crigged.\u201d He claims that the alleged insurrection was simulated by the Dominican friars. They sent out incriminating letters to Filipinos in places as far apart as northern Luzon to Tarlac, Bulacan, and Nueva Ecija, the letters bearing Novicio’s name. For good measure they \u201cwarned\u201d the civil government of the supposed insurrection. In other words, it was a frame-up.[1]<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Maternal uncle of Antonio Luna implicated in revolt. As Raquel A. G. Reyes wrote in Love, Passion and Patriotism: Sexuality and the Philippine Propaganda<\/em>,<\/p>\n The family of Juan and Antonio Luna fell under suspicion after their maternal uncle had led a short-lived uprising against Spanish rule in the provinces of Pangasinan and Nueva Ecija, and the 19-year-old Antonio had been briefly incarcerated in Manila’s Bilibid prison.[21]<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Luna goes to Spain.\u00a0The exceptional abilities of the two brothers was recognized even by their enemies. Here is an extract from a truly scurrilous book, written from the perspective of the Spanish religious orders.<\/p>\n In The Katipunan<\/em>, Francis St. Claire wrote:<\/p>\n NOTE 10. Antonio and Juan Luna were two of four brothers. The former was a bacteriologist, the latter an artist who at one time, whilst he followed the instruction and remained under the guidance of his master, showed no little talent. Antonio went to Spain in \u201888, and later on passed to Paris where he lived with his brother Juan who supported him. There he devoted himself to the study which made him famous; this he did in the laboratory of Dr. Roux. He became an assistant editor of the\u00a0Solidaridad<\/em>, the official organ of filipino freemasonry, and wrote many vicious articles in its columns over the pseudonym of Taga-Ilog. As a member of the freemason fraternity, he was known as Gay Lussac.<\/p>\n On his return to Manila he established for a livelihood a school of fencing, and like the vain, insensate \u201cmagpie in borrowed plumes\u201d that he was, he once sent his seconds to a Spanish officer, inviting him to a duel![6]<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Antonio Luna writes to Mariano Ponce. This letter would be used as an exhibit in Rizal’s trial in December, 1896:<\/p>\n Madrid, October 16, 1888, to D. Mariano Ponce.<\/p>\n My dear friend Mariano:<\/p>\n –Rizal has very well said of Lete that he does not serve for big enterprises. Consult with him concerning the designation of Llorente as director of the paper. Rizal knows them both; he also knows Llorente’s capacity and is very intimate with him, because both are young men of sterling value and Rizal has a very good opinion of Llorente. Ask him for advice and heed well what he tells you. Tell him that I have induced Llorente to accept the position of director.<\/p>\n –An embrace, and take the matter to Rizal for his advice.<\/p>\n Thine, Antonio.<\/p>\n –P. S. Tear this letter up after noting its contents. Send me immediately Rizal’s London address.[23]<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n From the memoirs of Luna’s good friend, Jose Alejandrino:<\/p>\n In that year (1889) there appeared in the newspaper \u201cEl Pueblo Soberano\u201d of Barcelona certain articles signed by its editor and owner, Mir Deas, lambasting \u201cTaga-Ilog\u201d for his criticisms of the Spanish customs expounded in his book \u201cImpressions\u201d, which articles Antonio Luna was answering from Madrid. The controversy reached a point, if I remember well, where the editor of \u201cEl Pueblo Soberano\u201d included all the Filipino people in his attacks.<\/p>\n This Mr. Mir Deas, whose name Luna changed to\u00a0Mier Das<\/strong>\u00a0(Spanish for excreta), was one who had resided for a long time in the Philippines, writing in the local papers. Protected by the immunity afforded them by the state of things at that time, he and Barrantes, Quioquiap, Retana and others took pleasure in reviling continuously the entire Filipino people in their writings.<\/p>\n —<\/p>\n Luna needed very little to arouse his anger and this time he had more than enough reason to get really mad; consequently, he wanted at all cost to avenge the offense done to him and all those of his race. He therefore insulted even us for refusing to point out Mir Deas to him.<\/p>\n —<\/p>\n Upon Mir\u2019s refusal to accept a duel, Luna became more furious, and we resolved not to leave him alone when walking in the city. I slept in the same room with him, and I was careful to keep him company at all times. One morning, however, I woke up greatly startled upon seeing the bed of Luna vacated so early. I looked for him in all parts of the house and, not finding him, I dressed up in a hurry and proceeded to the\u00a0Rambla de las Flores<\/strong>\u00a0(a promenade in the city) where I was almost sure I would find him. There indeed he was, walking alone up and down the\u00a0Rambla de las Flores<\/strong>\u00a0and the\u00a0Rambla de los Pajaros<\/strong>\u00a0brandishing a rattan cane with that ferocious face which he used to wear when in bad humor and which face earned for himself among his intimates the nickname \u201ccafre\u201d. Upon seeing him I asked him, \u201dWhat are you doing here, Antonio?\u201d<\/p>\n And he answered, \u201c I am looking for Mir Deas.\u201d I asked him again, \u201cHow do you expect to find him when you do not know him?\u201d<\/p>\n To this he replied, \u201cWell, I am looking for anyone who to me looks like Mir Deas to mangle down.\u201d<\/p>\n I tried to calm him down, advising him to have a little more patience because soon we would indicate Mir to him, and he would have occasion to punish him properly.<\/p>\n Mir Deas refused absolutely either to make the demanded retraction or to fight, and, finally, the seconds,\u00a0despairing that Mir would not give satisfaction for the offense which he had caused us, decided to tell Luna who he was, taking him to the Cafe de los Cristales on Plaza Catalu\u00f1a where he was found writing on one of the tables. From the door of the Cafe they indicated to Luna where Mir was and Luna, without committing himself to the protection of either God or the devil, went toward the offender, spitting on his face. But not even this insult which was done publicly made Mir fight; instead, he wrote another insulting article in the newspaper \u201cEl Diluvio\u201d (The Deluge). Luna and ex-Secretary Apacible sent their seconds to the editor of the paper and the author of the article, but both refused to accept the challenge on the pretext that they were not agreeable to the principles of the duel. One of the seconds sent was Mariano Ponce.<\/p>\n Later on, for the satisfaction of the Spaniards who sympathized with our aspirations, the Filipino colony in Barcelona submitted the writings of Luna to a jury composed entirely of Spaniards, among whom was Se\u00f1or Junoy \u2014 editor of \u201cLa Publicidad\u201d of Barcelona who later on occupied a prominent place in Spanish politics. This jury decided that the writings of Luna were not insulting to the Spaniards as a people but were solely a criticism of some customs which many Spanish writers themselves had also criticized.[2]<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Context for the above can be found in\u00a0The Roots of the Filipino Nation<\/em>, in which O.D. Corpuz writes:<\/p>\n Antonio Luna was involved in an \u201caffair of honor\u201d in 1889. It started with his article \u201cImpresio<\/em>nes Madrile<\/em>\u00f1as<\/em> de un Filipino<\/em>\u201d (La Solidaridad<\/em> 31 October). The piece began with him fantasizing about Spain the mother country, Madrid its capital, and then the Puerta del Sol, the latter’s magnificent hub and main plaza, when he was on board ship in the China Sea on the voyage to Europe. In Madrid Luna’s Malay features were conspicuous; the people\u00a0called him “Chino” or “Igorot” – there had been some Igorots brought for exhibition in the 1887 exposition. In the main his impressions of the city expressed disappointment; but if the piece was critical, it was not much different nor more severe than criticisms of the city by Spanish writers. Luna warned Filipinos against being disenchanted. In his closing paragraph he advised readers that “his pictures were realistic” and that he did not use “shadings and medium tints.” He signed as Taga-ilog.<\/p>\n […]<\/p>\n This supplement ended with an Epilogue: how Mariano Ponce was secretly denounced to the authorities as allegedly publishing clandestine books. Rumors and talk of sedition spread in the city and were published in the press, but an official investigation established that the denunciations were groundless.[1]<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n The editorial ins and outs, and relationship between the writers of La Solidaridad <\/em>is summarized by O.D. Corpuz as follows:<\/p>\n He had sent a letter with this suggestion to Del Pilar in June 1889. He informed the latter that Antonio Luna was ready with a series of articles for the SOL; Luna would not use any pseudonyms.<\/p>\n Let us abandon pseudonyms and adopt a new policy, the policy of valor and true solidarity. The paper is becoming important; imagine if the articles are signed by Blumentritt, M. del Pilar, Jaena, Luna, etc. Our countrymen, upon seeing our courage, upon seeing not the courage of one but of many, on seeing that Rizal is not an exception but the general rule, will take courage and lose their fear.<\/em><\/p>\n […]<\/p>\n The exiles generally wrote to each other in Spanish; Rizal had to use German with Blumentritt and sometimes Tagalog with Ponce and Del Pilar. In 1890 Antonio Luna, Alejandrino, and Edilberto Evangelista were studying at the University of Ghent; they occasionally corresponded with Rizal in French. The two Lunas were fencing aficionados. Antonio became a staff writer of La Solidaridad<\/em>. He wrote under the pen name \u201cTagailog.\u201d His pieces tended to be fiction, nostalgic themes characteristic of the love-struck Filipino swain such as kissing in Filipinas, affairs of love, his lady teacher in the pueblo, and so on. For a time in 1891 he was producing the paper almost single-handedly. He was back in Filipinas by 1892 but did not join the Katipunan because he thought that it was premature; he was tricked later on by the friars into betraying some of his old colleagues. He was arrested and sent to prison in Spain. He returned in July 1898 to join the Revolution and became the most admired but controversial general during the second phase of the Revolution and Filipino-American War.<\/p>\n […]<\/p>\n A. Luna was rather more cosmopolitan than the other Filipinos in Madrid. His brother Juan lived in Paris, so that he spent some time in the French capital, and he was the principal staff writer on the 1889 universal exposition in Paris as well as on the political status of colonies in the French system. He also wrote lead articles and political pieces every now and then. He contributed many pieces for the \u201cArts and Letters\u201d section.<\/p>\n […]<\/p>\n By September the SOL was in shambles. Antonio Luna wrote Rizal about the plight of the staff: \u201cthe recompense for our labors is the ruin of our future; we are easily made to serve as a facade so that others plunder behind the screen \u2013 in short, the exploitation of man by man.\u201d He hints darkly at financial irregularities. Where does the money that is said to have come from Manila go? \u201cThere are grand mismanagement, unnecessary trips, total unconcern; initiative is gone; the campaign is dead. This is total suicide.\u201d The work is passed on to him: \u201cToday I have had to write four articles because neither Del Pilar nor Naning does absolutely anything.\u201d The management of the SOL is absolutist; \u201cit is worse than that of the State.\u201d Luna is bitter and tells Rizal that he is about to leave the SOL.<\/p>\n Luna’s hints on financial irregularities in the SOL appear to have been confirmed in November. Moises Salvador wrote that some 700 pesos in the custody of the editor were to be turned over to Rizal. The turn over of the money was agreed to by the old Manila committee upon petition of the fund donors. But the turnover could not be effected; Salvador was disgusted; he cited obstructions raised; he decried these as unspeakable, referring to them as \u201cevents that have no name.\u201d\u00a0[1]<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Rizal challenges Luna to a duel.<\/p>\n See my North Borneo (Sabah): An annotated timeline 1640s-present<\/a>. In\u00a0Under Three Flags<\/em>, Benedict Anderson writes:<\/p>\n Rizal\u2019s first plan for resolving, or evading, these contradictory pressures was to form a settlement for his family and like-minded friends on the bay of Sandakan in what is today the east Malaysian federal state of Sabah. Geographically, it was as close to the Philippines as one could get\u2014250 miles from Jolo, seat of the once-powerful Muslim sultanate of Sulu, still restive under loose Spanish overlordship, and a little over 600 miles from Manila. The same distances separated Havana from Miami, and from Tampa, where Marti was recruiting revolutionaries among the Cuban tobacco-worker communities. Politically, too, it could seem promising. The northern littoral of Borneo was, in the 1890s, a very peculiar Conradian place. On the western portion lay the kingdom of the so-called White Rajahs, founded by the English adventurer James Brooke in the 1840s, and under London\u2019s hands-off protection from the 1880s. The residues of the once-powerful sultanate of Brunei occupied a small niche in the middle, while the eastern portion, including Sandakan, was governed after 1882 by a private business, the British North Borneo Chartered Company. Better still, in 1885 the Spanish had been induced to abandon any quasi-legal claims to the territory deriving from the shifting suzerainty of Jolo. Hence, while Hong Kong was under the suspicious eyes of the Spanish consul and the Catholic Orders\u2019 local branches, Sandakan was free of both. It is not surprising, therefore, that some of Rizal\u2019s more fiery comrades in Europe, such as Evangelista and Antonio Luna, dreaming of Marti\u2019s Florida, were enthusiastic about the planned settlement. Some time in January 1892, Luna wrote to Rizal in Hong Kong that \u201cBorneo sera un Cayo Hueso para nosotros, y muy probable sea yo tambien uno de sus habitantes, si las circunstancias me obligan\u201d [Borneo will be for us a Cayo Hueso (Bone Reef, phonetically garbled by the Americans into Key West), and it is very probable that I will become one of its denizens, if circumstances make it necessary].[1]<\/a>\u00a0On the other hand, Sandakan also promised an unbadgered life for Rizal\u2019s family, and for the novelist himself, his library and his writing.[2]<\/a>\u00a0He also hoped that many of the dispossessed people in his hometown Calamba would also join him in this Bornean sanctuary.[3]<\/a><\/p>\n At the end of March, Rizal made the first of several visits to North Borneo after preliminary negotiations with the British North Borneo Charter Company\u2019s representative in Hong Kong. Initially, the prospects seemed quite rosy. Rizal was offered 5,000 acres of uncultivated land rent-free for three years, with the possibility of eventual purchase at a low price. The British North Borneo Charter Company, eager for settlement in a very sparsely populated region, further accepted that the Filipino community would be run by its own members according to their own customs, and be subject neither to corvee nor to unreasonable taxes. But within a few months the whole project started to collapse. Rizal began to realize that he could not raise anything close to the money needed to get the little colony going. Furthermore, populating it would require the agreement of the Spanish to a substantial migration. Rizal wrote to the new Captain-General explaining that he wished to settle down quietly with family and townspeople, but Despujol was not persuaded. An emigration on this scale would put his government in a bad light; besides, the conservative press in Spain would be likely to view it as the start of a Bornean Tampa just out of Manila\u2019s political and military reach.[4]<\/a><\/p>\n Rizal\u2019s alternative, more alarming for his family, was to create the first legal political organization for Filipinos in the Philippines itself. What this plan amounted to is difficult to determine. No document in Rizal\u2019s own hand survives. Virtually all the written evidence, often contradictory, comes from testimony given to, or extracted by, police interrogators and torturers…<\/p><\/blockquote>\n The same book contains this interesting exchange\u00a0of letters:<\/p>\n [1]<\/a>Cartas entre Rizal y sus colegas, pp. 771-2<\/em>. The whole letter is of great interest, since Luna was highly intelligent. He told Rizal he was heading back to Manila to work for independence. \u201cPara todo eso sera preciso mucho studio, mucho tacto, prudencia y nada de alardes de ser fuertes\u2026 Con constancia y silencio seremos unos jesuitas para plantar una casa donde pongamos un clavo. Ofrezco, pues, en este sentido mi concurso, pero con la sola condicion de que podre desligarme de la campan?a active si viera que sera solo un motin\u2026 Creo que me comprendes bien, si nos vencen que cueste mucha sangre. Ire, pues, a Manila y en todos mis actos tendre siempre presente mi deber de separatist. Nada de desconfianzas, si las circunstancias me colocan al lado de los espan?oles en Manila, peor para ellos: me ganare la vida e ire minando el suelo a costa de ellos hasta que la fruta este madura, Teneis ya, pues (si non vuestras ideas estas), un satellite por aqui que trabajara con constancia.\u201d<\/em> [But this will require much study, much tact, prudence, and no empty boasting about our strength\u2026 With constancy and silence we will be like Jesuits, etting up a house for which we have a key. So, in this sense, I am offering you my assistance, but with the single condition that I can disengage from the active campaign if I see that it will be nothing more than a mutiny\u2026 I believe you understand me well, that if they win, it will cost much bloodshed. In any case, I am leaving for Manila, and in all my actions my duty as a separatist will always be before my eyes. No suspicions: if circumstances place me at the side of the Spaniards in Manila, so much the worse for them. I will earn my living and continue mining the land to their cost, until the fruit is ripe. You will have, then (if these ideas are also yours), a satellite on the spot who will work with constancy.]<\/p>\n [2]<\/a>\u00a0Touchingly, Rizal wrote thus to Blumentritt on January 31, 1892:\u00a0\u201cWahrend ich aus meine Amtspflichten ausruhe, schreibe ich den driten Theil meines Buches auch in Tagalisch. Es wird sich nur um Heimlich tagalischen Sitten die Rede sein, nur um tagalischen Ubungen, Tubungen, und Fehler. Leider dass ich es nicht auf Spanisch schreiben darf, den ich habe einen sehr schonen Gegenstand im kopfe gefunden; ich will einen Roman nach den modernen Sinne des Wortes erdichten, kunstlich und litterarisch. Diesmal will ich die Politik und alles den Kunst aufopfern; schriebe ich es auf Spanisch, so warden die armen Tagalen, denen es gewidmet, nichts davon wissen und doch die haben es am moisten nothing\u2026 Doch est kostet mir viele Muhe den viele von meinen Gedenken konnen sich nicht frei ausdrucken, sonst muss ich neologismes einfuhren; ausserdem mir fe[h]t die Ubung in Tagalisch zu schreiben.\u201d<\/em>\u00a0<\/em>[While resting from my professional labors (as a doctor), I am writing the third part of my book in Tagalog. It will deal solely with Tagalog customs, [i.e.] exclusively with the habits, virtues and defects of the Tagalogs. I feel I cannot write the book in Spanish now that I have found a beautiful theme; I want to write a novel in the modern sense of the word, an artistic and literary novel. This time I would like to sacrifice politics and the rest for the sake of art; if I write in Spanish, then the poor Tagalogs, to whom the work is dedicated, will not understand it, even though it is they who most need to do so\u2026 The book is giving me a lot of trouble, as many of my thoughts cannot be freely expressed without the need to introduce neologisms. Besides, I lack practice in writing Tagalog.]\u00a0The Rizal-Blumentritt Correspondence, 1890-1896,<\/em>\u00a0<\/em>unnumbered pages from p. 431. This third novel was never finished. What little there is of it has been carefully reconstructed by Ambeth Ocampo in his\u00a0The Search for Rizal\u2019s Third Novel, Makamisa (<\/em>Manila: Anvil, 1993). Rizal gave up writing it in Tagalog after twenty manuscript pages, and reverted to Spanish.\u00a0Makamisa<\/em>\u00a0means \u201cAfter Mass,\u201d and the text, focused on the townspeople of Pili and their Peninsular parish priest, returns to the satirical\u00a0costumbrista<\/em>\u00a0style of\u00a0Noli me tangere<\/em>. Perhaps this is why he gave up on it, or maybe he concluded that he could not go beyond\u00a0El Filibusterismo<\/em>. In any event, after mid-1892 he seems to have abandoned any idea of further novel-writing.<\/p>\n [3]<\/a>\u00a0It will be recalled that it was Rizal who had strongly urged the tenants and townspeople of Calamba to take the Dominicans to court, and pushed the case right up to the Supreme Court in Madrid. As already noted, when the vengeful Order won the case, and Weyler, in addition to burning houses, forbade the recalcitrants to reside anywhere near Calamba, Rizal was devastated and felt enormously guilty for the suffering he had brought on his hometown.<\/p>\n [4]<\/a>\u00a0The comparison between Sandakan and Tampa is, in one sense, unwarranted. The British had no designs on the Philippines, whereas powerful groups in the United States had had their avaricious eyes on Cuba for some time. But the contrast may have seemed less obvious in the 1890s than it does today. It is hard to imagine Antonio Luna and Edilberto Evangelista promising from Europe to join Rizal in: Sandakan if they expected no more from it than a chance to grow vegetables and read some books.[3]<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n From\u00a0Vivencio Jose’s The Rise and Fall of Antonio Luna, <\/em>this declaration by Luna:<\/p>\n \u201cThe propaganda for assimilation is necessary but more active should the separatist propaganda be, because we shall not obtain the first (i.e. assimilation) and even if we did (which is almost impossible) we would be worse off than ever; the practical thing is to seek adherents in order to shake off the yoke of Spain. I want to make clear therefore, what is in my mind: that we must work for independence, organizing ourselves, converting ourselves into apostles in order to gain men and money. For all this much study is necessary, a great\u00a0deal of tact, prudence and no boasting of our strength\u2026 I offer therefore my services, in this sense, but with the sole condition that I shall be allowed to disengage myself from the\u00a0active campaign if I see it will only be an armed riot. It is not that I dream of success, rather I dream of a resistance for which you understand me well enough; if they triumph over us let it be at the cost of much blood. I shall go then to Manila and in all my acts always keep in mind my duty as a separatist.\u201d[4]<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Rizal, in his essay, “The Philippines a Century Hence”:<\/p>\n All the petty insurrections that have occurred in the Philippines were the work of a few fanatics or discontented soldiers, who had to deceive and humbug the people or avail themselves of their powers over their subordinates to gain their ends. So they all failed. No insurrection had a popular character, or was based on a need of the whole race, or was fought for human rights or justice; so it left no ineffaceable impressions \u2026 when they saw that they had been duped, the people bound up their wounds and applauded the overthrow of the disturbers of their peace! But what if the movement springs from the people themselves and based its causes upon their woes?[5]<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n In\u00a0The Rise and Fall of Antonio Luna<\/em>, Vivencio Jose writes the view of the Spanish religious orders:<\/p>\n NOTE 70. The idea that the Liga was but an introduction to the Katipunan is not borne out by the facts of the case. The Liga Filipina was a foundation of Rizal, whilst the Katipunan was a conception of Pilar who, finding Rizal was carrying all before him, determined not to be outdone by his former companion. The very fact of the enmity existing between the two leaders is proof enough that the two societies were not one and the same thing, although after their foundation they walked arm in arm. The Liga, as an association, was eventually dissolved, and from it was formed the Compromisarios (see Note 63<\/em>) and this body continued its functions till the outbreak of the revolt. The vicissitudes of the Liga did not lessen Rizal\u2019s influence. Ever ready to tell a lie or act one if it were to his own advantage, Rizal permitted the free use of his name in connection with the Katipunan also. To the vast majority of the oath- bound, the Katipunan was but the Liga under another form; and in order that the people should not know of the rivalry existing between himself and Pilar, Rizal gave no signs of disfavor towards the foundation of the new society; in fact he rather favored it, seeing that under the circumstances it would make him figure as its \u201chero\u201d and he would thus be enabled to take the wind out of Pilar\u2019s sails. The only objection raised by Rizal to the work of the Katipunan was that which he made to Valenzuela: that the time had not yet come for armed rebellion.[6]<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n In The Roots of the Filipino Nation<\/em>, O.D. Corpuz writes,<\/p>\n Rizal regarded the Revolution in its wholeness. A revolution would entail a contest of arms that, if successful, wins national liberty. But fighting is only part of the revolution; the other part is the building of civic structures to establish the justice that the people had fought for. To Rizal the Filipino Revolution was a struggle to win both liberty for the nation and, after victory, to ensure that the masses who fought in battle are governed by civil institutions that promise a just and lawful society.<\/p>\n There is an old Filipino saying: \u201cSomeone does the cooking, but somebody else does the eating.\u201d Rizal’s view of the Filipino Revolution was that it was to be a struggle of national regeneration and not merely a transfer of political power from one dominant class to another dominant class. If his manifesto were to be taken at face value it must be read as saying that the Revolution was premature because it was at best uncertain whether the common people, who would do the fighting, would be the beneficiaries of the liberty that victory would yield. But it would be against the evidence of Rizal’s life and writings, and of the admiration and respect in which he was held by the Filipinos of his time, to say that he was against the Revolution, because he was a defender of \u201cupper class interests.\u201d<\/p>\n […]<\/p>\n We have suggested that the exodus of the young Filipinos and their waging of the Propaganda abroad indirectly delayed the outbreak of the Revolution at home. Had Lopez Jaena, Arejola, Ponce, Alejandrino, Evangelista, Serrano, the Lunas, Salvador, Ventura, Llorente, Bautista, Apacible, Canon, Sandico, Del Pilar, Rizal, and others among the exiles stayed home during\u00a0the 1880s, or come home earlier, say by 1890, the inevitable fight with the friars would have ruptured the fragile peace long before 1896.<\/p>\n In addition to the evidence already shown, that some of the important men of the Propaganda abandoned reformism, note must be taken of those who came home and became prominent in the Hongkong Junta, the Revolution, and the FilipinoAmerican War. Sandico and Apacible were \u201chawks\u201d when Aguinaldo and the Junta were exploring the probable relations with the United States in early May 1898. Mariano Ponce served as Aguinaldo’s secretary in Hongkong. Canon, Evangelista, Sandico, Alejandrino, Llorente, and of course Luna, became generals in the Revolution. Numerous others served in the Malolos Congress and Republic.\u00a0[7]<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Doctorate in Pharmacy from the Universidad Central of Madrid. See:\u00a0El hematozoario del paludismo su estudio experimental <\/a>por Antonio Luna y Novicio.<\/p>\n Per\u00a0Benjamin Vallejo Jr., Antonio Luna\u2019s research on malaria<\/a>:<\/p>\n More from Benjamin Vallejo Jr.:<\/p>\n Luna obtained a “…doctorate in pharmacy in 1893 with a doctoral thesis on the differentiation of hematozoites of malaria which proved to be extremely useful in diagnosis. This still saves lives today especially in Africa. He is the first Pinoy pensionado of the colonial government to have earned a science doctorate.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Ambeth Ocampo, August 2, 2012:<\/p>\n ..The box also contained Luna\u2019s school notebooks, including those with drawings of things he saw under a microscope. It is not well-known that before he was appointed a general during the Filipino-American War, he had taken postgraduate courses at the Institut Pasteur in Paris. He had made a name for himself in Manila for his studies on the purity of carabao milk and water from the Pasig, as well as a study on mosquitoes and the spread of disease.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n In\u00a0The Rise and Fall of Antonio Luna<\/em>, Vivencio Jose writes:<\/p>\n At the time of the organization of the popular Supreme Councils, Bonifacio was chosen president of the Council of Trozo; but in consequence of internal troubles occasioned by his rebelliousness, the Supreme Council decided to dissolve the local Council. Bonifacio, true to his colors, disregarded this order and continued working on his own account, taking upon himself the faculties of the Supreme Council.<\/p>\n He preserved in a case which was found in the warehouse of Messrs. Fressel and Co. the organization of the \u201cFilipino Republic\u201d which was to be, as well as a number of regulations, codes, decrees of nominations, etc., all drawn up in Tagalog.[6]<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Jose Alejandrino recalled:<\/p>\n On my return in 1895, we renewed our intimate friendly relations, which relations Mamerto Natividad and Moises Salvador took advantage of by requesting me to transmit to him Rizal\u2019s advice that Luna be asked\u00a0to join the K.K.K. as an intermediary between the rich and educated class and the proletariat which constituted the great majority of the members of the Katipunan. Luna refused to join the movement, alleging that it was yet premature.[8]<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n LETTER TO DEL PILAR[9]<\/a><\/p>\n Manila, March 20, 1895<\/p>\n My very dear Friend:<\/p>\n Enclosed is the letter in answer to your proposition to help \u201cEl Globo\u201d so that you can show it to Don Miguel;[1]<\/a>\u00a0also enclosed is a bill of exchange in the amount of $100.<\/p>\n The reasons stated in the letter are only too true, and not invented. And they are so true that neither Ariston[2]<\/a>\u00a0nor anyone of us dares talk to Don Pedro Roxas, and much less to Limjap.<\/p>\n With respect to the bill of exchange, we haven\u2019t yet been able to increase our remittance, despite all our efforts, as we are well aware that the $100 monthly is not enough to cover the pressing needs of the delegation.<\/p>\n We deeply regret our inability to give neither a long and detailed description of the Regional Exposition nor only a light sketch of it because nobody is in charge of this work. In the first place, none of our friends is used to this kind of work and, secondly, more or less each has his own tasks. You can cite me as an example. Even if I make a great effort, the work may still turn out badly, and my health may become the worse for it, because I shall have to study hard to be able to give a story of the Exposition.<\/p>\n Luna (Antonio) does not like to take charge of the work unless we give him a monthly remuneration of thirty pesos, something which we cannot promise him lest we cannot keep the promise. In truth, there are four kittens of us moving around here, which cannot do anything without help from others.<\/p>\n Despite the pessimism reflected in the previous lines, we still retain, the hope we had of the first days, firmly believing that without struggling it is not possible to mould real men. Besides, we try our best to show how we manage the funds in the hope that, sooner or later, our friends will understand that honesty still exists.<\/p>\n And, please do not think that the obstacles I have stated reflect on you, no. On the day we come to understand it that way, we shall be the first to let you know without beating around the bush, because then, our campaign would have become indefensible. I am just saying this to you because on similar occasions you seemed to have read in my words a meaning that was far from what I intended to give them.<\/p>\n Receive the embrace of all and, in particular, of your affectionate<\/p>\n [1]<\/a>\u00a0Don Miguel Morayta.<\/p>\n [2]<\/a>\u00a0Ariston Bautista.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n In \u00a0A New History Of Southeast Asia<\/em>, M.C. Ricklefs,Bruce Lockhart, Bruce, and Albert Lau wrote:<\/p>\n The Katipunan ballooned from 15,000 to 30,000. In July 1896, however, the organization was betrayed to a priest in confession. The authorities thereupon raided a printing shop where they found printing blocks for the Kalayaan, other paraphernalia, and a list of members. The Guardia Civil then arrested suspects, who were forced to identify other members.[11]<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n In\u00a0The Emergence Of Modern Southeast Asia- A New History<\/em>, Norman Owen writes:<\/p>\n Bonifacio sought unsuccessfully to attract ilustrados, including Apolinario Mabini, Antonio Luna, and, most important, Rizal himself, to his Katipunan. He then decided to implicate them through forgery, hoping that Spanish repression would achieve his goals. He succeeded. A friar, discovering the revolutionary plot \u2014 supposedly during confessional, though this seems unlikely \u2014 reported it to Spanish authorities, who moved to arrest the conspirators. As the police swept across the city searching for Katipunan members. Bonifacio and his supporters fled to a Manila suburb where he issued a call to open rebellion, known today as the \u201ccry of Balintawak,\u201d and they tore up their hated cedulas (identity papers).<\/p>\n Spanish heavy-handedness accomplished Bonifacio\u2019s goal. Rizal was brought back to Manila and tried for treason, because the Spanish believed he was \u201cthe principal organizer and the very soul of the Philippine insurrection.\u201d Rizal, who considered the Katipunan plan \u201cdisastrous,” was convicted after a sham trial and publicly executed. Many years earlier, Rizal had written, \u201cThe day on which the Spanish inflict martyrdom on our innocent families for our fault, farewell, pro-friar government, and perhaps, farewell. Spanish Government.\u201d Rizal’s execution forged an alliance, albeit fragile, between the ilustrados and Bonifacio’s rebels. Hatred of the Spanish unified many Filipinos of every social class. Some years before Rizal had noted: \u201cA numerous, educated class, both in the archipelago and outside it, must now be reckoned with\u2026 It is in continuous contact with the rest of the population. And if it is no more today than the brains of the nation, it will become in a few years its whole nervous system. Then we shall see what it will do.\u201d<\/p>\n In his prison cell Rizal wrote a \u201cManifesto to Certain Filipinos,\u201d reiterating that the education of the people was a prerequisite to liberty. Noting that without education and \u201ccivic virtues,\u201d Filipinos would not find \u201credemption,\u201d he stressed that reforms, if they were to bear fruit, would have to \u201ccome from above,” because reforms from below would be \u201cviolent and transitory.” In spite of this cautionary’ note and his professions of loyalty to a Spain that he still hoped might govern justly, he was shot on 30 December 1896, ensuring the very revolution he had hoped to avoid.\u201d[12]<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n In John Schumacher’s, review of Vivencio Jose\u2019s The Rise and Fall of Antonio Luna<\/em>, he writes:<\/p>\n Though this book was apparently written before the publication of my Propaganda Movement<\/em>, its failure to situate Luna within the organized nationalist activity of the Filipino activists in Europe makes Luna\u2019s activities during this period seem rather unconnected and gives little idea of the progressive evolution of his thought. Nonetheless, Jose does make clear that, contrary to the efforts of some historians to portray the Propaganda Movement as merely a reformist, assimilationist movement, there was a radical separatist group, including Luna, Rizal, Edilberto Evangelista, Jose Alejandrino, and others not alluded to here. Whatever they may have been forced to say publicly, some of the Propagandists had already resolved, at least by the early 1890s, on definitive separation from Spain. What is not explored here, however, is how early Luna set himself on such a course, and how he related his ideas to the differing strategies of Rizal and Del Pilar, both of them likewise aiming at ultimate separation from Spain. This failure to explore the nuances of the Luna-Rizal separatist approach vitiates to a great extent the discussion on Luna\u2019s relation to Bonifacio\u2019s Katipunan and the Revolution of 1896. To attribute Luna\u2019s refusal to support the premature revolt by Bonifacio to his ‘middle class thoughts’ or to the typical attitude of ‘the wealthy Filipinos’ is to ignore how correct Luna was when he rejected, not the Revolution, but an unprepared and insufficiently armed revolution, which could only eventuate in military disaster, as Bonifacio\u2019s total military failure rapidly showed. The criticism of Luna for refusing to support the ill-prepared revolt of Bonifacio seems inconsistent with Jose\u2019s later (and to this reviewer, more correct) praise of Luna for his strenuous and often-frustrated efforts to organize a disciplined army, operating according to careful plans and making use of military science and discipline, instead of Aguinaldo\u2019s haphazard collection of ‘clan armies’ based on personal local and provincial loyalties and wishing to fight \u201cwith bared breasts\u201d rather than prepare trenches and breastworks…”[13]<\/strong><\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n In\u00a0The Roots of the Filipino Nation<\/em>,\u00a0O.D. Corpuz\u00a0writes,<\/p>\n There is additional material about the Katipunan having been exposed or discovered before August 1896. Jose Alejandrino, back home from Europe in 1895, says that Moises Salvador and Mamerto Natividad asked him to get Antonio Luna to join the society. This was in accordance with a suggestion of Rizal to Valenzuela. But Luna believed that the revolutionary movement was premature. Even so, he was among those arrested and interrogated in the round-up after the uprising. Luna made a statement dated 12 November 1896 wherein he said that on 18 or 20 July he had told his supervisor in the government laboratory (Luna was a pharmacist-chemist) that there were secret societies organized to rise against the regime, \u201cso that he could report it to the Governor-General.\u201d The latter summoned him \u201con the 2nd or 3rd August\u201d and he repeated what he had told his supervisor, adding that the rich and prominent classes did not join the societies, which were plebeian. Luna’s testimony confirmed what the governor-general had known for months.<\/p>\n […]<\/p>\n Blanco’s secret measures, already semi-public since the printing house episode of July, were no longer secret. The Revolution was forced to begin.[14]<\/strong><\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n In \u00a0A New History Of Southeast Asia<\/em>, M.C. Ricklefs,Bruce Lockhart, Bruce, and Albert Lau wrote:<\/p>\n In August 1896, under Bonifacio\u2019s leadership, the Katipuneros decided to start the Revolution by seizing Manila. To break their ties with Spain they tore up their identification papers and shouted Mabuhay ang mga anak ng Bayan! (\u2018Long live the children of the nation!\u2019). The assault failed, and expected reinforcements from Cavite never arrived. Bonifacio and other survivors retreated to the southern mountains, but news of the assault mobilized Katipuneros in Nueva Ecija and Bulacan to take up arms. Katipuneros of the two bickering councils of Cavite \u2013 Magdalo and Magdiwang \u2013 easily captured Cavite province. Landowner Emilio Aguinaldo, the Magdalo head, earned renown as a general, but Magdalo towns fell to the Spaniards, endangering the Magdiwang-heId towns to the rear.<\/p>\n The outbreak of the Philippine Revolution made life more difficult for the Filipino elite. To force them to join the revolutionaries, Katipuneros implicated some of them. Among the 4000 whom the Spanish arrested and imprisoned were many Ilustrados; some were executed and a number were deported. To escape persecution, others demonstrated their loyalty to the colonial government by donating money to the Spaniards and enrolling their sons as officers in local Spanish militias. But many members of the elite, especially in the provinces, concluded that \u2013 as in 1872 \u2013 wealth, status, and education were ineffective weapons against the declining Spanish empire. Quietly they joined and assumed leadership of various councils of the Katipunan. Their mestizo culture and Ilustrado worldview thereby pervaded and changed the orientation of the organization.[16]<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n In “Socioeconomic Class in the Revolution,” John Schumacher writes:<\/p>\n III.\u00a0The Katipunan and the Revolution<\/em>[17]<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n Surely the key role of the Katipunan in initiating the Revolution cannot be denied. However, the Katipunan had not arisen solely from the ideas of Bonifacio. It was, in fact, the heir of the Propaganda Movement, too easily dismissed as an ineffective \u201creform movement.\u201d There were to be sure, propagandists who sought nothing more than the assimilationist reforms their public program called for. But for its key figures \u2014 Rizal, Marcelo del Pilar, Antonio Luna, and others \u2014 there is no question that independence was the ultimate goal. The principal difference between Bonifacio and the major ilustrados of the Propaganda Movement was not even on the method of obtaining independence, but on the timing. The writings of Bonifacio and Jacinto mirror those of Rizal and Marcelo del Pilar, and the Katipunan\u2019s official teachings are quite in continuity with the major works of the Propaganda Movement.<\/p>\n It is for this reason that though the initiative for the Revolution certainly came from Bonifacio and his Katipunan, once the Revolution began, it immediately attracted to itself a far larger number who had never been Katipuneros, but had imbibed similar ideas through the writings and activity of the Propagandists. In his memoirs Aguinaldo cites his cousin Baldomero Aguinaldo, speaking to the revolutionaries in Cavite of how there had been only 300 Katipuneros in that province on the eve of the Revolution, but the following day more than a thousand revolutionaries assembled. It was part of Bonifacio\u2019s tragedy that he did not, or was unwilling to, realize that the Revolution was already a much wider movement than the Katipunan, and that there were others besides the Katipuneros who were legitimate heirs of the Propaganda Movement.<\/p>\n As the analysis of the Katipunan has shown, the actual initiative for the Revolution of 1896 came from a lower middle class urban membership allied with local and provincial elite, almost completely in the Tagalog provinces and Pampanga. It is not true, however, that the wealthy and educated took no part in it.<\/p>\n The national elite, not themselves part of the Katipunan, varied in their support for the Revolution once it was underway. Some of them, like Rizal and Antonio Luna, had been approached beforehand by the Katipuneros, but, though not rejecting revolution in principle, had argued that the means for a successful revolution were not yet at hand. Numerous figures of the old Liga Filipina or Cuerpo de Compromisarios, like Mabini and Moises Salvador, were arrested on suspicion by the Spaniards, and most were executed, however little or much had been their complicity in the actual revolt.[1]<\/a>\u00a0Others of the national elite, about to be arrested, escaped abroad and assisted the revolutionaries from Hong Kong, like Jose Alejandrino, Felipe Agoncillo, and Galicano Apacible.[2]<\/a>\u00a0Still others who were in Europe when the Revolution broke out, returned to take part in it, like Mariano Ponce in Hong Kong and Edilberto Evangelista, who was killed in the battle of Zapote Bridge in 1897.[3]<\/a><\/p>\n Many of the very wealthy national elite, however, neither believed in the revolutionary cause nor were they willing to contribute to it. In consequence of Bonifacio\u2019s having left to the authorities forged documents compromising them, some of them, like millionaire Francisco Roxas, who had refused to listen to the Katipunan\u2019s demands for financial support, nonetheless paid with their lives.[4]<\/a><\/p>\n To summarize, elite attitudes to the Revolution of 1896 were varied. Though wealth was certainly a factor which was negatively correlated with willingness to join the Revolution, age was a more important factor than wealth by itself. The young ilustrados, wealthy or not, who had taken part in the Propaganda Movement, were generally found joining the Revolution; the older men who had held aloof from that movement, likewise held back when the Revolution came.\u201d<\/p>\n [1]<\/a>\u00a0Mabini, who escaped execution only because of his paralysis, had been a regular source of advice for the Katipuneros, but opposed their plans for revolt and became suspect to Bonifacio as a result. See Agoncillo, Revolt, pp. 105, 107. Salvador is said to have actually been a member of the Katipunan, but was arrested before he could join the revolt (Jose Alejandrino, La senda del sacrificio [Manila: Nueva Era Press, 1951], p. 29).<\/p>\n [2]<\/a>\u00a0*Ibid., pp. 51-64; Esteban de Ocampo and Alfredo B. Saulo,\u00a0First<\/em>\u00a0<\/em>Filipino Diplomat: Felipe Agoncillo (1859-1941) (Manila: National Historical Institute. 1978), pp. 67-69; Encarnacion Alzona, Galicano Apacible: Profile of a Filipino Patriot (n.p., 1971)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Luna brothers arrested<\/strong><\/p>\n Antonio Luna tortured, and in the process “cried hysterically,” (this is the description of Quibuyen):<\/p>\n No soy rebelde, ni mason, ni filibustero; al contrario, soy delator y creo haber cumplido como hijo leal de Espa\u00f1a. … El Kutipunan es la Liga Filipina. … Su autor es D. Jose Rizal …. Vuelvo a repitir: No soy rebelde, ni fiibustero, ni mason. –(Arch. Fil., IV, 199 [19]; cited in Guerrero 1963, 522, note 24)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n In The Price of Freedom<\/em>, Jose Alejandrino wrote how Luna implicates Masons:<\/p>\n \u201cIt appears in official documents that in this period Luna committed the greatest error of his life in denouncing the existence of the Katipunan and in revealing, during his imprisonment after the first outbreak of the rebellion, the names of some of his friends affiliated with the Society. Later, he explained however to me his aforesaid acts by saying that with the physical and moral tortures which he suffered during his imprisonment, and upon being assured by the Spaniards that he had been squealed upon by his own friends, denouncing him as an accomplice in the rebellion, his violent character made him lose his better judgment. And having fallen for the scheme woven by the Spaniards, he declared that those who had denounced him were more guilty than he.<\/p>\n The events of 1896 separated us from each other, he having been prosecuted and later on sentenced to suffer imprisonment in Spain, while I left the country for China and Japan.[18]<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n In The Katipunan<\/em>, Francis St. Claire writes:<\/p>\n What Spain did for the Filipino brought forth fruit in only a few of the people who fell under her beneficent Christian influence. The Lunas were among the few. They like so many other ungrateful children, repaid their benefactors by becoming leaders of the insensate and inexcusable revolt against them; a revolt, the first act of which was to be the brutal murder of all Spaniards irrespective of parentage or other claims of consideration. Both the brothers suffered arrest by the Spanish authorities for rebellion and sedition, but in spite of the degree to which they were complicated, they remained practically free from punishment, and ever at the right hand of the imbecile General Blanco, himself a freemason, and friend of the enemies of his country. Eventually the two brothers left the ante-chamber of the Governor to enter the security of the military prison.<\/p>\n Both brothers eventually retracted their errors only to fall into them again as soon as the lying protests of repentance had fallen from their lips.<\/p>\n Juan died in Hong-Kong; Antonio, after a career of militarism, succumbed to the same unprincipled ambition which carried Andres Bonifacio to an untimely grave.[19]<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n1866<\/strong><\/h1>\n
October 29<\/strong><\/h3>\n
1872<\/strong><\/h1>\n
January 20<\/strong><\/h3>\n
1881<\/strong><\/h1>\n
1884<\/strong><\/h1>\n
May<\/h3>\n
1885<\/strong><\/h1>\n
1888<\/strong><\/h1>\n
October 16<\/strong><\/h3>\n
1889<\/strong><\/h2>\n
1889-1890<\/strong><\/h2>\n
1892<\/strong><\/h2>\n
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1893<\/strong><\/h2>\n
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1894<\/strong><\/h2>\n
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1895<\/strong><\/h1>\n
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March 20<\/strong><\/h3>\n
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1896:<\/strong><\/h1>\n
July\u00a0<\/strong><\/h3>\n
August\u00a0<\/strong><\/h3>\n
16 September: <\/strong><\/h3>\n