THE MAKING OF R

NATION
Essays on Nineteenth~Century Filipino Nationalism

By JOHN N. SCHUMACHER, S.}

Pe Ateneo de Manila University Press

THE MAKING OF A
NATION
 Digitized by the Internet Archive
in 2024

https://archive.org/details/makingofnationesOOOOjohn
THE MAKING OF A
NATION
Essays on Nineteenth~Century
Filipino Nationalism

By JOHN N. SCHUMACHER, S.J.

Mats
Ateneo de Manila University Press
 Ateneo de Manila University Press
Bellarmine Hall, Loyola Hts., Q.C.
P.O. Box 154, 1099 Manila

Cover design by Boy Luna, Visual Schemes, Inc.

Copyright 1991 by Ateneo de Manila
ISBN 971-—550—019-6
 Contents

TEEVOCUCEIOL Meech NUR RM soos ov ona dvecs ce od covekoncctinatadily gsesettecks 1

an The Historian’s Task in the Philippines ..............cccccccccssceseees iL
Rizal in the Context of Nineteenth-Century
BEG OIE tee oa tela heehee ee ene aie ch 16
Higher Education and the Origins of Nationalism ............. 35
The Authenticity of the Writings Attributed to
PACher Ose Ur eos soceerive Bae oracce ioe eo ee 44
Published Sources on the Cavite Mutiny ..............cccccceeceees (pl
The Noli Me Tdngere as Catalyst of Revolution ................. 91
Propagandists’ Reconstruction of the Philippine Past ...... 102
The Propaganda Movement, Literature, and the Arts .....119
Econonic: Factors in the Revolitions ic.c.3.se00..ssecsdecceossscssdovs 126
Wenceslao E. Retana in Philippine History....................... 134
LSCobiaerbet fs F \ Coyaig, gydeja las| Sinn sect eae aTRe BM amino Fe 156
Filipino Masonry in Madrid, 1889-1896 ................cceesees 168
Recent Perspectives on the Revolution ..............ccccccceceseeeeee 178

DIGEes piLPL POCUCEIOL ery tate re reas dw Baas wisi oxen asiieos 210
ep Ve 2s/s Mdina iiss Sheree real antergs sig pe meh Bevnany: 211
SAY “Seb s concent t viene smnetd- segthoreley ting a neadle 214
RCS SAN A. vcun interne bicinns Ue capes eeeeain liswvrtdin eve ieeebin® 216
DESO Deh ain Aad usp Aes enhia ah eonmnet 224
SSN aire ress WE sadn Oe ts ona tsaeds uapri> sygg ea ttt abnagiunatig Waa 229
BSSOVide ged Weearn Solin n-ah. wadecnuialtn. 230
PS SAV aBie testiesiaends lena- tebe dinate at da dage sinters 233
BS 8000 Js. Show tas eu tambien hppaogee 234
His6OVel O fine sce thts seein te ehy padroin eats tiat 235
DSA AN LaRi cestscacct asa ciu cds shu descdleodl coocctge Mimuigedpe tox cad ie 242
Piss Ayigd 2 icpescsdis cvscyasctippd seein Bt teh aerpia ts yas lehaveceries sans 248
EGSAVi LO bse fedensit mune tetatey Shab hin Guy 252
: “ ” .
5
' .
ee. sore

= . oat
BD Sakivesnan
.
cperiinichonneon
iF
matoors
iY, ee M ative)
; te a Gates ‘notafovell to ets A
SOL... deat smiqqilidT arid40410) (mandatgena?
Qtt.... até sit bas aructirredhy eeacill a
ne (etnsetLanyysernney HORTOVER add atterator4
2; SR qrotaill sricgiih@tat Banish FT og cand
te
| a a Tania renee EE BiereeeM anigeiled
BBE co icicisursinis-onis, SQBEORBBE SiGe gkcnoasM, onigiht” @)&
Bee eter RONDIOVER Set Ge sevitasqess? inooalt 8

BS cor espres sorrerenntriananresaneertanaieniectiot ate DOTEE Sia ae

i$ ee
0s rite saad ai
~+ te ¥RGREE -%

ry ‘ CGO
&
=-7
tu
W
Pe -) be Ea ,
-
a ; <=
4
 Introduction

The essays collected in this volume, some of them previ-

ously published, others not, are not simply disparate pieces of
research. They form something of an organic unity, a kind of intel-
lectual autobiography of my past thirty-five years of research into
the birth of the Filipino nation. Three of my major books have been
devoted to the rise and flowering of Filipino nationalism, and a
number of the essays here were by-products of the detailed research
behind those books.’ But in conjunction, they represent my own
evolving understanding of that nationalist movement and the
dynamics of its development.
The first beginnings of my study of Philippine history occurred
in between the publication of two books that mark the end of one
era and the beginning of another, which I believe has now also come
to an end. The two were Rafael Palma’s biography of Rizal, The
Pride of the Malay Race (1949), and Teodoro Agoncillo’s The Revolt
2 Introduction

of the Masses (1956). For Palma, himself one of the last ilustrados
of the Revolution (his book was written in Spanish in 1938), Rizal
was the central figure and inspiration among that group of Filipino
ilustrados who had prepared the Revolution by destroying the
oppressive and obscurantist influence of the friars and the Church.
Though even more overtly hostile to the friars and Catholicism,
Agoncillo shifted the epicenter of the Revolution to Bonifacio, whom
he portrayed as having moved beyond the ineffectual reform
movement of the rich and educated to create the Revolution out of
the hatred of the masses for the friars. My personal background
as Catholic and Jesuit influenced my initial approach to Rizal in
the context of his Catholic educational roots just as the personal
anticlericalism, or anti-Catholicism, of Palma and Agoncillo had
oriented them to see the nationalist campaign in terms of struggle
against clerical oppression. Moreover, having been able to use
numerous archival sources for the Propaganda Movement in
Europe, which Palma and Agoncillo never saw, I found much more
of positive nationalism in the Propaganda Movement than a mere
struggle for the reform of friar abuses by means of their expulsion.
From my study of Rizal and Marcelo del Pilar I was led back to
trace both the roots of Rizal’s cultural nationalism and those of both
men’s opposition to the friars, to the priests belonging to the
generation of 1872 who had influenced them. My study of Fr. Jose
Burgos in particular led me further back to his mentor, Fr. Pedro
Pelaez, whose protonationalism I found continuing to influence Rizal
and Del Pilar. On the other hand, as I traced the fates of the
surviving priests exiled to the Marianas in 1872 and their relation
to the later nationalist movement, I was in turn led forward to the
Revolution itself and the ubiquitous presence of priests who drew
their inspiration from 1872. Notable among the priests involved in
the Revolution were two who bridged the generations of 1872 and
1896—Fr. Pedro Dandan, who died in the mountains of Cavite in
1897, and Fr. Mariano Sevilla, rival of Fr. Gregorio Aglipay for
leadership of the nationalist priests, 1898—1902.
In a review of my book Revolutionary Clergy, Reynaldo Ileto
criticized it for adopting an “evolutionary” scheme of nineteenth-
century developments, a scheme contrary to those of Agoncillo and
Renato Constantino, but evolutionary nonetheless.? To this reproach,
if reproach it be, I would plead guilty. I have no pretensions of
having given the whole history of the nationalist movement and
Revolution, but primarily of the development of a sense of national
community among Filipinos, the creation of what Benedict Ander-
son has called an “imagined community.”? Such an imagined—not
 Introduction 3

imaginary—community comes into being, Anderson says, when

people who will never know, meet, or even hear of, most of their
fellow members, have alive in their minds the image of their com-
munion.* The initiative in creating that image came from above and
progressively evolved from one generation to the next. Burgos
consciously built on Pelaez, and Rizal on Burgos, just as Bonifacio
and Jacinto, as well as Mabini, acknowledged their debt to Rizal,
and, to a lesser extent, to Del Pilar. The transmission of ideals was
not always total, of course, and the heritage was transformed in its
different stages. Bonifacio and Mabini, for example, were intellec-
tual heirs to Rizal in quite different ways and to quite different
degrees, just as Rizal, Mariano Sevilla, and Gregorio Aglipay were
in quite different ways heir to the thought of Burgos.
This is history “from above,” no doubt, as well as evolutionary.
But it does not deny that there was also a history “from below,” and
a nonevolutionary one, as Ileto has delineated in his Pasyon and
Revolution and elsewhere. As I have indicated in the last essay of
this book, “Recent Perspectives on the Revolution,” I believe that
the two approaches are complementary, not exclusive of each other.
In my view, however, the current of nationalist thought that passed
through Burgos and Rizal to Bonifacio and Jacinto was clearly the
mainstream, much as it deserves to be refocused in the light of
other aspirations to freedom. This is not to belittle the role of the
ordinary Filipino, but to indicate how his perceptions of the struggle
for freedom may have been articulated with the “imagined commu-
nity” of ilustrado nationalism. That the articulation was incomplete
and imperfect is all too evident. Indeed, the divergence increased
rather than decreased in important respects during the twentieth
century, as ilustrado nationalism concerned itself principally, if not
solely, with independencia, showing little concern for the kalayaan
of the people as a whole.® Though Rizal had placed freedom over
independence, even if he did not perhaps fully grasp popular aspi-
rations, and Bonifacio and Jacinto too had more than a glimpse of
Rizal’s vision, the exclusively political and cultural elements of that
vision increasingly dominated the mainstream nationalism of the
American period. Few were the Filipino leaders who understood the
popular unrest that periodically emerged up to and after independ-
ence, or were ready to meet its aspirations.
I have tried to show, in this volume and elsewhere, the multifac-
eted composition of nineteenth-century Filipino nationalism and
the at times conflicting character of the movement’s components. In
this context, two major lines of interpretation deserve particular
mention—that based on socioeconomic class, and that based on
4 Introduction

religion, whether as a positive force or as a source of opposition to

its institutionalized form.
Though I have rejected the economic determinism found in the
Marxist interpretations of Philippine history, there is no doubt that
economic factors did play their part. The important factors, how-
ever, were not always those that have been given prominence in the
historiography of the period. Nor were they always significant in
the sense in which they have been used, as I have tried to show in
the friar land question, among others. Rather, I would maintain
that the mainstream of nationalism, whose principal articulator
was Rizal, reached directly or indirectly all socioeconomic classes,
even if, as has been noted, with quite different perceptions and
emphases. This conclusion of mine has, I believe, received detailed
confirmation for a particular regicn recently in William Henry Scott’s
Ilocano Responses to American Aggression.®
The other major interpretative element which deserves attention
is the role of religion, specifically Catholicism. Before the emer-
gence of modern nationalism, the only basis for a Filipino national
community was the common bond of Catholicism (one which evi-
dently had failed to, or was only beginning to, integrate Muslim
Filipinos and other cultural minorities). But this community was
controlled by Spanish priests, notably the friars, and could not
serve as the basis for a distinct Filipino community. The first attempt
to change that basis was that represented by Burgos, who attempted
to substitute Filipino for Spanish priests as the interpreters of
communal aspirations. To a degree, this vision persisted till the
Malolos Republic and even beyond. It was Rizal, however, as Cesar
Majul has shown, who sought to form a new—fundamentally secu-
lar—basis for the Filipino political community, whose first exempli-
fication was the Liga Filipina.’ Though secular, inasmuch as it did
not in any way rely on the institutional support or legitimation
coming from the Church, it was not an antireligious vision of the
Filipino community. Unlike other ilustrado opponents of theocratic
pretensions in Philippine society, neither in his public nor his private
writings did Rizal allow himself to be infected with the antireligious
attitudes so common in Spanish liberal circles.
When one looks at the doctrinaire antiliberalism of the nine-
teenth-century Spanish Church, it becomes evident that the Bur-
gos-inspired vision was bound to fail in its goal of uniting liberal
and clerical nationalist aspirations. Even the cautious and tenta-
tive efforts of Pope Leo XIII to moderate the unyieldingly con-
demnatory position of his predecessors met with suspicion and
 Introduction 5

rejection among Spanish Catholics.® It was thus perhaps inevitable

that Masonry should become a major, though not the only, vehicle
for the articulation of the liberal ideals of the envisaged community.
As Mariano Ponce would express it in late years, Masonry was to
serve as “a school which would provide [our people] with models for
cooperative action and accustom it to live as a collectivity.”® Yet, as
Majul has perceptively noted, the ideals of Filipino liberal thought,
though stemming from the European Enlightenment, whether
promoted by Masonry or otherwise, took a form in Rizal, Jacinto,
and even in the more doctrinaire Mabini, which evidenced their
Catholic background in scholastic philosophy, studied in the Catho-
lic institutions of higher education in Manila.’ Reflexively or not,
the attempt to create a secular basis for the national “imagined
community” did not escape its Filipino Catholic background. For all
the anathemas hurled at him by Spanish (and some Filipino) clergy,
Rizal’s thought remained fundamentally religious, and even, in a
broad sense, Catholic, in its foundations, as did that of many lesser
figures in Filipino Masonry.'! During the Revolution this religious
matrix of Filipino nationalism was reinforced not only by the active
role of Filipino priests but also by the fundamentally religious
perception of the struggle for freedom held by most ordinary Fili-
pinos, whether under the influence of the clergy or of their own
aspirations.
In the aftermath of the war with the Americans, the ambiguities
of the nationalist appropriation of Rizal’s vision would become
evident. Though the Malolos constitution provided a secular basis
for the Filipino national community with the separation of church
and state, in fact it had proceeded not from a concept of a free
church within a free state, but from the typically Spanish anticleri-
cal concept of a church subjected to the state. The religious policy
of the Malolos government under the influence of Mabini’s funda-
mentally anti-Catholic views evidenced this in its incitement and
even coercion of the clergy into schism. The ultimate result would
be an alienation of the Catholic clergy in large part from the
modernizing Filipino society developing under the American re-
gime, and a corresponding alienation from the Church of most of
the Filipino sociopolitical elite well into the 1930s." The aspirations
of peasants and urban laborers for kalayaan received attention
from neither, and found a home chiefly in a more or less nominal
membership in the weakened Iglesia Filipina Independiente, from
which they emerged from time to time in the rural revolts which
continued to erupt to the end of the American regime.’ American
6 Introduction -

colonial policy did not promote, and at times inhibited, the integra-
tion of the Muslim and other non-Christian minorities into the
national political community.
Even to the present the effects of some of these disunities con-
tinue to harass the nation, in spite of the major steps forward since
independence. In the continued struggle for a national unity that
will afford freedom and equality to every Filipino, a return to the
vision that found its most thoughtful articulation in Rizal will repay
the effort. It is my hope that these essays of mine may make a
contribution to that end.
 The Historian’s Task
in the Philippines

Political or religious controversy is rarely a conducive

context for an introduction to serious history. Such a context,
nonetheless, provided my own introduction to the study of Philip-
pine history. In 1949, Catholic bishops opposed the use of govern-
ment funds to publish Rafael Palma’s biography of Rizal because of
the book’s anti-Catholicism. One could easily have gotten caught up
in the instrumentalization of history to score debating points in
that controversy and gone no further. Fortunately, one of my
professors in the seminary, though not himself a professional his-
torian, was a scholar with a sound historical sense. He organized
for our class a philosophy seminar on Rizal’s life and thought, not
to provide ammunition for the controversy, but to understand Rizal
and his role in Philippine history by going back to his letters,
novels, and other writings in their original languages.
A study of Rizal’s writings led to a sharing of Rizal’s convictions
8 Historian’s Task

on the centrality of historical perspective for a real understanding

of the problems of the present. For a young American undergradu-
ate seminarian recently arrived in the Philippines and anxious to
become familiar with Filipino thought, history, and culture, Rizal’s
insistence on the need for Filipinos to understand their own past
if they were effectively to shape their future struck a sympathetic
note. My subsequent doctoral studies in history and the succeeding
years of historical research, writing, and teaching have only con-
firmed the main thrust of Rizal’s insight. I could hardly have found
a better introduction to Philippine history than through the life and
writings of that most historically minded of all Filipinos of his, and
perhaps even of our own, time—Jose Rizal.
It was Rizal’s consciousness of the need to know his people’s past
that made him interrupt his work on El Filibusterismo, which was
to point toward a solution to the country’s problems exposed in the
Noli me tdngere. Before planning for the future, as he insisted in
the prologue to his edition of Antonio de Morga’s Sucesos de las
Islas Filipinas, one must unveil that history which had been hidden
from the eyes of Filipinos by neglect or distortion. Having acquired
an understanding of their past, Filipinos, Rizal hoped, would be
able to “judge the present” so that all together might “dedicate
[themselves] to studying the future.”
Driven by this purpose, he spent long months in London’s British
Museum, copying out painfully by hand Morga’s account as the
basis for his picture of the past. He dug through old missionary
chronicles that would help him expand on Morga’s narrative. Thus
he would show his countrymen that, from a Filipino point of view,
Spanish rule had failed to fulfill its promises of progress for Fili-
pinos. Indeed, in some respects they had even retrogressed under
Spanish rule. Thus, in the light of their past, the present lamen-
table state of the Filipinos provided moral legitimation for the
struggle to come. But beyond that, the knowledge of their past
nurtured a consciousness of being a people with a common origin
and a common experience constituting the national identity around
which the future nation could arise.
But for all the care with which Rizal combed the chronicles and
the acuteness with which he recaptured from a Filipino point of
view the events they narrated, he was ultimately a self-trained
historian, and a part-time one at that, as he lamented in letters to
his friend Ferdinand Blumentritt. Despite his care to document his
interpretation on individual points and the illumination he gave to
the period, the book as a whole proves too much. Three centuries
of Spanish rule, for all its faults, had not been a complete disaster.
 Historian’s Task 9

Rizal himself was the best proof of that. But he had succeeded in
taking a new look at that Filipino past and uncovering the roots of
what was good and bad in contemporary Filipino society. Above all,
he was able to share with his people a sense of national identity,
which, as he once wrote Blumentritt, “impels nations to do great
deeds.”
Anyone who first studies Rizal’s historical writings and then
reads Andres Bonifacio’s call to his fellow Filipinos in his “Ang
dapat mabatid ng mga Tagalog,” will recognize that Rizal’s hope
that his edition of Morga would lay a foundation for the building
of the nation was not in vain. Bonifacio, Jacinto, and other Filipinos
of the Revolutionary generation found much of their literary and
nationalist inspiration in Rizal’s writings.
Every Filipino historian can share the basic goals Rizal thought
capable of achievement by history—understanding of our past,
cultivation of our national identity, and inspiration for the future.
Their achievement, however, is not without obstacles.

Recovering the Past

The relevant Filipino past is not merely the pre-Hispanic period

Rizal naturally undertook to illuminate. It will not suffice today,
even less than in his time, to skip over the Spanish colonial period
on the grounds that there was no Filipino history before 1872. Such
an allegation, if meant seriously, betrays more a lack of method
than a lack of history. Even with the meager resources at his
disposal in the nineteenth century, Rizal had shown that Spanish
chronicles could be mined to get beneath the Hispanocentric out-
look of these sources. With access today to an enormously wider
archival documentation, not to speak of the resources afforded by
such cognate disciplines as archeology, linguistics, and anthropol-
ogy, a great deal can be learned about Filipino society during both
the pre-Hispanic and Hispanic periods.
William Henry Scott, the distinguished investigator into so many
facets of the Filipino past, has entitled one of his works, “Cracks in
the Parchment Curtain.” There is, he says, a documentary curtain
of parchment which, at first sight, conceals from modern view the
activities and thought of Filipinos and reveals only the activities of
Spaniards. But many “cracks” in that parchment allow the percep-
tive investigator to glimpse Filipinos acting in their own world. Or
to change the metaphor, much can be learned about Filipino life
and society by reading between the lines of Spanish documents. The
chroniclers may have aimed primarily to narrate the exploits,
10 Historian’s Task

devotion, zeal, and hardships of the Spanish missionaries, but they

could not help but speak indirectly of the sixteenth-century Filipi-
nos whom the missionary succeeded in converting or failed to
persuade. Those unintended references are often much more en-
lightening to us than any number of explicit analyses of Filipino
society. For the latter often reveal as much of the writer’s point of
view and biases as they do of the people he professes to describe.
It is necessary, however, to know how to put the questions to the
documents if they are to give us the answers we look for in them.

The Formative Century

An unfortunately disproportionate amount of the total research

into Philippine history has been devoted to the Revolutionary and
the American colonial periods. That is not to say that it has not
been fruitful in itself, or that these periods are undeserving of
intensive study.
The problem is not what has been done, but what has not been
done—to lay the necessary foundation for the understanding of the
Revolutionary period. For instance, much attention (though little
serious study) has been given to the agitation concerning the friar
lands. But relatively little has been done to explore the much bigger
growth of the nonfriar haciendas—Spanish and Filipino—and the
impact on Filipino life of the general nineteenth-century commer-
cialization of agriculture. To take another example, some modern
historians have pointed to the Negros hacenderos’ quickly embrac-
ing American rule as typical of the elite betrayal of the Revolution.
But, as even a casual reading of the history of the Recoleto mission
work in Negros during the preceding half-century makes clear,
Negros was one of the most atypical of Philippine regions. The
Christianization of the island mostly took place in the second half
of the nineteenth-century. Consequently, the island was only organ-
ized into fixed settlements during the same period. Hence, whether
or not the Negros hacenderos were typical of the Filipino elite (and
there are good reasons for doubting it), Negros society as a whole
was quite different from other regions, even nearby Iloilo. And
unless history is believed to be made only by elites, then the whole
of a society must be studied. To illustrate the point, most of Iloilo’s
socioeconomic elite were close relatives and associates of their
counterparts, and like the Negros hacenderos, many of the Iloilo
elite soon went over to the Americans. But the war continued in
Panay well into 1901, long after Negros was flying the American
flag. The differences in response was not due to different elites, but
 Historian’s Task 11

to a different society below them—the provincial principales, the

Filipino clergy, the wider population. Again, the response of Panay,
particularly in its religious aspects, was also different from that of
the Tagalog region. Considerable differences in this respect like-
wise marked individual Tagalog provinces among themselves.
A real history of the Revolution, including the war against the
Americans, is still to be written—one that will study the Revolution
not just as it took place in Cavite and Malolos or Luzon, but in all
the regions of the Philippines. Such a history will show the different
degrees and kinds of nationalist response in different regions. It
will explore the variations in different socioeconomic classes of
regional societies and the political, economic, religious, cultural
reasons for these differences. But, such a history of the Revolution
will not be possible until further research on a regional basis has
been done on the century before the Revolution.

Method in History

Can history be objective? Obviously it is always written from a

point of view. Documents are not self-interpreting, and, therefore,
need a human interpreter—the historian. Being human, he brings
with him not only his viewpoint, but also his biases and prejudices.
The latter the historian should rid himself of, once he recognizes
them. Sadly, this is often not the case. But that it is impossible to
write without having a point of view is certainly a truism.
Few historians today would maintain the nineteenth-century view
that history is a science with laws as rigorous as those of the
physical sciences. But if “scientific history” in that sense is a myth,
the valid use of critical historical method is not. This method in its
simplest terms, requires the historian to base himself on documen-
tation and to draw the evidence for his assertions or interpretations
from the facts found in documents. But not only what constitutes
a “fact” but also what constitutes a “document” needs definition.
Arriving at the “facts” demands that the historian should demon-
strate in detail how he bridges the gap between the documentation
and the conclusions he draws from it. If that is so done that other
historians are able to verify this process, we can speak of scientific
method though reasoned disagreement may exist on the evaluation
of the evidence or even its selection.
“Documents,” on the other hand, need not be limited to those
emanating from government offices or even to memoirs and letters.
Other types of documents, though not relating “historical facts,” tell
us much about the facts of people’s ways of thinking or their
12 Historian’s Task

perceptions of reality. These include literary works, books of prayers,

even folk art. Since such “documents” are even less self-interpreting
than the more conventional ones, their successful use depends even
more on the historian’s ability to put the proper questions to them.
Though historians may argue about the technicalities of determin-
ing the exact meaning of such manifestations of popular thinking
and values, Reynaldo Ileto’s Pasyon and Revolution and other
writings have demonstrated that such “documents” are a fruitful
source for the historian.
It is in knowing how to put questions to a document and knowing
what questions to put that the historian’s point of view makes a
difference. One may be convinced that religion is irrelevant to life.
Thus, he will not put to his documentation the questions which
might reveal that religious values are stronger than economic factors
in moving people to revolutionary action. Another who sees reli-
gious history in terms of apologetics will be unlikely to perceive the
social and economic factors in religious movements. By the same
token, a historian’s nationalist commitment, if not too narrowly
conceived, ought to make him put new questions to the past. History
never delivers ready-made answers. But the historian’s questions
may shed new light on his people’s problems of the present.

Nationalist History

In one sense, writing history from a nationalist point of view is

to be expected from every Filipino historian who loves his country.
Indeed, why should he bother to research into his country’s history
except for the belief that a more profound and exact knowledge of
the past will help to build the future? But various types of “nation-
alist history” have obstructed, instead of promoted, the national
cause.
The prototype of all these was the eccentric and ingenious lucu-
brations of Pedro Paterno at the turn of the century on the sup-
posed pre-Hispanic past. He tried to show that everything good that
he found in nineteenth-century Filipino society, even Christianity
itself, was the fruit of some mythical inborn qualities of the race
and had existed before the coming of the Spaniards. Contemporary
Filipinos like Rizal, of course, laughed privately at Paterno’s so-
called history. Unfortunately, his books were not without influence
on later textbook writers.
Paterno distorted genuine documents. But more harmful were
the early twentieth-century forgeries of Jose Marco on pre-Hispanic
Philippines, the Povedano and Pavon manuscripts, with the infa-
 Historian’s Task 13

mous Code of Kalantiyaw. These products of a perversely creative

imagination were not only accepted but also commented on by
respectable American and Filipino historians. The so-called Code of
Kalantiyaw, in particular, found its way into history textbooks for
generations until it was exposed in 1968 by William Henry Scott in
his Prehispanic Sources for the History of the Philippines. This,
however, did not prevent a popular college textbook from republish-
ing the code in the 1970s, even while adverting to its dubious
(better said, nonexistent) authenticity. Nor did it prevent older
studies based on Marco’s pseudohistory from being republished in
1979, thus perpetuating further the distortion of the pre-Hispanic
past.
Not satisfied with having provided a spurious national past for
the pre-Hispanic period, Marco also wrote a series of supposed
works of Fr. Jose Burgos. Among these were a pseudonovel, La
Loba Negra, an alleged account of Burgos’s trial, and more than two
dozen other pseudohistorical and pseudoethnographic works, all
furnished with forged signatures of Burgos. Though the first Burgos
forgeries were already questioned before the war, these mixtures of
undigested misinformation and anti-Catholic diatribes continued to
be manufactured and published until shortly before the death of
Marco. What is sadder for Philippine historiography is that even
after I published in 1970 a detailed exposure of the forgeries,
including photographs of the true and forged signatures, these
falsifications of the beginnings of the nationalist struggle continue
to be used as if genuine.
Such attempts to make history “nationalist” as those of Paterno
and Marco, and their perpetuators, are clearly futile. Reconstruct-
ing a Filipino past, however glorious in appearance, on false pre-
tenses can do nothing to build a sense of national identity, much
less offer guidance for the present or the future. More persuasive,
at least at first glance, has been the “nationalist history” of the
1970s. The latter rightly rejects the colonialist and elitist approaches
to national history. But it likewise finds inadequate “objective”
studies of recent professional historians because these allegedly do
not involve themselves in the total effort to free the Filipino from
his colonial mentality. A truly Filipino history, it is said, cannot but
be a history of the Filipino masses and their struggles. Those
struggles have been carried on against Spanish oppression and
American exploitation, colonial and neocolonial. They continue
against the dominant classes of Filipinos who collaborate in the
imperialist exploitation.
We must indeed investigate the real effects of the colonial expe-
14 Historian’s Task

rience to free historiography from colonial myths, such as that

which can see in the first half of this century only American
benevolent guidance of the Filipino toward democracy and progress.
This so-called “nationalist” historiography, however, allows only a
one-dimensional consideration of such real and complex issues as
Spanish obscurantism and American imperialism. The determinis-
tic framework its imposes on the history of the Filipinos, which sees
the historian’s task to be merely an analysis of how that history fits
into a presumed general historical process of capitalism and impe-
rialism, creates a new myth to replace some old ones. For that
process has its source in a philosophical construct rather than in
the events themselves. The masses, whose story this kind of “people’s
history” professes to unfold, do not always think, feel, and express
themselves within this constricting framework.
To be sure, the historian needs a preliminary hypothesis from
which to investigate the past. But if the contemporary historian is
not to fall into the trap of the providentialist historians who claimed
to see the hand of God or the devil in every phase of the historical
process, then the hypothesis must have sufficient breadth of vision
to encompass all the facts. It must be ready, moreover, to alter itself
when it does not correspond to the facts. Only the dogmatist can
assert that just one way of looking at reality corresponds to the
genuine consciousness of the people.
A true “people’s history,” therefore, must see the Filipino people
as the primary agents in their history—not just as objects repressed
by theocracy or oppressed by exploitative colonial policies. It will
expect to find that the Filipino people, individually and collectively,
have not merely been acted upon, but have creatively responded to
the Spanish and American colonial regimes; that they have assimi-
lated the good as well as the bad; that they have been moved to
action and to progress by their creative interaction with other
cultures and not simply been the victims of cultural imperialism.
A historiography which studies the real Filipino people may expect
to find that religious values have not simply led to docility and
submission, but also to resistance to injustice and to the struggle
for a better society. It will take seriously people’s movements that
articulate their goals in religious terms, and not merely those that
speak in Marxist accents. It will be able to recognize, and criticize
when needed, the role religion—both official and folk varieties of
Christianity and of Islam—have played in forming Filipino society.
A true people’s history will refuse to treat the people as an abstrac-
tion manipulated by deterministic forces. A truly nationalist history
will try to understand all aspects of the experience of all the Fili-
 Historian’s Task 15

pino people, as they themselves understood it. It will acknowledge

what is valuable as well as what is harmful in the Filipino past.
There is a valid sense in which Philippine history should be
written from the point of view of the masses. Historical research
and writing should aim to undergird the formation of a society that
provides justice and participation not only to the elites of power, but
to every Filipino. Though not the task of history alone or even
principally, history's contribution is to present the Filipino past
that really was, in all its variety. Not all of that past will provide
inspiration for a better and more just society. But by depicting the
whole of reality, history will make it possible to reform and reshape
that society toward a better future. The historian as nationalist can
do no less.
 Z
Rizal in the Context of
Nineteenth-Century
Philippines

Though the origins and development of Filipino nation-

alism cannot be understood simply by studying Rizal and his
nationalist thought, neither can it be understood without giving
him central attention. But like any seminal thinker’s, Rizal’s evolv-
ing nationalist thought must be studied within the context of his
times. The purpose of this essay is to single out some major eco-
nomic, political, cultural, and religious developments of the nine-
teenth century that influenced Rizal’s growth as a nationalist and
conditioned the evolution of his thought. Without an understanding
of that milieu one can scarcely understand Rizal’s enduring impor-
tance to the Filipino people nor the relevance of his ideas and ideals
today. One of the ironies of the cult rendered to Rizal as a national
hero is that often his words, rather than his thoughts, have been
invoked without any consideration of the historical context in which
they were spoken or of the issues they addressed. Thus, it has been
 Rizal in Nineteenth-Century Context 17

possible alternately to portray the American colonial system as the

fulfillment of Rizal’s aspirations, to picture him as an ineffectual
reformist unable to bring himself to accept the national revolution
envisaged by Bonifacio, and to invoke him as patron of the ideals
of the Marcos New Society.! To sum it up in a phrase used by
Renato Constantino in a different context, it has often been “ven-
eration without understanding,” hence, no veneration at all.

Economic Development

The flowering of the nationalist movement in the late nineteenth

century could scarcely be possible without the economic growth
which took place in nineteenth-century Philippines, particularly
after about 1830. The growth of an export economy in those years
brought increasing prosperity to the Filipino middle and upper
classes who were in a position to profit by it, as well as to the
Western—chiefly British and American—merchants who organized
it. It also brought into the Philippines both the machinery and the
consumer goods which the industrialized economies of the West
could supply, and that Spain could not, or would not, supply. The
figures for Philippine foreign trade for the beginning, middle, and
end of this period are significant of what was happening.”

Year Exports Imports Total Trade

(in pesos) (in pesos) (in pesos)

1825 1,000,000 1,800,000 2,800,000

1875 18,900,000 12,200,000 31,100,000
1895 36,600,000 25,400,000 62,000,000

Philippine exports in this burgeoning economy were agricultural

products, and a rapidly growing population needed increased
amounts of rice. Thus, those who controlled large rice-, sugar-, and
abaca-growing lands in Central Luzon, Batangas, parts of the Bikol
region, Negros, and Panay profited the most. These included not
only the Filipino hacenderos of Pampanga, Batangas, and Western
Visayas, and the friar orders owning the large haciendas of Bulacan,
Laguna, and Cavite, but also the inquilinos of the friar haciendas.
By this time, many of these inquilinos were equivalently hacen-
deros in their own right, passing on from one generation to the next
the lands they rented from the friar hacienda, and farming them
by means of their share-tenants or kasamd. To the latter they stood
in a semifeudal relationship little different from that which existed
18 Rizal in Nineteenth-Century Context

between owner-hacenderos and their tenants.° The prosperity which

the new export economy had brought to some may be illustrated by
the case of Rizal’s Chinese ancestor Domingo Lam-co. When he had
come to the Bifian hacienda in mid-eighteenth century, the average
holding of an inquilino was 2.9 hectares; after Rizal’s father had
moved to the Calamba hacienda, the Rizal family in the 1890s
rented from the hacienda over 390 hectares.*
But on the friar haciendas, rising prosperity had also brought
friction between inquilinos and haciendas as lands grew in value
and rents were raised. A combination of traditional methods and
modernizing efficiency led to disputes, ultimately over who should
reap the larger part of the fruits of the economic boom. Eventually,
this would lead to a questioning of the friars’ rights to the hacien-
das. But it is a gross misnomer to speak of the Revolution as an
“agrarian revolt” in the modern sense. For it would not be the
kasama who would challenge friar ownership, but the prosperous
inquilinos. And their motive would be as much political as eco-
nomic—to weaken the friars’ influence in Philippine political life.®

Political Developments

Economic development, as it largely took place under non-Span-

ish initiatives, had important political consequences as well. Mod-
ernizing Filipinos saw the colonial policies of Spain as not only not
the causes of the existing economic prosperity, but increasingly as
positive hindrances preventing further progress and even threaten-
ing what had already been achieved. In Spain Liberals succeeded
Conservatives at irregular intervals as one or the other proved
incapable of coping with the problems of governing the nation. The
instability of these governments made it impossible to develop any
consistent policy for the overseas colonies. Worse, both parties used
the Philippines as a handy dumping ground to reward party hangers-
on with jobs. Hence, each change of government brought another
whole new mob of job-seekers to the Philippines, ready to line their
pockets with Filipino money before they would be replaced by still
others. Thus, Filipinos were deprived of those few positions they
had formerly held in the bureaucracy while the vast majority of
Spanish bureaucrats had no interest in, or even knowledge of, the
country they were supposed to be governing. If the Spanish bu-
reaucracy had always been characterized by graft and corruption,
at least those bureaucrats of an earlier day had often remained in
the country. If they too had often lined their own pockets, they had
 Rizal in Nineteenth-Century Context 19

not been completely indifferent to the welfare of the Philippines

where they were making their home. But with the opening of the
Suez Canal in 1869 and relatively easy passage between Spain and
the Philippines, most became birds of prey, staying only long enough
to feather their nests.®
Far worse in many ways than the corruption of the government
was its inability to provide for basic needs of public works, schools,
peace and order, and other prerequisites to even a semimodern
economy. Created to rid the provinces of the bands of tulisanes, the
Guardia Civil not only failed to achieve this end, but became an
oppressive force in the provinces, harassing farmers and using their
position for personal profit, as Rizal depicts so vividly in his nov-
els.” The antiquated system of taxation in effect actually penalized
modernization, and the taxes never found their way into the roads,
bridges, and other public works needed for agricultural progress.®
Finally, highly protective tariffs forced Filipinos to buy expensive
Spanish textiles and other products instead of the traditional cheaper
British ones.® In the face of a system that was both exploitative and
incapable of producing benefits for the colony, liberal nationalists
and even conservative upper-class Filipinos increasingly no longer
found any compelling motive for maintaining the Spanish colonial
regime, as it became more and more clear that reforms would not
be forthcoming. To a nationalist like Rizal the decision to separate
from Spain had been made long since; it was, as the Spanish
prosecutors noted in 1896 (with substantial correctness though with
little respect for due legal process) a matter of when and how the
Revolution should come.?°

Cultural Development

A key factor in the emergence of nationalism in the late nine-

teenth century was the cultural development consequent on the
rapid spread of education from about 1860. It has become a com-
monplace to speak of the role of ideas learned by the European-
educated ilustrados in the emergence of the nationalist movement.
But it was not just this handful of Filipinos who were important,
nor was it only the European intellectual atmosphere which stimu-
lated nationalism. In many respects, the spread of higher education
among middle- and lower-middle-class Filipinos who could not afford
to go abroad was more important for propagating the liberal and
progressive ideas written about from Europe by Rizal or Del Pilar.
The creation of a limited but substantial number (some 5 percent
20 Rizal in Nineteenth-Century Context

perhaps) of Filipinos in all parts of the country who could commu-

nicate in Spanish made possible for the first time in history a
movement that was both regional and national in scope."
One of the major influences on the educational developments of
the nineteenth century was the return of the Jesuits. Expelled from
the Philippines and the rest of the Spanish empire in 1768, they
finally returned in 1859 to take charge of the evangelization of
Mindanao. Having escaped, because of their expulsion, from the
general decline that in the early part of the nineteenth century
afflicted the Philippine church and the system of education that
depended on it, they returned with ideas and methods new to the
Philippine educational system. Asked by the Ayuntamiento to take
over the municipal primary school in 1859, they renamed it Ateneo
Municipal and opened it to Filipino students as well as the Span-
iards for whom it had been founded. By 1865 it had been trans-
formed into a secondary school that offered a level of instruction
beyond the official requirements and more approximated today’s
college than high school. Aside from Latin and Spanish, Greek,
French, and English were studied. At the same time such a role was
given to the natural sciences that. Rizal has the Filésofo Tasio say,
“The Philippines owes [the Jesuits] the beginnings of the Natural
Sciences, soul of the nineteenth century.”!?
Under the direction of the Jesuits too was that other new edu-
cational institution, the Escuela Normal de Maestros. It was opened
in 1865 to provide Spanish-speaking teachers for the projected new
primary school system. The Escuela Normal represented a hope of
progress in the minds of many Filipinos, just as it would be opposed
by those for whom modern education for Filipinos posed a danger
to the continuance of Spanish rule.'® Rizal’s picture of the trials of
the schoolteacher in the Noli, if not perhaps typical, was certainly
not completely a caricature. Jesuit sources frequently complain about
the opposition that the graduates of the Normal School met from
many parish priests.'* If further concrete proof were required, one
need only read the book published in 1885 by the Franciscan Fr.
Miguel Lucio y Bustamante. Here he denounced “[itong] manga
maestrong bagong litao ngayon, na ang pangala,i, normal” and
proclaimed the danger of studying, and especially of learning
Spanish. For, he declared, “ang mga tagalog, ang mga indio baga,
aniya, na humihiualay, o pinahihiualay sa calabao, ay ang cadalasa,
i, Naguiguing masama at palamarang tauo sa Dios at sa Hari.”!®
More than in the primary schools, however, it was in the secon-
dary schools that the ideas of nationalism were to awake, even
among those who had never gone to Europe. While still a university
 Rizal in Nineteenth-Century Context 21

student in Manila, Rizal would write in his Memorias that through

his studies of literature, science, and philosophy, “the eyes of my
intelligence opened a little, and my heart began to cherish nobler
sentiments.” And more explicitly, speaking of his fifth year at the
Ateneo, through these studies “my patriotic sentiments greatly de-
veloped.” When already in Europe, he would write to his Austrian
eh Ferdinand Blumentritt, concerning the young Filipinos in
pain:

These friends are all young men, criollos, mestizos, and Malays; but we
call ourselves simply Filipinos. Almost all were educated by the Jesuits.
The Jesuits have surely not intended to teach us love of country, but
they have showed us all that is beautiful and all that is best. Therefore
I do not fear discord in our homeland; it is possible, but it can be
combated and prevented.!”

It was not that the Ateneo taught nationalism or the liberal

principles of progress. But in imparting to its students a humanistic
education in literature, science, and philosophy, in inculcating
principles of human dignity and justice and the equality of all men,
it effectively undermined the foundations of the Spanish colonial
regime, even without the Spanish Jesuits wishing to do so. If they
did not draw all the conclusions to their principles, many of their
Filipino students would do so. The eyes of these Filipinos had been
opened to a much wider perspective than their narrow Philippine
experience before they ever set foot in Europe, and they no longer
would accept the established order.
As the chapter of Rizal in El Filibusterismo on a class in the
university or his passing remarks in the Noli show, the Filipino
nationalists were much less appreciative of the other educational
institutions, run by the Dominicans. No doubt the weight of tradi-
tion hung much heavier on these than on the newly founded Jesuit
schools and it would only be later in the century that they would
begin to modernize.’® Yet one has to remember that the early
nationalist leaders among the Filipino clergy, like Fr. Jose Burgos
and Fr. Mariano Sevilla, came from the University of Santo Tomas
without ever having studied abroad. Moreover, such later key fig-
ures as Marcelo del Pilar, Emilio Jacinto, and Apolinario Mabini
obtained their education in San Jose, San Juan de Letran, and
Santo Tomas. As early as 1843, the Spanish official Juan de la
Matta had proposed the closing of these institutions as being
“nurseries ... of subversive ideas.”!® Though the accusation of
subversion was often rashly bestowed on Filipinos, especially priests,
22 Rizal in Nineteenth-Century Context

it is clear that the university was communicating something that

stirred up the sparks of nationalism.
Nonetheless, a major factor in giving nationalism the form it
actually took was the experience of Filipino students in Spain.
Seeing the liberties enjoyed in the Peninsula, they became all the
more conscious of the servitude which their people suffered. On the
other hand, the more perceptive saw the backwardness of Spain in
comparison with other European countries, the corruption and
futility of the Spanish political system, and the system’s inability
to promote even the welfare of Spain, much less that of her colonies.
Many who came to Europe still in hope of reform and modernization
in the Philippines came to realize that this could never be achieved
under Spanish rule and that the Filipinos must look to themselves.”°
“Umasa [Filipinas] sa sariling lakas,” as Rizal would say, turning
his back on Europe and returning to his own country to carry on
the struggle there.?!
One final cultural factor involved in the rise of nationalism was
the interest in the Filipino past, largely inspired by the European,
especially German, preoccupation with history and ethnology. In
the German universities of the nineteenth century, and to a lesser
extent in other European countries, modern historical method was
examining the origins not only of the European nations themselves,
but of other peoples as well. Rizal was the principal, though by no
means the only, Filipino to see the importance of such historical
investigation for the creation of a national consciousness among his
countrymen.” Fr. Jose Burgos had already emphasized the need for
Filipinos to look to their heritage, and it was from him that Rizal
had learned that concern. To this concern Rizal joined an historical
consciousness formed by German historiography, applying modern
historical method to the investigation of that heritage. In the preface
to his edition of Antonio de Morga’s Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas,
his most important historical work, Rizal outlines the process by
which he had come to seek a foundation for his nationalism in the
historical past and emphasizes the importance of history to the
national task.”
In his annotations to the book, Rizal seeks out all the evidence
of a Filipino civilization before the coming of the Spaniards and
tries to show how the intervening three centuries have meant decline
rather than progress. At the same time he emphasizes Filipino
values, contrasting them with the Spanish and extolling the accom-
plishments of his people. If from a scientific historical point of view,
Rizal proves too much and veers toward the opposite distortion
from that of friars who had denied all civilization to the pre-His-
 Rizal in Nineteenth-Century Context 23

panic Filipinos, he did lay a historical foundation in his Morga and

other essays for a national consciousness and pride in the race
which was to prove important for the future.

Religious Developments

The growth of education was producing an ilustrado class, not to

be completely identified with the wealthy, as the examples of Mabini
and Jacinto show. These ilustrados were increasingly antifriar, at
times even anticlerical or anti-Catholic. A simplistic historiography
has attributed this hostility to the “abuses of the friars” or to the
influence of Spanish anticlericalism. Both of these factors no doubt
played their part. There were indeed abuses on the part of some
friars. There is, however, little or no evidence that these were
committed more in the latter part of the nineteenth century than
at an earlier period, rather the contrary. The reason for this attitude
among the ilustrados is to be sought elsewhere—in the intermin-
gling of the political and the religious so characteristic of the Spanish
Patronato Real, most especially in the latter half of the nineteenth
century.
As Spain became less and less willing or able to promote the
happiness and prosperity of the Philippines, the Spanish colonial
government leaned more heavily on what had always been a
mainstay of Spanish rule—the devotion of Filipinos to their Catho-
lic faith. The sentiment that animated many a Spanish official was
expressed with brutal frankness by Gov. Valeriano Weyler in 1891:

Far from religious exaggeration being an obstacle in the Philippines, it

should be supported, so that the influence of the parish priest may be
what it should be. . . . Religion can and should be in Luzon and the
Bisayas a means of government which is to be taken advantage of, and
which justifies the necessity of the religious orders.”

For this reason, even the most anticlerical of Spanish governors

maintained that it was necessary to support the friars by every
means. Writing a confidential memorial for the use of his successor
in 1872, Rafael Izquierdo expressed the key ideas of this policy:

The religious orders have their defects, their vices and their difficulties,
but in the Philippines they have two qualities which from the political
point of view are so great and so important that they oblige us to
prescind from whatever may be alleged against them. One of these
qualities is their unshakeable devotion to Spain; the other is their
influence on the natives, which even in the weakened state in which it
is today, is still sufficiently great to consider it a preserving factor. a
24 Rizal in Nineteenth-Century Context

His successor, Juan Alaminos, likewise an anticlerical, could not

sufficiently emphasize the importance of the friars. No one, he felt,
could deny their patriotism, “which verges on fanaticism, and they
make the Indio believe that only in loving the Spaniards can he
save his soul in the next life.”
That patriotism and the undeniable influence that the friar parish
priest had on the ordinary Filipino, rather than those often-recited
but little-documented abuses of the friars, explain why the friars
inevitably became the main target of the Filipino nationalists, and
of Rizal in particular.2? The same may be said concerning the friar
haciendas. For instance, although the Rizals had a land dispute
with the Dominican hacienda of Calamba, the real issue was
something bigger—to be able to show that the Filipino was the
equal of the Spaniard, even if the Spaniards be friars. For Filipinos
to win a lawsuit against a powerful friar order meant eventually to
nullify that influence of the friars which the Spanish government
so emphasized as a means to control the indios.*° On that point
Rizal and his fellow nationalists were in agreement—from a differ-
ent point of view—with Governors Weyler, Izquierdo, and Alaminos.
A letter of Paciano Rizal to his brother Jose in Europe, written
at the height of the Calamba hacienda dispute, is significant in this
regard. He wrote in reference to a rumor he had heard that Arch-
bishop Nozaleda, then in Europe, had proposed friar support for
reforms to the Filipino nationalists there, in the person of Del Pilar,
in order to end the antifriar campaign of La Solidaridad.

If the Hacienda of Calamba has any part in the compromise, I will tell
you the opinion of the majority of the people. The people do not desire
to appropriate to themselves this Hacienda, because . . . the hacienda
was handed over to the order in [1833] approximately by Asanza. But
they likewise know (because of the lack of title-deeds) that those lands
did not have the extension which they now wish to give them. In this
situation the most just and equitable thing is to mark the limits of this
Hacienda so as to declare free of all rent those lands not included in the
sale or cession, and to return the money wrongly collected for these. This
is what ought to be done in strict justice. . . . If the compromise in the
above sense will not injure the cause which you are upholding, you can
propose it so as to put a halt to the unbearable situation in which the
people find themselves; if it would be harmful, I will always believe that
interests of a secondary order should be subordinated.*!

The cause that Rizal is spoken of as upholding, and to which economic

interests were to be subordinated, was of course the opportunity for
Filipinos to run their own affairs and eventually to throw off the
yoke of Spain completely.
 Rizal in Nineteenth-Century Context 25

One can see here the paradox of Philippine Catholicism at the

end of the nineteenth century. On the one hand, the ordinary Filipino
who had not gone to Manila or abroad for higher education re-
mained in the traditional religious practices and beliefs of his
forefathers and continued to look up to his friar parish priest as
father of his people and protector against oppressive government
officials. So much was this true that during the Revolution one of
the great sources of division was the sorrow with which the ordi-
nary Filipino saw his friar parish priest imprisoned and taken
away.*? In some cases, notably among the Guardia de Honor, this
even led to violent opposition to the Revolution; in others, to such
a paradoxical situation as that of the Dominican parish priest of
Orion, Bataan, who had taken refuge in the church tower with
Spanish soldiers when the fighting broke out. When the Spanish
troops could no longer hold out, Father Herrero came down to
arrange for surrender. As he himself later told the story,

On seeing me, as if at a signal all immediately sheathed their bolos,

knelt down, and broke forth in a deafening shout: “Viva ang Santisimo
Sacramento, salamat sa Dios!, because—they added in the same
language—in spite of our continuous rapid-fire, the Father is unharmed.”
As I came down from the choir to pass to the convento, another
spontaneous shout broke forth from all who filled the place, as they
separated into two files, shouting: “Viva ang Paring Cura! Viva!”

On the other hand, the Filipino ilustrado educated in Europe

found the Catholic practice of his day childish and incompatible
with modern ideas. As Rizal puts it through the mouth of Elias in
the Noli:

Do you call those external practices faith? Or that business in cords and
scapulars, religion? Or the stories of miracles and other fairy tales that
we hear every day, truth? Is this the law of Jesus Christ? A God did not
have to let Himself be crucified for this, nor we assume the obligation
of eternal gratitude. Superstition existed long before this; all that was
needed was to perfect it and to raise the price of the merchandise.*

What was more, for the nationalists religion had come to signify a
means to perpetuate the status quo, to maintain Spanish power
in the Philippines. Rizal expressed his own mind in a letter to
Blumentritt:

I wanted to hit the friars [but] since the friars are always making use
of religion, not only as a shield but also as a weapon, protection, citadel,
fortress, armor, etc., I was therefore forced to attack their false and
26 Rizal in Nineteenth-Century Context

superstitious religion in order to combat the enemy who hid behind this
religion. . . God must not serve as shield and protection of abuses, nor
must religion.®

The picture of the religious environment in which nineteenth

century nationalism came to maturity would be incomplete, above
all for Rizal, without the Filipino clergy. Not only were Rizal and
his fellow Propagandists partly the heirs of the conflict between
Filipino secular priests and Spanish friars that had led to the
martyrdom of Fathers Burgos, Gomez, and Zamora in 1872; it was
also in that conflict that the seeds of nationalism, which were to
come to full flower among the Propagandists, had first been sowed.
Just as one cannot understand Bonifacio without knowing Rizal,
whose thoughts he imbibed and rephrased in more popular lan-
guage, so one cannot understand Rizal without knowing the influ-
ence of Burgos on him. Rizal prolonged the incipient national
consciousness, of which Burgos was the most articulate spokesman,
into the full-blown nationalism which led to the Revolution. He
would hint at that influence in a slightly fictionalized passage in an
early chapter of the Noli. In the novel Ibarra, just back from his
studies in Europe, passes by Bagumbayan, where the three priests
had been executed in 1872. Though in the novel the priest is re-
ferred to as an old man for the sake of the story, Burgos, with whom
Rizal was acquainted both personally and through his brother
Paciano, is clearly the one intended. He writes of the priest as:

the man who had opened the eyes of his intelligence, and had made him
understand the good and the just, giving him only a handful of ideas,
yet these not commonplaces but convictions that had stood up well
under the glare of all that he had learned later. . . . [His] parting words
still resounded in his ears. “Do not forget that if wisdom is the patrimony
of all men, only those of good heart can inherit it. I have tried to
transmit to you what I in turn received from my teachers, adding to that
legacy as much as I was able in handing it on to the next generation.
You must do the same with your own inheritance; increase it threefold,
for you go to countries that are very rich.” And the priest had added with
a smile: “They came here seeking gold; go you to their countries in
search of the treasures we lack. But remember all that glitters is not
gold.” The priest had died on a scaffold on that hill.3¢

What heritage had Burgos passed on to the next generation? He

transformed the century-old dispute between the Spanish friars
and the Filipino secular clergy from an intramural ecclesiastical
controversy into a clear assertion of Filipino equality with the
Spaniard, into a demand for justice to the Filipino.*’ A century
earlier the court prelate, Archbishop Basilio Sancho de Sta. Justa,
 Rizal in Nineteenth-Century Context 27

had attempted to subject the religious orders to his own jurisdiction

and to that of the government whose creature he was, by the
overnight creation of a Filipino clergy who would take their places.
The chief victims of this power play had been the Filipino clergy,
whose slow but steady growth had been accelerated at the expense
of quality. When the Archbishop’s crash program produced unwor-
thy priests, whose behavior led to the Spanish joke that there were
no more oarsmen for the Pasig river boats because the archbishop
had ordained them all, a permanent prejudice was created against
the Filipino clergy.*
The lack of friars at the beginning of the nineteenth century led
to turning over many parishes to the Filipino priests. But once the
number of friars began to increase again after about 1825, a series
of moves to deprive the Filipinos of the parishes once more suc-
ceeded each other for the next fifty years. Just when a new genera-
tion of Filipino priests under the leadership of Fr. Pedro Pelaez
were attempting to disprove the age-old accusations against them
by showing that they were equal in ability to the friars, the govern-
ment hardened its position, filled with suspicion that these priests,
as had earlier happened in America, might become the leaders of
Filipino emancipation from Spain. Pelaez died in the earthquake of
1863, accused as a subversive. His role in fighting for the rights
of the Filipino clergy was taken over by one of his young disciples,
Jose Burgos, who published an anonymous pamphlet the following
year, defending the memory of Pelaez and calling for justice to the
Filipino clergy.*° Burgos’s defense of the rights of the secular clergy
in his Manifiesto, however, goes beyond the scholarly arguments
from canon law used by Pelaez to urge the rights of the Filipino
clergy to the parishes; it blazes forth in a passionate challenge to
the whole notion of inferiority of the Filipino, whether of Spanish
blood or indigenous, to the European. Citing a long list of Filipino
priests and lawyers from the past, he insists:

If in our days we do not see more Filipinos outstanding in the sciences,

let this not be attributed to their character nor to their nature nor to
the influence of the climate nor much less that of the race, but rather
to the discouragement which for some years now has taken possession
of the youth, because of the almost complete lack of incentive. For as a
matter of fact, what young man will still make efforts to excel in the
science of law or of theology, if he does not see in the future anything
but obscurity and indifference?

With Burgos we see the first articulation of national feeling, of

a sense of national identity. One cannot speak of nationalism in the
28 Rizal in Nineteenth-Century Context

full sense. In spite of the accusations made against him, for which
he was executed, there is no evidence that Burgos ever aimed at
separation of the Philippines from Spain.” Rather, his was the first
step, the expression of a sense of those born in the Philippines being
one people, with a national identity and national rights, even under
the sovereignty of Spain. From this initial articulation of national
feeling, Rizal and others would move toward what they had come
to see was the only way of maintaining that identity and obtaining
those rights—separation from Spain; if need be, by means of a
revolution.” It is not any accident that we find numerous close
connections between the activist Filipino clergy led by Burgos and
the next generation of Filipinos who would lead the Propaganda
Movement of the 1880s and 1890s—that Rizal’s brother, Paciano,
was living in the house of Burgos in 1872; and that among those
exiled to Guam in the aftermath of Burgos’s execution would be Fr.
Toribio H. del Pilar, older brother of Marcelo, and Fr. Mariano
Sevilla, in whose house Marcelo del Pilar was living as a student
in 1872.44 The Propaganda Movement would be the heir of the
movement of the Filipino clergy, and would carry the ideas of national
identity articulated by Burgos to their next step and their logical
conclusion.
The Propagandists would also be heirs to another allied move-
ment, but one distinct from that of the clergy—the liberal reformists
of the 1860s. These were the “modernizers,” men who desired to
bring to the Philippines economic progress, a modern legal system
and, the “modern liberties”—freedom of the press, of association, of
speech, and of worship. All of these goals would of course be part
of the goals of the nationalist movement, but they were not confined
to nationalists. Indeed, most of the men who appear prominently
among the liberal reformists who emerged into the public light in
1869-72 were criollos, Spaniards born in the Philippines. These
criollos had little or no desire to see the Philippines separated from
Spain, but rather wished to see the liberties that had been intro-
duced into the Peninsula also extended to Spanish Philippines.
Such were men like Joaquin Pardo de Tavera, Antonio Regidor, and
other lawyers and merchants. (Burgos himself was a Spanish
mestizo, but he had identified himself clearly with all those born
in the Philippines, whether of Spanish or Malay blood—”sean estos
lo que son, filipinos o indigenas,” as he puts it in his Manifiesto).®
Generally antifriar, these reformists saw in the friars obstacles to
progressive reforms and modern liberties. It was with enthusiasm
therefore that they welcomed the new governor, Carlos Ma. de la
Torre, who arrived in Manila in 1869, the appointee of the anti-
 Rizal in Nineteenth-Century Context 29

clerical liberals who had made the Revolution of 1868 in Spain.

When de la Torre opened to Manila some of the freedom of expres-
sion proclaimed by the Revolution, and announced his intention of
introducing reforms into the government, these reformists cheered
him on and were joined in their demonstration by Father Burgos.
The latter saw in the new liberal government, with its proclaimed
respect for liberty and equality, the hope of gaining recognition for
the justice of the Filipino priests’ cause. Both the clergy and the
reformists were deceived. In spite of the governor’s professed liber-
alism and his cordiality, he was suspicious of both groups and had
put them under secret police surveillance.** Before long he was
succeeded by another appointee of the Revolution, Gen. Rafael
Izquierdo. Even more than with De la Torre, for Izquierdo liberal
reforms were for the Peninsula, not the colonies. He did not even
keep up the pretense of his predecessor, but quickly suppressed the
reform committees and ended even the appearances of liberty of
expression allowed by De la Torre. The clergy and the reformists
continued their struggle through friendly political influence in
Madrid, little realizing that their steps were watched.*’
When finally the opportunity came, with the outbreak of what
was to all evidence a merely local mutiny over local grievances in
the garrison of Cavite, within hours all had been arrested. Before
the month was over three priests had gone to their death by the
garrote, while their colleagues and their reformist allies were on
their way to exile in Guam, despite their political influences in
Madrid. It is noteworthy that it was the three priests who were
executed, not the reformist lawyers and merchants.* Their execu-
tion manifested Izquierdo’s conviction that the friars were a neces-
sary political instrument for maintaining the loyalty of the Filipi-
nos to Spain; therefore, by the same token, the Filipino priests who
might replace them in the parishes must be eliminated. Those who
clamored for liberal reforms would be silenced, but they were only
a passing annoyance; the clergy who represented the growing Filipino
consciousness of their rights as equal to any Spaniard must be
crushed. With the death of its leaders and the exile of their follow-
ers, the movement of the Filipino priests was indeed crushed.
When the exiles finally returned to Manila, they knew better
than to expose themselves a second time. Only with the Revolution
would the survivors, Fr. Pedro Dandan and Fr. Mariano Sevilla,
reappear in the public eye. Father Dandan would die fighting in the
mountains in 1897. Father Sevilla would work to rally Filipinos to
resist the Americans, and once more be condemned—though even-
tually reprieved—to exile in Guam, this time by the Americans.*®
30 Rizal in Nineteenth-Century Context

Many of the liberal reformists of 1872, on the other hand, no longer

returned to the Philippines once they were free, but made their
homes in Hong Kong or in Europe. For them the issue had been
precisely that—liberal reforms, rather than Filipino rights—and
when they could not obtain these in the Philippines, they lived
elsewhere.”
Since the Propaganda Movement was also heir to the liberal
reformist tradition, the degree to which the Propagandists were
truly nationalists, like Rizal and Del Pilar, or merely liberal re-
formists, like many of their colleagues in the campaign of La Soli-
daridad, would only be made clear once war had broken out with
the Americans, and the latter were offering the reforms which had
been sought in vain from Spain. To the reformists, the American
offer would be enough; it was what they had really been looking for
all along. For the nationalists, the struggle would go on till it
became hopeless.
Faced with a new colonial power, the clergy continued to play its
role in the rise of nationalism. The Americans directing the crush-
ing of guerrilla resistance, whether civilian like Governor Taft, or
military like Gen. J. Franklin Bell in Batangas and Gen. Jacob
Smith in Samar, all singled out the Filipino priest as the most
dangerous enemy and the soul of the Filipino resistance.®! At the
height of the guerrilla war in 1901 numerous priests in all parts of
the country were in prison, and not a few, especially in the Visayas,
suffered torture and even death for complicity with the guerrillas.
Though the initiative in the nationalist movement had passed from
the Filipino priests to the young ilustrados in Europe and Manila
in the 1880s, the clergy remained a powerful force in the Revolution
and the major factor in keeping the masses loyal.

Main Currents of the Nationalist Movement

In recent years certain generalizations have been used concern-

ing the nationalist movement of the nineteenth century and the
revolution that emerged from it. Such catchwords as “the seculari-
zation movement,” “the reform movement,” “the revolt of the masses,”
and “the betrayal of the ilustrados” obscure more than clarify the
character of Filipino nationalism. The same might be said of at-
tempts to describe the Revolution as a proletarian or lower-middle-
class movement captured by the bourgeois ilustrado reformists, and
other such explanations that come more from ideological constructs
than from an examination of historical realities. These generaliza-
tions may not entirely be false. But by oversimplifying complex
 Rizal in Nineteenth-Century Context 31

events in a complex society, they fail to give an account of the

reality that was.
To understand what happened in the nineteenth-century move-
ment culminating in the Revolution, it is necessary to distinguish
the several different currents that went into movement. At least
five can be considered—the reformist, the liberal, the anticlerical,
the modernizing, and the strictly nationalist. Each individual need
not be placed under one of these categories, for they certainly
overlapped. Almost all nationalists were liberals in some respect;
almost all were in favor of modernization. So too most liberals were
also anticlerical, or at least antifriar. But it is necessary to distin-
guish what was really most important for individuals or groups in
order to understand what they aimed at in supporting the Revolu-
tion, and why they did or did not continue to do so when certain
ends had been achieved.
Probably most Filipinos, certainly all thinking ones, and even
Spaniards with any interest in the country, can be called reformists
in some sense in the late nineteenth century; the Spanish colonial
regime obviously failed any longer to satisfy basic needs and desires
of the Filipino people. As intimated in the letter of Paciano Rizal
we have quoted, many of the friars themselves desired reforms.
They even appear to have offered to make joint cause with the
Filipinos in Spain to obtain such reforms, for all suffered from the
inefficient and corrupt bureaucracy, from the antiquated and contra-
dictory laws, from the exploitation of the Philippine treasury by the
mother country, and from the inability of the government to main-
tain peace and order.®? Indeed, in an earlier period the harshest
condemnation of Spanish misgovernment came from the friars. It
was only when the cause of reform began to take on antifriar and
nationalistic overtones that they opposed it.**
Though by no means all reformists were liberals, liberals were
almost by definition reformists as well. For the safeguards of personal
liberty—freedom of speech and of the press, freedom of association,
freedom of religion, and especially freedom from arbitrary arrest
and detention and exile or imprisonment without a trial—could
only be obtained with major reforms in the existing colonial govern-
ment. With the partial exception of freedom of religion, those lib-
erties were the aspiration of all the activist Filipinos who partici-
pated in the Propaganda Movement.™ Together with the demand
for representation in the Spanish Cortes, they headed the list of
reforms demanded by La Solidaridad. As Rizal would write Blumen-
tritt, these liberties were an essential component of any progress
worth the name.® So integral were the aspirations to civil liberties
32 Rizal in Nineteenth-Century Context

to the program of the Propagandists, that it is difficult to see how

anyone with any knowledge of our history and heritage could remark,
as some did in the Marcos years, that democracy and civil liberties
were an American import which can now be dispensed with. Not to
the men who created a Filipino nation long before the Americans
ever established themselves.®
In the circumstances of the time, to be a liberal very often meant
to be anticlerical or at least antifriar. Such anticlericalism was not
so much due to obscurantism, which certainly existed in some sectors
of the clergy, as it was to the well-justified fear that ecclesiastical
power would be used to suppress liberal progress. The influence of
the friar orders in the Philippines was not rarely used for this
purpose, whether successfully or not, though the religious orders’
fear of liberalism was not without basis. For church property had
so often been confiscated in Europe and the personal rights of
ecclesiastics so often violated in the name of the new freedom.”
Whether or not they fully agreed with the liberals, the Filipino
clergy were much less likely to be the target of liberal antipathy.
This was true even on the part of those liberals who cared little for
the bond of common nationality, since the Filipino clergy were
powerless to block liberal reforms, even if they had wanted to.
Modernization was a desire of all liberals, as it would be of
nationalists in general. But the converse was by no means true.
Modernization was primarily an economic goal, and many of those
who were deeply interested in progressive economic measures sought
them for the profit they themselves would derive, not for the country.
Many of these men were conservative politically. Though desiring
far-reaching economic changes in Philippine society, just as the
British, American, and other foreign entrepreneurs did, they had no
desire to create a new nation.*® When the Spanish regime fell under
the onslaught of the Revolution, conservative modernizers had no
regrets, for they realized how little hope there was of Spain ever
doing away with all the archaic obstacles to economic progress.
When the Philippine Republic emerged, they supported it cautiously,
intending to control it. When they saw they very likely could not,
or that an American regime promised more in the way of immediate
peace and order and ultimate economic growth than could the
newborn Revolutionary government, they had few qualms about
accepting positions in the new colonial regime, even while still
holding positions in the Revolutionary government. Such were men
like T. H. Pardo de Tavera, nephew of the exile of 1872, friend of
Rizal and the Lunas in Paris. Although a bitter enemy of the friars
and high-ranking anticlerical Mason, he was among the first to
 Rizal in Nineteenth-Century Context 33

accept a position in the American government. He would be one of

the first Filipino members of the Philippine Commission, though he
had been named Secretary of Foreign Affairs in the government of
Aguinaldo.® A similar case was Jose Ma. Basa, exile of 1872, who
perhaps did more than any other individual to promote the cam-
paign against the friars in the 1880s and 1890s. He was also the
main source by which the writings of Rizal, Del Pilar, and others
of the Propaganda Movement were smuggled into the Philippines.”
Together with Doroteo Cortes, former head of the Comité de Propa-
ganda in Manila which had supported Del Pilar and La Solidaridad
for five years, Basa was among the first to petition the American
consul in Hong Kong for an American protectorate over the Phil-
ippines.®!
The establishment of an American colonial government would
sort out those who had been agitating openly or secretly during the
decade before the Revolution. It would make clear who were only
reformists, or liberals, or anticlericals, or modernizers, but not truly
nationalists. For all of the former the American government gave
assurance that their main goals would be achieved—modernizing
reforms in government and the economy, civil liberties, and the
elimination of theocratical control over Philippine society; only the
real nationalists would see the frustration of the principal goal for
which they had struggled. During the earlier years of struggle this
line of nationalist thought leading from Burgos to Rizal to Bonifa-
cio, Jacinto, and Mabini, had attracted not only those who yearned
for an independent Philippines, but numerous others whose goals
were at least partially different, or who supported only part of the
nationalist program. Now the real nationalists were left to them-
selves. It would be an exaggeration to say that the masses as a
whole stood behind the nationalist struggle, but large numbers of
them did. The kalayaan they looked for might not be the same
concept as the independencia conceived by Rizal, Bonifacio, and
Mabini. But the freedom they longed for was far nearer to the
nationalists’ idea of independence than were the goals of economic
progress, political reforms, and modernization sought by many of
the ilustrados who had supported the Propaganda Movement, only
to shift their loyalties in the hour of crisis. For the goals now
achieved from the Americans had only partially coincided with those
of leaders like Rizal who had seen the struggle primarily as a
movement aimed at the creation of a national consciousness, the
making of the Revolution.
Rizal of course favored reforms in Philippine society, not only by
Spaniards, but by the Filipinos themselves. He opposed the influ-
34 Rizal in Nineteenth-Century Context

ence of the friars on that same society, for he saw them as an

obstacle to freedom and to progress. He was devoted to the moderni-
zation of his country, so that, as he put it, she might take her place
among the proud nations of Europe. But what he sought above all
was that his country should be free, free from tyrants from abroad
or at home, a country where there would not be any tyrants because
Filipinos would not allow themselves to be slaves. It was the growth
of a free people, proud of its past, working for its future, united in
a common set of ideals.“ This vision it was which made him the
center of the nationalist movement of his day and the principal
inspiration of the Revolution.
 3
Higher Education and the
Origins of Nationalism

To write of higher education and the beginnings of nation-

alism must seem a paradox to one acquainted with the nationalist
literature of the last two decades of the nineteenth century.' To say
nothing of Rizal’s scathing caricatures of the University of Santo
Tomas in his El Filibusterismo, Jose Ma. Panganiban’s harsh and
detailed dissection in La Solidaridad of the university education
open to Filipinos of the 1880s is only the most systematic of the
critiques of Philippine higher education that regularly appeared in
the pages of this organ of the Propaganda Movement.” Even the
Ateneo Municipal, which Rizal took delight in contrasting with the
other schools of Manila, did not escape the jabs of his pen. For as
the Filésofo Tasio drily observed to Don Filipo, the Ateneo repre-
sented progress only because the Philippines was still emerging
from the darkness of the Middle Ages.* Later, writing to his friend
Ferdinand Blumentritt, Rizal would explicitate, describing his
36 Higher Education and Nationalism

encounter with his former professors on his return to Manila in

1887:

Their greatest reproach was the passage in which I had put the Jesuits
at the rear of the chariot of progress. They told me that the Jesuits stood
in the vanguard of progress. I replied that this could not be, for the
Jesuits dare not accept its principles, the liberal principles of progress,
etc., for example, freedom of the press, freedom of thought, freedom of
religion. Father Faura observed that his order had many learned
scientists; I agreed, but observed in turn that science is not progress
itself, but only its material component. It is only the acceptance of its
principles which actually constitutes progress.*

Validity of Criticism

One cannot, of course, take a chapter from a novel, or articles in

a newspaper whose principal aim was to counteract the influence
of the friars in Philippine life, as objective analyses of the state of
higher education in late nineteenth-century Philippines. The latter
part of the century was precisely a period when extensive educa-
tional reforms were being undertaken; new faculties were added to
the university, teacher training was being improved in the normal
schools, and considerable expansion of curriculum was taking place
in Letran and the Ateneo Municipal.® For all its serious defects
Philippine higher education was not far behind, or, under certain
respects, was even superior to the general level of higher education
in Spain, at least outside Madrid. Perhaps the best testimony for
this is the fact that such large numbers of Filipino students were
able to move without apparent difficulty from educational institu-
tions at home to those in the Peninsula and establish honorable
records for themselves there. Rizal, of course, would find a great
distance between the universities of Germany and Philippine higher
education, but the defects of the colonial educational institutions
were rather like those of the mother country.
Rather than academic incompetence, the chief complaint of the
young Filipino students against education in their homeland was
the narrow limits of orthodoxy imposed on them, the lack of what
we would today call academic freedom. This is clearly involved in
Rizal’s reply to Father Faura cited above. All the evidence tends to
show that such complaints were justified. Indeed, one argument
advanced against those Spaniards who wished the suppression of
all higher education in the Philippines was that the existence of
truly competent higher education in the Philippines would make it
unnecessary for Filipinos to study abroad, where they might be
 Higher Education and Nationalism 37

subject to unsettling influences.® Yet, paradoxical as it may seem,

it was precisely this supposedly “orthodox” and protective education
in the Philippines which did help make young Filipinos aware of
their national identity as well as prepare them to be able to achieve
its recognition.

Education and National Consciousness

If the role of the university in society is to be an agent of prog-

ress, to be a source of ideas, to enable its students not only to
achieve the technical competence to act as doctors, businessmen,
and scientists to serve the needs of society, but also to have the
understanding and vision to direct that society toward its national
goals, how did nineteenth-century Philippine higher education play
a significant role in the society of its time?
The Propaganda Movement of the 1880s and 1890s was the period
in which the Filipino people became fully aware that they were not
merely Tagalogs, Visayans, and Ilokanos, not merely a people united
under a common Spanish colonial rule, but one people with a common
destiny of its own. Filipino love of country, of course, did not begin
with the late nineteenth century; revolts against Spanish rule had
occurred more than once over the centuries, even uniting to some
extent peoples of different provinces and linguistic groups—like
those of central and northern Luzon in the 1660s and that of 1763
under Diego Silang. But still these remained essentially local revolts
provoked by local grievances, and were always put down by Span-
ish-led troops of Filipinos from other regions. When the Revolution
came in 1896, and even more in 1898, it was no longer a local
mutiny but a national revolution. That such was possible was the
work of the Propaganda Movement of the previous two decades in
creating a national consciousness, a sense of being one Filipino
people.
This national consciousness, and the Propaganda Movement which
was its catalyst, came into being chiefly as the fruit of Philippine
institutions of higher education. No doubt that sense of national
identity was greatly accentuated by the experiences of the Filipino
students abroad, which nurtured their desire for liberal and pro-
gressive reforms for their own country. But the sense of national
identity and purpose was already present before any significant
number of Filipino students had set foot in Europe. Rather than
nationalism being merely the fruit of their European experiences,
it was the ideas and desires they had conceived as students in
Manila that led them to Europe to be able to pursue their goals
38 Higher Education and Nationalism

further. Our best-documented example of this is Rizal. Still a young

university student in Manila, he recalled in his Memorias how
through his studies of literature, science, and philosophy “the eyes
of my intelligence opened a little, and my heart began to cherish
nobler sentiments. .. .”” Immersed in these studies, he noted more
explicitly how in his fifth year at the Ateneo “my patriotic senti-
ments had greatly developed.”
Less explicitly documented but quite similar effects had appeared
even earlier in the Juventud Escolar Liberal at the University of
Santo Tomas in 1869, counting among its members such links
between the protonationalism of Fr. Jose Burgos and that of the
later Propaganda Movement as Gregorio Sancianco, Mariano Ale-
jandrino, Basilio Teodoro, and Paciano Rizal Mercado.?®
The role of the university is even clearer in the case of Fr. Jose
Burgos, Fr. Mariano Sevilla, and other priests like them who were
coming from the University of Santo Tomas in the decade before
1872. It is no coincidence that the first significant assertions of
Filipino equality with Spaniards and the first conscious efforts to
obtain recognition of Filipino capacities date from this same period
when Filipinos, especially Filipino priests, began to frequent the
University in relatively large numbers to work for advanced de-
grees.!° The surviving writings of Burgos in particular show him as
a precursor of these ideas, which would become a key theme later
in the nationalist writings of Rizal. It is significant then to note the
appreciation Burgos showed for the contribution of the University
of Santo Tomas by dedicating his doctoral thesis in theology to the
Dominican Order for having

devoted yourselves in the past—and still today—to the training of our

youth in the Humanities, in Philosophy, in Jurisprudence, in the Sacred
Sciences. . . . Who does not see the great benefits you have brought to
the youth of Manila and to all the inhabitants of these islands?"!

This dedication was not a mere formality, for even in his anony-
mous polemical writing against the friars, Burgos did not fail to
mention honorably the Dominicans.!2 Moreover, he himself formed
part of the claustro of the university and was active as an examiner
of candidates for degrees in the university right up to a few months
before his execution.
Practically all the priests executed or exiled in 1872 for their
activity in defense of Filipino rights, were alumni of the university.
Bishop Juan Aragonés of Nueva Segovia pointed out clearly, if
rather negatively, the role of the university in a letter answering
 Higher Education and Nationalism 39

Governor Izquierdo’s proposal after the Cavite Mutiny that admis-

sion to the seminaries be made more difficult.

It is not the seminaries, your Excellency, from which the worst come;
it is from those who study in the University there and the Colleges of
Letran and San Jose. .. . Every student from Manila who returns to the
town of his province is a rebel . . . . Just look at where those have studied
who took part in the past insurrection; I do not know the facts, but
without rashness I dare to assert that all or the great majority must
have been students of the University, not of the seminaries. And if in
the provinces there is any priest stigmatized as being anti-Spanish, it
is one of those who have studied in Manila."

Similarly after the outbreak of the Revolution in 1896, we find

proposals to limit education to the elementary level, inasmuch as
higher education had been responsible for the creation of an edu-
cated minority able to lead the mass of the people to rebellion. One
such proposal insisted:

We are not partisans of obscurantism . . . but neither are we in favor

of carrying education beyond the limits set for their colonies in Asia by
other nations, more practical than is ours, and more careful to maintain
in their colonies the principle of their sovereignty."®

Purpose of Religious Educators

From the colonialist point of view, Spain showed herself quite

impractical. For this involuntary testimony makes clear why there
was a truly national revolution in the Philippines a half century
before in any other European colony in Asia. Only in the Philip-
pines was the colonial power so “impractical” as to allow higher
education. This was almost wholly the work of the religious orders.
Though the accusation of obscurantism could be brought against
not a few of the religious of the time, their official policy of promot-
ing higher education among Filipinos never wavered, in spite of the
criticisms of those more concerned with preserving Spanish sover-
eignty than with furthering the education of Filipinos. An eloquent
testimony to their pursuit of the latter end, even while recognizing
the role higher education could play in the eventual emancipation
of the Philippines, may be found in a letter of Jesuit superior Fr.
Juan Ricart to the Father Provincial in Spain. He defended the
Jesuit Escuela Normal in spite of the expenses and difficulties
encountered and in spite of the charge that it would only breed
disaffection toward Spain and eventual separation from the mother
country, as had happened in America. This is an unfortunate
possibility, he agreed, but
40 Higher Education and Nationalism

whatever may be the lot of these Islands, it will always be a glory for
the Society of Jesus to have aided Spain in its praiseworthy purpose of
educating and elevating and assimilating these peoples by communicating
to them its religion and its language.’®

Source of Nationalism

If it is a fact that Philippine higher education was instrumental

in the evolution of Filipino nationalism in the nineteenth century,
and that it did provide competent leaders in that time of radical
transition in Philippine society, it remains to ask in what way this
was done. Surely the Spanish Jesuits and Dominicans who pro-
vided that education were not consciously promoting any movement
towards Filipino emancipation from Spanish rule; quite the con-
trary was true, in spite of the accusations made against them by
certain Spanish superpatriots. Rizal saw more clearly than his former
professors what the role of their education had been when he wrote
to Blumentritt in 1887, speaking of the Filipinos of Madrid then
editing the shortlived predecessor of La Solidaridad, Espana en
Filipinas.

These friends are all young men, criollos, mestizos, and Malays; but we
call ourselves only Filipinos. Almost all were educated by the Jesuits;
the Jesuits have truly not wanted to teach us love of country, but they
have showed us all that is beautiful and all that is best. Therefore I do
not fear discord in our homeland; it is possible, but it can be combated
and prevented.”

Though unfortunately Rizal showed himself somewhat overop-

timistic as to the likelihood of discord among his fellow nationalists,
his analysis was correct in its substance. It was not merely the fact
of having placed in the hands of Filipino youth the tool of the
Spanish language, nor the greater or less competence in technical
skills given them that made the educational institutions of Manila
forces towards the growth of a nationalist movement. In spite of
these institutions’ at times narrow orthodoxy and exclusivity of
outlook—unfortunately so characteristic of nineteenth-century
Catholicism, and nowhere more than in the Spanish church—and
in spite of the highly chauvinistic and colonialist viewpoint from
which they looked at the history of Spain in the Philippines,}® the
truly humanistic core of the education received by Rizal and his
companions, in literature, science, and philosophy, communicated
to them a perspective far wider than the narrow Philippine world,
even before they ever stepped on foreign soil. This humanistic
 Higher Education and Nationalism 41

perspective created a breadth of mind under which a sense of national

identity among the peoples of the world, and a sense of national
goals, at least inchoative, could come into existence and grow. To
know oneself part of a wider world than that of mere personal
experience was to have one’s mind opened to new horizons, to become
no longer satisfied with the established order, and eventually to
look perhaps very far beyond it to an entirely new one. Here
Philippine higher education did not fail the Filipino people.
This did not go unrecognized by other Filipino nationalists of the
time besides Rizal. An anonymous writer in the Revolutionary
newspaper La Repiiblica Filipina expressed it in a warm, even
extravagant, eulogy of the educational work of the Jesuits in
December 1898 in the midst of the Malolos Congress. A nation can
be free, he wrote, only when in addition to liberal laws, the people
possess, at least in a considerable proportion of the individuals who
make it up, moral freedom. This moral freedom of the individual is
the fruit of a solid intellectual and moral education, which provides
a man with a broad and independent outlook. When such exists

in virtue perhaps of the law of unity or harmony, as a man begins to

be more or less free morally, that is, as his energy of will begins to
emancipate itself from foolish fears, low instincts, and crude judgments,
he likewise begins to be strongly attracted by a free and expansive
organization of civil society... .
Let us make a mental comparison between the intellectual movement
of the time of our grandfathers and this movement of our own day which
is giving life and splendor to Filipino society. We are forced to conclude
that the extraordinary change has taken place since the sons of Loyola
. . . founded the Ateneo Municipal and the Normal School.’®

The Jesuit schools were unhampered by the weight of tradition

and consequent routine, since they were only founded in the latter
half of the century. Thus, they were more likely to be innovative
and to offer stimulation to a society in transition. They attracted
more easily the favorable attention of the nationalists, even apart
from the reluctance of men with antifriar sentiments to give praise
to institutions administered by the friars. Nonetheless the influ-
ence of Letran, and particularly of the university, cannot be denied
in any assessment of the origins of Filipino nationalism. Burgos and
his generation have already been mentioned. But such leading figures
of the Propaganda Movement as Marcelo del Pilar and Mariano
Ponce awoke to nationalism as students of these Manila institu-
tions. Even more clearly was this true of the thinker of the Revo-
lutionary generation, Apolinario Mabini, whose education was carried
42 Higher Education and Nationalism

on at Letran and Santo Tomas without his ever having gone to

Europe. Mabini’s principal biographer has noted the influence of
Mabini’s scholastic training on his later thinking, far away as he
ranged from the way of thought of his professors.”°

Failure as Catholic Schools

But if we say that the nineteenth-century Manila university

institutions contributed, against their explicit desire, to the awak-
ening of national consciousness in their students, we must also say,
ironically, that it was precisely in their role as Catholic institutions
of learning that they failed to a considerable degree. To be sure, the
anticlerical and at times even anti-Catholic character of the nation-
alist movement leading to the Revolution depended on causes in
many respects outside the reach of the educator. It had its roots,
moreover, in a general alienation of the Catholic Church from the
movement of contemporary thought, far wider in extent than the
confines of the Philippines. But the gap between the theological and
the secular aspects of Catholic education of the time can be graphi-
cally illustrated in the set of apologetic works of the Spanish priest
Felix Sarda y Salvany. Sdrda’s writings were sent by the Jesuit
Superior Fr. Pablo Pastells to Rizal in his exile in Dapitan, with the
expressed hope that they would help him see the errors into which
he had fallen. The courteous but pointed words of Rizal in his reply
convey an idea of the disparity between the theological and the
humanistic sides of the education of his student days:

I know from long past the works of Sefior Sarda, since I read them in
my college days, and in my humble opinion, I consider him the most
dexterous polemicist in spreading in a certain class of society the ideas
he upholds. Judge then, whether his works will be of great value for me.
I say this with reference to the work in itself; as to its source, it would
be sufficient even if the volumes were all blank that they should come
from your Reverence that I might profess my esteem and appreciation
for them.”}

The principal work of Sarda was a book entitled El liberalismo es

pecado, whose thesis was that to profess liberal ideas was a grave
sin, indeed the very worst of all heresies. It is not to be wondered
therefore that Rizal was not greatly impressed by the religious
education of his youth.” Similarly, perusal of the earnest letters
directed by Father Pastells to Rizal in the correspondence of 1892-93
will likely impress the modern Catholic reader, as they apparently
did Rizal, more with the affectionate zeal of Pastells to bring his
 Higher Education and Nationalism 43

former pupil back to the Church than with the cogency of his
theological argumentation.
The letters of the Spanish Jesuits in the Philippines in this
period often manifest a pathetic perplexity at the frequency with
which so many of their better pupils joined Masonry or otherwise
gave up the practice of their faith shortly after finishing their studies.
This involved not only those who went on to study in Europe, but
even those who remained at home. The phenomenon was real and
its causes were complex, not least of which was the impossible
position which the Spanish clergy had let itself be maneuvered into,
a position of identifying the maintenance of a colonial regime with
the preservation of the Catholic faith. Nor does religious faith of
course depend wholly on the cogency of the intellectual form in
which it is presented; faith is an encounter with God and a com-
mitment of oneself to Him.” But if a Catholic institution of higher
learning is to have any distinctive quality to mark it out, it is that
it should be the meeting place of secular learning and theology, that
it should give to the student a theological education that comes to
grips with the world in which he lives, whose demands his univer-
sity education is fitting him to meet.
This challenge nineteenth-century Catholic theology everywhere
showed only mediocre success in meeting, and especially was this
true of the Spanish church. It is not surprising then that Philippine
higher education failed to provide an adequate theological frame-
work for the liberal and nationalist aspirations of the growing class
of Filipino ilustrados, aspirations that it had done much to make
possible and to stimulate. It is paradoxical that Philippine higher
education of the late nineteenth-century, wholly under Catholic
auspices, as well as being directed by those committed to the
continuance of Spanish colonial rule, should have been more effec-
tive in preparing the way for a triumphant Filipino nationalism
than in integrating this vision of an emergent Filipino nation with
its Catholic heritage.
 4.
The Authenticity of the
Writings Attributed to
Father Jose Burgos

The publication—or republication—of several documents

from the Philippine National Archives and other depositories has
made it possible to take another look at a number of writings about
or attributed to Fr. Jose Burgos.) There are in circulation various
editions of what purports to be a contemporary narrative of 1872,
including excerpts from the record of the court-martial of Fathers
Burgos, Gomez and Zamora. Moreover, an alleged novel of Burgos,
La Loba Negra, has appeared in various printed editions over the
last thirty years, as well as in an offset reproduction of the “original
manuscript.” Finally, there exist a large number of other works
attributed to Burgos, some in manuscript form with the alleged
signature of Burgos, others in typescript, and a few actually pub-
lished in limited editions. Doubts have been expressed at different
times and in various quarters as to the authenticity of some or all
of these documents, but there seems to be no categorical agreement
 Writings Attributed to Father Burgos 45

among historians as to their genuinity or falsity. La Loba Negra in

particular has been the subject of several literary essays, and various
authors have made use of some of the supposed Burgos documents
in their accounts of the events of 1872. The aim of this article will
be to assemble the evidence on each of these categories of docu-
ments, so as to draw conclusions as to their origin and authenticity.

The Documents in Question

The documents—in the wide sense of the word: printed books,

manuscripts, typescript copies—that come under consideration here
are the following:
1. A narrative of the events immediately preceding and follow-
ing the Cavite Mutiny of 1872, allegedly written in 1873 by a
Spaniard who was a witness to many of the events, Francisco de
Lian. Included in this work are excerpts from the interrogation of
various witnesses at the court-martial of the three priests, and a
copy of the sentence passed on them. This work has appeared in at
least three editions, each accompanied by further biographical
material on Burgos by the respective editors.
2. The novel allegedly written by Burgos, La Loba Negra. This
has appeared in at least four different editions. One of these, as
mentioned above, is an offset reproduction of what is alleged to be
the original manuscript, signed by Father Burgos himself, and by
Gov.-Gen. Carlos M. de la Torre.
3. A series of miscellaneous works of Burgos on the most varied
subjects—Philippine history, ethnology, religious as well as antire-
ligious works, etc. The most complete list of these works is to be
found in an article by Luis Araneta, who possessed a considerable
number of them in manuscript form, signed by Burgos.” Others
exist in typescript form in the Rizal Library of the Ateneo de Manila
University.? Two of them were published in a single volume in 1941
by anonymous editors.‘ Other manuscripts or typescript copies
probably exist in other private collections. It should be noted also
that the various lists of Burgos’s writings that exist, e.g., in the
printed editions of La Loba Negra and even in the manuscript
writings, differ considerably among themselves at times, not only
as to the number of items included, but also as to the dates, number
of pages, and exact titles of these writings. They also differ from
the actual titles to be found on the manuscripts in the Araneta
collection.®
46 Writings Attributed to Father Burgos

The Historica Vertdica of Francisco de Linan

The first edition of this work known to me is entitledA la memoria

de los tres martires del clero filipino, Padres Dr. Jése Apolonio
Burgos, Feliciano Gomez y Jacinto Zamora. Leg. 117—Causa Esp.
1455. Historia vertdica de la sangrienta algarada de Cavite (1872)
recopilada por su autor Dn. Francisco de Lindn (1873) con la bi-
ografia de algunos, apéndice y anécdotas, recopilado para su pub-
licacion.® It is said to be “primera edicién,” printed in Bacolod with
the date of 17 February 1933, by A. R. de L., who is identified by
the signature on the title page as Augusto R. de Luzuriaga.’ The
second edition of this work is substantially identical with the first,
except that there is no indication of place, date, or publisher.’ A
third edition was published in 1963 with prologues by Luciano de
la Rosa, in apparent ignorance of the second edition just mentioned;
the editor in one of his prologues speaks of it as being the second
edition of a work first published in Bacolod in 1933.9 Preceding the
contents, which are substantially identical with the first two edi-
tions, there are two prologues by De la Rosa and equivalently three
title pages. The first of these, the cover, bears the title El infame
proceso incoado contra los presbiteros filipinos Padres Dr. José
Apolonio Burgos, Mariano Gémez y Jacinto Zamora, followed by the
second part of the original title. The title page itself bears the title
El proceso de los Padres José P. [sic] Burgos, Mariano Gémez y
Jacinto Zamora. Resena viridica [sic] de la algarada cavitena que
culmin6 en el infame proceso y la ejecucién en garrote vil de los
presbiteros filipinos Doctor P. José P. [sic] Burgos, Mariano Gémez
y Jacinto Zamora el dia 17 de Febrero de 1872 en Bagungbayan,
Manila. After a prologue citing articles of earlier years by Jaime de
Veyra and Teodoro M. Kalaw relevant to the trial and reproducing
a list of Burgos’s writings, the title page of the earlier second edition
follows, but with the substitution “Segunda edicién editada por
Luciano de la Rosa.” This is followed by another prologue, dated 15
May 1963, in turn succeeded by the preface of Jose Marco from the
original edition.
Though this third edition of De la Rosa adds further information
about Burgos, its substance remains the original Luzuriaga-Marco
edition of 1933. It is this substantial nucleus that will be the subject
of discussion here. Thus taken, the work consists essentially of four
parts. These are as follows: (1) a prologue, signed by Jose E. Marco,
and dated in Bacolod 1 January 1931 with the title “Cosas del
destino”; (2) “Biografia de P. J. A. Burgos y anécdotas histéricas,”
apparently also the work of Marco, though unsigned; (3) the His-
 Writings Attributed to Father Burgos 47

toria Vertdica of Francisco de Lifidn, dated Balabac, 1873, in which

are narrated certain events leading up to the outbreak of the Cavite
Mutiny and the subsequent arrest and trial of Father Burgos and
his collegues; and (4) attached to this account and forming part of
it are alleged excerpts from the records of the trial of Burgos.
In his prologue, Marco relates the origin of his work, which, he
declares, had been written by Francisco de Lifian. The latter was
a “Spaniard of pure blood,” resident in Manila in 1872, who had set
down his account the following year. These papers had been hidden
away or lost until 1911, “the date in which the present writer found
the mysterious documents which had disappeared.”!! It was a chance
find, happened upon while engaged in a search for historical docu-
ments, working “in combination with” Dr. James Alexander
Robertson, then director of the Philippine National Library. Marco,
however, does not indicate the place of his discovery nor the con-
temporary location of the documents, but says that “these docu-
ments are now safe in good hands.” There is no indication that
Marco himself was in the National Library at this time, nor that
he ever made his discovery known to Robertson.!?
The biography that follows (pp. 5-11), relating what purport to
be the principal details of Father Burgos’s life, is unsigned, but pre-
sumably is the work of Marco, since it is not part of the account of
Lifan and precedes the facsimile title page of the latter. The biog-
raphy is a mixture of fact and fancy, combining what are presuma-
bly accurate dates for Burgos’s birth, education, and other events
with highly improbable, not to say fantastic, anecdotes as well as
demonstrably false statements. A few samples will suffice. Fr.
Mariano Garcia, “a renowned Dominican educator,” is said to have
been his professor in Letran, when there is no record of any
Dominican of that name ever having been in the Philippines.!°
Gov.-Gen. Carlos M. de la Torre is pictured as immediately seeking
out Burgos on disembarking from the ship that brought him to
Manila, ignoring the greetings of the archbishop who invited him
to ride in the archepiscopal carriage, and going off to Malacafiang
accompanied by Burgos instead.* Apart from the improbability of
such a public affront to the archbishop in favor of a priest with
whom De la Torre had no previous acquaintance, the simple fact is
that Archbishop Gregorio Melitén Martinez was not even in the
Philippines at the time of De la Torre’s arrival, having left Manila
some days earlier for Rome to take part in the first Vatican Coun-
cil..5 The “biography” goes on to relate Burgos’s toast to De la Torre
at the Malacafian banquet that evening, to which the latter not only
replies “Viva Filipinas para los Filipinos,” but goes on to ask Burgos
48 Writings Attributed to Father Burgos

to pronounce a lengthy prayer before continuing the rejoicing. On

the following day, Burgos, having presided over a Mass of “Te Deum
laudamus” [sic] in the cathedral, “sang [cant6é] a beautiful allocu-
tion of his own composition to the Virgin Mother, since he had a
privileged voice and a perfect command of Sacred Music.”'® So
ridiculous does the biography become at some points that it would
not be worth attention were it not for its relation with other writ-
ings attributed to Burgos himself.
The narrative of Lifidn is of much the same quality. Burgos is
pictured as holding the nonexistent office of “Visitador general de
las 6rdenes religiosas,” making a mortal enemy of the archbishop
by his efforts to give equal rights to Spanish and Filipino priests
in the parishes.!” He is said to have been seconded by Fr. Jacinto
Zamora, parish priest of Bacoor, and aided by the wealth of Fr.
Feliciano Gomez.'® The parish priest of Bacoor was actually Father
Gomez, whose name was of course Mariano, and who did actually
make substantial financial contributions to the campaign for the
rights of the Filipino secular clergy. The dramatic scene of the
narrative is the supposed interview witnessed by Lindan from an
alcove from which he could hear all. Here the archbishop demanded
from Governor-General Izquierdo that the latter do away with the
group of Filipino priests led by Burgos, and offered him manufac-
tured proofs against the priests, prepared in the press of the
Augustinian Asilo de Huérfanos.’® First, we find here the anachro-
nism of the forged “proofs” being prepared in a printing press not
yet in existence then.” Second, the whole episode contradicts the
letter of the archbishop to the regent in Spain, protesting against
the suspicions being leveled against Filipino priests.”1 And third, it
is also inconsistent with the archbishop’s plea for clemency in
February 1872 for any who might be found guilty and with his
refusal to defrock the three priests condemned to the garrote.”
The clearest fabrication of all, however, is the alleged .excerpts
from the court-martial of the three priests, included in Lifidn’s
supposed account. As early as 1908, Wenceslao E. Retana, the
Spanish biographer of Rizal, had called attention to the disappear-
ance of the records of the court-martial of the three priests, affirm-
ing that they were not to be found in the archives or offices of the
Spanish Ministry of War.” A few years later, however, without
claiming to have found the full record of the court-martial, Manuel
Artigas y Cuerva published in his Los sucesos de 1872 a transcrip-
tion of the sentence passed on those nonmilitary figures who re-
ceived severe penalties from the court-martial—Fathers Burgos,
Gomez, and Zamora, and the laymen Francisco Zaldua, Maximo
 Writings Attributed to Father Burgos 49

Inocencio, Crisanto de los Reyes, and Enrique Paraiso.2‘ He like-

wise included brief excerpts from the testimony given by Zaldua
and some others.” Artigas mentioned no source for his documents,
and since his account is clearly incompatible with that given by
Lifidn-Marco, the question of which author is giving an authentic
account naturally arises. According to the Lifidn-Marco account, the
tribunal was composed of Horacio Sawa, F. O. Esguerra, and J. M.
Oreu, and the defense attorney of Burgos was Captain Fontviel
[sic]. According to Artigas’s account, the tribunal was presided over
by Lt. Col. D. Francisco Moscoso y Lara, and had as its members
the officers D. José Cafiizares, D. Enrique Tobar, D. Eustacio Gijon,
D. Federico Novellas, D. Francisco Salado, and D. José Montalbo.
The texts of the sentence in the two accounts completely differ from
each other, to say nothing of numerous other contradictions be-
tween the two. The genuinity of at least the sentence in Artigas’s
account and the consequent falsity of the Lifidan-Marco document
have been made clear by the location of a signed document contain-
ing the sentence and the presiding trial officers.”
The evidence assembled here leads to only one conclusion, that
the Historia vertdica of Francisco de Lifian, together with its annexes
and “documents,” is a forgery and of no historical value. A careful
comparison of the account given by Montero y Vidal in his Historia
general de Filipinas with the work of Lifidn will show the ineptness
with which the latter work was composed.?’ For instance, the
Lifdn document selects random names from Montero’s account,
e.g., of the battle in Cavite, for the presiding officer of the court-
martial and the defender of Burgos. It also repeats the inadvertence
of Montero at one point (but corrected everywhere else in his account)
in confusing Fathers Mariano and Feliciano Gomez, and misunder-
stands a sentence in Montero’s account, so as to make Father Zamora
parish priest of Bacoor.” Significantly, although Marco claimed to
have found the Lifidn document in 1911, just at the time when
Artigas was first beginning to publish his account, he did not venture
to publish it until 1931.7? By then Artigas was already dead and
unable to give the source for his genuine, if somewhat carelessly
published, account, which would have demonstrated the nongenu-
inity of the Lifian document.”

La Loba Negra

The novel attributed to Burgos, La Loba Negra, is closely related

to other unpublished works alleged to have been authored by him,
and has certain obvious points of contact with the apocryphal Linan
50 Writings Attributed to Father Burgos

account. But for clarity’s sake, it can perhaps best be treated

separately, judging it on its own merits, before investigating its
relationship to other works. Unpublished during the lifetime of
Burgos, it seems first to have appeared publicly in 1938 when it is
said to have been published in a limited edition of one hundred
copies by Augusto R. de Luzuriaga, the earlier publisher of Lifidn’s
Historia veridica. This edition is unknown to me and its existence
is inferred from its mention by Hermenegildo Cruz in his biographi-
cal essay on Burgos in 1941.*! Referring to the copyright by Luzu-
riaga, Cruz says:

This gentleman, now deceased, is in no way related to the author [Burgos].

In his application for registration of the above-mentioned work, presented
to the National Library, he has not included any document which might
certify his right to the literary ownership of the book except for his own
declaration in the printed form claiming ownership. But no one knows
by what right, since he does not affirm that he is the author, nor even
that he is the heir of the author. . . . Yet when the book was printed,
the following words appeared on the title-page: “Literary rights are
reserved by the publisher, in accordance with a legal agreement with
the owners of the original.”%?

Cruz himself published considerable excerpts from the novel in

his book on Burgos, but again without indicating their provenance,
though he mentions the existence of a large number of other Burgos
manuscripts. A few weeks after the publication of the original
article of Cruz on which his later book was based, Pio Brun, editor
of the review Democracia, began the publication of the novel by
installments.™ La Loba Negra was to be the first volume of a proposed
collection entitled “Escritores Filipinos del siglo XIX.” The volume
seems to have remained incomplete due to the outbreak of the war
and the death of Brun at the hands of the Japanese.**
The edition commonly used today is that published in 1958 by
Luciano de la Rosa, who denominated it “Primera edicién.”3? He
refers in his prologue to the incomplete edition of Brun, but mentions
no prior publication by Luzuriaga. Two years later, perhaps spurred
on by doubts expressed as to the authenticity of the edition of De
la Rosa, there appeared an offset reproduction of “the original
manuscript” of the novel, again without indication of its location or
provenance.*®
Before considering the internal evidence with regard to the
authorship of the novel, common to all its editions, it will simplify
our task to give prior attention to this “original manuscript.” For
there is clear evidence that, whatever may be the relation of this
 Writings Attributed to Father Burgos 51

manuscript to the published printed editions and whatever may be

said of the genuinity of these latter, the so-called original manu-
script is in fact a forgery. This assertion rests principally on two
facts: (1) the evidences in the manuscript text itself that it has been
copied from some other source, be that other source printed or
manuscript; and (2) the false signatures of Father Burgos and
Governor-General De la Torre in the manuscript. Certain other
points, not by themselves probative, confirm the evidence under the
first two headings.
Before treating these points, a brief description of the “original
manuscript” edition is in order. It consists of 276 pages, written in
a generally legible hand, on official stamped paper of 2 reales, such
as was required for official documents during the Spanish regime.*9
Every second page is authenticated in the margin with the initials
“J.A.B.” (i.e., Jose Apolonio Burgos). The text of the novel, as found
in the printed editions, ends on page 268 with the words “Consuma-
tum [sic] est.” This, however, is followed by a kind of epilogue, sum-
marizing the story and closing on page 275 with the signature “Jose
Apolonio Burgos,” and the date “18 dias Julio [sic] de 1869.” This
is followed by a certification continuing on to the next page, signed
by the “Archivero de la Real Audiencia, Antonio de Guzman” to the
effect that he had received the manuscript totaling 176 /sic] pages
initialed by their author and that he had been reimbursed for the
cost of the stamped paper by Governor-General de la Torre to the
amount of 136 reales fuertes. This certification is countersigned by
the governor-general himself, as may be seen in the accompanying
photographic reproductions of the pages.*°
When one turns to examine the text itself, a careful reading of
certain sections reveals unfinished words or omissions of words,
and even of whole lines and paragraphs. All of these clearly show
that this “original manuscript” has been copied from another source.
For example, the sentence quoted below from the manuscript edi-
tion makes no sense because in starting page 44 the copyist lost
sight of the point at which he had ended page 43, and thus omitted
essential words:

Usia (contesté uno); estA ausente con motivo de [p. 44] en el puerto de
Cavite del galeén Sto. Cristo de Burgos.

A comparison with the corresponding passage in the printed edition

of 1958 shows (along with other verbal variations) that the writer
of the “original manuscripts” missed the words “la llegada” in the
text he was copying from, as he turned the page in his manuscript:
52 Writings Attributedto Father Burgos

Usia ese sefior se halla ausente con motivo de la llegada al puerto de

Cavite del galeén Santo Cristo de Burgos.*!

Another similar instance of this type of copyist’s error may be

seen in the passage that reads as follows in the two versions:

1960 “original manuscript” 1958 printed edition

tres sacos de onzas de oro y dos tres sacos de onzas de oro y dos
cajas que son en total 12 mil reales cajas de plata que son en total 12
fuertes. mil reales fuertes.

The omission in the manuscript of the phrase “de plata” of the

printed edition deprives the sentence of good sense.”
Neither of these examples nor other similar ones that could be
multiplied here necessarily proves that the 1960 “original manu-
script” was copied directly from the 1958 printed edition, and the
considerable verbal variations could even be used as an argument
that it was not, at least not carefully. It could have been based on
one of the printed editions, however, roughly paraphrasing the sense
at some points, attempting to copy it literally at others. Or it could
have been copied from another source. But what is clear in any
explanation is that it is a copy and not the original manuscript of
Burgos it purports to be, in spite of the alleged certifications and
signatures.
The detection of forged signatures is a delicate and uncertain
task for one who is not a professional handwriting expert, as the
controversies surrounding the authenticity of Rizal’s signature on
his retraction of Masonry should make clear. Even the intelligent
and observant amateur can scarcely have great certainty in distin-
guishing between a genuine signature and a skillful attempt to copy
it. But in the case at hand there are several factors that allow us
to come to more certain conclusions. The first of these is that'in the
extant, and certainly genuine, signatures that we possess of Father
Burgos, he always signs himself simply “Jose Burgos.” This is true
of all the documents that have been examined in the archives of the
archdiocese of Manila and likewise those from the Philippine
National Archives.** The only place, as far as I am aware, that the
signatures “Jose Apolonio Burgos” or “Jose A. Burgos” or the ini-
tials “J.A.B.” appear is in this “original manuscript” whose authen-
ticity is here in question, and in the other manuscripts to be
considered in the next section of this article, which are themselves
even more obviously forgeries.
 Writings Attributed to Father Burgos 53

The second factor is that since the presumed forger did not have
at hand authentic signatures of Burgos nor of De la Torre, he had
no models to imitate. Thus the great discrepancy between the
certainly genuine signatures and those on the alleged “original
manuscript” is obvious to the most untrained eye. Particularly
notable is the absence of the characteristic rubrica or intricate
flourish beneath the signatures on the “original manuscript.” No
educated Spaniard in the nineteenth century signed his name
without the characteristic rubrica.*4
Given the evidence outlined here, it will not be necessary to do
more than indicate a few other implausibilities of the “original
manuscript,” limiting ourselves to the sections that do not appear
in the printed versions. Can any plausible reason be given why a
novel should be written on the stamped paper demanded for official
documents? Or is there any probable reason why the governor-
general would himself authorize the disbursement of funds neces-
sary to pay for such paper, which, incidentally, was of a date thirty
years earlier than the supposed date of composition and therefore
invalid? Is it likely that De la Torre, some six weeks after his
arrival, would have ordered that a mediocre, and, from a Spanish
point of view, subversive novel written by a Filipino priest previ-
ously unknown to him, be filed in the Archive of the Royal Audi-
encia (if there was such an archive).* Is it likely on the other hand,
that this same governor-general who collaborates in the preserva-
tion of the manuscript in the archives is the one who put Burgos
under surveillance and warned the archbishop that this priest was
among those suspect of disloyalty to Spain?“
What has been said to this point discredits only the alleged
“original manuscript” edition of La Loba Negra. The fact of the
inauthenticity of this manuscript, however, does not necessarily
exclude that the printed editions may have been based on some
other authentic manuscript, and therefore be a genuine work of
Burgos.
Before analyzing the internal evidence of the printed editions of
the novel, however, we must consider its structure and plot. As a
matter of fact, it can scarcely be called a novel, but is rather a
rambling chronicle, interspersed with comments, reflections, and
amplifications by the “novelist.” Allegedly it is based on the book
of a Spaniard called Pedro Alejo de Mendoza, entitled Las Crénicas
de los Acontecimientos de Manila, written in 1793.” So confused is
the mixture that it is sometimes difficult to know whether at a
particular point one is reading Mendoza’s “historical” data or the
Fig. 1. Alleged signature
F ig. 2 Genui ine signa ture
Fig. 3. Genuine signature
Fig. 4. Alleged signature
58 Writings Attributed to Father Burgos

novelist’s reconstruction of it, particularly since the subtitle of the

work insists that it is a “novela historica (vertdica).”
The story revolves around the assassination of Gov. Gen. Fer-
nando de Bustamante y Bustillo in 1719 by a mob led or instigated
by friars. After the death of her husband, the widow of Bustamante
resolves to avenge his death. Making herself the leader of a band
of tulisanes or bandits, “La Loba Negra” strikes terror into the
countryside, above all concentrating on the assassination of various
friars responsible for her husband’s death. After her death in battle,
she is succeeded by her daughter, known as “Sargenta Betay.”
Chapter 8 ends dramatically, referring to the latter:

Who is this mysterious woman? Did the authorities succeed in capturing

her alive? Let us see what this true narrative relates further on, and
let us see if this unfortunate woman had the right or not to take revenge
on certain ones.*®

Having thus prepared the reader for exciting episodes in the life of
Sargenta Betay, the novel suddenly breaks off the narrative, and
concludes the following chapter with reflections of the author on the
future of the Philippines.*? It is almost as if the novelist had for-
gotten what he had written, and merely inserted this independent
essay at the end of his book.
Apart from the plot and structure, a second characteristic that
strikes the reader familiar with Spanish is the notably deficient
grasp of the language, scarcely credible in one whose father was a
peninsular Spaniard, who was educated in the Spanish-speaking
college and university of Manila, was reputed to be of the most
superior talent, and was promoted to high positions in the Church.
The strange inability of Burgos to express himself coherently in
Spanish becomes even more strange if one compares the language
of La Loba Negra with that of the undoubtedly genuine, though
anonymous, pamphlet of Burgos written to defend the memory of
Father Pelaez after the latter’s death.®! The deficiency of the novel
in this respect is so glaring that, when republishing it in 1958,
Luciano de la Rosa was moved to apologize for it:

The reader will have remarked in the novel not a few stylistic faults
[(“incorrecciones de estilo”] in the expression of the thoughts. All this,
however, can be attributed to the situation of the days in which it was
written and prepared by Father Burgos, and does not diminish as a
whole the historical foundation of the novel.5?

To another reader, however, the stylistic incorrectness is clearly the

effect of a lack of command of the Spanish language rather than
 Writings Attributed to Father Burgos 59

merely the fruit of hurried composition. This becomes more obvious

if he keeps in mind the example of the Manifiesto cited above, itself
composed in some haste for journalistic purposes, but without the
incorrectness of style and language. It is not credible to think that
the same person wrote both works.
Related to the matter of language is the resemblance in style and
language in a number of instances between La Loba Negra and the
works of Rizal, especially his novels. Hermenegildo Cruz made this
the theme of his small book published in 1941, El P. Burgos, precursor
de Rizal, and attention has been called to various passages of marked
similarity by other writers since. There can be little doubt of the
influence of Burgos, or at least of Burgos’s tragic fate, on Rizal and
his thought, but a closer look at some of the supposed echoes of
Burgos in Rizal’s works might suggest that it was rather Rizal’s
writings that influenced certain passages in La Loba Negra. A
comparison of the similar passages will likewise show the limited
command of the Spanish language possessed by the author of the
latter work in comparison to Rizal whom he attempted to imitate.
An example may be found in the words pronounced by Father
Florentino in the closing paragraph of the El Filibusterismo after
hurling Simoun’s casket of jewels into the ocean, and those pro-
nounced by the widow of Bustamante, “La Loba Negra,” in the
presence of the friar whom she is about to have executed by her
band of tulisanes.™

El Filibusterismo La Loba Negra

jQue la naturaleza te guarde en Allfen el cementeriodescansa[the

los profundos abismos, entre los body of her husband]. . . . Con él
corales y perlas de sus eternos quedan tambien sepultados en el
mares! Cuando para un fin santoy archivo de este pais los anales.
sublime los hombres te necesiten, Para cuando la humanidad y la
Dios sabra sacarte del seno de las justicia de estos naturales lo
olas. .. . Mientras tanto, allf no necesiten para un fin sagrado ya
hardas el mal, notorcerasel derecho, sabran sacarlos de sus polvorientos
no fomentardas avaricias! cajones con un espiritu de
imparcialidad y justicia y hacerla
[sic] conocer al mundo.

The interrelation of the two passages with their reference to a

treasure lying hidden until needed by men for a sacred end, is
evident. But it is hard to conceive of Rizal having been inspired to
his poetic conception by the prosaic and forced image of La Loba
Negra; rather the latter is the clumsy attempt to imitate the image
created by Rizal.
60 Writings Attributed to Father Burgos

The same clumsiness in the use of images may be seen in the

echoes of Rizal’s Ultimo Adios to be found in Burgos’s supposed
apostrophe to his countrymen.

Ultimo Adios La Loba Negra

Y cuando en noche oscura, se Entonces olvidadme [sic]... mas

envuelva el cementerio, si algun dia oyeras en su [sic]
Y solos s6lo muertos queden silencio el sencillo cAntico de un
velando allf; pajarillo, soy yo, yo que te ruego
No turbes su reposo, no turbes a t{, querido hermano, defiendas
el misterio; tu tierra querida, tus hermosos
Tal vez acordes oigas de citara valles . . . entonces solamente
o salterio: estaré tranquilo en aquel reino de
Soy yo, querida Patria, yo que verdad, donde lainjusticia no pone
te canto a tf. sus pies, el verdadero reino de
ee bondad.
Entonces nada importa me
pongas en olvido;

Voy donde no hay esclavos,

verdugos ni opresores;
Donde la fe no mata, donde el
que reina es Dios.

One final example is the similarity of theme and details between

Don Emilio Melgar and his wife of La Loba Negra and Rizal’s
Simoun.*® Like Simoun, Melgar is a fabulously wealthy jewel
merchant who goes about the provinces under this guise for months
at a time. Again like Simoun, his origin is unknown, some thinking
him from New Spain, others, the Antilles or the British Indies.
Simoun’s disguise serves his purpose of stirring up discontent in
different parts of the country without his travels falling under
suspicion. In contrast the disguise adopted by Sargenta Betay, the
daughter of Bustamante, and her husband, a leader of the tuli-
sanes, which serves to bring them down from the mountains into
the walled city of Manila, (presumably so as to ascertain the con-
dition of its defenses), culminates in nothing more than an attack
on the outlying suburb of Dilao. The entire episode seems pointless
in La Loba Negra, whereas the assumed role of Simoun as por-
trayed in El Filibusterismo is essential to the plot of the entire
novel. It seems difficult to assume that Rizal would have conceived
such a figure from the fleeting episode of the Melgars in a supposed
Burgos manuscript to which he had access, but the interdependence
of the two figures seems clear. One should conclude then that it is
 Writings Attributed to Father Burgos 61

La Loba Negra that depends on El Filibusterismo, rather than the

contrary.
Further analysis of the text of the novel reveals that if one
accepts it as a genuine work of Father Burgos, the supposed priest-
novelist is so unfamiliar with ecclesiastical terminology as to speak
of “administering confession” (“le administrara la confesién”).®” In
such case he will also have to be a priest holding a high position
in church administration so unfamiliar with the division of eccle-
siastical territories as to put a Dominican in an Augustinian parish
and a Recoleto in a Franciscan parish. Accepting the Burgos
authorship, one will have to suppose a resident of Manila who
thought that the then suburban district of Manila known as Dilao
in the eighteenth century was the Ermita of his own day, rather
than Paco.®® Stranger still for an inhabitant of Manila, he is under
the illusion that the chapel in the district of Ermita he identifies
with Dilao could be three leguas (over eleven kilometers) from one
in Malate.® Finally, this exemplary priest-novelist who was praised
for his religious spirit by some who disagreed with his activity in
the secularization controversy must have been all the while a
consummate hypocrite, secretly holding such a contempt for the
religion whose priest he was, as to hold up to Filipino mothers the
following ideal for their daughters:*

Do not permit that they be for a moment under the sway of religious
fanaticism; see to it that they learn the great achievements of their
companions in foreign countries, where they have substituted the book
of sciences for the rosary, the classrooms for the church and their room
in their own homes for the confessional.”

Some explanation might possibly reconcile one or other of the

inconsistencies pointed out here. But to explain them all would
require more ingenuity than can be demanded of a serious histo-
rian. Not only is the supposed “original manuscript” reproduced by
offset printing in 1960 a forgery, but so is the novel itself in all its
editions, no less than the apocryphal account of Francisco de Lifidn.

Other Works Attributed to Burgos

Were further confirmation needed of the fact that La Loba Negra

is not the work of Burgos, such a confirmation can be found in the
other published and unpublished works attributed to him. An
analysis of them points to their all having proceeded from the same
source, and likewise indicates that the ultimate source is the same
62 Writings Attributed to Father Burgos

as that of the novel. Our procedure will be to examine individual

works or homogeneous groups of works one by one, to establish in
each case that none of them was actually written by Burgos. In the
process, it will be possible to indicate their source and something
of the history of their composition.
The first of these writings to emerge into public notice was entitled
P. Dr. José A. Burgos, martir filipino. Obras escogidas.® Volume I,
the only one known to have been published in this series, contains
the two works mentioned in note 4 above, each part being preceded
by a photograph of the title page of the “original manuscript,” signed
by “Jose A. Burgos,” with the respective dates 1864 and 1866. The
book contains an introduction by “Los Editores” (anonymous), which
gives no hint as to where these alleged writings of Burgos may have
come from, or why they came to light only at this late date. The
alleged prologue of Burgos mentions the “Archivo de la Real
Audiencia de S.M.” (so often referred to as a source in La Loba
Negra) as the depository from which he has culled so much infor-
mation about pre-Hispanic Filipino society with precise references
to the legajos (bundles), cajones (boxes), and estantes (shelves) in
which these documents are to be found.** But inasmuch as no
indication of how Burgos was admitted to such an extensive and
detailed examination of the archive of the Audiencia is given, anyone
having any notion of the jealous relations existing between the
Audiencia and either civil or Church authorities will be more than
a little incredulous. Such incredulity can only increase when one
reflects on the enormous mass of documentation of the Spanish
bureaucracy (what remains of it today in the Philippine National
Archives is estimated at over eleven million pages), and tries to
imagine how a man like Burgos, holding various positions in the
Church, could have had time in these few years to have searched
through all this vast material culling out occasional stray refer-
ences to pre-Hispanic Philippines.
Even a cursory examination of the contents of the book will
confirm the historian’s incredulity. Chapter 6, for example, describes
at great length the gradual awakening of the Philippines in the
period between the middle of the eighteenth and the middle of the
nineteenth centuries in terms that are actually a description of the
last two or three decades of the nineteenth century—e.g., demon-
strations against the priests, the spread of the liberal ideas of
Europe and a knowledge of events in other parts of the world in
Manila “and other principal towns.”® The author continues by
“prophesying” that religion will in the future ally itself with oppo-
sition to the movement for reform, so that priests will become “objects
 Writings Attributed to Father Burgos 63

of scorn, ill will, and distrust among our own countrymen.” As a

result of this, the author “foresees” even into the twentieth century
when perhaps “our own fellow countrymen may come to form in our
beloved country new religious groups, perhaps another more liberal
nation may bring them into this country.” Even more remarkably
for a book allegedly written in 1866, he goes on to quote the book
of Jagor (calling the latter a writer of the eighteenth century),
which was published in German in 1873 and translated into Spanish
in 1875.®’ A different manifestation of the author’s carelessness
with time periods is the seventh chapter of this book, supposedly
dealing with the pre-Hispanic Filipino, which is devoted to a de-
scription of a fiesta at which Burgos and his father were present.
The scene is replete with characters, ideas, and expressions taken
from the description of the supper at the house of Capitan Tiago in
the opening chapters of Rizal’s Noli me tdngere.®
After this, it would be superfluous to attempt any detailed analysis
of the second work in the same volume beyond noting that its title
page is similarly graced with a “signature” of Burgos, and proclaims
that its data have been “extracted from the Museums of Great
Britain, France and Portugal... ,” though no indication is given
of how Burgos, who never left the Philippines, was able to explore
the contents of these European museums.” Though the book is
replete with citations of such standard chroniclers as Zuniga, San
Agustin, and San Antonio (never, however, supplying page num-
bers), it overreaches itself when it cites “Ferrando and Fonseca in
their modern Historia de Filipinas, Madrid, 1870,” quite unaware
that a work allegedly written in 1864 is citing from a book pub-
lished six years later.”
Some indications of its real author may be gathered from a few
random details clearly related to the so-called Povedano manuscript
of 1578, a spurious work that has been shown to have its source in
the same Jose E. Marco responsible for the Historia vertdica of
Lifidn.7! For example, we learn that the primitive name of the
Philippines was Iraya (p. 73), that the island of Negros had as one
of its rulers the “reyesuelo Manapola” (p. 97), and that the primitive
Negritos had practiced trepanation of skulls (p. 7). All these details
are unknown to historians except from the spurious Povedano
manuscript, and would thus indicate that likewise these spurious
Burgos manuscripts proceeded from the same source.”
Unfortunately, these two forgeries were only the beginning of a
series of “Burgos manuscripts” that continued to come to light in
1941. The month following the appearance of the above works there
appeared in the June 18 number of La Vanguardia the lengthy
64 Writings Attributed to Father Burgos

article by Hermenegildo Cruz referred to earlier, which was pub-

lished in book form the following November under the title El P.
Burgos, precursor de Rizal.” In this book Cruz mentions that Burgos
had left more than forty other manuscripts, in addition to the novel
La Loba Negra, of which two had recently been published, those
discussed above.” A few weeks later the complete text of the La
Loba Negra began to be serialized by Democracia of Pio Brun. In
Brun’s preface appears the following statement, which casts some
light on the relation between the various “Burgos manuscripts”:

[Burgos] left an enormous number of unpublished books and essays,

which are completely unknown to his countrymen. .. . He himself already
says in the prologue to his work “Mis Ultimas Memorias,” foreseeing the
persecution of which he would be the object after the departure of
Governor de la Torre, “May it come to pass in some future day that a
loving hand, perhaps a beloved countryman, may publish these notes,
as humble as they are sincere. .
This request of his we take up.”

It is clear from this passage that Brun had access to not only La
Loba Negra but also “Maremagnum o sea Mis ultimas memorias.”
This work purports to be Burgos’s account of De la Torre’s term as
governor-general, 1869-71, and exists today in a typescript copy
with an introduction by Hermenegildo Cruz.”* Since Cruz also had
a copy of La Loba Negra and also mentions a large number of other
Burgos manuscripts, it is reasonable to suppose that the two men
were working together to publish these works, Brun making avail-
able the facilities of Democracia for the publication of the manu-
scripts that were in the possession of Cruz or to which the latter
at least had access. A beginning was made with La Loba Negra, and
had the war not intervened other works too would perhaps have
appeared in print in Brun’s announced series.” This would explain
the existence of the typescript copy of “Maremagnum” though Cruz
speaks in the introduction only of circulating it among friends. The
typescript works in the Ateneo collection may have been produced
with the same purpose, since almost all of them exist among the
manuscripts in the Araneta collection, though none of them has any
preface by Cruz.”
The internal evidence from all these typescript works shows that
not only are they not genuine works of Burgos, but that they
proceeded from the same source as Lifidn’s Historia vertdica. It will
be sufficient here to mention only a few of the more striking his-
torical falsehoods and anachronisms, even apart from the extrava-
gant and even fantastic character of the narration, so similar to
 Writings Attributed to Father Burgos 65

that of Lifidn. Not only do Rafael Ma. Labra and Manuel Regidor
appear at various points in the narrative as being in Manila rather
than in Spain, but Burgos is made to fight a duel with canes against
Labra over the latter’s pamphlet La cuestidn colonial because of the
accusations of disloyalty against Filipinos contained there.”? As a
matter of fact, this latter work was a plea for the rights of Spain’s
overseas provinces, and its possession was later made grounds for
the arrest of some of the Filipino refermists by Izquierdo.® There
again appear various confrontations between Archbishop Meliton
Martinez on the one hand, and both Burgos and De la Torre on the
other, at a time when the archbishop was in Rome for the First
Vatican Council.®! De la Torre is pictured as arriving (and leaving)
on the ship Reina Regente, at a time when there had been no Queen
Regent in Spain for thirty years.*? Not only does a nonexistent
Dominican named Fray Miguel de Ostaeza appear in the pages of
the story, but so does the fictitious Francisco de Lifidn.® Finally,
there is even a note allegedly signed by Rizal attesting to the
authenticity of a speech of Burgos. Though the signature is not to
be found in the typescript copy, its date of Madrid, 26 June 1887,
is enough to judge its genuinity, since on that date Rizal was not
in Madrid but in Rome, preparing to return to the Philippines.*
The typescript works in the Ateneo collection equally betray not
only their inauthenticity, but also their real author, in common
with the “Maremagnum.” The first of these, “Como se forman las
religiones,” has a reference to the “fanecido [sic] continente Lemuri-
ano.” The latter, as Scott has pointed out in connection with the
appearance of the same term in the Marco forgery of the Pavon
manuscript, is a term first coined in 1879.% The alleged collection
of letters between Burgos and De la Torre, which is sixth in this
volume, largely reproduces in different form the episodes of Mar-
emagnum, including the supposed confrontations with the absent
archbishop and the speeches of Burgos likewise found there. The
dates given for the relief of De la Torre, his departure from the
Philippines, and the arrival of Izquierdo are not only widely differ-
ent from the correct dates, but are contradictory to one another.®’
Finally, as if unable to resist giving the unwary reader a clue to the
real author, there appears among the priests meeting with Fathers
Burgos, Gomez, and Zamora, to defend the rights of the secular
clergy, an otherwise unknown Father Marcé.™
Just as further proofs of the nongenuinity of these typescript
copies could be given, particularly the anti-Catholicism of those
concerned with religion, so too could similar indications be multi-
plied concerning the individual manuscripts in the Araneta collec-
66 Writings Attributed to Father Burgos

tion. But since all are written on similar paper, with similar
handwriting and signatures, they evidently come from a common
source. We will limit ourselves therefore to observing that the alleged
signature of Burgos in these manuscripts is again quite unlike the
genuine signature reproduced here, and to pointing out a few random
examples of their likewise being the work of Marco.®* Most signifi-
cant is the passage in “Leyendas y Cuentos Filipinos” in which the
author lists among the manuscripts, which he was grateful for
having been able to use in the “Libreria de la Real Audiencia,” two
works of Diego Lope de Povedano entitled “Mi Xornada y Pere-
grinacion en las Islas de Philipinas de 1577” and “Las antiguas
Leyendas de la Ysla Bugtas . . .” of 1578. Both of these have been
shown by Scott to be forgeries coming from Marco.*!
The other example may be taken from the Carpeta alleged to
contain the Burgos-De la Torre correspondence, which has been
mentioned among the typescripts in the Ateneo collection. As in the
latter, the final entry tells of the failure of Burgos’s attempt to see
Izquierdo on his arrival. This is followed by the supposed signature
of Burgos, dated 11 January 1870, more than a year before the
arrival of Izquierdo.*? Likewise revealing is the rubber stamp on
this manuscript found also on the Ateneo typescripts: “A. Vindel/
Librero/Madrid.”® This attempt to give substance to the story of the
Burgos manuscripts’ having been carried off to Spain by De la Torre
fails in both cases because the bookseller of Madrid whose interest
in Filipiniana brought him into dealings with Rizal, Pedro Paterno,
W. E. Retana, and the Tabacalera (which acquired from him much
of the collection later sold to the Philippine National Library), was
named Pedro Vindel.* The use of a false rubber stamp is a tech-
nique likewise used by Marco in the alleged documents on the pre-
Hispanic period attributed to Pavon.®

Common Source of All Pseudo-Burgos Works

What has been discussed here shows not only the spuriousness
of the various works attributed to Burgos from 1941 onward, but
likewise their common origin in Jose E. Marco. The evidence for the
nongenuinity of La Loba Negra is also conclusive. It remains only
to summarize the evidence that has been touched on incidentally
in the course of our exposition, which confirms the novel’s common
origin with the rest of the spurious works of Burgos, namely that
it hkewise comes from Marco. These points are principally three:
the common style; the allusions to La Loba Negra in the other
 Writings Attributed to Father Burgos 67

spurious works for which Marco is responsible; and the absence of

any other author, given the close association in time and in editors
of the appearance of the various works.
To grasp the fact of a common style in the various works treated
in this paper, there is of course no other way than to read all of
them extensively and intensively. Obviously then, the impression of
a common author for both the novel and the other pseudo-Burgos
works is necessarily somewhat subjective and cannot be totally
communicated on paper. I can only state my judgment from my own
study of these works that such a common style is present—the
same carelessness in composition, the introduction of passages or
even chapters quite extraneous to what has preceded, the awkward
and often ungrammatical use of Spanish, and the clumsy imitations
of Rizal. The prologue to the “Maremagnum” echoes the theme of
“this valley of tears, made to cause man to suffer” which recurs so
frequently in La Loba Negra.® In La Loba Negra, as in all the other
pseudo-Burgos works due to Marco, there occurs repeatedly the
appeal to the “Archivo de la Real Audiencia” as the supposed source
of the historical data in the works.*% One final detail, though no
doubt a minute analysis of the text might discover others: is it
purely coincidental that the legua of La Loba Negra appears to be
roughly equivalent to a kilometer, just as the lewea of the pseudo-
Povedano map of Negros stemming from Marco likewise turned out
to be exactly equivalent to a kilometer?”
The “Maremagnum” and the collection of supposed correspon-
dence between Burgos and De la Torre based on it give further
evidence of the common origin of all these pseudo-Burgos works by
their allusions to La Loba Negra. To mention only a few obvious
ones, there is first of all the inclusion of La Loba Negra in the
alleged list of Burgos’s works appended to the “Maremagnum.”%
Further, the summary of contents at the beginning of chapter 16
contains the following clear allusions: “Looting by bandits in the
middle of Ermita. ‘Sargenta Betay’ in action. Some reflections.
Conclusion. Adios forever, adios.” Similarly in the “Carpeta,” a
supposed letter to Burgos from De la Torre says: “As for the cost
of the stamped state paper, which you can use, do not worry about
this; it will all go on my account.”!” The reference is to the so-called
original manuscript of the La Loba Negra, written on stamped
paper, with its alleged signature of De la Torre at the end taking
responsibility for the cost of the paper.’ It may be noted in passing
that some of the manuscripts in the Araneta collection are likewise
written on similar facsimiles of stamped state paper.
Such allusions by themselves of course could be explained away
68 Writings Attributed to Father Burgos

by supposing that Marco had deliberately incorporated them into

the manuscripts in imitation of a La Loba Negra already in exis-
tence, namely, the 1938 edition attributed to Augusto de Luzu-
riaga.°? Such a possibility cannot be apodictically excluded, but
since the earlier Historia vertdica supposedly published by Luzu-
riaga and all the subsequent works of Burgos as well had their
origin in Marco, the simplest and most probable explanation is to
assume that La Loba Negra, no less than the other pseudo-Burgos
writings, likewise had its source in Marco from the very beginning.
Certainly none of the other men who are connected with the
publication of these works could have been the forgers. One need
only read Cruz’s book or his “Nota explicativa” to the introduction
to the typescript “Maremagnum” to see the obvious difference
between the correct Spanish of Cruz and that of the work he is
introducing. Even less could the Spaniard Brun be guilty of the
incorrect Spanish to be found even in La Loba Negra. As a matter
of fact, a comparison of his edition with the alleged one of 1938
shows that he had silently made numerous corrections of the more
egregious blunders of the former edition. By the same token,
however, particularly in the light of the ignored objections of De
Veyra and Reyes in the Hl Debate and Lungsuranon articles of
1941, both Cruz and Brun were clearly aware of the inauthenticity
of the works they propagated. De la Rosa too, in an article in La
Nueva Era, 23 August 1958, cites as proof of its genuinity the
“original manuscript” of La Loba Negra in a description showing
that it is the manuscript reproduced by Martinez by photo-offset in
1960. Yet he claims that it bears the signature of Rizal, dated 3
August 1888 on the cover, which it does not. This is another
indication of the common paternity of all these pseudo-Burgos
forgeries, and it is hard to believe that de la Rosa too was not aware
of the Marco provenance of these works.

Conclusions

This essay has been perhaps inordinately lengthy, particularly

since I am aware that I am not the first to suspect the inauthen-
ticity of at least some of these documents. But it has been worth-
while to go into what might seem excessive detail before further leg-
endary elements obscure the real figure of Fr. Jose Burgos. The
immediate conclusions of the study are as follows:
1. The Historia veridica attributed to Francisco de Lifidn is a
wholly apocryphal work, which has its origin in Jose E. Marco.
 Writings Attributed to Father Burgos 69

2. All the extant writings attributed to Burgos, whether in

manuscript in the Araneta collection, in the various typescript copies
in the Ateneo collection, or published in the 1941 Cebu edition of
the Obras escogidas of Burgos, are similarly, and with equal cer-
tainty, spurious and have their source in Marco.
3. La Loba Negra is certainly not a genuine work of Father
Burgos.
4. In all probability it too has Marco as its source.
5. There are many indications that Marco himself was the actual
composer of these pseudo-Burgos works. But if it were to be sup-
posed that some other anonymous individual was responsible for
the actual composition, it was Marco who was responsible for their
being put into circulation. With regard to La Loba Negra, the
evidence is quite convincing; with regard to the other works, it is
indisputable.

Such conclusions may seem disappointing to some. Is our knowl-

edge of Burgos and his literary heritage to be reduced to nothing?
Obviously, the elimination of works wrongly attributed to Burgos
does not increase our knowledge of the man and his role in the
development of Filipino nationalism. On the other hand, we can
scarcely count it a loss to eliminate from consideration works that
present a wholly fictitious and unpleasant picture of the man. The
purpose of this article has been not merely to eliminate these
spurious sources for the life and thought of Burgos, but to clear the
way for positive research into the genuine sources of his life and
work. Of the genuine literary heritage of Burgos, we have already
mentioned the Manifiesto of 1864. For the centenary of 1972, I
published this, as well as four certainly genuine letters of Burgos,
and another document probably at least drafted by him, though
signed by the “Secular Clergy of Manila.” All of these, as well as
various related documents, are in Spanish original and English
translation.!~ Another important collection of documents, appar-
ently coming from the collection of Gov. Gen. Rafael Izquierdo, has
similarly been published in a bilingual edition by Leandro Tormo
Sanz.!7 In it, together with many other documents relating to the
Cavite Mutiny, are letters to Burgos and others, clarifying the role
of the Filipino clergy. Burgos’s academic career with all its docu-
mentation has also been thoroughly studied and the original docu-
ments reproduced.’ Other documents, mostly nonpolitical, have
been located and continue to be found.!® Though the direct literary
heritage of Burgos is small compared with Rizal, enough is now
known of him to make clear his major role in the awakening of
70 Writings Attributed to Father Burgos

Filipino nationalism in the second half of the nineteenth century.

Everything that has come to light since the first version of this
essay was published makes it evident how alien to the true Burgos
are the writings whose authenticity has been here disproved, though
their baneful influence continues to be exercised in popular publi-
cations, just as Marco’s other forgeries continue to distort from time
to time the pre-Hispanic history of the Philippines.'!® The time is
ripe for a genuine scholarly account of Burgos and the true story
of the Cavite Mutiny and its martyrs. The one insight that may be
salvaged from the noxious heritage of the Marco literary forgeries
is that Burgos was truly the precursor of Rizal, who brought to
maturity the national consciousness first articulated by Fr. Jose
Burgos.1!
 Published Sources
on the Cavite Mutiny

In the previous essay I have established the inauthen-

ticity of various manuscripts and published works concerning or
attributed to Fr. Jose Burgos.! Likewise both in preparation for and
subsequent to the centenary of the martyrdom of Fathers Burgos,
Gomez, and Zamora, various scholars have published documenta-
tion concerning Father Burgos, and I have edited and translated
some genuine works of Burgos in part hitherto unknown.” However,
we still possess no definitive account of the Cavite Mutiny nor a sat-
isfactory biography of any of the three priests. Not only are some
key primary source materials still lacking but there is also consid-
erable confusion about the worth of the various published accounts
of the events of 1872 both as to primary and to secondary sources.
The purpose of this essay, therefore, will be to analyze and evaluate
the published primary sources, all of them in Spanish. This will
72 Sources on Cavite Mutiny

provide a basis for a critique of modern secondary accounts based

on them.

Firsthand Accounts

Several men living in Manila at the time of the events that

culminated in the Cavite Mutiny wrote accounts of these events.
The account of José Montero y Vidal, a Spanish official in Manila
at the time, is the fullest account of the mutiny itself.* It embodies
the official interpretation of the mutiny in Cavite as part of a
general revolt directed by the three priests and their lay and cleri-
cal colleagues in Manila and Cavite, aiming at the assassination of
the governor-general and a massacre of all Spaniards. Published
only in 1895 at the height of the Filipino nationalist campaign,
Montero’s account is strongly hostile to Filipino reformist aspira-
tions, has no doubt of the guilt of those executed or exiled, and
places much of the blame for the revolt of 1872 on the alleged
tolerance of Gov. Gen. Carlos Maria de la Torre in the period of
1869-71.
In a lengthy appendix to his own account Montero reproduces
selections from that given by Edmond Plauchut, a Frenchman resi-
dent in Manila for some years, and indignantly or sarcastically
denies various allegations of the latter.* The narrative of Plauchut
is actually only a part of a series of articles on the Philippines
published in the internationally known French journal Revue des
Deux Mondes in Paris in 1877.° His account of the events of 1872
has often been called “the Filipino version” of the events, having
been translated into Spanish and published in La Solidaridad
in 1892 and afterwards republished more than once from this
version.°®
The version of Plauchut presents several difficulties, even if we
ignore the xenophobic attacks of Montero y Vidal. On the one hand,
for example, he implies the innocence of the three priests as to any
part in the mutiny. On the other, he asserts that “from several
accounts worthy of belief, the plot of the conspirators was known
to many in the capital as well as in the province.” Similarly, he
refers to the three priests on their way to execution as being cheered
by the Filipinos as “those who were going to die for having dreamed
of the independence of their country.”
The account of the execution itself, though apparently that of an
eyewitness, agreeing on substantial points with that of Montero y
Vidal, likewise contains numerous melodramatic details that do not
inspire great confidence in the historian. For example, it is difficult
 Sources on Cavite Mutiny 73

to believe that in the atmosphere of terror created by Izquierdo’s

harsh repressive measures—an atmosphere emphasized by
Plauchut—thousands of people would have flocked in from the
provinces to visit the condemned priests in their cell or that this
would have been permitted in any way, or that the crowds would
have ventured to cheer the priests on triumphantly as they made
their way to the place of execution. One need not accept totally the
version of Montero to be able to agree in part with his characteri-
zation of Plauchut’s account as fantastic (novelesco). No doubt the
author wished to liven up his articles with some dramatic items of
human interest for the delectation of his French readers to whom
the Philippines was a faraway, exotic country.
For the rest of Plauchut’s account, however, there is a further
problem—namely, the source of his knowledge of the events prior
to the execution, events to which he could not have been eyewit-
ness. As remarked above, he is notably deficient in his knowledge
of the more remote background of events in the Philippines and has
numerous glaring historical errors, e.g., with regard to Simén de
Anda and his career. On the other hand, he clearly had some
knowledge of the then secret letter of Archbishop Melitén Martinez
to the Spanish regent, written in 1870.’ It is true that though he
purports to quote from it, the quotation is badly garbled and merely
summarizes the ideas of the archbishop. But, it does contain suf-
ficient genuine and distinctive elements in it to have certainly come
eventually from one who had at some time seen the original. This
fact, together with other details that Plauchut could hardly have
known by himself, points to the fundamental accuracy of Montero’s
assertion that Plauchut’s account had been inspired by the “separa-
tistas antiespafioles de Filipinas.”* Prescinding from whether or not
they were separatists, among those exiled as a result of the Cavite
Mutiny, probably Joaquin Pardo de Tavera and almost certainly
Antonio Regidor were in contact with Plauchut in Paris at the time
he was writing, and either or both must have served as a source for
the events prior to the execution. For after their escape from the
Marianas in 1874 both Pardo de Tavera and Regidor made their
way from Hong Kong to Europe. The former settled permanently in
Paris until his death in 1884, and Regidor lived there for some time
before moving to London.® When Rizal was planning his Association
Internationale des Philippinistes to meet in Paris in 1889, while he
was still in London in almost daily contact with Regidor, it was
Plauchut who was named vice-president of the association and
Regidor one of the counselors.’° Either Regidor or Trinidad Pardo
de Tavera, nephew of the now-deceased Joaquin, must have put
74 Sources on Cavite Mutiny

Rizal in contact with Plauchut; most likely it was the former, given
the evident contacts between Plauchut and Regidor in their writ-
ings. Hence, Regidor and possibly also Pardo de Tavera would have
been what Plauchut refers to in speaking of his source having been
“several accounts worthy of belief.”
The third major account, and in many ways the most important
of all in spite of its discrepancies with known facts, is that which
appeared in 1900 in the Madrid newspaper, Filipinas ante Europa,
edited by Isabelo de los Reyes.!2 Though the article appeared
anonymously, it was undoubtedly the work of Antonio Regidor.
Manuel Artigas y Cuerva, who was in close contact with De los
Reyes at the time in the activities of the Filipino Revolutionary
Committee in Spain and was therefore in a position to know,
explicitly states that De los Reyes affirmed to him the authorship
of Regidor.!? Obviously an account from one of those most involved
in the reformist movement prior to 1872 is of the greatest value
from the point of view of the knowledge possessed by its author. It
also of course has the disadvantages of one-sidedness, prominent in
the bitter antifriar position of Regidor, who loses no opportunity to
paint the friars in the worst possible colors. It must be remembered
that the article was written at the height of the effort to procure
the expulsion of all Spanish friars from the Philippines. Be that as
it may, Regidor’s account deserves the most careful attention,
particularly in the light of his having been a major, if not the only,
source of Plauchut for the events of 1872.
With regard to the events of the execution itself, however, Regidor
could not have been an eyewitness, since he himself was at the time
a prisoner of the Spanish authorities. And yet his account is far
more detailed and circumstantial than that of either Montero or
Plauchut. An obvious connection with the account of the latter is
the words addressed to Comandante Boscasa attributed to Gomez:
“May God forgive you, as we forgive you.” In Plauchut’s account,
however, exactly the same words are put in the mouth of Burgos."*
The authenticity of the statement is in any case suspect, since it is
difficult to imagine how anyone except the Spanish soldiers guard-
ing the prisoners or the Spanish priests who accompanied them
could have approached close enough to hear the words. Indeed all
the dialogue attributed to the prisoners, generally directed in
Regidor’s account toward showing the responsibility of the various
friar orders for the execution, is similarly suspect. Such doubts
arise precisely because of the detailed description he gives of the
intense security measures that surrounded the prisoners, who were
 Sources on Cavite Mutiny 75

Segoe by soldiers with fixed bayonets and drawn swords on every

side.
The second part of Regidor’s narrative deals with the trial of the
three priests. Inasmuch as there exists no other account of the trial,
there is no way to check its accuracy, though some of its melodra-
matic details seem improbable. Various clear errors of fact appear
throughout the entire article, beginning from the date of the exe-
cution given in the title—28 February instead of 17 February—
other dates being correspondingly incorrect.!® However, this type of
error, like the errors in the ages assigned to the three priests, does
not mecessarily invalidate that account as a whole, evidently writ-
ten from memory. But this warns against accepting otherwise
unverified details, much less drawing any conclusions from them.
Something similar must be said about the rest of the article,
which treats separately each of the three priests and their activities
that led them to be accused at the time of the Cavite Mutiny, and
then explains the background and course of the mutiny itself. Here
again Regidor’s is the only contemporary account apart from Montero
y Vidal’s, though he himself had given a somewhat different version
in an earlier pseudonymous work on Masonry.!* Hence, there is
little to corroborate or disprove his narrative, though its general
outline may be said to give a probable explanation of principal
events. The tenor of it is to deny the official version propounded by
Montero y Vidal of an organized revolt aiming at the massacre of
all Spaniards and the proclamation of an independent republic.
Regidor goes on, however, to attribute the mutiny to the instigation
of friars. It was the result, he says, of a plan originating from a
meeting of leading friars of all the orders, at which it was decided
to create such an occasion so as to bring about the elimination of
the antifriar reformists, particularly the leaders of the Filipino
secular clergy. Regidor attributes the plot to Fathers Castro and
Treserra of the Dominicans, Father Huertas [sic; undoubtedly Huerta
is meant] of the Franciscans, Father Herrero of the Augustinians,
and Father Cuartero of the Recoletos. Such an assertion is demon-
strably not based on facts. For Fr. Casimiro Herrero, the Augustin-
ian procurator, was in Spain during this period of 1869-72 during
which the plot was supposedly being hatched, while the others were
in the Philippines.!” Fr. Domingo Treserra was indeed rector of the
University of Santo Tomas at this time, but Fr. Rafael Castro, O.P.,
had finished his term as provincial of the Dominicans in 1863,
shortly after which he suffered a stroke that left him completely
paralyzed and some time before his death (1873) left him blind as
76 Sources on Cavite Mutiny

well.!8 According to Regidor, the alleged representative of the

Recoletos, Fr. Mariano Cuartero, subsequently became the bishop
of Jaro. However, the bishop of Jaro was, and had been for some
years, Fr. Mariano Cuartero y Medina, O.P., while the Recoleto
provincial, Fr. Mariano Cuartero del Pilar, was later to become
bishop of Nueva Segovia.’® Fr. Felix (de) Huerta, O.F.M., had indeed
given Regidor reason to dislike him, since he had opposed him in
money matters related to La Misericordia, in which Huerta was a
member of the Junta Directiva. But Huerta is known to have been
one of the first to condemn the attacks made on the Filipino clergy
by Fr. Joaquin de Coria, whose writings had drawn Burgos into
polemics in the newspaper La Discusién.” Finally, the assertion
that the appointment of Izquierdo as governor-general was due to
his being a foster brother of the newly elected Dominican provincial
is certainly incorrect. For whether or not he was a foster brother
of General Izquierdo, Fr. Pedro Vilanova, O.P., was elected provin-
cial of the Dominicans on 29 April 1871, while Izquierdo had al-
ready arrived in Manila on 4 April 1871, having been appointed
months before.”!
In short, unless some further proof is forthcoming, the entire
story of a friar plot to eliminate their enemies must be considered
to be an invention, Regidor having simply selected the names of
prominent friars known to him as the supposed perpetrators of the
plot. However, this need not mean that the broader assertion of
Regidor—that the Cavite mutiny was used by certain Spaniards,
possibly including friars, to eliminate the liberal reformist Filipino
group—is necessarily without basis. As I have pointed out else-
where, the burden of all the evidence now is that though the Cavite
revolt was indeed used to eliminate the Filipino reformist group
and the leaders of the clergy in particular, it was Izquierdo who
seized the opportunity offered him by the mutiny for this purpose,
though it proceeded from quite different causes.”
To sum up, Regidor’s account would seem to be the most infor-
mative of any we have, particularly on the general background of
events. It is certainly not, however, an eyewitness account for all
the events it relates, particularly the revolt itself or the execution
of the three priests. Moreover, it has employed false data to make
the friars appear as the instigators of the revolt and of the punish-
ments meted out to the Filipino reformists. Even apart from this
antifriar construction of the data, however, Regidor is not to be
depended on for accuracy of detail; evidently he has been narrating
from a rather faulty memory. The account is therefore indeed
 Sources on Cavite Mutiny 77

valuable, but needs to be checked continually against other sources

for corroboration.
Two other contemporary residents of Manila who wrote on the
subject of the Cavite Mutiny offer little factual information. Despite
the title, Resefia que demuestra el fundamento y causas de la
insurreccion del 20 de enero en Filipinas, the book of Casimiro
Herrero, O.S.A., is philosophical rather than historical in nature.2
Moreover, though its author was perhaps present in the early days
of the term of Gov. Gen. Carlos de la Torre, he returned to Spain
in 1869 as procurator in Madrid of the Philippine Augustinians, as
mentioned above, and hence was not an eyewitness. The small part
of his pamphlet devoted to the narrative of the revolt simply accepts
the official version and condemns strongly the individuals involved,
most particularly the three executed priests.” It is therefore of no
independent historical value.
The other contemporary writer is Felipe M. de Govantes in his
Compendio Historico de Filipinas.2> Govantes was a long-time
Peninsular Spaniard resident of the Philippines, where he held
various positions in the bureaucracy. His account of the regime of
De la Torre, though disapproving the latter’s democratic methods,
has nothing of the scorn and indignation of Montero y Vidal, and
does not mention any names in connection with the manifestation
held at that time. With similar caution he narrates the revolt of
Cavite, not making clear to whom he attributes the responsibility.
Though he mentions that almost all those who took part in the
manifestation at the time of De la Torre were condemned by the
military tribunals in 1872, he hints that not all were actually guilty,
noting that opinion in Manila was divided with respect to Izquierdo’s
actuations during his term.
One further apparently contemporary account remains, whose
author cannot be determined with certainty and which has been
published only indirectly. The published version is that contained
in Fr. Pablo Pastells’s history of the Jesuit Philippine mission in the
nineteenth century.” Pastells arrived in Manila only in 1875, hence
was not himself a contemporary witness. But a comparison of the
account to be found in his book with a manuscript history of the
Ateneo Municipal extant in Jesuit archives in Spain, entitled
“Historia del Colegio de la Inmaculada Concepcién que tiene la
Misién de la Compajiia de Jesus de las Islas Filipinas en Manila,”
shows that Pastells has copied it almost word for word from the
manuscript history. This latter account was written by a Jesuit
resident in the Ateneo and completed by 1874 at the latest.”’ The
78 Sources on Cavite Mutiny

account of the revolt adds nothing to the facts established from the
general agreement of the other contemporary accounts, except some
details on the role of the Jesuits in assisting the condemned priests.
The account of the “Christian resignation” with which the three
priests went to their execution, though couched in general terms,
would seem to support Montero y Vidal’s rejection of the dramatic
incidents related by Plauchut. Unlike Montero, however, the nar-
rator (and Father Pastells) expresses the general conviction of
Manilefios that many of those condemned were unjustly, or at least
excessively, punished and did not receive a fair trial. Since the
original account was apparently not written for publication and was
eventually published only in 1916, long after any political consid-
erations might have influenced the narrator, the account possesses
a reliability—for the limited area covered—superior to that of others
that have been treated here.

Secondhand Accounts

In this group may be included those who assert that they had
received their information from contemporaries of the events or
who, because of their relationship to such men, may be legitimately
supposed to have done so.
In the first category fall two documents which, though unpub-
lished as a whole, seem to have been circulated in copies to a
considerable degree and thus to have entered into later accounts.
The two documents in question were written by Fr. Agapito
Echegoyen, a Recoleto, and Fr. Antonio Piernavieja, an Augustin-
ian, both of whom were taken prisoners by the Revolutionary forces
in Cavite in 1896. Both documents confess to and condemn vari-
ous crimes and abuses allegedly committed by the friars, beginning
with the period just prior to the Cavite Mutiny. Both accounts
attribute the execution of the three priests to friar intrigues. Alleg-
edly the four friar provincials met to decide on how to eliminate
their opponents, and for this purpose, knowing that a revolt was in
the offing in Cavite, sent a friar resembling Burgos to stir up the
prospective rebels under the name of the latter and to distribute
money among them. Likewise, the provincials are alleged to have
bribed Izquierdo heavily so as to bring him to execute the three
priests when the revolt did break out and they were implicated by
the captured rebels. Piernavieja did not give the source of his
knowledge, but Echegoyen, who came to the Philippines a few months
after the events, alleged that his account came from a fellow-friar,
Fr. Cipriano Navarro. The account of Echegoyen does not name the
 Sources on Cavite Mutiny 79

supposed impersonator of Burgos, but declares him to have been

a Franciscan (though he later adds that others say he was a
Recoleto). The account of Piernavieja, on the other hand, attributes
the deed to a Fr. Claudio del Arco whom he does not further iden-
tify, but who was actually a Recoleto parish priest of Santa Cruz,
Zambales.”
Most probably the documents were actually written by the
individuals whose names are appended to them, since they contain
accurate data that only the persons named could have known—e.g.,
the various parishes the writers had held and the dates in which
they had arrived in each of their assignments.*° But these can
scarcely be accepted as reliable documents, given the facts that both
men were prisoners and are known to have been tortured by the
Magdiwang leaders before being finally executed at the orders of
Andres Bonifacio.*! The very profuseness with which they repeat-
edly insist that everything they say is said with perfect freedom
from coercion, and out of pure love for the truth and to honor these
martyrs, make them worthless to a critical historian, as being
evidently confessions extorted by torture. They were, however, to
have considerable subsequent influence, as will be seen below.
Apart from these accounts allegedly based on information re-
ceived from contemporaries of the events, there are those which,
though not explicitly stating that they were such, have a reasonable
possibility of such an origin, since their authors were close relatives
of participants. The two principal ones are those by Trinidad H.
Pardo de Tavera, nephew of Joaquin Pardo de Tavera, and brought
up in his household; and that of Pedro Paterno, son of Maximo
Paterno, another of those exiled to the Marianas in 1872.
The account of Pardo de Tavera was originally written for the
census of 1903 as part of a general survey of Philippine history.*?
Pardo denies that there was any plot to overthrow Spanish rule,
and sees the Cavite Mutiny simply as an uprising due to the dis-
affection of the arsenal workers who had been deprived of their
traditional exemption from tribute and of the Filipino troops who
sympathized with them. This event the conservative elements in
Manila, including the friars, took as proof that those who had
expressed reformist or antifriar sentiments under the governorship
of De la Torre were plotting to overthrow Spanish sovereignty.
Hence, they persuaded the government to inflict severe and exem-
plary punishments on all kinds of people without inquiring care-
fully into their guilt. Pardo makes no direct mention of any friar
conspiracy to bring about the Cavite affair after the fashion of
Regidor.** But he considers that the punishments meted out were
80 Sources on Cavite Mutiny

the result of the government’s false conviction that all opponents of

the friars were enemies of Spanish rule. He also attributes the
disaffection of the Filipinos with Spain that led to the Revolution
of 1896 to this identification of Spanish interests with friar inter-
ests beginning from 1872.
In spite of the antecedent probability that Pardo might have had
detailed knowledge of the events of 1872 from his uncle, the account
shows little evidence of this. Besides the incorrect interpretation of
the attitude of De la Torre, there are several errors of detail as to
the identity of the men who were executed or exiled as a result of
the mutiny. One can only conclude that Pardo de Tavera either had
no detailed knowledge of the facts or did not find place to publish
them in this brief account. Hence, he simply gave a general picture
of events that is perhaps unnecessarily unfavorable to the friars.
Though consequently too general to offer any reliable information
beyond what was contained in earlier accounts, his picture of the
broad lines of events and his general interpretation are coherent in
a way that others are not.
The antifriar bias pervading much of Pardo de Tavera’s sum-
mary of Philippine history provoked an indignant and equally
pugnacious refutation from Fr. Serapio Tamayo, O.P.*4 Though
Tamayo himself came to the Philippines only in 1891, it might be
expected that since his was a quasi-official defense of the friars
against Pardo de Tavera, he might have derived the information on
which he based his own version from older colleagues who had been
contemporary to the events in Manila. But an examination of the
section devoted to the events of 1869-72 shows a narration—or
rather an interpretation of events—that adds nothing to that of
Montero y Vidal, on which it principally, if not wholly, depends. It
therefore likewise has no independent value.
The last author who deserves attention by reason of the possi-
bility of his possessing information from an immediate contempo-
rary of the events is Pedro Paterno, whose father Maximo had been
deported to the Marianas in 1872, though young Pedro himself was
at that time a student in Spain. During the Spanish era Pedro
Paterno published many works purporting to be historical, but the
great majority of them dealt with the pre-Hispanic period of Phil-
ippine history.* They are, moreover, mere compilations character-
ized by a great lack of critical historical sense, and were even then
generally considered as inept and historically valueless works of
propaganda by his fellow Filipinos in Spain as well as by Span-
iards.* In his later years the various multivolumed works that by
their titles would appear to be comprehensive histories of the
 Sources on Cavite Mutiny 81

Philippines are actually compilations from his earlier works.3” In

the year of his death, however, he published a two-part Synopsis
de la Historia de Filipinas, in which he briefly mentions the events
of 1872 while treating the revolts of the nineteenth century.*® The
treatment, however, is limited to a few scattered paragraphs sup-
porting his assertion that all the revolts of the nineteenth century
were reformist, not separatist in nature, aiming at recovering for
Filipinos control of their own affairs within the wider framework of
Spanish sovereignty. With regard to the revolt of 1872 in particular,
“the friars conjured up /simularon] an insurrection in Cavite, when
in reality it was nothing more than a military mutiny... .” Whatever
may be the correctness of the assertion, it is not substantiated by
any facts. Indeed, the entire account of Paterno in the succeeding
pages is a thinly veiled panegyric of himself and his accomplish-
ments, in which he appears as the true inspiration of Rizal and the
soul of the late nineteenth-century nationalist movement. In addi-
tion there are numerous glaring factual errors that destroy any
confidence one could have in Paterno’s reliability. In brief, Paterno
adds nothing to previous accounts, and if he possessed any personal
knowledge of the events, it does not appear in his writings, which
therefore have no value as independent sources.
One further document perhaps stemming in part from one of the
participants or victims of the Cavite revolt, Jose M. Basa, survives.
It is not precisely a historical document, but a printed pamphlet
addressed to the American consul-generai in Hong Kong, signed by
Jose M. Basa, Doroteo Cortes, and A. G. Medina and dated 29
January 1897.°° The pamphlet attacks Spanish abuses and mis-
government in the Philippines, and asks the consul to request
American intervention to force Spanish withdrawal from the Phil-
ippines, promising any concessions that the Americans may desire
in return. Among the Spanish crimes narrated is that of the exe-
cutions and exiles of 1872, said to be due to friar intrigues and
bribery of the government. Concretely, the alleged incident found
in the Piernavieja account of the impersonation of Burgos by a
Recoleto friar (here not named but said to be from Zambales), who
distributed money to stir up the revolt, is repeated. Given the
nature of the pamphlet and its purpose, whether to persuade the
American consul or, as seems more likely, to serve as propaganda,
the name of Basa gives the historians little more reason to accept
the story than the extorted account of Piernavieja.*° Indeed, given
the widespread use of untruths by Basa in his antifriar propa-
ganda, amply attested to by various Filipino nationalists of the
Propaganda Movement, even less credit should be given to the
82 Sources on Cavite Mutiny

story.4! The use and amplification of this story, however, may be

seen in its reappearance in an antifriar pamphlet of 1900. In the
latter the alleged Recoleto impersonator is now said to have been
found some days after the executions “hanged from a bar in his cell
in the provincial convent of the walled city, and apparently a sui-
cide.”42 As a matter of fact, the supposed impersonator, identified
in the Piernavieja account as Fr. Claudio del Arco, was actually still
very much alive then and for many years, and returned to Spain
eventually as commissary of his order.**

Other Contemporaries

Two other figures of approximately the same generation as those

just treated but without known direct contacts with contemporaries
of the events were Fr. Salvador Pons and Apolinario Mabini. Both
spoke briefly about the events of 1872 in connection with their other
writings.
Pons was an Augustinian friar who first came to the Philippines
in 1884, left his order in 1899 in Manila, and for the next decade
spent much of his time in writing against the friars and cooperating
with the founders of the Iglesia Filipina Independiente.** Finally
being reconciled with the Catholic Church, he reentered the Au-
gustinians and spent the rest of his life in a monastery in Germany.
Since he retracted his antifriar and anti-Catholic writings as a
whole and spent much of the rest of his life in refuting them, all
of his writings must be used with some caution, particularly since
those that may in some sense be qualified as historical were exag-
gerated and composed hastily and carelessly.
The two works in question here are Defensa del clero filipino and
El clero filipino.” Generally short on facts, the first of these repro-
duces Plauchut’s account and for the rest contains no information
that could not be found in Montero y Vidal. The second book contains
a series of biographies and bibliographies of outstanding Filipino
secular priests, among them Burgos and Gomez. In his account of
Burgos’ academic career (which is replete with factual errors in the
matter of dates), Pons attributes the revolt of 1872 to the friars, “as
was said almost publicly.” The reason given is that Burgos had
incurred the ire of the Recoletos by his defense of the rights of the
Filipino clergy, and of the Dominicans by his just severity in refus-
ing to give a passing grade to incapable friars when he acted as a
member of the board of examiners for candidates for degrees at the
University of Santo Tomas. (No explanation is given how such a
motive would have brought about the execution of Zamora or Gomez.)
 Sources on Cavite Mutiny 83

Given the many factual errors and open contradictions in the account,
it may be safely ignored as an independent source, and is depend-
ent on either Plauchut or Regidor, or on both. The biography of
Gomez is similarly dependent on Regidor, as shown by the errone-
ous statement that the former founded the Madrid newspaper La
Verdad, “exclusively dedicated to the defense of Filipino interests.”
La Verdad was of course the newspaper in which the attacks on the
Filipino clergy by the Recoleto procurator in Madrid, Fr. Guillermo
Agudo, were published, provoking the Manifiesto of Burgos in 1864.
Mabini devotes one chapter of his posthumously published work,
La Revolucion Filipina, to our subject, “Causa y efecto de la ejecucion
de los Padres Burgos, Gomez y Zamora.”*® Mabini makes no claim
to have had firsthand knowledge of the events. But without taking
any position on the cause of the revolt, he states clearly that the
three priests were innocent of it. It was used by their enemies—
principally the friars, from the context, but supported by the gov-
ernment—to bring about the execution of those three men who were
martyrs to justice. Mabini’s chapter is not a narrative, but rather
a discussion of the place of the martyr-priests in the Revolution;
hence, factual details are almost completely lacking. But from his
reference to Burgos’s protest of his innocence on the scaffold, it
would seem that he is dependent on the account of Plauchut, whose
translation was published in La Solidaridad while Mabini was
intimately involved with the newspaper’s support in Manila.
The works of one final author deserve special examination, even
though he cannot be considered a source in the strict sense. Manuel
Artigas y Cuerva wrote extensively on Philippine history, more so
perhaps than any other person in the first three decades after the
Revolution.*” Though he treated the events of 1872 in various
periodical publications and as part of books on broader subjects, his
major work was Los sucesos de 1872.*° This book, though somewhat
unsystematic in organization, is the fullest account of the Cavite
mutiny and its background that has appeared up to the present.
Moreover, Artigas reproduces in full a number of documents of the
period not then previously published. Though unfortunately he gives
no sources for these documents, some at least are certainly genu-
ine.4? This strongly suggests that Artigas, who worked in the
Philippine National Archives collection, had access to documents
that have since disappeared or been destroyed, so that they remain
only in his volume.”°
Apart from these documents, Artigas has depended principally
on the accounts of Regidor, together with the alleged confessions of
Fathers Piernavieja and Echegoyen, which are reproduced in part
84 Sources on Cavite Mutiny

in his book. Though he accepts all of them as authentic accounts

in general, he vacillates in various places in his book as to the
degree of confidence to be placed in them. Thus, he quotes the
Piernavieja-Echegoyen accounts of the friar-impersonator of Burgos
and asserts that this should be accepted, “since we are dealing with
an authentic document of indisputable veracity.”*' In a succeeding
chapter, on the other hand, he cites Regidor for the assertion that
the promoters of the mutiny were the two Peninsular officers,
Montesinos and Morquecho, the lay brother of the Order of San
Juan de Dios, Fray Antonio Rufidn, and Fr. Juan Gémez, prior of
the Recoleto convento of Cavite. The latter is named as the prin-
cipal instigator among the workers and soldiers of the arsenal,
persuading them to revolt. In support of this assertion Artigas
continues:

Everything mentioned by Sefior Regidor is rigorously exact, according

to the testimony we have gathered on our trips for some years past from
several of those who were involved in the events of 1872. What is more,
it is said with all the signs of probability,—for all are in agreement on
those details and we make mention of this elsewhere in this book,—that
a person in the garb of a secular priest, with a strong resemblance to
Dr. Burgos, went about various houses of Manila and Kawit. This person
tried to convince people of the need of support from all social classes to
bring about a revolt in the near future.®

Artigas is apparently not aware that the role he attributes to Fr.

Juan Gémez, on confirmation of Regidor, contradicts the rest of
Piernavieja’s account, which attributes the role of impersonator to
Fr. Claudio del Arco.®? Moreover, the document that in one context
he declares to be authentic and of indisputable veracity is later cited
as merely giving all signs of probability. Shortly before this Artigas
had made a judgment that more accurately measures Regidor’s
trustworthiness. He says:

If we were to prescind from certain inaccuracies and deficiencies

which are noticeable, it can be said that in general he brings forth
interesting information.
Sefior Regidor had this disadvantage as a writer, that he was not a
researcher. He did not search for authentic data, and relied much on
that beautiful memory which Providence granted him, but which on
occasions was unfaithful. This is the reason for the deficiencies which
can be found in his writings.

The verdict seems to be in accord with our previous remarks on

Regidor—that he had access to much information, but cannot be
relied on for details whether because of failures of memory or a
 Sources on Cavite Mutiny 85

tendency to dramatize his account and tendentiously to paint the

role of the friars in the darkest colors.
Being heavily dependent on Regidor, Artigas of course shares
some of the former’s weaknesses. It could not be said of him, however,
that he was not a researcher; rather the great value of his works
is that he has gathered testimonies and documents from many
sources. But his great weakness is that he does not cite the sources
of his documents, so that the reader might evaluate their reliability.
His works also tend to accumulate information of all kinds without
giving much evidence of critical evaluation on his own part. The
remark cited from Trinidad H. Pardo de Tavera, that Artigas was
a “cajén de sastre” (a tailor’s box) is not completely unfair. Though
he did attempt to apply historical criticism to his sources at times,
as in the case of some of the extravagances and inconsistencies of
Regidor, he cannot be termed a critical historian, as appears clearly
from the contradictions mentioned above. His work, however,
remains valuable for the information and documentation it brought
together. And though it does contain errors and inconsistencies,
there is no evidence that Artigas consciously distorted facts.
With Artigas the published histories of the events of 1872 based
on immediate knowledge or direct information come to an end. All
subsequent books and articles on the subject were based on the
sources that have been treated in this article, apart from those
using the pseudo-Burgos forgeries that began to appear shortly
before the last war and further complicated the already difficult
problem of the contradictions in the published accounts of the four
decades after the events.
The presumption of this article has been that it is impossible to
write any satisfactory account of the Cavite Mutiny without a critical
reappraisal of these published contemporary or quasi-contemporary
accounts, for none of them alone offers a fully satisfactory narrative
or explanation of the events. The publication of various archival
sources in the last few years gives a new basis on which to recon-
struct the history, but these documents have only a supplementary
value thus far and must be used in conjunction with the earlier
accounts. Given the unlikelihood of locating the original records of
the court-martials of those condemned in 1872, these earlier ac-
counts must provide the basic framework on which the reconstruc-
tion of events can take place.®® For this reason it has seemed
important to attempt a critique of them and to show relations
among them, so as to make their evaluation more exact and to
make clear the extent to which they depend on one another.
86 Sources on Cavite Mutiny

One example may help to make this clear—the genesis and

development of the story of the Recoleto friar alleged to have
impersonated Burgos in inciting the revolt in Cavite. For the criti-
cal historian there is of course great inverosimilitude in people
presumably being sufficiently well-acquainted with Burgos to know
him at least by sight—otherwise why choose a friar resembling him
closely?—not being able in any single case to recognize the impostor
when engaged in prolonged discussions with him. But leaving this
point aside for the moment, the story first appears as coming from
Fr. Antonio Piernavieja with Fr. Claudio del Arco in the role of
impostor. (Del Arco at the time was the Recoleto parish priest of
Santa Cruz, Zambales, though Piernavieja does not say so.) In the
almost simultaneous account from the Recoleto Fr. Agapito
Echegoyen, the impostor is made out to be an unknown Franciscan.
Presumably under further prodding from his captors who saw the
contradiction, Echegoyen concedes that it could have been a Reco-
leto, but still thinks it was a Franciscan.®’ In the Hong Kong
propaganda pamphlet a few weeks later, the impostor is identified
as the Recoleto parish priest of Santa Cruz, Zambales, though not
named.® The slightly subsequent account by Regidor, published in
Paris in the same year and hence very likely without knowledge of
the Cavite or Hong Kong accounts, makes no mention of any
impersonation of Father Burgos, but makes the Peninsular lieuten-
ants Morquecho and Montesinos, the Recoleto Fr. Juan Gémez and
the lay brother of San Juan de Dios, Fray Antonio Rufidn, the
instigators of the revolt. In Regidor’s fuller account of 1900, Fr.
Juan Gémez is said to have used Zaldua to stir up the workers of
the arsenal to resist the removal of their privileges, and to have
used Rufidn to incite Lieutenants Morquecho and Montesinos to
lead the artillerymen in support of the arsenal workers, “if there
should be need to make use of force.”** In this latter version not only
is there no question of any friar impersonator of Father Burgos, but
the supposed role of the Recoleto Fr. Juan Gémez does not even
have any clear connection with the alleged plot of the provincials
to provoke a revolt; the armed forces were only supposed to use
force if needed to support the resistance of the arsenal workers to
the abolition of their privileges, a resistance conceived as not
necessarily leading to any use of armed force.® His own inconsis-
tency seems to have escaped Regidor, or perhaps he ignored it
inasmuch as neither account was published under his own name.
Finally, Artigas takes up both the Regidor version on the one
hand and selections from the Piernavieja and the Echegoyen ver-
sions on the other, and combines them into one account. In his
 Sources on Cavite Mutiny 87

selection, either the contradictions between Regidor’s accounts and

those of the excerpted documents escaped him, or he simply chose
to ignore them.®!

Conclusions

The foregoing analysis of these early accounts of the Cavite Mutiny

leads to the following conclusions as to the reliability of these sources
and the relationships existing among them:
1, There are only three certainly independent major versions of
the events that deserve serious consideration—those of Montero y
Vidal, of Regidor, and of Pardo de Tavera. If it could be shown that
Plauchut was actually present in Manila in 1872, his account could
be included for the little it might contain independent of Regidor.
But there is nothing to indicate that he actually was in Manila in
1872, and everything solidly reliable in his account can be found in
Regidor.
2. Only Montero maintains fully the official thesis that the mutiny
was part of a larger revolt aimed at independence; the others deny
it, though Regidor and Plauchut have certain apparent contradic-
tions in their explanations, as well as numerous highly improbable
details and dialogue.
3. The partial account reproduced in Pastells and, less clearly,
that of Govantes, reject Montero’s full position without clearly and
completely supporting the contention that nothing more than a
local mutiny was involved.
4. The account of Pardo de Tavera, prescinding frm the emo-
tional antifriar tone that pervades it, gives evidence of being the
most reliable, even though fairly general, account except for its
failure to recognize that De la Torre had also been suspicious of the
Filipino reformists. That of Montero, apart from its anti-Filipino
tone and its supposition of a revolutionary conspiracy, contains the
most details and, to all appearances, the most reliable account of
the actual course of the revolt itself, as well as of the execution of
the three priests.
5. The notion of a deliberate and concerted friar conspiracy to
provoke a revolt that would enable them to eliminate their enemies
comes solely from Regidor, whose description contains clearly false
assertions. The story that such a provocation was carried out by
means of a friar impersonating Burgos is first found in the torture-
extorted confessions of the friars executed at the orders of Bonifacio
in 1897. These latter “confessions” clearly contradict Regidor at
88 Sources on Cavite Mutiny

several points. The lack of a reliable basis for these allegations

against the friars does not, however, necessarily invalidate the
more general assertion of Pardo de Tavera that a large group of
conservative Manila Spaniards, including many or most friars, were
suspicious of the Filipino priests and other liberal reformists from
the time of De la Torre, and were quick to make of the Cavite
Mutiny a revolution aimed at independence and even to favor the
drastic punishments meted out.
6. Of all those existing, the account of Artigas combines the
maximum of information, documentation, and detail with at least
a minimum of critical treatment of his sources. However, depending
as heavily as he does on Regidor and having made use of such other
unreliable sources as the Piernavieja-Echegoyen accounts, it falls
far short of providing a fully reliable treatment of the events of
1872. Useful as it is in the absence of any satisfactory account, it
can only be employed with any surety by the historian who is aware
of Artigas’ own sources and their value.
The evaluations in this article are intended as aids to the use of
these published sources. But as is obvious, even after evaluating
them, they must be used in conjunction with documentary archival
sources to arrive at any more complete and reliable historical picture.
If the failure to locate the records of the trials is a serious loss, still
there remains a rather large amount of documentary material that
has either been published in recent times or the existence of which
is known. The availability of these materials should make it pos-
sible to obtain a more critical and satisfactory synthesis than has
hitherto been found.

Appendix

In the light of the evaluation of the primary sources attempted

in the foregoing essay, it may be useful to annotate briefly as to
their sources the later books and major articles of some importance.
Textbooks and occasional popular articles have been generally
omitted. Ms. Dolores Origeneza and Ms. Rachel Abanil gave me
research assistance in the preparation of the list, and the mimeo-
graphed bibliography prepared by the Burgos-Gomez-Zamora
Centennial Commission was also helpful. I am grateful for this
assistance.
Cruz, Hermenegildo. El P. Burgos, precursor de Rizal. Manila: Librerfa
“Manila Filatélica,” 1941. 94 pp. Based on the pseudo-Burgos works of
Jose Marco. Of no historical value.
 Sources on Cavite Mutiny 89

Daroy, Petronilo Bn. “Burgos and Rizal,” in Rizal: Contrary Essays, ed.
Petronilo Bn. Daroy and Dolores S. Feria. Quezon City: Guro Books,
1968. Pp. 51-56. Based on the pseudo-Burgos La loba negra; hence of
no historical value.
Foreman, John. The Philippine Islands. New York: Charles Scribner, 1899.
Pp. 114-15. Though alleging Regidor as one of his sources, contains
numerous factual errors not in Regidor. Valueless.
Lopez, Honorio. Ang tunay na buhay ni P. Dr. Jose Burgos at nang manga
Nacasama Niya na sina P. Jacinto Zamora, P. Mariano Gomez at ang
nadayang Miguel Zaldua. Icalawang Pagcahayag. Maynila: Imp. J.
Martinez, 1912. 62 pp. A narrative in Tagalog verse, accompanied with
footnotes. Depends on Regidor principally, though also on the Pons and
the Piernavieja accounts, probably through Artigas. Valueless.
Manuel, E. Arsenio. “Burgos, Jose A.,” Dictionary of Philippine Biography.
Quezon City: Filipiniana Publications, 1955—70. Vol. II, pp. 62-97. Makes
a generally critical use of the sources cited in this essay, supplemented
by interviews and other sources for the establishment of genealogy and
correct dates. However, the account of the trial and certain other details
are based on the apocryphal Lifidn work by Marco, which he accepts as
genuine. He also cites as works of Burgos the numerous other Marco
compositions, though adverting to some of the difficulties and improba-
bilities they contain, and inviting scholarly investigation. (This biogra-
phy was published prior to the appearance of my PS article on the
pseudo-Burgos apocrypha now found in essay 4 above.)
. “Gomez, Mariano.” Dictionary of Philippine Biography, I: 195-99.
Principally based on Regidor and Pardo de Tavera, but with additional
information from surviving relatives and other sources. The best ac-
count existing until now, though recently published documentation can
supplement and correct it.
. “Zamora, Jacinto.” Dictionary of Philippine Biography, I: 489-90.
Brief account, based chiefly on Regidor. Errs on the date of Zamora’s
taking possession of his post as rector of the Cathedral.
Ponce, Mariano. “E] Padre Jose Burgos,” Efemérides filipinas, ed. Jaime C.
de Veyra and Mariano Ponce. Manila: Imp. de I. R. Morales, 1914.
Vol. I, pp. 189-43. Largely a literal transcription of Regidor, perhaps by
way of Artigas, from whose work the letter of Fr. Pedro Bertran, S.J.,
is reproduced.
Quijano de Manila [Nick Joaquin]. “How Filipino Was Burgos?” Philippines
Free Press, 8 June 1968, pp. 2-3, 70.
. “The ‘Precursor of Rizal’?” Philippines Free Press, 15 June
1968, pp. 4, 84-87. Though offering interesting and provocative insights
into the background of Burgos and the movement of which he was a
part, especially in the first of these two articles, the articles make
considerable use of the Marco apocrypha, and hence base their conclu-
sions on inauthentic data. These two articles later appeared in revised
form in Joaquin’s A Question of Heroes (Makati: Ayala Museum, 1977),
which suffers from the same defect of sources.
Quirino, Carlos, “Father Gomes the Immortal,” Sunday Times Magazine,
30 July 1972, pp. 26-27. Principally based on Manuel and his sources,
but adding some further biographical details from recent research in the
Manila Archdiocesan Archives.
90 Sources on Cavite Mutiny

____. “A Checklist of Documents of Gomburza from the Archdioce-

san Archives of Manila,” PS 21 (1973): 19-84. A listing of the documen-
tation concerning the ecclesiastical careers of Pelaez, Burgos, Gomez,
Zamora, with a few references to Sevilla and Dandan, exiled when the
latter three were executed. A few of the more important ones are repro-
duced at the end.
_____. “More Documents on Burgos,” PS 18 (1970): 161-77. Supple-
mentary to those published by Schumacher and Cushner; two on the
Cavite Mutiny.
Santamaria, Alberto, O.P. “El P. Burgos y la Universidad de Santo Tomas,”
Unitas 16 (1937-38): 257-66.
. “Mas datos sobre el P. Burgos y Santo Tomas,” Unitas 16
(1937-38): 309-14. Useful data for the early life of Burgos and his
academic career, from the University Archives. Now superseded by
Villarroel.
Santiago, Luciano P.R. “The Capellanfa of Padre Mariano Gomes,” PS 32
(1984): 325-34. Provides some details on the ethnic background and
early life of Gomez, from documents in the Archdiocesan Archives of
Manila.
. “The Last Will of Padre Mariano Gomes,” PS 30 (1982): 395-407.
Authentic data of value for the life of Gomez, based on the discovery of
a copy of his last will in the Philippine National Archives.
Tormo Sanz, Leandro. 1872. Documents Compiled by . . . Tr. Antonio
Molina. Manila: Historical Conservation Society, 1973. Invaluable col-
lection of documents assembled by Gen. Rafael Izquierdo to justify the
executions and deportations after the Cavite Mutiny. Originals repro-
duced, but translations not always accurate.
. El Obispo Volenteri “combarcano” de Rizal. Madrid, 1977.
Originally appeared in Missionalia Hispanica 33-34 (1976-77): 181-278,
249-85. Though incidental to his subject, provides more documentation
and a plausible reconstruction of the Cavite Mutiny. Valuable, though
not definitive, particularly with regard to the role of foreign interven-
tion.
Villarroel, Fidel, O.P. Father Jose Burgos, University Student. Manila:
University of Santo Tomas Press, 1971. xvii, 121, (127) pp. Though not
dealing with the Cavite Mutiny, this thorough study of the university
career of Burgos clarifies and corrects on the basis of the university ar-
chives many erroneous details of earlier accounts.
Zafra, Nicolas. Philippine History through Selected Sources. Quezon City:
Alemar-Phoenix, 1967. Pp. 148-69. Most judicious textbook account,
based on critical use of the then available sources.
 6
The Noli Me Tdngere as
Catalyst of Revolution

I have chosen the wording for the title with some care:
catalyst of revolution, not catalyst of the Revolution. Though there
was indeed a connection between the Noli and the Revolution of
1896, I do not intend to draw a direct line between the two; the
matter is more complex than that. Rather, I want to speak of Rizal’s
purpose in writing the Noli—to provide a catalyst for a revolution,
to start the process that would lead to the emancipation of the
Philippines. That is to say that by the time he completed his novel
in late 1886, Rizal had already concluded to the futility of the goals
sought by many of his fellow-Filipinos, who hoped to obtain from
Spain reforms for the Philippines by which Filipinos would enjoy
the full rights of Spanish citizens and continue as equals within the
Spanish empire.
This was the assimilationist solution under whose banner the
Propaganda Movement would ostensibly pursue its campaign in La
92 Noli Me Tangere

Solidaridad. That Rizal had originally shared that goal is very

likely true, perhaps even when he began to write the Noli in 1884.
If so, by the time he brought the novel into its final form, he had
already opted for ultimate separation from Spain. Since Spain would
never voluntarily grant independence to the Filipinos, he had
concluded, there remained no choice except a revolution, and the
Noli was the first step toward that goal.
I am aware that this statement goes contrary to what numerous
other writers have said about Rizal from Spanish times up to the
present. It is also true that the Noli itself nowhere makes an explicit
call for revolution. Hence, Spaniards, Americans, and Filipinos have
said, some in praise, some in scorn, that Rizal was not a revolution-
ary but a reformist; a mere reformist, as say the advocates of the
violent overturning of our society. In the words of Amado Guerrero’s
Philippine Society and Revolution: “[Rizal] failed to state categori-
cally the need for revolutionary armed struggle to effect separation
from Spain.”! Similarly, from a somewhat different point of view,
for Renato Constantino: “the demands of the ilustrado reformists
[among whom he includes Rizal] were necessarily delimited by their
class position,” and Rizal was “a reformist to the end.”* Such views
had been enunciated long ago by men from opposite ends of the
ideological spectrum, like Rizal’s first biographer, the Spaniard
Wenceslao E. Retana. The latter denied that Rizal had been the
enemy of Spain, but only one who sought reforms, which Spain
unwisely denied. This too was the image promoted by American
colonialists like William Howard Taft and later by W. Cameron
Forbes, who even insisted: “Rizal never advocated independence
nor did he advocate armed resistance to the government. He urged
reform from within, by publicity, by public education, and appeal
to the public conscience.”* No doubt, not everything is false in these
images, but they present only certain aspects of Rizal’s ideas, and
in the end certainly falsify his insights into the problems of the
Philippines of his day.
I would maintain, in contradiction to these views, that Rizal, as
early as 1886, had already determined that there was no future for
the Philippines in union with Spain, that the only course to be
pursued was the complete separation from Spain as an independent
nation. Why has this view found so little acceptance among writers
on Rizal if it is as clear as I would maintain? I see the answer in
three factors, apart from ideological biases: (1) the failure to distin-
guish between what Rizal (and other Filipinos who shared his ideas)
were able to say publicly and what they felt privately; (2) the failure
to read Rizal’s Noli and his other writings within the context of his
 Noli Me Taéngere 93

personal correspondence at the time he was publishing; and (3) the

failure to see the Noli not simply as an independent work but as
part of a well-thought-out long-range plan. More specifically, Rizal’s
three major books, the Noli, the annotated edition of Antonio de
Morga’s Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas, and the Filibusterismo, form
a unity, a carefully calibrated effort to point the way to the future
independence of the Philippines.

Noli as Charter of Nationalism

In 1884, in his speech at the Madrid banquet honoring Juan

Luna and Felix Resurreccién Hidalgo for their prize-winning paint-
ings, Rizal still expresses hope for reforms from Spain. But he also
speaks of two equal races, and though he proclaims that even if the
Spanish flag were to disappear from the Philippines, “her memory
would remain, eternal and imperishable,” at the same time he warns:
“What can a red and yellow rag do, or guns and cannon, where love
and affection do not flower, where there is no union of minds, no
agreement on principles, no harmony of opinions?” The implicit
conditions he here placed on future Filipino loyalty to Spain were
not lost on Spaniards in Manila, and his brother Paciano wrote of
his mother’s illness due to her fears that Jose would never be able
to return to his homeland.§ Separation of the Philippines from Spain,
therefore, was at this point a distinct possibility for Rizal, who was
beginning to write his novel, but it was not inevitable.
He originally intended to write the novel in French, then the
universal language of educated Europe, so as to depict Philippine
society for them. But as he would tell his friend Ferdinand Blumen-
tritt in 1888, he had later decided that other writers could under-
take that task—it was instead for his fellow Filipinos that he must
write. For, he continued, “I must wake from its slumber the spirit
of my country .. . I must first propose to my countrymen an example
with which they can struggle against their bad qualities, and after-
wards, when they have reformed, many writers will rise up who can
present my country to proud Europe.” In his Noli he does seek for
reforms, demands them even, but from Filipinos rather than from
Spaniards. Spain of course has an obligation to grant reforms in the
Philippines, but in a sense, whether she does or not is irrelevant;
the Filipinos must bring about reform themselves. As I have tried
to show elsewhere, the novel is not primarily an attack on the
abuses of Spain and the friars. It contains that, to be sure, but it
is more than that. It is a charter of nationalism for Filipinos. It calls
on the Filipino to regain his self-confidence, to appreciate his own
94 Noli Me Tangere

worth, to return to the heritage of his ancestors, to assert himself

as the equal of the Spaniards. Because it was Filipinos Rizal wrote
for, he was insistent that his book had to reach the Philippines and
had to be written in a language they would understand.’
What message did Rizal wish to transmit to his fellow Filipinos?
As is clear from the quotation we have given, it was first of all that
the Filipinos should be aware of what was wrong with Philippine
society, not only Spanish abuses, but Filipino failures as well. But
his purpose went beyond that. His correspondence with his new
friend Blumentritt in early 1887, even though at first cautious,
makes clear the direction of his thinking. From Rizal’s comments
it may be gathered that Blumentritt had proposed that a time
would come when the Philippines would gradually develop toward
independent status with the acquiescence of Spain. Rizal answers:

It will never come. The peaceful struggle must remain a dream, for
Spain will never learn from her earlier colonies in South America. Spain
does not see what England has learned in North America. But in the
present circumstances we want no separation from Spain; all we demand
is more care, better instruction, better officials, one or two representatives,
and more security for ourselves and our property. Spain can still win the
Philippines for herself forever, if only Spain were more reasonable.’

Rizal registers a glimmer of hope that the separation of the Phil-

ippines from Spain might come about by a peaceful and gradual
development, a vain hope he now believes, but still the ideal. But
in any case the separation must come; that is clear in his mind. It
is, however, not something for which the Philippines, at the moment,
is ready—“in the present circumstances we want no separation from
Spain”—but the eventual goal is already determined.
It becomes more clear in his impassioned outburst a month later,
occasioned by the crude anti-Filipino articles being published in
Madrid by the Spaniard, Pablo Feced, writing under the pseudo-
nym Quioquiap. Rizal tells Blumentritt:

Quioquiap is a little more crude than Cafiamaque, Mas, San Agustin,

etc., but more honest; he wants separation and he is correct. The Filipinos
have long desired Hispanization and have been wrong. Spain should
desire this Hispanization, not the Filipinos. Now we receive this lesson
from the Spaniards, and we express our thanks to them.?

It is in this light that we must understand the Noli. Rizal’s

hostile critic, the Spanish writer Vicente Barrantes, would taunt
him for making the Filipinos in his novel just as bad as the friars
and the Guardia Civil.’ Barrantes missed the point. Though Rizal
 Noli Me Tangere 95

does from time to time highlight the virtues and good qualities of
the unspoiled Filipino, the Noli does not have as its goal the glo-
rification of the race any more than it does the mere condemnation
of Spanish oppression. A sound nationalism had to be based on an
accurate and unsparing analysis and understanding of the contem-
porary situation, not on a self-congratulatory, and therefore self-
deceptive, adulation of all things Filipino. Before beginning the
struggle, the foundation must be well and surely laid.

Noli and Fili: Action with Vision

For the Noli was not meant to stand alone. Even before it had
come off the press, Rizal already had in mind a sequel. This we can
gather from a letter written to him in Berlin by his friend Evaristo
Aguirre in Madrid in January 1887:

I applaud the studies you are undertaking, both of Sanskrit and of those
other books which will give you the wealth of historical data needed to
write that other novel, based on history, which you have in mind."

Though the planned historical novel never saw the light as such,
the role it would have played may be conjectured with good proba-
bility from the book that actually turned out to be the most immediate
and significant outcome of Rizal’s historical studies in Germany
and later at the British Museum in London, after his return to
Europe in 1888. Dedicating it to his fellow Filipinos, he wrote in the
preface to his annotated edition of Antonio de Morga’s seventeenth-
century work, Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas, an explanation that
clarifies the evolution of his thought:

In the Noli me tadngere I began the sketch of the present state of our
country. The effect which my attempt produced made me understand
that before continuing to unveil to your eyes other succeeding pictures
I must first make known the past, so that it may be possible to judge
better the present and to measure the path which has been traversed
during three centuries... .
If this book succeeds in awakening in you the consciousness of our
past, which has been blotted out from our memories, and in rectifying
what has been falsified by calumny, then I will not have labored in vain.
With this foundation, tiny as it may be, we can all dedicate ourselves
to studying the future.”

It would seem that it was only after some months researching in

the British Museum in early Spanish sources on Philippine history,
that Rizal decided to give up the idea of an historical novel as a
96 Noli Me Tangere

sequel to the Noli. He would publish instead a scholarly analysis

of the Philippines at the Spanish contact, using Morga’s book as a
base. As the Noli had shown the Filipinos their present condition
under Spain, the Morga would show them their roots as a nation—
"the last moments of our ancient nationality,” as Rizal put it.”
The foundation having thus been laid in these two books, Rizal
would chart the Filipino course for the future in El Filibusterismo.
Here we find the fulfillment of the promise contained in the Noli.
He shows two possible courses remaining: the solution of Simoun
and that of Padre Florentino—that of armed violence and that of
active nonviolent resistance, to put them in terms familiar today.
Rizal explores the way of Simoun-Ibarra in detail and rejects it; he
has Padre Florentino give only the outlines of the second course,
just enough to show that it is the only way to follow. Because the
implementation of Padre Florentino’s vision lies in the future, Rizal
cannot give detailed instructions. Rather, he gives the vision and
makes his act of faith in the Filipino and in the God of history;
action in accord with that vision will prove its genuinity and open
the paths to its fulfillment.
This interpretation of the Fili depends on my interpretation of
the Noli. Some biographers of Rizal, like Retana, have tried to
explain the Noli in terms of Ibarra, the idealist, working for reforms
under Spanish auspices and representing the mind of Rizal; while
Elias, the man of action, represents Bonifacio, the revolutionary.
Leon Ma. Guerrero, in his First Filipino, has pointed out the fallacy
in this interpretation. For when Ibarra fails in his reform program
and opts for violence, it is Elias who tries to dissuade him, urging
that he will lead his countrymen into a bloodbath, and that it will
be the defenseless and innocent who will most suffer. Rather, says
Guerrero,

the Noli thus presents a problem without offering a clear solution,

perhaps purposely, for either Rizal was not clear in his own mind as to
the correct one, or was prudent enough not to openly favor independence
and revolution.’®

No doubt prudence played a part, though Rizal was not one to

keep silent for his own protection if he felt that something really
needed to be said. Probably more significant was his prudence not
to arouse people at this point to revolution. For in 1887, as he
agreed with Blumentritt, the conditions for success did not yet
exist. But I do not think Guerrero is correct in speculating that
Rizal was perhaps not yet clear in his own mind about the future.
 Noli Me Tangere 97

As I have tried to show, he had decided on separation from Spain

when he published the Noli. And in broad lines he knew how he
thought it should come about. He originally intended to propose the
solution in his second novel, but then realized that he could only
do so after having laid further groundwork. The first part of that
groundwork, the awakening of a national consciousness, already
begun in the Noli, had to be undergirded with a solid historical
foundation; this he did in the Morga. But there still remained the
course of action to be explored for the fulfillment of the nationalism
he had aroused.
The obvious answer to Elias’s objection that the people were not
yet ready and that, by embarking on revolution, Ibarra was only
preparing a bloodbath for the innocent, was the course that Ibarra
attempted to implement in his new role as Simoun—to rouse up the
Filipinos to a revolutionary consciousness by stimulating Spanish
injustice and abuses while organizing the people of all classes to
resist that oppression. But Rizal the novelist shows Simoun’s path
to be the wrong one by leading him to failure and to death. More-
over, he passes judgment on this path in the words of Padre
Florentino. To the dying Simoun’s question as to why a God of
justice and freedom had forsaken him in his efforts to bring justice
and freedom to his country, Padre Florentino replies:

Because you chose a means of which He could not approve... . Hate only
creates monsters; crime, criminals; only love can work wonders, only
virtue redeem. If our country is one day to be free, it will not be through
vice and crime, it will not be through the corruption of its sons, some
deceived, others bribed; redemption presupposes virtue; virtue, sacrifice;
and sacrifice, love.1®

Simoun then asks the despairing question as to whether Padre

Florentino proposes that it is God’s will that the Philippines should
continue in its present miserable condition. Rizal gives an answer,
at once confident of the justice of the Filipino cause in God’s sight
and sure of the direction to be taken, though without knowledge of
the detailed means:

I know that God has not forsaken those peoples that in time of decision
have placed themselves in His hands and made Him the judge of their
oppression. I know that His arm has never been wanting when, with
justice trampled under foot and all other resources exhausted, the
oppressed have taken up the sword and fought for . . . their inalienable
rights . . . God is justice and He cannot abandon His own cause, the
cause of freedom without which no justice is possible.’
98 Noli Me Tangere

The Filipino people, he says, in the face of oppression must “endure

and work.” It is not, however, a passive endurance, but an active
resistance to evil and refusal to accept the deprivation of their
freedom. But he adds:

I do not mean that our freedom is to be won at the point of the sword;
the sword counts for little in the destinies of modern times. But it is true
that we must win it by deserving it, exalting reason and the dignity of
the individual, loving what is just, what is good, what is great, even to
the point of dying for it. When the people rises to this height, God
provides the weapon, and the idols fall, the tyrants fall like a house of
cards, and freedom shines in the first dawn.’®

Finally, consistent with the purpose Rizal had set when he wrote
the Noli, he places the responsibility on the Filipinos themselves.

Our misfortunes are our own fault, let us blame nobody else for them.
If Spain were to see us less tolerant of tyranny and readier to fight and
suffer for’our rights, Spain would be the first to give us freedom... .
But as long as the Filipino people do not have sufficient vigor to proclaim,
head held high and chest bared, their right to a life of their own in
human society, and to guarantee it with their sacrifices, with their very
blood . . . why give them independence? With or without Spain they
would be the same, and perhaps, perhaps worse. What is the use of
independence if the slaves of today will be the tyrants of tomorrow? And
no doubt they will, because whoever submits to tyranny loves it!?®

Rizal indeed foresees the possibility of bloodshed; he can even

conceive a situation in which it would be justified to take up arms.
But an armed revolution will not by itself win freedom. The point
is not to shed other people’s blood, but to be ready enough to shed
one’s own for the people that one will have the courage to resist any
attack on human dignity, on the freedom that belongs to every man
and woman. Until a people has been built up who are ready to
claim, demand, and even die for that dignity and freedom, an armed
revolution will not only fail to solve the problem, but perhaps even
create a new tyranny.

Rizal: Reformist or Revolutionary?

Today perhaps it is easier to answer that question than it was

a year ago. Over the last couple of decades we had allowed the
question to be formulated by thinking springing from a Marxist
ideology, and thus put in a constricting and ultimately false di-
lemma: to be reformist meant to engage in futile tinkering with the
political and economic structures of society through parliamentary
 Noli Me Taéngere 99

means, or even by political bargaining and intrigue. To be revolu-

tionary, on the other hand, was to take up arms against the gov-
ernment, the establishment, those in power. In February 1986 the
Filipino people showed that there was another kind of revolution.
I do not know how many of those involved in that revolution were
consciously aware of Rizal’s ideas, but the fundamental thinking of
many who stood in front of the tanks on EDSA was directly in the
line of Rizal as he expressed himself through the mouth of Padre
Florentino—revolution is not primarily an armed struggle to shed
other people’s blood, but a willingness to risk shedding one’s own
blood for the sake of the people.
I had not aimed to draw parallels with contemporary events. I
simply intended to show that Rizal had a consistent view of the
Filipino national task that dated back to his Noli; to show that
Rizal had been a separatist from early in his career, but one who
understood quite clearly the preconditions by which that independ-
ence from Spain would mean true freedom and justice. But a
reexamination of Rizal’s writings has made clear to me that Rizal’s
philosophy of revolution has considerable relevance for today. Ironi-
cally those who have tried in our country to develop a philosophy
of active nonviolent resistance to injustice, though they have of
course based themselves primarily on the Gospels, have looked for
modern inspiration to figures like Gandhi and Martin Luther King
for the most part, and not, as far as I am aware, to Rizal. Yet, in
a way even more striking than these men, there is a consistency in
Rizal between thought and life.
To many the speeches of Padre Florentino have seemed creations
of the idealistic novelist’s pen, rhetoric rather than practical pre-
scriptions. Rizal was aware of the objection. Though it was not
made directly to his face, such criticism had been expressed by one
who shared Rizal’s basic nationalist commitment to a free Philip-
pines, but sought it by what he considered more practical meth-
ods—Marcelo H. del Pilar. When the split between the two men
took place in 1891, Del Pilar wrote to his brother-in-law, Deodato
Arellano, his judgment of Rizal: “The fact is that my man [Rizal]
has been formed in libraries, and in libraries no account is taken
of the atmosphere in which one must work.””
Rizal’s implicit answer to that criticism followed directly on his
second novel. By the end of the year 1891 Rizal was in Hong Kong,
ready to go back to the Philippines, for the work of writing was now
over; it remained to put Padre Florentino’s ideals into action.”
From the beginning he had insisted with Del Pilar that La Solidari-
dad should direct its articles to the Filipinos, not the Spaniards.”
100 Noli Me Tangere

One can see this clearly in all his own articles, especially the major
ones, “Sobre la indolencia de los Filipinos” and “Filipinas dentro de
cien afios.” But it was not enough to have his ideals proposed to his
countrymen in writing; it was necessary to put them into action
there in the Philippines. Even as early as 1888 or 1889 he had
written to one of his friends in Europe, probably Del Pilar,, his
convictions:
If our countrymen hope in us here in Europe, they are certainly mistaken.
... The help we can give them is our lives in our country. Had I not
been unwilling to shorten the lives of my parents, I would not have left
the Philippines no matter what happened. Those five months I stayed
there were a life of example, a book even better than the Noli me
tdngere. The field of battle is the Philippines; there is where we should
be found. .. . There we will help each other, there we will suffer united,
and perhaps even triumph.”

The intimate relation between his months in the Philippines in

1887 and the Noli repeats itself in the Fili and his return to Manila
in 1892 to activate the Liga Filipina. In the Liga he would give a
concrete exemplification of Padre Florentino’s demand that the
Filipinos “must win [freedom] by deserving it, exalting reason and
the dignity of the individual, loving what is good, what is great,
even to the point of dying for it.” On the one hand, the statutes of
the Liga call for national unity, dedication to economic, educational,
and other reforms—not begging them from the Spaniards, but the
Filipinos undertaking them themselves; on the other, the Filipinos
must defend one another against all violence and injustice, must be
of recognized moral character, and perhaps most significantly, they
must not submit to any humiliation nor treat others in such a way
as to humiliate them.” Essentially, it is what Rizal had demanded
of Filipinos in the Noli as well as the Fili—that Filipinos should act
as free men and women, and demand that their dignity as such be
recognized by others. When Filipinos are so united into what Rizal
calls a “compact, vigorous, and homogeneous body,” then, “the idols
and the tyrants will fall like a house of cards.” Recognizing that he
could make such demands on his countrymen only if he himself
were to give the example, Rizal returned to his homeland, well
aware that he was taking his liberty, and perhaps even his life, into
his hands.

Conclusion

No doubt relatively few of those to whom Rizal spoke had per-

ceived the whole of his message, and the Liga after his deportation
 Noli Me Tangere 101

to Dapitan would split into two groups: one still dedicated to the
support of Del Pilar’s campaign in Europe; the other, as the Katip-
unan, soon turning to armed revolution.” Rizal had already re-
fected the first course long ago. Consistent with his long-range and
essentially nonviolent view of revolution, he would also refuse his
assent to the revolution of 1896. His address to his fellow Filipinos
from his prison cell, though undoubtedly hampered by his position
as prisoner, retains the ideals of long-range preparation of the
nation, and nowhere repudiates his goal of emancipation from
Spanish rule, as the Spanish Judge Advocate General at his trial
noted in refusing to allow the appeal to be made public.” His
comment that Rizal “limits himself to condemning the present
rebellious movement as premature and because he considers its
success impossible at this time. .. . For Rizal it is a question of
opportunity, not of principles or objectives,””’ is simplistic and unjust
to Rizal’s thought. But he is correct in seeing that Rizal did not
condemn revolution as such.
Rizal refused to take part in Bonifacio’s revolution not merely
because he did not think it could succeed. That was a factor of
course; he did not want useless bloodshed. But, consistent with his
views from the Noli onward, he maintained to the end that the
revolutionary goal was to create a nation of Filipinos conscious of
their human and national dignity and ready to sacrifice themselves
to defend it. Then God would provide the weapon, and the tyrants
would fall like a house of cards. He did not live to see that day. But
he had pointed the way for his countrymen to follow, not just with
his books, but with his life and with his death.
 The Propagandists’
Reconstruction of the
Philippine Past

The Filipinos had no written history before the Spanish

contact, nor is there evidence of any indigenous account of their
past apart from the legends in the orally transmitted epics that
survived long enough to be recorded. There was indeed a system of
writing, and more than one early Spanish missionary commented
on the almost universal literacy among the sixteenth-century lowland
Filipinos. But usage of the syllabary seems to have been confined
to such practical and ephemeral uses as letters and the noting down
of debts. Hence, the only written accounts of the Philippine past
before the nineteenth century are those emanating from Spanish
sources.
Though few of the Spanish conquistadores or colonial officials set
their hand to historical writing, there was a vigorous tradition of
chronicles among the five religious orders that undertook the Chris-
 Propagandists’ Philippine Past 103

tianization of the Philippines. By the early seventeenth century, the

first chronicles had already appeared, Chirino for the Jesuits and
Ribadeneyra for the Franciscans.! The other orders soon followed
suit, and a series of such chronicles continued to appear throughout
the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. By definition these had
as their primary focus the activities of the missionaries themselves,
into which the Filipinos entered chiefly as those among whom, and
for whose benefit, these activities were carried on. At their worst
they degenerated into hagiographical catalogues. But among the
better ones a few, such as Chirino, wrote extensively of the Filipi-
nos themselves and devoted considerable attention to pre-Hispanic
Filipino society, of which it was then still possible to have firsthand
knowledge. Though not precisely a chronicler, the Franciscan Fray
Juan de Plasencia also wrote in the 1580s careful descriptions of
Tagalog and Pampangan customs and laws, which were long ac-
cepted as normative by the colonial government and are informa-
tive on pre-Hispanic society in these regions. Nonetheless, seven-
teenth-century Spanish missionary views were strongly colored by
their views on the unquestioned superiority of Hispanic culture and
by their conviction that the pre-Hispanic animistic religion was a
manifestation of the Devil, whose hand they seemed to see at work
almost as frequently as they did the hand of God in the work of
Christianization.
Though by the nineteenth century the era of the chronicles had
largely died out, the Spanish disdain for pre-Hispanic Filipino culture
reappeared in a much more offensive form, precisely as Filipinos
began to assert themselves as equal to Spaniards and to ask for
their rights. In an effort to inculcate loyalty and submission, Spanish
writers appealed to the Filipino sense of gratitude for the benefits
conferred by Spanish rule, and in so doing pictured in ever blacker
colors the condition of the Filipinos at the coming of the Spaniards.
As one clerical pamphlet intended for popular consumption put it
through the mouth of a fictitious Filipino character: this society
ought not to be called peculiarly Filipino “because we have contrib-
uted nothing of what constitutes civilized society; it is the Span-
iards who have done it all.” Imbued with contemporary European
racist concepts, other writers spoke, sometimes condescendingly,
sometimes viciously, of the superior white race, which had done its
best to raise up, in spite of obstacles, the inferior brown Malay.°
Against this background a nationalist Filipino historiography would
come into being.
104 Propagandists’ Philippine Past

Beginnings of the Search for the Filipino Past

An indigenous Filipino historiography became possible through

the Western higher education implanted by the missionaries in the
country shortly after their arrival. Though originally founded for
Spaniards, native Filipinos were found in the secondary schools of
Manila by the end of the seventeenth century, and in the univer-
sities in the eighteenth. However, it was only toward mid-nine-
teenth century that relatively large numbers of Filipinos sought
higher education, first in Manila and then in Spain and elsewhere
in Europe.
Not surprisingly, the relatively widespread access of Filipinos to
higher education coincided with the beginnings of a consciously
articulated nationalism. The awakening of such nationalism can be
dated roughly between the years 1880 and 1895. This whole period,
during which increasing numbers of Filipino students arrived in
Europe, has come to be referred to in Philippine historiography as
the “Propaganda Movement,” from the sponsorship given by a Manila
organization called the Comité de Propaganda to the political
lobbying and journalism centered in the Filipino newspaper La
Solidaridad, first in Barcelona and then in Madrid. The Spanish
word propaganda had none of the derogatory connotations that its
modern English translation has acquired. Hence, the “Propagan-
dists” dealt with here refer simply to all the activist ilustrados,
those Filipinos possessing higher education, particularly from the
universities of Europe. Imbued with the ideas of nineteenth-century
liberalism, their writings prepared the way for the Revolution of
1896. Though they were often divided over many issues, and not all
belonged to a single organization, all shared in a common campaign
for Filipino rights that helped prepare the minds of Filipinos for the
Revolution.
The Propagandists shared a common program of reforms and
assimilation—the application to the Philippines of Spanish metro-
politan law and rights, under which all would be recognized equally
as Spanish citizens. These common aspirations, which they pre-
sented to the Spanish government and public, represented those of
the majority in the beginning and remained the professed program
of the movement right up to the Revolution. Increasingly, however,
these aspirations became a front behind which a growing number
of nationalists prepared the way for more or less proximate inde-
pendence. Chief among these was Jose Rizal, and it was he above
all who sought in the Filipino past the pattern for the future.‘
 Propagandists’ Philippine Past 105

The search for the Filipino past was both a product of, and a
stimulus to, nationalism. Its beginnings are to be found in Manila
among the first generation of Filipino nationalists, or protonation-
alists, mostly Catholic priests graduated from the University of
Santo Tomas in the 1860s. Among them the one to articulate in
print the aspirations of his generation, and the chief influence on
the next generation, was Fr. Jose Burgos. The catalyst of early
nationalism was the new stage reached in the age-old controversy
between the regular clergy (friars) and the secular clergy. By the
nineteenth century this intrachurch struggle had become a racial
one between Spanish friars and Filipino secular clergy. Though
mass ordinations of indigenous priests in the eighteenth century
had given some substance to the Spanish contentions as to Filipino
incapacity for the priesthood, the emergence of a university-trained
generation of clergy laid bare the suppositions of racial inferiority
and political unreliability, which were the real basis of Spanish
opposition to giving responsible positions to Filipino priests. It was
in this context that Burgos’s defense of his fellow priests looked to
history, to the accomplishments of Filipinos of past generations, as
proof of Filipino native capacity.° Though the references are rela-
tively brief and not all accurate, Burgos’s appeal to history is
significant principally for the influence it had on the next genera-
tion, most especially on Rizal.®
The first systematic attempt by Filipinos to explore their histori-
cal past, however, seems to have been occasioned by the general
European interest in history in the late nineteenth century, as
filtered into Manila through Spaniards resident there. Though the
Filipinos displaying historical interests were university-educated,
there is little reason to think that their interest grew out of their
academic pursuits, since the version of history taught in Manila
schools was more calculated to inculcate Filipino loyalty and grati-
tude to Spain than to convey accurate knowledge of the Filipino
past. Rather, the impulse seems to have come from a more general
interest in Philippine folklore and history that began to manifest
itself in Manila in the late 1880s. Spanish journalists like Wen-
ceslao E. Retana began to publish articles on provincial customs
and folklore in Manila newspapers; unpublished chronicles from
earlier centuries were resurrected and began to be published in
serial form in the same newspapers, like the Historia by Juan
Delgado, an eighteenth-century Spanish Jesuit.’ Soon a group of
subscribers initiated the series Biblioteca Historica Filipina, which
in the early 1890s published several other old chronicles as well.
106 Propagandists’ Philippine Past

Though the project was Spanish, intended as a “national monument

erected to the glories of Spain,” the list of subscribers shows sub-
stantial Filipino participation.®

National Identity and Racial Equality

It is against this background that the historical and ethnographi-

cal studies of Isabelo de los Reyes must be seen. From the pen of
this prolific and indefatigable Filipino journalist came a series of
works, generally published first as newspaper articles and later as
books.® De los Reyes’s books make little overt attempt to glorify the
Filipino precolonial past; indeed, one of them caused a Spanish
opponent of the Filipino nationalists to comment: “the author...
scarcely concedes anything praiseworthy to have existed among the
natives of old.”!° Nonetheless, De los Reyes, as his later career as
founder of the Iglesia Filipina Independiente would show, was an
ardent nationalist, and his purpose may be seen in the preface to
one of his early works, El Folk-Lore Filipino. He says: “Each one
serves his people according to his own way of thinking, and I, with
the Folk-Lore Ilocano believe that I am contributing to establishing
the past of my people.” This desire to know the Filipino past, to
establish a Filipino identity, runs through the writings of De los
Reyes. As scholarly history in the modern sense, these works are
of limited value, based as they are for the most part on a few
Spanish sources uncritically transcribed. The Filipino past is a
source of identity, not a golden age; nor is it clearly presented as
a motive for seeking independence from Spain. His contemporaries,
whether Spaniards or educated Filipinos, did not hold his historical
work in high regard, though they found his observations on Filipino
folklore and customs valuable.!!
A second strain in Filipino historiography, contemporary to that
of De los Reyes but appearing in Madrid instead of Manila, was
that represented by Pedro Paterno. In a series of books published
between 1887 and 1892, Paterno concentrates on the condition of
the Filipinos prior to the Spanish contact. But where De los Reyes
had been content to look for Filipino identity in merely recounting
their history, Paterno aims at proving the equality of Filipino to
Spaniard by extolling and magnifying the pre-Hispanic civilization.
Not only does he make lengthy extracts from the early chroniclers,
supplementing them with miscellaneous erudite, if often irrelevant,
citations of modern authors; he also employs his ingenuity in
extracting from his sources a demonstration of the high level of
Filipino culture at the Spanish contact. His conclusion, however, is
 Propagandists’ Philippine Past 107

not that colonialism has destroyed a flourishing civilization, a truly

Filipino one. Rather, Paterno accepts Spanish culture as the norm—
only to claim that it had all really existed in the Philippines before
the coming of the Spaniards. The burden of his message is that the
Filipinos are Spaniards no less than those born in the Peninsula,
and one might almost say, had been Spaniards at heart even before
the Spaniards arrived in the Philippines. Not only does he attempt
in his first historical work, La antigua civilizacion tagalog, to parallel
the stages of development of the “Luzonic isles” to the correspond-
ing stages of the development of European civilization; in his El
cristianismo en la antigua civilizacién tagdlog he also attempts to
show that the ancient Filipinos had been Christians in all but name
long before the coming of the Spanish Catholic missionaries. Bathal-
ismo, the worship of the Tagalog supreme being, Bathala, had a
body of doctrine that contained not only such Christian teachings
as the Incarnation and the Atonement, but even the mystery of the
Trinity in inchoate form. It was not then surprising for Paterno that
Spanish missionaries had found evangelization so easy in the six-
teenth and seventeenth centuries—Christianity was already there
in substance! The explanation of this remarkable coincidence of
Bathalismo and Christianity Paterno ingeniously found in a sup-
posed contact between the Philippines and Indian civilization, itself
the product of the preaching of the Apostles Bartholomew and
Thomas in India.
With such a foundation, Paterno’s subsequent works drew ex-
pected conclusions. The moral teachings of Bathalismo expounded
in La familia tagdlog en la historia universal turn out to be re-
markably coincident with Christian teaching on family and marital
morality. Similarly in El Barangay the pre-Hispanic organization
of government under the barangay system displays a “Tagalog
kingdom,” which, though monarchical, was democratic in organiza-
tion—thus providentially uniting all the best features of contempo-
rary Spain!??
Such conclusions of course do not come from the texts cited at
great length, but from the fantastic ingenuity of the author. Per-
haps they are best characterized by the judgment of the Filipino
bibliographer T. H. Pardo de Tavera, a contemporary of Paterno,
speaking of his El cristianismo en la antigua civilizacion tagdlog:
“A book full of surprises for history, for science, and for reason!”
Other Filipinos in Europe were privately amused or embarrassed
at Paterno’s writings.!* Though they expressed nationalism in their
rejection of the racial superiority of the colonial masters, and as
such received public commendation from some of the Filipinos in
108 Propagandists’ Philippine Past

Madrid, their frame of reference is in fact fundamentally colonial,

in which the metropolis provided the standard to measure the
cultural achievement of the colonized. Paterno does speak of the
Filipinos as being “ever-free allies” of Spain as a result of the blood
compact freely entered into between the maguinods (nobility) of the
Filipino people and the Spaniards of the sixteenth century, but it
is difficult to believe that he himself places great faith in his
miscellanies of history, irrelevant erudition, and outright plagia-
rism.!* Nonetheless, his writings do represent, however ineptly, one
strain of Filipino nationalist thought. For many conservative Propa-
gandists, the ideal was not a separation from Spain, but Spanish
recognition of Filipino capacity to participate freely in the running
of their own affairs and to share according to ability, not race, in
the government of that part of Spain in the Pacific called the
Philippines. This assimilationist ideal did not differ essentially from
the nationalism of the generation of Burgos.

Legitimation of the Nationalist Struggle

If the role of history in seeking national identity was still vague

in De los Reyes and his collaborators, and if its use by Paterno
logically submerged rather than manifested that identity, Jose Rizal
had much more clearly defined ideas. For Rizal history was at the
very heart of his nationalism. It served as a weapon to combat the
pretensions to beneficence of the colonial power. It provided an
explanation of the contemporary situation of the Philippines as well
as a picture of the glorious past destroyed by Spanish intrusion. It
offered the key to national identity and corresponding orientations
for future national development, as well as examples to emulate in
the nationalist struggle. Finally, it provided a legitimation of the
struggle for freedom and the destruction of colonial rule. Rizal
accepted Western historical research with its rigorous methodology,
and wished his work to be judged by those standards. But at the
same time he wrote as a Filipino and an Asian, and worked in-
tensely to read once more through Asian eyes the accounts that had
come from European pens. European methodology could be used to
give a Filipino meaning to the history of his people.
Rizal’s serious interest in history dated back to his stay in
Germany in 1886, where he was putting the finishing touches to his
first novel, Noli me tdngere. Attracted by German scholarship on
the Philippines, he made contact with various scholars, most nota-
bly Ferdinand Blumentritt. In his correspondence with the latter
Rizal expressed his gratitude to the German scholars who had
 Propagandists’ Philippine Past 109

studied his native land, and his desire to emulate them. Before long
he was plunging himself into these studies, and when preparing to
leave Germany for the Philippines again, spoke sadly of the nostal-
gia he would feel at his exile from his “scholarly home” (wissen-
schaftlichen Heimath).° Under the influence of Blumentritt, Rizal
had come to see the need for a scholarly history of the Philippines.
At first he urged Blumentritt himself to write it, in terms that
manifest Rizal’s concept of history’s role in the development of
national identity, and the standards he set for it:

The Philippines will be deeply grateful to you if it sees a history of our

country, complete and purged of legend by the critical method. You are,
I believe, the only one who can write this history. I have the boldness
to do it, but I do not know enough; I have not read so many books about
my homeland; the libraries of Spain are closed to me; I need time for
other things; and my narrative will always be suspect of partisan
spirit.?®

He lamented the irony that made it necessary for Filipinos to turn

to German scholars so as to know their own country:

If only I might become a professor in my homeland, I would wake to life

these studies of our homeland, this nosci te ipsum [know thyself] which
creates a true sense of national identity [Selbstgefiih/] and impels nations
to do great deeds. But I shall never be allowed to open a college in my
native land.”

When circumstances in 1887 made it impossible for him to remain

in the Philippines, however, he resolved on putting his hand to the
task himself. The inclination had long been there, but earlier he
had lamented the harsh necessity by which, “unlike the youth of
happy nations, our youth dare not give itself to love, nor to silent
scholarship; we must all sacrifice something to politics, even though
we have no inclination for it. . . .”"1* He spent most of 1888 in
London’s British Museum, poring over the old Spanish chronicles.
If he could not write the complete history of the Philippines that
he had urged on Blumentritt, he would try to illuminate the years
of the Spanish conquest and the prior state of Filipino society. The
vehicle he chose for his effort was the early-seventeenth-century
chronicle of Antonio de Morga, Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas.”®
Written only a few decades after the conquest by a learned member
of the Real Audiencia, Morga’s chronicle gives much attention to
ancient Filipino customs. For Rizal, already committed to the
destruction of the prestige and power of the friars in the Philip-
pines, it had the added attraction of being the only major chronicle
110 Propagandists’ Philippine Past

not written by a Spanish missionary. The rare Spanish original had

been translated into English and annotated by Lord Henry Stanley
earlier, but Rizal’s edition, though indeed inspired by the canons of
German historical scholarship, was to serve a more pragmatic
purpose—to form the foundation for the new Filipino society. His
first novel, the Noli, had been a merciless critique of the Spanish
colonial society and the subservient Filipinos the decadent system
bred; his second novel, already planned but put aside to undertake
his edition of Morga, would complete the critique and point the
direction to be taken for the redemption of the race from the cor-
rupting influence of colonialism. The edition of Morga was to form
the link between these two and lay the foundation for the struggle
to come. In his preface Rizal makes clear its place in his master
plan. The Noli has revealed “the present state of our fatherland”;
his Morga now attempts to awaken in Filipinos “the consciousness
of our past” in order to be able to “dedicate ourselves to studying
the future.””
The twofold purpose implied in this program is implemented by
copious annotations, depicting the advanced state of pre-Hispanic
Filipino society and portraying the destructive effects of coloniza-
tion on that society. Each point Morga makes concerning the accom-
plishments of the pre-Hispanic Filipinos, Rizal contrasts with their
subsequent decline. The Filipinos had exported silk to Japan in the
sixteenth century; today the best silk comes from there.”! The Filipino
Pandaly] Pira had forged cannon before the coming of the Span-
iards; with his death, “there were no Spaniards who were able to
do what he had done, nor were his sons as skilled as their father.”
The shipbuilding industry of the sixteenth century is now reduced
to insignificance.” Filipino agriculture and industry—the growing
of cotton and the weaving of various kinds of cloth, even the grow-
ing of rice, the mining of gold and fashioning it into ornaments—
had decayed. The reason for all this decadence is that the natives,

seeing that they were molested and exploited by their encomenderos for
the sake of the products of their industry, . . . began to break their
looms, abandon their gold mines, their fields, etc., imagining that their
conquerors would leave them alone on seeing them poor, wretched, and
unexploitable.”

As a result of this exploitation, the population decreased drastically

in Mindoro, Panay, Pampanga, and other formerly flourishing
regions.”6
The moral level of Filipino society “was for that age very ad-
vanced”; indeed, in many respects it was superior to that of Chris-
 Propagandists’ Philippine Past 111

tian Europe.”’ Thus, what the Spaniards called slavery had none of
the degrading aspects of Roman or European slavery; rather, it was
basically a familial relationship and even showed the concern for
strict justice among the early Filipinos by the careful way it was
regulated.” If nonetheless slavery was to be deplored, the Spanish
conquest had worsened rather than bettered the situation.2® Unlike
her counterpart in other cultures and even in modern Europe, the
Filipina was held in a dignity she has maintained. If the early
chroniclers recorded a lack of appreciation for virginity before
marriage, in this the Filipinas obeyed an instinct of nature; in any
case, the Filipina of today yields to no other race in her chastity,
least of all to hypocritical Europe with its history of fertility cults,
prostitution, and other practices.* In the past, the witnessed word
sufficed for a binding last will; with Christianity, there is now need
of endless litigation. Theft was unknown in past days; only with
Spanish Christian civilization has it become a major evil.*!
The Spanish conquest had then been largely a calamity for the
Filipinos; the Spanish pretensions to pacify a province and to entrust
(encomendar) it to an encomendero for its government were cruel
sarcasms. “To give a province as an encomienda really meant: to
hand it over to pillage, to cruelty, and to someone’s avarice, as may
be seen from the way the encomenderos later acted.”*? Pacification
meant in reality to make war on or sow enmities between groups
of Filipinos.** Rizal saw the conquest itself partly as the result of
the disunion of the Filipinos among themselves.** He also viewed
it as partly a result of force, where the persuasive powers of the
missionaries proved inefficacious.* Finally, it represented an acqui-
escence of the Filipinos to alliance with the Spaniards, deceived by
the colonizers’ promises of friendship and loyalty, or won by Chris-
tianity.* The Filipino chiefs, themselves tyrannical lords over an
unfree society, “finding neither love nor lofty sentiments in the
enslaved masses, found themselves without strength and force” to
resist the Spaniards.*” In the end, however, the submission to
Spanish rule did not come by means of conquest in the major is-
lands.** Rather, it was effected “by means of agreements, treaties
of friendship, and mutual alliances.”*® Unfortunately, the Span-
iards have not kept their part of the contractual relationship they
entered into.?° This theme of the pacto de sangre—the blood com-
pact made by Magellan and Legazpi with early Filipino datus
according to the pre-Hispanic custom—would recur frequently in
the thought of the Filipino nationalists of this period. For them it
symbolized the historical fact that for the most part Spanish sov-
ereignty over the Philippines had been accepted with little blood-
112 Propagandists’ Philippine Past

shed—not even a conquest properly so called, as Rizal notes, but an

agreement freely entered into, by which Spain had committed herself
to bring the Filipinos along the path of progress and higher civili-
zation. Though not explicitly expressed, the implications of such a
view are visible throughout Rizal’s book—Spain has failed to carry
out her part of the contract; hence, the Filipinos are now released
from their obligations. History now serves as the moral legitimation
of the coming anticolonial struggle.*!
Rizal felt deeply that it was in understanding the pre-Hispanic
Philippines that the Filipinos would understand themselves, would
find the identity on which a new nation could rise. Earlier he had
urged his colleagues in Barcelona to learn Italian so as to translate
the manuscript of Pigafetta, Magellan’s chronicler, “so that people
may know in what state we were in 1520.”4? He is, moreover, at
pains to show links existing before the coming of the Spaniards,
pointing to Morga’s remarks on the similarity of customs among the
different linguistic groups as evidence “that the links of friendship
were more frequent than the wars and differences. Perhaps there
existed a confederation.”4? Elsewhere he points to the ancient tra-
dition indicating Sumatra as the common place of origin of the
Filipinos. “These traditions were completely lost, just like the
mythology and genealogies of which the old historians speak, thanks
to the zeal of the religious in extirpating every remembrance of our
nationality, of paganism, or of idolatry.”44 Not only were the tradi-
tions lost, but likewise much of the artistic and cultural heritage.
The early Spanish chroniclers had commented on the Filipinos’
musical ability and graceful dances, which had even been incorpo-
rated into Christian religious celebrations. All this skill, which the
Filipinos did not owe to the Spaniards for they possessed it “thanks
to God, to Nature, and to their own culture,” was now forgotten. It
was lost because of the fault “of the Filipinos themselves, who
hastened to abandon what was theirs to take up what was new.”45
Rizal’s concern, therefore, is not solely to downgrade the Spanish
contribution, but to make Filipinos realize what had been their
own, which in an ill-conceived moment they had abandoned.
If Rizal’s history is concerned with leading the Filipinos back to
their own national identity, it does not stop there. In an earlier
scientific paper delivered before a society of German ethnologists,
he had pointed out the existence of a common fable of the monkey
and the tortoise, found not only among the various Filipino ethno-
linguistic groups but likewise in Japan, to conclude that “it must
be the inheritance of an extinct civilization, common to all the races
which ever lived in that region.”“¢ Rather remarkably for the period
 Propagandists’ Philippine Past 113

in which he wrote, he showed concern not only for a Filipino point

of view but for an Asian one. He not only refuted Spanish preten-
sions to superiority over Filipinos, but asserted Asian rights and
an Asian point of view against that of “Europe, so satisfied with its
own morality.”*” Speaking of the Spanish discovery of the Solomon
Islands, he commented:

Death has always been the first sign of the introduction of European
civilization in the Pacific; God grant that it may not be the last. For to
judge from statistics, the Pacific islands which become “civilized” suffer
dreadful depopulation. The first exploit of Magellan on his arrival in the
Marianas was to burn more than forty houses, many boats, and seven
inhabitants, for having stolen a boat from him. Those unhappy savages
saw nothing evil in theft, which they did with naturalness, just as
civilized peoples view fishing, hunting, and the subjugation of weak or
badly armed peoples.*®

Europeans had always applied shifting standards for judging

moral conduct of their own and for that of nations they considered
“barbarian” like the Cambodians, the Ternatans, and the Japa-
nese.*? Thus, Rizal speaks of the “first piracy of the inhabitants of
the South recorded in the history of the Philippines,” “for there had
been others before, the first being those committed by the expedi-
tion of Magellan, who captured the ships of friendly islands, and
even of those with which he was not yet acquainted, demanding
large ransom from them.”*° When the historians comment unfa-
vorably on faults or crimes of the natives, whose conduct they
interpret always in the worst possible sense,

they forget that in almost all occasions, the motive for the quarrels has
always come from those who claim to civilize them by force of arquebuses
and at the price of the territory of the weak inhabitants. What would
they not say if the crimes committed by Portuguese, Spaniards, Dutch,
etc. in the colonies had been committed by the natives?®?

Though no contacts of Rizal with other Asian nationalists are

known, he was conscious of Filipino links with other Asians, he
spent time in Japan studying Japanese culture and ways, and he
increasingly showed signs of his consciousness of Filipino solidarity
with other Malay peoples. Conversely, for all the attraction that
European scientific and technological progress held for him, and his
personal nostalgia for the world of German scholarship, it was not
only retrograde and corrupt Spanish colonialism that he abhorred,
but it was Europe’s sense of racial superiority that he likewise
rejected.
114 Propagandists’ Philippine Past

Though Rizal’s edition of Morga’s Sucesos was his major histori-

cal work, his view of Philippine history recurs in various pamphlets
and essays, generally first appearing in La Solidaridad. In “Filipi-
nas dentro de cien afios,” he sketches the same themes of how the
people had abandoned their tyrannical native rulers and accepted
Spanish sovereignty, hoping to alleviate their lot. But in the process
they had lost their culture, their ethics, their literature, and their
customs, though in their debasement they were now beginning to
awake anew.” More especially in “Sobre la indolencia del Filipino,”
he draws on the themes he had emphasized in his edition of Morga
to explain the indolence that was the favorite reproach of Spanish
colonialists. The indolence, Rizal says, is not to be denied, though
it is indeed even more notable among the colonialists than their
subjects. What must be sought out is why it exists among Filipinos.
For “the Filipinos have not always been what they are, witnesses
whereto are all the historians of the first years after the discovery
of the Islands.” Drawing not only from Morga but from the religious
chroniclers, he traces the decay of Filipino mining, agriculture, and
commerce that were flourishing before the conquest but were
gradually destroyed by Spanish oppression, on the one hand, and
Dutch and Moro wars that devastated the disarmed Filipinos as a
result of colonization, on the other.® Just as the past serves as
orientation for the future in the first essay, in this it serves to
explain the lamentable present. The themes of Morga’s history are
here brought together in a concentrated and devastating picture.

Lineage from Propagandists to Revolutionaries

Certain historians tend to see the Propaganda Movement as an

essentially sterile effort, a misconceived reform movement of the
wealthy ilustrado class, whose utopian dreams the masses impa-
tiently thrust aside to make the revolution under the leadership of
Andres Bonifacio. Such simplistic class generalizations seem rather
unhelpful, as a closer examination of the facts reveals numerous
ilustrado revolutionaries inconvenient to account for, to say nothing
of counterrevolutionary masses fighting their revolutionary fellow
peasants. The question is too complex to be examined here, but one
area of undeniable continuity is the role of the Propagandists’
historiography in supplying the legitimation for the actual protago-
nists of the people’s revolution.
The first manifesto to the public by Bonifacio, founder of the
revolutionary Katipunan, in his newspaper Kalayaan reads like a
summary of Rizal’s historiography:
 Propagandists’ Philippine Past 115

In the early times when the Spaniards had not yet set foot in this land,
under the government of our true compatriots, the Filipinos were living
in great abundance and prosperity. They lived in harmony with
neighboring countries, especially with the Japanese, with whom they
carried on commerce and trade, and their industry produced
extraordinarily abundant fruits. As a result everyone lived in the fashion
of the wealthy. Young and old, and even women knew how to read and
write in our own native writing.®

Then came the Spaniards, whom the Filipinos received in peace and
friendship with the blood compact, and ever since it has been the
Filipinos who have supported the Spaniards with their wealth and
their blood. In exchange the Filipinos have received only treachery
and cruelty; the time has come to recognize the source of all their
misfortunes and unite to restore the happiness and prosperity of
their native land.®
The language is the Tagalog of the people rather than the Spanish
of the ilustrados, and the tone is one of an impassioned cry to action
rather than that of scholarly investigation, but the lineage from
Rizal to Bonifacio is unmistakable. Other more inflammatory
pamphlets would appeal to the pre-Hispanic kings and to the
knowledge already possessed by the Filipinos of the true God, as
proclaimed in Paterno’s treatises.*” The Spanish historiography
mandating Filipino loyalty to Spain under moral sanctions had
been supplanted by a Filipino history that had provided a rational
and moral legitimation for the new nation. Such legitimation was
not merely for the intellectuals, but more important, for the ordi-
nary people, indoctrinated with notions of obligation to Spain, who
were actually to fight the Revolution.
Ileto’s essay on popular perceptions of the past has raised the
question of how this moral legitimation of revolution elaborated by
the Propagandists “provided the impulse for the breaking of ties of
utang na lodb to Spain that centuries of colonial rule had impressed
upon the indios.” His analysis of the Historia famosa ni Bernardo
Carpio, which served as a model for the new identity to be created
among the ordinary Tagalogs, has provided a partial answer. But
it took a “marginal man” like the self-educated Bonifacio or his
close associate in the Katipunan, the Manila university student
Emilio Jacinto, who read and comprehended at least the main thrust
of the scholarly ilustrado portrayal in Spanish of the Filipino past
but still shared in the awit-shaped perceptions of the Tagalog-
speaking ordinary folk, to mediate the ilustrado perception into the
thought and value-world of the folk. These factors explain both the
116 Propagandists’ Philippine Past

earlier outbreak of the Revolution among the Tagalogs and the key
role the latter played to the end.
But this very explanation raises the further question as to how
the Revolution extended itself to the Bikol and Visayan regions.
Though a serious study of the Revolution in the non-Tagalog re-
gions has scarcely begun, the indications are that, unlike in the
Tagalog provinces, there it was generally ilustrados and principales
who initiated and led the Revolution in their regions, and who
mobilized the masses to support it. These Spanish-speaking provin-
cial leaders were acquainted with, and had been influenced by, the
Propagandist writings during their education in Spain or in Manila.
Ileto’s observation that patron-client ties do not sufficiently explain
the breaking of the ties of utang na lodb is also valid here. However,
I would suggest that especially in these regions the Filipino clergy
proved to be the complementary and deciding factor.®® For the
remembrance of the past on which the masses’ utang na loéb was
based was not the experience of benevolence on the part of the
colonial government, which, at least in the nineteenth century, had
offered little motive for such gratitude. Rather, it was the relig-
iously inspired and religiously sanctioned debt of gratitude to the
Spain that had brought to the indios the priceless gift of the Catholic
faith and without whose rule Catholicism would disappear, as
inculcated in a multitude of primary school textbooks and pious
pamphlets as well as in the sermons of the Spanish clergy. In the
face of this religious sanction scholarly history was impotent; only
a countervailing religious inspiration and sanction could prevail
among the masses. This the Filipino clergy could, and in many
cases did, provide, even to the extent of transforming the revolu-
tionary struggle into a “holy war” and a “crusade.”® Once the enemy
became Protestant America rather than Catholic Spain, the role of
the clergy became ever more crucial and effective in encouraging
resistance.

American Appropriation of Propagandist Views

A final question remains—to what extent did Rizal’s picture, or

for that matter Paterno’s, influence not only the Revolution, but the
following generations? The major thrust of these works, as has been
pointed out, affected not only the national Spanish-speaking elite
but also the mass propaganda in Tagalog from the Katipunan. But
admittedly the actual circulation of the Propagandists’ works was
quite limited. Paterno published in Spain for Spaniards, and there
is little evidence that his works circulated in the Philippines, except
 Propagandists’ Philippine Past 117

as reprinted in La Solidaridad, the clandestinely circulated news-

paper of the Propagandists. Rizal did indeed write for his country-
men, but evidence is lacking of any wide circulation of his edition
of Morga, even among the Spanish-literate minority reached by his
novels. It was rather his key ideas, or a simplified form of them,
that had their impact on the ordinary Filipinos, and this almost
exclusively among the Tagalogs. Only in a limited sense then did
he succeed during his lifetime in his avowed purpose of laying “the
foundation [from which] we can all dedicate ourselves to study our
future.”
Ironically, it would be under the American regime, which Rizal
never knew, that his and his fellow Propagandists’ historical views
would be influential, but in a direction Rizal would never have
envisaged. A handful of young Filipinos, most of them just finishing
their university studies at the outbreak of the Revolution—notably
Felipe Calderon, Manuel Artigas, and Jaime de Veyra—continued
the study of their people’s past. An even larger number of Ameri-
cans—James Robertson, Austin Craig, and H. Otley Beyer, to name
a few—shared these historical interests. Even more numerous were
the American authors of history textbooks for the new American-
inspired public school system. Rizal’s works especially received
considerable attention, so much so that the political activists of the
late 1960s could attempt to portray Rizal as a bourgeois hero
manufactured by the Americans. But of course only one facet of
Rizal’s purpose was congenial to the Americans—his contention
that Filipino culture was not simply a creation of Spain and Ca-
tholicism, and had indeed suffered from them. Rizal’s historical
weapon to undermine Spanish legitimacy fitted perfectly into
American efforts to wean Filipinos from any sense of gratitude to
Spain. Indeed, the blacker the picture that could be painted of the
Spanish colonial experience and its evil effect on a flourishing pre-
Hispanic Filipino culture, the more neatly it all fitted into the
American-sponsored ideology—that the Filipino people, stunted
abruptly in its development by Spanish misrule, could eventually
become a great nation under American tutelage, if only they
embraced American ideals, values, and practices.
So complete was this American appropriation of the Propagan-
dists’ reconstruction of the Filipino past that post-independence
nationalist historiography in its own reconstruction of that past
and search for national identity has tended to underplay or ignore,
paradoxically, both the period Rizal saw as the destruction of Filipino
culture, and the work of Rizal himself—the former as a Spanish
period, the latter as an American view. Only the recent works of
118 Propagandists’ Philippine Past

Ileto and a very few others have begun to reevaluate those values
and perceptions, superficially derivative of Hispanic sources, as
authentically and creatively Filipino. Hopefully, this essay has
demonstrated that at least Rizal among the Propagandists had
already pointed the way to an authentically Filipino and Asian
rereading of the Filipino past on another level.
 The Propaganda
Movement, Literature,
and the Arts

Nineteenth-century Filipino nationalism was in many

ways closely related to the nationalist movements that sprang out
of the romantic movement of early nineteenth-century Europe. Not
least of these connections is the prominent place of cultural inter-
ests in the lives of many of the leading nationalists. In my book on
the Propaganda Movement, I have characterized these men as the
“creators of a national consciousness,” a national consciousness that
was to make possible a revolution and not just a revolt in 1896. A
major part of this creation of a national consciousness was the effort
to delineate a culture that was recognizably peculiarly Filipino,
whether this be one antedating Spanish influence, as Rizal de-
scribed in his edition of Morga, or that which Filipinos had evolved
for themselves in contact with Spanish influences, as portrayed in
Rizal’s novels. This effort to recapture the roots of the national
consciousness parallels similar movements in Germany, France,
120 Propaganda Movement and the Arts

Italy, and elsewhere in Europe under the influence of romanticism.

Particularly significant was the inspiration of the German Herder
to whose influence on himself Rizal paid such fulsome tribute in one
of his letters to Ferdinand Blumentritt.’
What I am more concerned with in this essay, however, is that
cultural dimension of the nationalist movement given expression in
creative literature and the fine arts, and the role these played in
the creation of a Filipino national consciousness. Rizal of course
stands out for his multifaceted interests and abilities, but if we look
more closely, we find that there was a surprisingly great interest
in a cultivation of art and creative literature among the Filipino
students in Europe. Poetry, the novel, painting, engraving, literary
essays, sculpture, music—all were prominent among the interests
of the expatriate Filipinos, and most of them were put to the service
of the nationalist cause in one way or another.
The creation of a national consciousness in which I see the main
thrust of the nationalist movement passed through two principal
overlapping phases. The first phase was characterized by the insis-
tence on the equality of Filipinos with Spaniards. It begins with Fr.
José Burgos and dominates the period up to the publication of the
Noli me tdngere in 1887, though of course it does not die out at this
point. Indeed, not a few Filipinos, even among the active national-
ists, did not move beyond this type of nationalism, content to
remain under Spanish rule if they were recognized as equal to
peninsular Spaniards. The second phase, whose main inspiration
has to be seen in Rizal, went much further. Not content with being
Asian Spaniards, the protagonists of this second movement tried to
develop a specifically Filipino national culture, one peculiarly theirs.
Whether or not they opted for immediate independence, these men
thought of themselves first as Filipinos and insisted on a distinct
Filipino character, culture, and national identity.

Securing a Place in Spanish Culture

The literary and artistic accomplishments of the Filipinos in

Spain correspond to these two phases in the development of nation-
alism. The first conscious beginnings were modest enough. The
initial step was represented by Pedro Paterno’s slight book of verses,
Sampaguitas, published in 1881.? Neither in its first edition nor in
the subsequent enlarged editions will we find more than mediocre
lyrics. They are not great literature nor even good; their signifi-
cance is in the fact that this was the first conscious attempt to
create a Filipino literature. For Paterno presented his Sampaguitas
 Propaganda Movement and the Arts 121

as the first volume of a projected series called Biblioteca Filipina,

intended to present to the public, as he asserted, the mature fruits
of young Filipino talent. If the attempt must be judged a failure by
artistic norms, it is significant for showing the direction of thinking
on the part of the Filipinos in Spain. In a day when the ranks of
Spanish politicians included a considerable number of poets, histo-
rians, and men of letters, the Filipinos who were seeking to prove
to Spaniards their capacity to take part in or even direct the politi-
cal process in their homeland did so by attempting to show their
ability to participate in Spanish literary culture.®
Something analogous can be said of the early Filipino achieve-
ments in painting. The paintings awarded medals at the Exposicién
de Bellas Artes in Madrid in 1884 illustrate this. Juan Luna’s
Spolarium and Felix Resurreccion Hidalgo’s Virgenes cristianas
expuestas al populacho are certainly artistic achievements far
superior to Paterno’s Sampaguitas. But both the artists themselves
and their fellow Filipinos who celebrated their triumph with a
splendid banquet in Madrid saw this triumph essentially as a proof
that the Philippines too shared in the normative culture of Europe,
that Filipino artists could take their places proudly among their
European counterparts.* In the words of Graciano Lopez Jaena in
his toast to the two painters:

The brush of Luna and the palette of Hidalgo have given one more
irrefutable proof that ability and genius are not the exclusive patrimony
of those races who call themselves superior and who make a boast of
being the depositories of intellectual capacity, and of their cultural
development and civilization.®

Rizal’s toast indeed does insist more on the role of peculiarly

Filipino genius, but does not depart essentially from the same
perspective. Addressing the Spaniards present at the banquet he
proclaimed:

To you is due the beauty of the diamonds which the Philippines wears
in her crown; she has given the precious stones, Europe has provided
the polish to them. And all of us contemplate with pride—you, your
work; we, the flame, the spirit, the materials, which we have supplied.®

The themes of the two paintings themselves emphasize that they

are meant as an assertion of the ability of Filipinos to compete with
Europeans on their own ground. For both paintings take their theme
from classical Rome, Roman scenes that could have inspired the
brush of a Spaniard or an Italian just as well as that of Filipino
painters.
122 Propaganda Movement and the Arts

Creating a Filipino Literature and Art

But from this point forward we may see the second phase in
which at least some of the Filipino nationalists would attempt to
create art and literature distinctively Filipino. The first hint of the
new outlook is once again Pedro Paterno, with the first attempt at
the Filipino novel, Ninay. As in the case of Sampaguitas, Ninay is
important for what it symbolized rather than for any artistic merit.
Its setting is in the Philippines, but it has little to do with real
Filipino life, which Paterno has to explain to his readers in a series
of lengthy and pedantic footnotes. Indeed, it is not much of a novel
at all. But as with his Sampaguitas, which had been the first
attempt to use literature to assert Filipino equality with Spaniards,
so his Ninay is the precursor of other literary works that would be
more truly Filipino essays and Filipino novels, growing out of Filipino
experience and concerns.’ Already in 1884, Rizal had proposed to
the Filipino colony in Madrid that they unite in writing a collabo-
rative book to make the Philippines better known. Though the lack
of unity of purpose among the Filipino students prevented the project
from coming to fruition, it was no doubt the occasion for Paterno’s
Ninay. More important, however, the failure of the proposal for a
joint work apparently spurred Rizal to write his own book, the Noli
me tdngere.®
The Noli distinctively marked the new direction in Filipino art
and literature in relation to nationalism. The substance of Ninay
could have taken place in some European country just as well as
in the Philippines. No one can say that of the Noli. It is preem-
inently, as Rizal proclaims it in its subtitle, “Novela tagala,” even
if it be written in Spanish. In it we find Filipino life—its joys and
sufferings, its virtues and vices, its noble heroes and its contempt-
ible villains, the silly pretensions of the colonial-minded, and the
profound philosophy enshrined in its folk wisdom, especially the
literature of Balagtas. It is Filipino life at its best and at its worst,
but written unmistakably by a Filipino and directed to Filipinos.
Rizal had not always thought that way. As he later confided to
Blumentritt, he had at first thought of writing for the European
public—a kind of demonstration to the cultured class of Europe that
an Asian could take his place among the literary figures of the
European world. With this in mind he had spent many laborious
months, even after he had left France for Germany, perfecting his
French style with a private tutor. In the end he had decided against
it, reflecting that “it is better to write for my countrymen. I must
awake from its slumber the spirit of my fatherland. . . .”? To awaken
 Propaganda Movement and the Arts 123

from its slumber the spirit of my fatherland—here we find the key

to all the subsequent major writings of Rizal, be they novels, essays
historical and political, his poetry, “Mi ultimo adios.” Even his
sculptures presented to his friend Blumentritt, “El triunfo de la
muerte sobre la vida” and “El triunfo del saber sobre la muerte,”
are expressions of the ideal he cherished of creating among his
people a free modern nation, developing to the full its natural
capacities. In the first sculpture he expresses graphically his belief
that theocratic clericalism—the frailocracia as Del Pilar would call
it—could only mean death to national development for Filipinas. In
the latter sculpture he proclaims his faith in the liberating and life-
giving power of science—a somewhat naive faith we might remark
from our vantage point of the twentieth century that has seen what
a science ungoverned by moral values can produce.!®
Much more clear and direct in their purpose and message are the
novels of Rizal. They are of course political novels, directed to
delivering Rizal’s specific message to his people. But they are also
works of literature whose art can be appreciated and enjoyed even
when the political situation against which they were directed is
long gone. They have literary defects, failures in the novelist’s
technique, which the professional literary critic can point out, a
lack of that craftsmanship of the language that might have won
them a distinguished place among the literature of the Spanish
language. But they, the Noli in particular, have a quality that will
make them rank high in the appreciation of those who have known
and understood Filipino society of that period. For they look deep
into that society and draw their power from this insight into the life
and aspirations of the Filipino people. Rizal was not flattering
himself unduly when he said of the Noli:

I have tried to do what no one else has been willing to do. I have had
to reply to the calumnies which for centuries have been heaped upon us
and our people. I have described the state of our society, our life, our
beliefs, our hopes, our desires, our complaints, our laments.”

He went on to admit: “My book may have faults from the artistic
point of view, from that of aesthetic norms, I will not deny it. But
what cannot be challenged is the impartiality of my narration.”
Rizal, it may be objected, by his own confession sacrificed art to
political ends. But the artistic value of his work remains, and stands
out more clearly, now that the political combat is a thing of the
past. For it is to be found in his artist’s insight into the life, griefs,
virtues, vices, aspirations of his people—an insight that supports
124 Propaganda Movement and the Arts

the observation of perceptive students of Rizal as to how much he

still has to say to our own society today.
Another sign of the consciousness of a specifically Filipino litera-
ture may be found in the literary section, “Artes y Letras,” of the
Filipino newspaper Espana en Filipinas, which appeared in 1887.
Though many of this section’s verses and literary essays were of
little importance, a sonnet by Evaristo Aguirre in memory of the
Muslim woman Basalia, a victim of pneumonia at the Madrid
Exposicién de Filipinas in 1887, caused the downfall of the news-
paper. The sonnet’s apostrophe to this “daughter of an unconquered
race” was enough to frighten off conservative Filipino support for
the newspaper and bring about its financial collapse. Though the
supposed allusion to a desired independence was more in the minds
of suspicious conservatives than in the explicit intention of its author,
it showed that even creative literature could be nationalist, or even
subversive, depending on one’s point of view.??
La Solidaridad too featured a section entitled “Artes y Letras.”
Though a large proportion of the contributions here were likewise
of little nationalist significance, its character changed with the
appearance of a series of vignettes by Antonio Luna. Spaniards, like
Francisco Cafamaque with his Recuerdos de Filipinas or Filipinas:
de todo un poco, Pablo Feced (Quioquiap) in his Esbozos y pincela-
das, and Antonio Chapuli Navarro in his Siluetas y matices, pro-
duced books of light essays on picturesque and amusing scenes or
typical vignettes of Philippine life. These were essays of interested
but unsympathetic observers. Much of Cafiamaque and Feced
consisted of biting satire, ridiculing a childish, indolent, and infe-
rior race of indios. Luna’s essays now turned the tables as he wrote
his own descriptions and vignettes of life in Madrid, under the title
Impresiones madrilefas. He satirized and poked fun at the preten-
sions and foibles of Madrid life in a series of pen-pictures. On
collecting these essays in book form in 1891 he appealed to his
readers to consider them not as the criticism of an outsider, but as
that of “a Spanish citizen with his freedom to criticize scenes of his
own soil which by common consent ought to disappear. . . .”!° His
real purpose, however, is revealed in his letter to Rizal where he
predicted that he would be attacked for his book “because it has the
wicked presumptuousness to overthrow the idol, smashing its
pedestal to pieces.”"4
When we turn from literature to painting and the other fine arts,
we find a different picture. Neither Felix Resurreccion Hidalgo nor
Juan Luna can really be said to have put their artistic talents at
the service of the Propaganda Movement. Hidalgo indeed appears
 Propaganda Movement and the Arts 125

to have had relatively little to do with the activist Filipinos.’® Juan

Luna was deeply involved emotionally in the campaign for Filipino
rights, and in the days of the Revolution would put himself whole-
heartedly at the service of the Revolutionary Government for
negotiations abroad.’* But Rizal, in spite of the close friendship that
bound him to both Luna brothers, could not refrain from criticizing
him in a letter to Blumentritt in 1889, relating how a group of
Spanish artists had spitefully prevented Luna’s La batalla de
Lepanto from being brought from the Spanish Senate to be exhib-
ited at the Paris Exposition of 1889. Rizal saw in this a proof of the
impossibility of just treatment for Filipinos from Spain. For, he
pointed out: “Luna was a Hispanophile, so that he never was willing
to paint anything against the Spaniards. He even did the painting
called “Spain and the Philippines on the way to the temple of fame”
[Perhaps Espana llevando a Filipinas en el camino del progreso is
intended?]. Now he doubts; he does not know what to think or
say.”!7 Luna, however, did not change his mind, at least from what
is known of his subsequent paintings. But when Rizal was planning
another edition of the Noli, Luna offered to illustrate it for him.'®
The one painting that deals with a theme much argued by the
Propagandists was his El pacto de sangre, now to be found in
Malacafiang. For Rizal, Marcelo del Pilar, Bonifacio, and Aguinaldo,
the blood compact of Legazpi and Katunaw was a symbol of the
alliance freely entered into by Filipinos with the Spaniards in the
sixteenth century, a compact now seen to be perjured by Spain
through her failure to bring progress and prosperity to the Filipi-
nos. The whole scene had now become a revolutionary symbol.’®
Luna’s painting, however, done for the Ayuntamiento of Manila,
had none of these connotations, but chose to emphasize the mutual
bonds binding the two peoples in friendship, much as his Espana
llevando a Filipinas en el camino del progreso did.
Many other Filipinos of lesser genius studied painting, sculpture,
and music in Europe. There is little evidence, however, that any of
them were thinking of putting their artistic talents at the service
of the nationalist cause in the sense which Rizal spoke of and did
himself. The question can of course be legitimately raised as to
what extent art should be explicitly nationalist, to what extent it
should deal solely with indigenous themes, and especially to what
extent it can and should be “committed art,” consciously aiming at
promoting the national cause. Rizal thought that it could be and
should be, though it could well be retorted to him that this is
something much more easily achieved in literature than in the fine
arts without compromising one’s artistic integrity.
 Economic Factors
in the Revolution

Few historians today would try to explain the Revolution

(that is, the struggle of Filipinos to form an independent nation,
1896-1902) as a purely nationalist phenomenon. A national vision
did unite the great majority of Filipinos in different ways; without
it we would have had a revolt and not a national revolution. That
vision, however, was accompanied by other factors that strength-
ened or dimmed it. Not least of these were the economic factors.
Historians often speak of economic causes; this essay will limit
itself to speaking of some economic factors—elements that affected
the process of the Revolution, whether as cause, or simply as facili-
tating it, or as a condition without which it would not have taken
place, at least in the same way. Some of these factors aided, others
inhibited, the course of the Revolution. And these factors affected
different groups or classes of Filipinos in different ways. Not only
economic oppression may impel people to a revolution; economic
 Economic Factors in the Revolution 127

prosperity too may facilitate the overthrow of the existing regime

under certain circumstances. These statements now deserve to be
exemplified. We will consider two examples: nineteenth-century
economic prosperity and the growth of land values in the Tagalog
region.

Prosperity as a Precondition for a

Nationalist Movement

Historians have long recognized the importance of the opening

of Manila to foreign trade as paving the way for the nationalist
movement. But its importance has usually been seen to stem from
the contacts with the outside world this facilitated, and the new
ideas introduced. The new Filipino economic elite did join with the
resident Spaniards and other Western merchants in seeking the
modernization of the Spanish political, bureaucratic, and economic
structures. But this was reformism, not nationalism. What deserves
attention is the extent to which the growing prosperity came into
the hands of the Filipino landholding or inquilino upper middle
class, especially in Luzon. Thus was made possible an organized
nationalist movement and eventually the Revolution.
For this growth of the agricultural export economy not only made
it possible for an ever-increasing number of young Filipinos to go
abroad for higher education, but allowed them to live on in Europe
for years. This, however, was minor in comparison with the very
large sums of money spent in Spain on the campaign of the Propa-
ganda Movement. Contrary to the impression sometimes conveyed,
this movement was not simply an affair of nationalistic Filipino
students writing occasional articles for a newspaper devoting itself
to Philippine concerns. The early phases of the movement did begin
that way, with the financial help of wealthy Philippine Spaniards
in Madrid. But once it turned from a reformist direction toward
even a hint of nationalism, the majority Spanish support was
immediately withdrawn, and the first two Filipino newspapers in
Madrid, Revista del Circulo Hispano-Filipino (1882) and Espafia en
Filipinas (1887), collapsed.” By this time it had become clear to
even those Filipinos who were mere assimilationists and not sepa-
ratists that they had to depend on substantial support from Filipi-
nos at home.®
Both Rizal and Marcelo del Pilar came from upper-middle-class
families which had profited from the growth of the agricultural
export economy and lived in comfortable circumstances. The two
men, however, did not possess the economic resources of Spanish
128 Economic Factors in the Revolution

mestizos and criollos like Pedro Roxas, Trinidad Pardo de Tavera,

or the wealthier hacenderos of Negros and Iloilo. Yet Rizal sup-
ported himself and his work abroad, including two trips to Spain
and back (one of them by way of the United States), for ten years
from the resources of his family. His family too supplied his living
and traveling expenses within Europe, financed his studies in various
places, and made possible the acquisition of expensive ophthalmol-
ogical instruments and a very substantial library in medicine,
history, anthropology, and several other fields.* Only in his last two
years of freedom did he receive some irregular money from the
Comité de Propaganda in Manila, and only in his short months in
Hong Kong and in the Philippines was he able to use his medical
skills to support himself.5 His books were also published by his
family, though in the penury to which he was reduced in Europe
for the meantime he had to borrow money from wealthier friends
to get them through the press. Moreover, the books, though nation-
alist monuments, proved to be financial losses, as only the Noli
escaped confiscation of the larger part of its edition in Manila.®
Finally, there were the substantial expenses of the court case against
the Dominican hacienda of Calamba. The case was carried on for
years all the way to the Supreme Court in Madrid, where Rizal
hired well-known Spanish lawyers who continued to appeal the
case even after he had left Spain for Hong Kong.’
The financing of the Propaganda Movement in the narrower
sense, the political and journalistic campaign carried on under the
direction of Marcelo del Pilar from 1888 to 1895, is even more
indicative of the support available from the Philippines. Obviously,
the accounts of the Comité de Propaganda were never made public,
but a careful reading of the letters of Del Pilar, Mabini, Rizal, and
Lopez Jaena reveals that large sums of money for the campaign
were being regularly sent to Spain. Even then Del Pilar, personally
supported by his relatives and friends in Malolos, often lived in
great penury in his later years.’ From the beginning La Solidari-
dad and the pamphlets published by Del Pilar in Tagalog and in
Spanish, such as La soberanta monacal, were pure liabilities from
a financial point of view. The Tagalog pamphlets were distributed
free and clandestinely in the Philippines.? The more substantial
antifriar works in Spanish were for the most part likewise sent
gratis to people in Spain whom the Propagandists wished to per-
suade or influence.’® Of course, they too could not be sold publicly
in the Philippines, though some seem to have been printed in the
thousands. The newspaper apparently did have paying subscribers
in the Philippines, but after the first few issues it arrived there only
 Economic Factors in the Revolution 129

irregularly. Whatever paid subscriptions came from Manila can

scarcely have begun to offset the costs of free subscriptions to all
deputies and senators in the Spanish Cortes, to cabinet members,
Masonic leaders, and other Spaniards whom Del Pilar hoped to
inform or win over.!! Even when means were found to get the
newspaper into the Philippines, these proved to be very expensive,
whether it meant bribing officials in the Ministerio de Ultramar to
send the copies in closed envelopes bearing the seal of the ministry,
or bribing shipowners plying the Hong Kong-Manila trade to get
them past Spanish customs officials.!2
Other major expenses were incurred in Madrid to arrange large
banquets to which Spanish politicians might be invited—most
probably at a fee—to speak, and to subsidize Spanish journalists to
report the speeches at length in newspapers of Madrid and Barce-
lona. Similarly, public protest meetings were held on the occasion
of such events as the eviction of the Calamba hacienda tenants, in
which theaters were rented and speakers arranged.!°
Most important, and probably most expensive, was getting
members of the Spanish Cortes to raise in the parliament issues of
interest to the Filipinos, and to lobby for the passing of laws such
as one authorizing the election of representatives to the Cortes from
the Philippines. A few Spanish Masons were ready to cooperate
freely with Del Pilar on specific points in which they had their own
interests, such as measures directed toward weakening friar influ-
ence in Philippine affairs. Not all, however, were willing to offer
such services without recompense. The last great effort of Del Pilar,
beginning in 1893, to win Filipino representation in the Cortes,
whose failure in 1895 would shortly be followed by the collapse of
the newspaper and of his mission in Spain, indicates this. The
Republican deputy to the Cortes, Emilio Junoy, editor of the friendly
Barcelona newspaper La Publicidad and a Mason, agreed to pres-
ent the 7,000 signatures collected from Spanish Masons by Del
Pilar petitioning Philippine representation in the Cortes.’ Enthu-
siastically, Del Pilar wrote both to Mabini and to his wife that
victory was now in sight. To his wife he wrote of his new ally:
“(Junoy is] a deputy who is very rich. Inasmuch as he is not running
after money, but is simply an honorable man, it seems that victory
is near.”!5 Junoy finally presented to the Cortes a bill providing for
forty-one representatives from the Philippines, and Del Pilar spon-
sored a big banquet to give publicity to the matter. But the bill
never came to a vote. The evident enthusiasm of Del Pilar, however,
at Junoy’s offering his services gratuitously, is eloquent testimony
to the amount of money needed to stimulate the many other Spanish
130 Economic Factors in the Revolution

politicians he had tried to make use of to advance the Filipino

cause.
Though from the nature of the subject, any estimate of the amount
of money spent by the Propagandists can be no more than impres-
sionistic, the sample of factors detailed here shows that the eco-
nomic prosperity in Manila and the Tagalog region—from which
most of the support came—must have been considerable. Nor did
the campaign in Spain come to an end simply because it could no
longer be supported from Manila. Rather, the approach being pursued
by Del Pilar in Spain had by now been seen by many, and not only
by Katipuneros, as futile. The decision of Del Pilar’s chief support-
ers to turn their further efforts toward obtaining help from Japan,
where they wanted him to join the Filipinos already there in secur-
ing aid, arms, or intervention from the Japanese, brought their
financial support for the Propaganda Movement to an end.’ If the
movement had been a failure in terms of its original professed
purposes, and perhaps in the mind of Del Pilar himself, it had
nonetheless prepared the minds of many for a nationalist revolu-
tion. The economic prosperity that had made it possible was a
necessary precondition to any real revolution that would not be
merely one more ineffective revolt against colonial oppression.
But it was only a precondition. The same kind of prosperity that
provided the undergirding for the nationalist movement in the
Tagalog provinces served conversely to keep the hacenderos of Negros
far from any revolutionary activity. The story of the growth of the
sugar industry and the prosperity of the hacenderos of Negros is
well-known. Equally well-known is the story of their brief gestures
in the direction of a cantonal republic loosely dependent on Agui-
naldo, and the rapid welcome given to the occupying American
forces.!’ The difference between Negros prosperity and that of the
Tagalog-Pampanga provinces is the existence of a nationalist ide-
ology in the latter, dating from the time of Burgos or even earlier,
to which Rizal, Del Pilar, Bonifacio, and Jacinto, and hence the
Revolution, were heirs.’* In the Visayan region there is little evi-
dence of such an ideology among the Negros elite, nor among their
Iloilo relatives and counterparts; it is chiefly among the clergy and
the clergy-influenced middle class, like Gen. Martin Delgado, that
support for the Revolution would come, in the heritage of Burgos.

The Land Factor

Early American administrators were enormously preoccupied with

the land problem, particularly that of the friar lands. Taft felt that
 Economic Factors in the Revolution 131

until the friar lands were sold to the tenants, there could be no
peace in the Philippines. He was willing to spend even more than
he considered the lands to be worth as a cheap price for peace.”
Both American and Filipino historians since have often termed the
Revolution an “agrarian revolt.” This, however, fails to explain,
among other things, why there was no unrest on other church
lands, which if smaller in number, were still prosperous and of
considerable size, as well as being located in similar areas.2! The
other church lands would be the subject of unrest from about 1930
to the 1950s, by which time the real agrarian revolt was taking
place elsewhere under the leadership of the Huks, with almost no
church lands involved. But the friar lands were not an example of
agrarian unrest in the ordinary sense of the term.
In what sense then were the friar lands a major factor in the
Revolution? The answer will be found only within the general context
of land problems at the time of the Revolution. The decades preced-
ing the Revolution had seen a great growth in the value of land
around Manila, especially land to be used for the export crop of
sugar. Given the problems of transportation to the capital, the land
nearest Manila commanded the highest price. A contemporary
observed:

In the Province of Bulacan which adjoins that of Manila, land, which in

great measure is exhausted and yields only an average of 21 tons of cane
per acre, is valued, on account of its proximity to the Capital, at $115
per acre. In Pampanga Province, a little farther north, the average value
of land, yielding say 30 tons per acre, is $75 per acre. Still farther north,
in the Province of Nueva Ecija, whence transport to the sugar market
is difficult, and can only be economically effected in the wet season by
river, land producing an average of 35 tons per acre will hardly fetch
more than $30 per acre. Railroads will no doubt eventually level these
values.”?

In this situation the friar lands, located in the provinces of Manila,

Bulacan, Laguna, and Cavite, became extraordinarily valuable both
because of their proximity to Manila and because of the improve-
ments in irrigation dams and other facilities that their owners had
built over their long periods of ownership. But even more distant
lands now became proportionately valuable, so that the small plots
of land cleared by pioneer Ilocanos in Tarlac and Nueva Ecija a few
decades earlier were appropriated or swallowed up by landlords
moving up from Bulacan or Pampanga.”
We also have Mabini as a witness that the poor were being
despoiled of their land by the rich in all parts of Luzon under
132 Economic Factors in the Revolution

pretext of the Revolution. Here there was indeed agrarian unrest,

but it was not directed against the friars. Mabini says:

We have been witnesses of unjust spoliation of lands in the south of

Luzon, and our short term in the Government of Malolos and the travels
we were forced to make through the north not only corroborated our sad
experience, but likewise made us understand that the evil is very grave,
and quite general. When we were in the Government of Malolos, some
ilustrados told us with great fear that the cry of liberty had made
socialist or communist ideas spring up in the minds of the masses, who
were dissatisfied with certain properties of doubtful origin. These
ilustrados failed to understand that the discontented belong precisely to
the category of the poor who have been despoiled of their land by the
hacenderos and great landowners.”

In the light of this formation of haciendas, it should not be

surprising that those who sought to take over the friar lands were
not the kasama but the middle-class inquilinos. The latter rented
lands from the friar orders and farmed these through their kasama.
One can see this clearly in the Calamba case, which, because of the
involvement of Rizal, has created the impression of widespread
antifriar agrarian unrest.” Most, however, have not stopped to
observe the nature of the dispute. It was, first of all, not a revolt
of the kasama, but of the well-to-do inquilinos.”* Secondly, though
there were economic factors involved, the dispute was primarily
political—to show that Filipinos could successfully challenge Span-
ish friars.?” Thirdly, though the extent of the Dominican holdings
was challenged, the ownership of the hacienda was not.” This was
quite different from the agitation against the friar lands after 1900.
The confiscation of all friar property by the Malolos government in
1899, though not actually carried into effect, had set the goals for
antifriar forces thereafter.
The American government was prevented both by the Treaty of
Paris and by its own philosophy of private property from carrying
out such a radical step. But politically it was compromised with the
Filipino elite, whom it wished to win over to an acceptance of
American rule. It was therefore to American interest that the
economic aspirations of the Filipino elite be satisfied, among them,
that for land. The extent to which this happened may be gathered
from the Philippine Commission report of 1915 concerning the Imus
hacienda purchased from the Recoletos, where “only in a negligible
number of cases [were] the purchasers themselves working their
own land.”?9
Another indication was the destination of the lands leased, usually
with the option to buy. Along with several Americans who were
 Economic Factors in the Revolution 133

named in the U.S. Congressional investigation of the friar lands

disposal in 1911, there were at least two prominent Filipinos who
had been active in the Revolution, Emilio Aguinaldo and Arturo
Dancel, member of the Malolgs Congress. Aguinaldo leased 1,050
hectares of the Imus hacienda at 20 cents per hectare; Dancel, 579
hectares of the Piedad hacienda at 10 cents per hectare. As Jose
Endriga, whose research we depend on here, remarks, in the light
of these awards “it is difficult to eschew the observation that the
principle of reward was a governing element in the disposal of the
friar lands:’. 4 77
It would be ridiculous of course to try to explain Aguinaldo’s total
participation in the Revolution, or that of anyone else for that
matter, through a reference to his interest in the friar lands. But
considering that many middle-class Filipinos desired land to form
big haciendas, even to the point of using unjust means to deprive
small landowners, the attractiveness of well-developed friar lands
is obvious. Given the fact of the friars having become a major target
of the revolutionary ideology, their lands became an even more
likely goal, not only of their inquilinos (which Aguinaldo was not),
but of others who had similar goals. The Revolution provided an
opportunity for achieving these goals. Similarly, the American
regime, though denying independence, offered the same opportu-
nity to those willing to operate within American rule. The friar
lands, then, should be seen as a factor in the Revolution not because
of any agrarian unrest existing prior to the Revolution, but because
of their attractiveness to the inquilinos, who alone were in a posi-
tion to profit from them. The friar lands did not bring about the
Revolution, but they did offer a powerful incentive to encourage
some adherents.
 10
Wenceslao E. Retana
in Philippine History

Wenceslao Emilio Retana y Gamboa was in his life-

time, and remains today, the subject of most contradictory judg-
ments, both as to his worth as a man and as to his accomplishments
as an historian of the Philippines.' This paper will attempt to assess
the man and his work, and offer a judgment on his place in Phil-
ippine history. I should like to preface my work by pointing out that
one’s judgment of Retana as historian need not coincide with one’s
opinion of him as a man. Secondly, to acknowledge the worth of
some of Retana’s contributions to Philippine historiography need
not imply acceptance of his authority on all matters Philippine,
even historical matters. Finally, to say that Retana played a rela-
tively important part in the history of late-nineteenth-century
Philippines need not imply that it was a laudable part. We merely
say that his role in the history of the Filipino nationalist movement
is not to be passed over, even if it is only that of an opponent.
 W. E. Retana 135

Retana’s Years in the Philippines

Born in Spain in the town of Boadilla del Monte, on 28 Septem-

ber 1862, just a year later than Rizal, Retana came to the Philip-
pines in 1884, with a minor post in the colonial bureaucracy. He
remained in the Philippines six years, passing through various
posts in the colonial administration until 1890, when he returned
to Spain, giving ill-health as his reason.? While stationed in the
province of Batangas, he married a young Spanish lady resident
there, and it was in the Philippines that his first son was born.’
Like so many thousands of others in the decaying years of Spain’s
colonial empire, Retana spent these years in the Philippines merely
because of a desire for a political job. But these years would deter-
mine the future course of his life and career. His attraction both to
a literary career and to history led him to the interests, contacts,
and knowledge that in later years would give him an international
reputation as an authority on the Philippines, particularly in his-
torical matters.
The steady stream of articles that poured forth from Retana’s
pen during the next six years is at once a tribute to his diligence
and facility with the pen, and a confirmation of the sarcastic remarks
that he himself was later to make on the Spanish bureaucracy in
the Philippines, for his work as a functionary seems not to have
interfered much with his journalistic occupations. At various peri-
ods he formed part of the staff of the dailies La Oceania Espafola
and La Opinion, and acted as correspondent of La Espana Oriental
of Manila, El Porvenir de Visayas of Cebu, and El Eco de Panay of
lloilo. If we are to accept his own assertion, during the period of
four years from 1886 to 1889 he published more than five hundred
articles, most of them written under the pseudonym “Desengarfios.”
During this period Retana published his first two books, each of
which typifies one of the directions in which his future writing
would go. The first of these, entitled Transformismo (Didlogos con
un “bago”), is a sharp satire on the pretensions of Spaniards who
on their arrival in the Philippines began to pass themselves off as
persons of importance.’ The mordant pen, here directed against the
foibles of Spaniards, would later arouse the ire of Filipinos, as
Desengafios undertook to ridicule the indio and everything that
belonged to the country. Retana’s satires on things Filipino, how-
ever, were perhaps part of the role he fancied himself in of social
critic of Spaniard as well as Filipino, rather than any deliberate
anti-Filipino attitude, at least in the beginning.
The other book, the fruit of Retana’s stay as a functionary in
136 W. E. Retana

Batangas, was entitled El indio batanguefio.® As its subtitle de-

notes, the book is a study of the customs, culture, and usages of the
ordinary people of Batangas. Written without any preoccupations
of polemics or exaggerated literary pretensions, it is a rather thor-
ough and painstaking work, typifying the beginnings of serious
efforts at scholarly work that were later to come from the pen of
Retana, once he had put aside the polemics of the era of the Propa-
ganda Movement.

Retana as Polemicist

These were the years during which Rizal’s Noli, the reformist
articles of Espafia en Filipinas, and the early issues of La Solidari-
dad had begun to alarm the Spanish colony of Manila and stir up
indignant attacks among the Manila journalists. Prominent among
these was Retana, and, in bitterer tone, Pablo Feced, whose deni-
grating articles in El Liberal of Madrid, under the pseudonym
“Quioquiap,” aroused the ire of the Filipinos in Europe.’ In 1890
Retana returned to Spain, receiving another political post as a
functionary in the Ministerio de Ultramar.®
Shortly after his return to Spain, Retana began his counter-
campaign against the Filipinos of the Propaganda Movement. The
first salvos from his part were the Folletos filipinos, a series of
pamphlets defending the friars against the attacks of La Solidari-
dad on the one hand, as in Frailes y clérigos, and attacking with
bitter satire Blumentritt, Isabelo de los Reyes, and other collabo-
rators of the Propaganda Movement on the other.’ In these pam-
phlets more than any other of his writings, he demonstrates his
contempt for all things Filipino. Indeed, the friars, whom he de-
fended in his pamphlet Frailes y clérigos, could scarcely have felt
much helped by such a defense, based on vilification of the Filipino
clergy, and the pamphlet was banned in Manila by the Comisién
Permanente de Censura.!°
Not long after the publication of these pamphlets, Retana
embarked on a major effort to counteract the influence of the Fili-
pinos of La Solidaridad, when he began collaborating with the
fortnightly newspaper La Polttica de Espana en Filipinas.'! La
Politica was published by José Feced and his brother Pablo Feced,
the notoriously anti-Filipino Quioquiap. The next five years until
the death of La Solidaridad in 1895 saw a bitter campaign waged
between La Solidaridad and La Polttica, each group spending the
better part of its energies in attempting to nullify the influence of
the other. Both sides indulged freely in that bitter invective and
 W. E. Retana 137

insult that were characteristic of much Spanish political journalism

in the late nineteenth century, and much of what appears in both
papers makes uninspiring, not to say distressing, reading today. To
achieve their professed goal of complete juridical and political
assimilation of the Philippines to peninsular Spain, the Filipinos of
La Solidaridad sought to lower the prestige of the friars, so as to
destroy their influence in Philippine affairs. They also aimed to
emphasize the level of culture possessed by the Filipinos, and their
consequent political ability to administer their regional affairs just
like any other Spanish province. The contrary program of the
opponents was therefore not only to defend the friars against at-
tacks, but to nullify Filipino efforts towards assimilation by a
systematic denigration of all things Filipino, emphasizing all that
was unfavorable and depreciating all Filipino accomplishments. In
this campaign, the biting satire of Retana played a major part.
Given the political state of Spain at the time, the campaign of La
Solidaridad and the Propagandists never really had too much chance
to succeed in its aim of securing equality of rights for Filipinos. It
can safely be said, however, that La Politica was at least a contrib-
uting factor in preventing its accomplishing much in Spanish po-
litical circles. The influence of La Solidaridad was rather exerted
back in the Philippines; in Spain, the anticlerical Republican parties
might cite it, but more for its anticlericalism than for any real
interest they had in its program.’ The views of La Politica, on the
other hand, found echo in Traditionalist and Integrist newspapers
of the extreme Right, but especially in La Epoca, the organ of the
Conservative Party of Canovas del Castillo, and even at times in
those papers close to the Liberals of Sagasta, such as El Liberal of
Madrid.

Retana as Historian

One factor in the acceptance won by the anti-Filipino paper was

the number of informative articles of more permanent value that
appeared in its pages, together with its polemic. In these articles
Retana begins to make his reputation as an authority on matters
Philippine, particularly in history and bibliography. Even among
his earlier polemic works, the historian may already be seen at
work. The first part of his book Cuestiones filipinas: Avisos y pro-
fectas, for instance, is a collection of typical Retana articles on
Spanish colonial policy in the Philippines, reprobating the granting
of liberties to the indio.! But the second part is more valuable—a
study of the manifestation in Manila in 1888 demanding the exile
138 W. E. Retana

of Archbishop Pedro Payo and the expulsion of the friars. Though

Retana of course has his thesis to prove and spares neither ridicule
nor indignation, he sets about proving his point with a careful
analysis of the document of the manifestation and its circumstances.
He points out such details as the large proportion of “signers” who
were either nonexistent or who had denied having signed the
document. Moreover, what is more important for the historian, he
reproduces all the official documents connected with the affair or
pertinent to its background, documents that would in many cases
be otherwise unavailable today.
Another example of contemporary history in a quasi-polemical
context is the journalistic account of the administration of Gov.
Gen. Valeriano Weyler in the Philippines (1888—1891).'* The book
is a laudatory defense of Weyler against the complaints of the
Filipinos, apparently written at the instigation, or at least with the
help, of its subject. But it still has value for the large number of
contemporary documents, official and private, that it reproduces.
There were other more substantial and scholarly historical works
dating back to this period too. For it seems that Retana had not
merely set himself to Philippine politics on his return to Spain, but
that he had made up his mind to devote himself seriously to the
study of the Philippines, continuing the casual interest he had
conceived during his stay in Batangas.
The first fruit of this serious historical work was his two-volume
edition of the hitherto unpublished early nineteenth-century
manuscript Estadismo de las islas Filipinas, a valuable account of
conditions and customs in many provinces of the Philippines in that
period, written by the Augustinian Fr. Joaquin Martinez de Zuniga.
Proceeding in a fashion that would be customary with him, Retana
enlarged the work with numerous notes and appendices, which
occupied most of the second volume. Characteristically, these notes
and appendices contain much pretentious erudition and miscellane-
ous information that Retana had gathered, but also very much of
considerable value to the historian. Blumentritt, who had been the
target of Retana’s invective previously and had no particular reason
to be overgenerous with him, even went so far as to say in his
review in a German newspaper that Retana’s notes and appendices
are even more valuable than the original work.'®
A similar venture a few years later was Retana’s edition of the
seventeenth-century history of Mindanao and Jolo by the Jesuit Fr.
Francisco Combés.!” This was edited with the assistance of Fr.
Pablo Pastells, S.J. To judge from the correspondence preserved
between Retana and Pastells, this seems to have been the result on
 W. E. Retana 139

the one hand of the Jesuits’ desire to publish or republish some of

their historical classics on the Philippines, and on the other, of
Retana’s interest in such work. It would appear, though, that the
initiative came from the latter.'® In his prologue Retana attributes
most of the scholarly work of annotation to Father Pastells.!9 The
correspondence mentioned above seems to show that there is no
exaggerated modesty in such an assertion, though the book-length
introduction by Retana is likewise useful as a general survey of
Mindanao and Jolo, with valuable bibliography.
Another fruit of his continuing investigations into the Philippine
past was the series Archivo del biblidfilo filipino, whose publication
he began in 1895.”° In this series, well-known to every historian of
the Philippines, he reproduced various rare or hitherto unpublished
documents of Philippine history, ethnography, and linguistics. The
documents are from every century, and though there are some
ephemeral items, the general value of the collection may be gauged
from the extensive use made of it by almost all substantial works
on Philippine history published in recent times. Retana’s sense of
contemporary history, as evident in his publication of the docu-
ments on the manifestation of 1888 in Avisos y profecias, is made
manifest in the interesting series in volumes three and four entitled
“Documentos politicos de actualidad,” which contains considerable
documentation pertinent to the Revolution of 1896. Today, when
most of these documents are either lost or destroyed, the value of
this collection is even greater than at the time when it was pub-
lished. The series is a notable achievement in fulfilling the program
its editor declares in the fifth volume to have governed its publica-
tion—that it “be an arsenal of data of every kind, which in the
course of years, may be of real profit to Filipinists.”””

Retana as Bibliographer

In one of his frequent apologias for himself, Retana declares that

unlike other Spanish empleados who returned to the Peninsula
from the Philippines with their pockets well-lined, he had brought
nothing back with him except books.” It does appear that he made
good use of his opportunities, his contacts, and his friends, so as to
have already gathered the nucleus of a Philippine library before he
got back to Spain. Once there, he cultivated his passion for books
on the Philippines, no doubt acquiring many through his position
in the Ministerio de Ultramar, others through La Politica de Espana
en Filipinas, through gifts from the libraries of the Philippine
140 W. E. Retana

religious orders, and not a few through his own purchases. The
noted bookseller and bibliophile Pedro Vindel tells in a published
diary of his customers, how Retana began dealing with him already
in 1891. Retana acquired through him important old works, most
notably the manuscript of Fr. Martinez de Zufiiga’s Estadismo,
which he soon edited.”
In 1893 he began publishing in the columns of La Politica the
catalogue of his Philippine library, already an estimable collec-
tion.24 Though nothing more than a listing of books, it may be
considered Retana’s first bibliographical endeavor, which would form
the basis for further work of greater value. The same year saw the
publication of Retana’s first scholarly bibliography in an appendix
to his edition of Martinez de Zufiga’s Estadismo, the bibliography
of over 200 pages being practically a book in itself. In 1895 he
began publishing in his Archivo del biblidfilo filipino a general
bibliography of the Philippines, planned for ten or twelve volumes,
entitled “Epitome de la bibliografia general de Filipinas.” How-
ever, this general bibliography never reached beyond the books
actually possessed by Retana, and was assumed and completed in
a separate book published in 1898, under the title Catalogo abre-
viado de la Biblioteca filipina de W.E. Retana, with 2,697 entries.”’
Other lesser bibliographies appeared from his pen from time to
time, such as the bibliography of works on Mindanao, which he
published on the occasion of the interest aroused by the Spanish
campaign against the Maranaos in 1894.% Similarly in 1896 he
published in La Politica an inventory of books offered for sale at the
Jesuit College of San Ignacio at the time of the expulsion of the
Jesuits in 1768.” The great Chilean bibliographer José Toribio
Medina is said to have confessed himself almost inclined to lay
aside his own bibliographical work on seeing the bibliography
published by Retana in his edition of the Estadismo in 1893.” In
1896 Medina came out with his La imprenta en Manila desde sus
ortgenes hasta 1810, dedicated to Retana.*! Not to be outdone, Retana
came out with his own catalogue, La imprenta en Filipinas,
1593-1810, in which he added some two hundred titles to the four
hundred of Medina.*”
But Retana’s major work of bibliography was published in 1906
under the title Aparato bibliogrdfico de la historia general de Fil-
ipinas, in three folio volumes.* Of this we will treat later.
Connected with his work in bibliography is his book on the history
of Philippine journalism.™ Originally published in La Politica, this
work had appeared in book form in 1895. In the Aparato Retana
later reproduced in the third volume the entire original book, much
 W. E. Retana 141

revised and extended, listing a total of 163 newspapers and peri-

odicals, beginning from the first known to have existed in the
ee in 1811. This work still remains standard for the Spanish
period.
These bibliographical works led Retana further into the history
of the printing press in the Philippines. The foundations of his work
were laid in his La imprenta en Filipinas in 1899, and would be fur-
ther developed in a book published in 1908, Tablas cronologica y al-
fabética de imprentas e impresores de Filipinas (1593-1898).*° Here
he gathers together all the data both of his own writings and of
Medina’s two books.* He also includes information found in the
further supplement that had meanwhile been published by the
Augustinians Fathers Pérez and Giiemes, and gives a chronologi-
cal catalogue of the printing presses known to have existed in the
Philippines, together with their printers, variations, and other de-
tails.” All his work on the origins of the printing press in the Phil-
ippines was later summed up in the lengthy monograph Origenes
de la imprenta Filipina.*® In the latter he enunciated his thesis that
the first press originated in the Philippines itself, and illustrated
it with historical, bibliographical, and typographical proofs.*®

Retana’s Political Backers

Though the period of Retana’s scholarly work in history and bib-

liography has its beginning even in the years as collaborator of La
Politica de Espana en Filipinas, and much of his scholarly work
first saw publication in that periodical, the years from 1890 to 1896
are chiefly marked by his bitter opposition to the aspirations of the
Filipino nationalists and reformists. Affiliated with the Conserva-
tive Party, and apparently having patrons in the higher ranks of
the party, he had, as mentioned above, obtained a position in the
Ministerio de Ultramar on his return from the Philippines.*® Since
the Conservative Party remained in power until 1892, he presuma-
bly maintained this position until at least that date. The Conser-
vatives returned to power in 1894, and in 1896 Retana was given
the position of representative in the Cortes from the Guanabacoa
district in Cuba.*! The appointment was made in accordance with
the then entrenched practice of both Conservatives and Liberals of
distributing the offices of representative in the Cortes as political
spoils through sham elections in which the candidate was not even
forced to appear in his district at all, as Retana never did.“ His
political connections afforded him access to the columns of the
influential Madrid daily La Epoca, which reflected the views of the
142 W. E. Retana

Conservative leader, Antonio Canovas del Castillo. Here from time

to time he wrote on Philippine affairs, usually anonymously, and
judging from the articles clearly identifiable as Retana’s, he may
well have been the reason for the relatively large attention, com-
pared to other Spanish papers, that La Epoca gave to Philippine
affairs. It was not uncommon for La Epoca to reproduce articles or
quotations from La Politica de Espafia en Filipinas, and the latter
paper from the former. In some cases therefore it would have been
Retana citing himself in support of his positions, and reaching not
only the specialized audience of his own paper, but also the general
audience of La Epoca on the one hand, while gaining the prestige
of La Epoca for La Politica on the other.
Retana’s political connections also served his historical interests,
for he was able to use them to obtain access to confidential docu-
ments of historical value. Naturally, he does not say much about
this in his writings, but it is evident that it must have been so from
the nature of some of the documents he published. Mention has
already been made of the number of official documents made
available to him by Weyler for his laudatory account of the latter’s
term in the Philippines. Similar connections made available to him
the records of the judicial proceedings against the gobernadorcillos
and others who took part in the antifriar manifestations of 1888,
for his book Avisos y profecias.** The same must be said for the
“Documentos politicos de actualidad” in volumes three and four of
the Archivo del biblidfilo filipino, where there are documents, such
as the court-martial records, that even today are not available to
the historian.*®
Retana was also in close relations with members of the religious
orders of the Philippines, particularly the Dominican Fr. Evaristo
Fernandez Arias and the Augustinian procurators in Madrid, Fr.
Salvador Font and Fr. Eduardo Navarro.** Through his connections
with the religious orders, he obtained access to some of the old
manuscripts preserved in their libraries and archives, and the friars
in the Philippines were the correspondents from whom he received
much of the information on events there for his review.*”
The question arises as to whether the friar orders were the ones
who provided the financial backing for La Politica de Espafia en
Filipinas. Some person or group must have provided some backing,
as may be gathered from the facts known concerning its rival La
Solidaridad. As discussed in the preceding essay, substantial sums
were sent to Spain by Filipino patriots for the support of the
Propaganda Movement, besides the sums that Marcelo del Pilar
received from his family and relatives for his own support.*® Yet he
 W. E. Retana 143

lived in dire poverty at times because of the need to use all his
funds for the continued publication of the newspaper.*? He also had
to spend considerable sums of money for banquets for the Madrid
journalists, for support given to the Masons of the Gran Oriente
Espanol, and for gifts to Spanish politicians who would agree to
support Filipino interests in the Cortes only for a fee.® A newspa-
per like La Solidaridad, or by the same token La Polttica, was far
from being self-supporting, particularly since both papers distrib-
uted free copies to members of the Cortes, officials of the Ministerio
de Ultramar, and others whom they wished to influence in support
of their cause.®!
Retana and the Feceds were accused by the Filipinos of La Soli-
daridad of being in the pay of the friars. This charge has often been
repeated, but little direct evidence supports it. Manuel Artigas y
Cuerva, however, tells that in 1889 or 1890 Retana was about to
give up his position with La Opinion in Manila and join the staff
of the Diario de Manila. Suddenly the staff members, of whom
Artigas was one, were told by Don Manuel Clemente, a member of
the cathedral chapter and a close friend of the publisher of the
Diario, that

Retana had found a better opportunity, and that he was embarking for
the Peninsula where he proposed to found a publication with the support
of influential forces (elementos de valia), who were besides, well supplied
with money.”

Artigas goes on to say later: “Relying on the formal offer of the

religious communities, on 20 January 1891, [Retana] issued the
introductory number of La Politica de Espana en Filipinas.” What
this “formal offer” was is never made clear, though Artigas speaks
of having seen great piles of books of Retana in the Dominican and
Augustinian houses, and of thousands of numbers of La Politica
being sold by weight as waste paper at the office of the Dominican
procurator. He likewise cites the Augustinian bibliographer Fr.
Cecilio Giiemes in the same sense. This explanation is further
confirmed in a letter of the Filipino historian Clemente Jose Zulu-
eta, who had contact with Retana during his stay in Spain to
investigate Spanish archives at the beginning of the American
regime. Writing in 1904 to the American historian of the Philip-
pines, James A. LeRoy, he says:

Retana is no longer a supporter of the friars. He explains his position

saying that he fought in favor of the friars because the latter paid him,
in the form of purchase of his books and subscriptions to his newspaper.
144 W. E. Retana

He acknowledges that this has been a great error on his part, and has
done him much harm in his career.

The “pay” therefore seems to have been in purchases of books and

of his newspaper. Whether there was any further subsidy from
some or all of the friar orders is difficult to say, but as of now there
is no clear evidence of it. If it were so, it is hard to see why they
should wish to burden themselves with large numbers of Retana’s
publications that they did not otherwise want.

Retana as Sole Publisher

In September 1895 La Solidaridad was forced to suspend pub-

lication for lack of funds and the impossibility of any longer intro-
ducing the paper into the Philippines because of government vig-
ilance. In November one more number appeared, announcing the
indefinite suspension of publication.’ Immediately thereafter the
Feced brothers gave up the publication of La Politica de Espana en
Filipinas, and complete control of the paper passed into the hands
of Retana.® In the first number following the change in ownership,
Retana declared he proposed to continue the program of the past,
but without the impetuosity that had sometimes characterized the
newspaper, and announced his intention of correcting the false
impression that he was anti-Filipino. He went on to assert that
nothing could be further from the truth, since it was to the Phil-
ippines that he devoted all his intellectual activity, and he desired
the prosperity and well-being of the Philippines just as he did
that of Spain. Still, he would be “implacable with the deluded, but
courteous with those who expounded their ideas reasonably.”®®
As a matter of fact, there is a certain change of tone in the review
from about this time. During 1895 Retana had been working in the
Archivo de Indias in Sevilla, and had begun to publish historical
documents in La Polttica.™ He seems to have intended to turn the
review more into a publication reflecting his interests in Philippine
history, linguistics, ethnography, bibliography, and he began to
publish more and more scholarly studies not only of his own, but
also of other scholars.*! However, the outbreak of the Revolution in
1896 prevented this from occurring immediately, for the agitation
in Manila during the months immediately preceding the discovery
of the Katipunan is strongly reflected in La Polttica. Once the
Revolution actually broke out, the succeeding issues became almost
completely a series of telegraphic reports of the events in the
 W. E. Retana 145

Philippines together with lengthy letters from correspondents there.

Retana was at this time correspondent for the new Madrid daily,
El Heraldo de Madrid, and the extensive coverage given events in
the Philippines in this newspaper reflected Retana’s presence on
the staff, and in turn was reproduced in La Politica. The tone of the
articles in the latter became increasingly inflammatory and almost
hysterical at times, and clearly manifests the nonfulfillment of
Retana’s announced purpose of moderating the impetuosity of his
review. An article on Rizal on 30 September 1896 is bitter, even
hateful, in its condemnation of the latter, blaming him for the
Revolution:

A large part of the evils which are currently unfolding in that country,
lay on his conscience. He holds a mortal hatred for us Spaniards. The
Government—let us terminate as the bureaucracy is wont to terminate
its reports—will resolve concerning this crafty filibustero whatever it
deems most fitting.”

The whole article is inflammatory in tone, and similar ones on other

Filipino nationalists likewise urge stern punishment on them by
the government.® After the execution of Rizal, Francisco Roxas,
and others in December 1896 and January 1897, the Spanish
Conservative ex-Minister, Francisco Romero Robledo, would accuse
Retana in the Cortes of having stirred up hysteria in Spain and in
Manila by his inflammatory and inaccurate writings, and of being
responsible for unjust executions.** Whether Retana can be held
principally responsible for the execution of Rizal is dubious, but he
himself seems to have admitted to throwing suspicion on people in
Manila who were not even involved in the Revolution, and he
certainly added to the generally hysterical atmosphere.®
In 1897, though continuing to promote a generally status quo
policy for the Philippines, even reprinting large sections of the
reactionary book Filipinas: Estudios sobre algunos asuntos de ac-
tualidad by the Augustinian procurator Fr. Eduardo Navarro, Retana
began to devote more of La Polttica to scholarly works. While
continuing to defend the position of the friars, he made efforts to
put himself in friendly contact with others whom he had previously
alienated. Thus in 1897 he reprinted articles of Blumentritt, whom
he had earlier reviled and ridiculed in newspapers and pamphlets
as a pretended scholar and an enemy of Spain.® Similarly, earlier
issues of La Polttica had gone out of their way to belittle or criticize
the Philippine Jesuits.*’ But Retana now entered into relations
with Fr. Pablo Pastells, S.J., for his edition of Combés, in which he
bestowed lavish praise on the scholarship of Pastells. He then
146 W. E. Retana

endeavored to continue the relationship, soliciting in flattering terms

historical articles from Pastells for La Politica.
The accusation, supported by considerable evidence, has been
made that Retana, foreseeing by this time the probable loss of the
Philippines to Spain, began to prepare for himself a position on both
sides of the fence, so to speak, by attempting to better his reputa-
tion among the Filipinos while keeping the good will of his former
Spanish supporters. Thus, for example, he published in 1898 a
third edition of his first Folleto filipino, Frailes y clérigos, still
supporting the position of the friars in the Philippines, but soften-
ing or eliminating the offensive treatment he had given to Blumen-
tritt, to the Filipino secular clergy, and to Filipinos in general in
his earlier editions. The book too was reedited not under his own
name, but under the name of “a Spaniard who has resided in that
country.””°

Conciliating the Filipinos

With the end of Spanish rule in the Philippines in 1898, La

Politica de Espana en Filipinas ceased to publish. During the next
few years Retana seems not to have published anything further on
the Philippines, but in 1902 appeared his novel, La tristeza errante,
in which the satiric style of the author finds expression in social
criticism.”! There are incidental references to the Philippines, but
the novel is rather a critique of Spanish society. It satirizes, at
times in rather bad taste, the religious practices of certain types
of Catholics.
About this same time he began gathering material for his biog-
raphy of Rizal. Beginning with Clemente Jose Zulueta, who was
then in Spain on an official mission to investigate the Philippine
materials in Spanish archives, he endeavored to win over Filipinos
who might help him in gathering data on Rizal and his life. A study
of the correspondence of the period found in different collections
gives an insight into his methods. While attempting to win over
Father Pastells with lavish praise and requests for the latter’s
learned articles, he was assuring Zulueta that Pastells was an
“antifilipino cerrado.””? At the same time that he was cultivating
the friendship of Zulueta, and apparently, through him, of other
Filipinos, he was telling certain Americans in Spain that Zulueta
was “good for a Filipino, but for Europeans, just a big child.””3
Nonetheless, when Zulueta died shortly thereafter, Retana wrote a
letter of fulsome praise to the Manila newspaper El Renacimiento,
with which many of the Filipino nationalists were connected, with
 W. E. Retana 147

the intention, as it seems, of winning favor for himself in the

Philippines by the change in attitude he was so careful to make
clear.” Yet together with all this, he was writing to Fr. Pastells in
an effort to get the priest to let him have his correspondence with
Rizal during the latter’s deportation to Dapitan, and telling Pastells
how much data on Rizal he was receiving from his new Filipino
friends, all in a tone that conveys very much the impression that
he was using them.”
A glance at Retana’s Vida y escritos del Dr. José Rizal reveals
how greatly he was indebted to various Filipinos for many of the
data on Rizal’s life and for copies of his letters.” This is most
notably true of Epifanio de los Santos, whose name appears con-
tinually through the footnotes of Retana’s book. Retana had begun
publishing the preliminary form of his biography in a series of
articles in the Spanish monthly review Nuestro Tiempo already in
1904.”” As these began to appear, De los Santos compiled a series
of “additional notes” correcting or supplementing the work of Retana
and forwarding it to him for the final version.”® The substantial
contributions of Mariano Ponce and those of Paciano Rizal and
other members of the Rizal family seem also to have come to Retana
through the instrumentality of De los Santos, who had spent much
of his time since the end of the Spanish regime in gathering materials
on the lives of Rizal, Marcelo del Pilar, and other heroes of the
nationalist movement.”®

Scholarly Historical Work, 1898-1920

Whatever may be said of the means used by Retana to ingratiate

himself with those who might be able to help him, he was also
devoting himself during these years to solid scholarly work, which
bore fruit particularly in three works from 1906 to 1910. The first
of these was the Aparato bibliogrdfico de la historia general de
Filipinas, published in 1906 with almost 5,000 entries, arranged
chronologically and with critical notes.*° No one who has worked
seriously in Philippine history needs to be told the value of this
indispensable instrument of scholarship, which is, moreover,
magnificently printed, with numerous facsimiles of rare imprints
and reproductions of old maps. Not only the mere number of works
included makes it the outstanding single bibliography on colonial
and Revolutionary Philippines, but especially the quality of the
works possessed by the library on which it depended, for practically
all the fundamental printed works are there.*! The bibliography
was based on the magnificent library assembled by the Tabacalera,
148 W. E. Retana

which had as its nucleus the library of Retana himself, later

supplemented generously from the “Biblioteca Filipina” put up for
sale by the bookseller Pedro Vindel.* Retana himself had likewise
done most of the bibliographical descriptions for Vindel, and at his
suggestion the Tabacalera bought those works of Vindel that it did
not already possess from the library it bought from Retana.* Though
compiling this great bibliography was considerably facilitated by
Retana’s having the resources of the Tabacalera at his disposal and
by his having done much of the labor in his own previous biblio-
graphical works, the whole project remains a monument to his dili-
gence and competence as a bibliophile and bibliographer.
The second important work, published the following year, is his
biography of Rizal.“ The book was the first major biography of
Rizal, and in spite of the research and writing done since, remains
in some ways the classical biography and a primary source. The
best testimony to this is the way that all who have since written
biographies of Rizal have drawn on Retana for their information.
Even since the publication of Rizal’s correspondence, much of which
had previously been printed only by Retana, there is a good deal of
information and documentation here that is not be found elsewhere.
For Retana had access to personal sources of information no longer
available to today’s historian, besides his own personal experience
as the opponent of Rizal in the Propaganda period. Though there
is a definite antifriar bias to the book, for the most part Retana
attempts to give an objective presentation to the arguments con-
trary to his own conclusions on more obscure parts of Rizal’s life.
It has, to be sure, certain weaknesses. Other biographies have
surpassed this one in more vivid presentations of the man Rizal and
in deeper insights into his career. Moreover, the subsequent discov-
ery of further materials, particularly correspondence of Rizal and
of his associates, has made it possible to write biographies more
adequate on many of the facts of Rizal’s life. Finally, Retana does
not tell the full story of his own participation as an opponent of the
goals Rizal worked for, and his interpretation of Rizal as never
having been an enemy of Spain will certainly not meet the accep-
tance of many historians today. Nonetheless, the biography re-
mains a very substantial contribution to Philippine historiography,
not only for its own time and for the subsequent research and
writing that it both occasioned and facilitated, but for the stimu-
lating, if not always exact, insights it still offers.
The third major historical work of this period is the edition of
Antonio de Morga’s Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas. The text of
Morga occupies less than one-third of this volume, the rest of which
 W. E. Retana 149

is occupied by Retana’s scholarly introduction on Morga’s life and

writings, the background of his history, a number of unpublished
letters of Morga—all the fruit of Retana’s research in the Archivo
de Indias—as well as a glossary and biographical notes on persons
mentioned. The whole forms an important contribution to our
knowledge of the early colonial period, as its frequent use by modern
scholars attests.

Abuse of History

Yet while doing this substantial and solid historical work

manifested in the three books just mentioned, Retana was engaged
in much other writing on the Philippines in which something less
than disinterested scholarship was manifested. He published in
Spanish reviews like Nuestro Tiempo and La Espana Moderna a
number of general articles on the Philippines and some commen-
taries, often biased and inaccurate, on current Philippine affairs.®’
He also published several articles or books of some historical value,
such as La censura de imprenta en Filipinas, La primera conjura-
cién separatista: 1587-1588, La Inquisicioén en Filipinas, and Noti-
cias histérico-bibliogrdficas de el teatro en Filipinas desde sus origenes
hasta 1898.
Though all of these articles published in Spain are documented,
all except the last-named clearly aim at mortifying the friars and
are full of harsh comments on their conduct. The historical work
merely provides the framework for the antifriar attacks. In the
Philippines, moreover, he had succeeded in getting access to the
columns of the Manila newspaper El Renacimiento, which was at
that time quite anticlerical, not to say anti-Catholic. In these col-
umns, Retana openly played up to this antifriar sentiment for his
own advantage. Artigas mentions a series of articles entitled “Espafia
y Rizal,” which he says was nothing more than

an extract from the biography of the heroic martyr of Bagongbayan,

interlined with bitter censures for the friars, of whom he says precisely
the contrary of all those encomiums they received from him during the
period in which he received splendid favors from them.”

Other articles of his of the same nature were published during the
next year or two till the demise of E] Renacimiento. According to
Retana these articles were the result of urgent requests on the part
of Filipinos, and in spite of his numerous occupations.” But the
truth is that Retana had been using every effort to get such an
150 W. E. Retana

invitation from El Renacimiento, and later wrote letters complain-

ing bitterly about how little he was being paid.” In various letters
he lamented that in spite of the important books he had already
begun writing or at least had in project, he was unable to publish
them because of the little sale his works had received in their
principal market, the Philippines. Thus, he suggested that the
Philippine Legislature “resolve to give its patronage to my intellec-
tual production to the extent that it should recognize it to be of
evident benefit to Filipino culture.””? Indeed, his writings betray a
rather insufferable condescension toward Filipinos, devoting him-
self, as Artigas says, “to giving lessons, supposing all still to be
children.”
His final underhand effort to obtain support for his work in the
Philippines may be said to be his book Origenes de la imprenta
filipina, which in 1911 was awarded a prize of one thousand pesos
by the Philippine government.” In an article in El Renacimiento in
1908, Retana had proposed that a celebration be held in Manila in
1910 in honor of the third centenary of the printing press in the
Philippines. For the occasion, he suggested, a prize should be of-
fered for the best monograph on the origin of the first Philippine
printing press.® The accusation has been made, and seems justified
by the evidence, that Retana set up this contest for himself, know-
ing that there was no one else in a position to compete with him
for the prize, since he had already treated the subject in several of
his published works. As a matter of fact, Retana was awarded the
prize by a jury headed by Epifanio de los Santos, who prepared the
verdict signed by the other members, and who likewise proposed
that Retana be awarded an additional thousand pesos.* It seems
difficult not to agree with the accusations of Artigas, of the anony-
mous author of the pamphlet Filipinerfas, and of the dissenting
judge, James A. Robertson, then director of the Philippine National
Library, that there was no real contest, and that Retana had really
not contributed anything new to the question posed beyond what
had been previously published.” The least that can be said is that
the conduct of Retana (and of Epifanio de los Santos) in this whole
matter was something less than honorable. The idea behind it may
best be gleaned from Retana’s article, reproduced in the prologue
of Origenes de la imprenta filipina, that laments pitifully for almost
two columns how little recognition he had been given in the Phil-
ippines, in spite of the very long list of achievements that he had
been the first to accomplish—all recited with an almost degrading
conceit.
 W. E. Retana 151

Final Years

The death of El Renacimiento put an end to Retana’s articles in

Manila.® His political appointment as Inspector-General of Police
for Barcelona when General Weyler became Captain-General of
Catalufia, likewise seems to have put an end to all writing, histori-
cal or otherwise.’ He held this position until 1918, but once out
of it returned to history, now with a more serene and objective spirit
than either of his previous periods. In the years from 1919 to 1924
he published a number of genealogical articles in the reviews Nuestro
Tiempo and Raza Espafiola.'' Then, for the fourth centenary of
Magellan’s coming to the Philippines he published two works of
collective biography.’ The first contained brief biographical sketches
of the persons of noble or high rank who had been in the Philippines
during the Spanish regime; the second, biographical sketches of all
those who were known to have reached the Philippines on Magellan’s
expedition. The former book he declares in his preface to be part of
a great work of some 15,000 articles, to which he is devoting himself,
and which will be entitled Los apellidos espafoles en el Extremo
Oriente.
The same year appeared his Diccionario de filipinismos, a dic-
tionary of Spanish words uniquely used in the Philippines and of
Hispanized words from the Philippine languages adopted by Span-
ish speakers in the Philippines.'® This had first appeared in the
important French and American review of Hispanic studies Revue
Hispanique, in which Retana also published a number of articles on
the Philippines about this time.!™
In 1922 Retana was elected a full member (académico de niimero)
of the Real Academia de la Historia for his work in Philippine
history, in which field he was declared to be “the first and most
authoritative of its investigators.”! He still had a number of works
in preparation, but had little productive time left in his life after
the reception of this honor, for he died early in 1924.'%
During these last years Retana showed a considerable change of
heart from 1898-1910. Neither the insincere praise for all things
Filipino—flattering indeed, but largely aimed at securing advan-
tages for himself—nor the veiled or open antifriar remarks, both of
which had been characteristic of that period, mark his writings in
later years. He is indeed principally concerned to bring out the
greatness of Spain’s accomplishments in the Philippines, but it is
not done at the expense of others. He was in scholarly correspon-
dence with the Franciscan historian of the Philippines, Fr. Lorenzo
152 W. E. Retana

Pérez, as well as being in contact with the Jesuit historians Father

Pastells and Fr. Constantino Bayle.!” Father Pérez has recorded
that Retana frequently expressed regret for his antifriar and anti-
Catholic attitude of previous years. Sometime in 1922 he made a
written retraction of his antireligious writings, which he left with
Father Bayle to be published after his death. It reads as follows:

I declare myself a Catholic, a member of the apostolic, Roman Church.

I lament that in some of my writings I have made manifestations which
were more or less in contradiction with the principles of that religion,
in which I was brought up, and in which I wish to live and die.’

This retraction, made without any temporal advantage now to be

gained, surely expresses a true and sincere purpose on the part of
Retana, and as such deserves admiration. Yet, by the fact of its
repudiation of the attitudes of the previous period, it also confirms
the interpretation given here of Retana’s first “change of heart”
after the end of the Spanish regime in the Philippines, in 1898.

Retana’s Place in Philippine History

It should be evident from the vicissitudes of Retana’s life here

sketched that any interpretation of the man will be a complex
thing. There is much truth in the interpretation of Artigas and of
the anonymous author of Filipinerias that Retana’s ever-shifting
positions and self-contradictions were governed by nothing more
than mercenary motives and a desire for self-glorification. Yet the
matter is more complex than this. There was in Retana a deep
sense of patriotism as a Spaniard, which runs through his career.
Because of this patriotism he sought the continued permanence of
Spain in the Philippines. Seeing in the upsetting of the status quo
a danger to Spanish domination, he set himself to combat all at-
tempts at progressive reforms. Seeing in the friars the principal
support of Spanish sovereignty, whatever may have been his reli-
gious convictions, he resolved to support them against the attacks
of the Filipino nationalists. Both in order to disprove the Filipinos’
contention that they were ready for these progressive reforms and
to combat the Filipino nationalists’ attacks on the prestige of the
friars, he embarked on a campaign of caustic depreciation and
denigration of Filipinos, their country, and their customs.
But in all this economic considerations also played a role. Thus,
once patriotic considerations no longer moved him to defend the
friars and the economic considerations looked more promising in
 W. E. Retana 153

another direction, he was led to reverse his anti-Filipino position in

order to make use of the financial remuneration for his writings
offered him in the Philippines. In all these changes, however, the
mind of the historian, which ever remained present in Retana,
though often turned aside from the pure pursuit of historical
knowledge by other considerations, was ever ready to reassert itself.
Thus even in the midst of his polemics he could produce a scholarly
work of the value of the Estadismo. But also, on the other hand,
even in his major works of scholarship like the biography of Rizal
or the Aparato bibliogrdfico, considerations of self-interest are not
absent.
What judgment then should be placed on the historical writings
of Retana? It will be as varied as were the writings and the circum-
stances under which they were written. It should be clear from the
exposition that has been given here of Retana’s career that it would
be as naive to treat vulgar polemic tracts like the Folletos filipinos
or La censura de imprenta en Filipinas as scholarly works as it
would be foolish to reject his edition of Morga’s Sucesos or the
Aparato because of the anti-Filipino prejudices shown in his other
works. Each of his writings must be judged in the context in which
it was written. It is to be hoped that this essay may provide some
basis for making such accurate judgments.
This prefaced, we may say that the place of Retana in Philippine
history is twofold: first, as an active participant in making part of
that history; and second, as one who contributed much to make that
history known to his own and succeeding generations, and to whom
subsequent historians must acknowledge their debt. His role as
active participant, though hardly one that would commend him to
the sympathy of any Filipino, was nonetheless real and important.
As the antagonist of Rizal and the other Filipino nationalists of the
Propaganda Movement, he undoubtedly contributed both to under-
mining their campaign by his attacks and rebuttals and to sharp-
ening the antagonism between Filipinos and Spaniards by the biting
caricatures and depreciatory attitudes he showed toward Filipinos.
He contributed to hardening the intransigence of the Spaniards
resident in or concerned with the Philippines, and likewise to the
hysterical attitude taken in 1896, and thus bears some responsibil-
ity in the death of Rizal and other Filipinos executed then, innocent
or guilty in Spanish eyes.
His role in investigating and recording Philippine history is,
however, far more important, granted the reserves made above as
to the caution needed in evaluating his writings.’ The writings of
Retana that seem to be permanent contributions to Philippine
154 W. E. Retana

historiography fall into three groups. The first is that of the works
of which he was editor, among which four have permanent value
and significance. These are: (1) the Archivo del bibli6filo filipino, for
the wealth of rare or unavailable documents that it offers to the
historian, even though it does contain some ephemeral material; (2)
the Estadismo of Martinez de Zuniga; (3) the Historia de Mindanao
y Jolé of Combés; and (4) the Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas of
Morga. The latter three are all standard sources for the period or
place they treat, and all have been enriched with the valuable
introductions and annotations of Retana.
The second group would be his bibliographical works. Though
our knowledge of the history of Philippine printing has since been
considerably advanced, Retana’s writings on this subject contrib-
uted substantially to these advances, even if not as much as he
tended to claim. Among bibliographies, even though the Aparato is
by no means complete or definitive, until now nothing has appeared
to replace it. Other bibliographies may be more complete for a
particular field, as that of Streit and Dindinger for religious history,
but for breadth of coverage and wealth of information, Retana’s
Aparato has not yet been surpassed.
In original historical work, Retana’s principal contribution of
significance is his biography of Rizal. In spite of the flood of new
works on Rizal that have appeared since Retana’s, a few of them
significant contributions, it still remains a classic. It will surely
continue to be a source from which others will draw, though its
interpretation of Rizal and his work will be rejected on major points,
particularly his contention that Rizal was never a separatist. But
in spite of antifriar bias and Retana’s tendency to justify his own
positions of the past, the biography is a solid work of careful his-
torical scholarship, more than any other of his historical writings.
The most significant fact in the evaluation of Retana as an
historian lies in the nature of the works that have been here named
as forming his lasting contribution. Editions of rare works, erudite
annotations, extensive bibliographical information—all of these point
to a vast and deep knowledge of the facts of Philippine history, to
a wealth of research and study of its sources, to a profound knowl-
edge of its literature, but not to the historian who synthesizes the
results of research into a picture of a period or place. Even the other
work mentioned, the biography of Rizal, only confirms what has
been said. For its prime value is as a source and compendium of
information on Rizal, and though efforts at synthesis and interpre-
tation are by no means lacking, they do not form the primary worth
of the book, nor are they well unified into a single consistent pic-
 W. E. Retana 155

ture. While Retana’s work of historical synthesis is not to be

completely ignored or rejected, his real worth as an historian is
elsewhere. It is as an investigator, as a collector of the facts of
history, that he has a right to recognition in Philippine historiog-
raphy. But within these limits, his merit as an historian is well
earned. Whatever our opinion may be of him as a man, every
impartial historian of the Philippines must recognize the debt owed
by Philippine history to his diligence and research.
 Lil
Philippine Masonry
to 1890

The Masonic lodges served as centers for many of the

Liberal conspiracies in Spain against clerical and reactionary
governments during the first three-quarters of the nineteenth cen-
tury.'! Masonry also played a considerable part in the emancipation
of the Spanish-American republics.? In Cuba, too, Masonic influ-
ence was strong in the insurrections of the second half of the
nineteenth century.’ It might be expected, then, that in a society
far more theocratic in nature than those mentioned—as was the
nineteenth-century Philippines—Masonry would play a significant
role in any nationalist movement. This was because of its anticleri-
cal orientation and because of the opportunity its secrecy allowed
for clandestine activity. It is a fact that almost every Filipino na-
tionalist leader of the Propaganda Period was at one time or another
a Mason. But the role of Masonry in the nationalist movement and
 Philippine Masonry to 1890 157

in the Revolution that followed it has frequently been exaggerated

and misinterpreted by the friends of Masonry as well as by its
enemies. Particularly the writing of the friars and Jesuits of the
Revolutionary period (both published works and private correspon-
dence) are wont to see Masons in every corner.t Books have not
been lacking, even in recent times, which see the entire last two
decades of the nineteenth century in the Philippines in terms of a
Masonic plot, obeying orders from the Supreme Council of Char-
leston, in order to strip Spain of her last overseas provinces.° On
the other hand, while Masonic works written by Spaniards try to
exculpate Masonry from any part in the Philippine Revolution,
those by Filipino Masons have often seemed to make Masonry the
chief moving force behind the Revolution. There is need, then, for
a serious historical study of the real role of Masonry among the
Filipino nationalists.
The chief problem in making such an objective study of the role
of Masonry has been, of course, the lack of sufficient documenta-
tion. The late Teodoro M. Kalaw, himself a past Grand Master of
Philippine Masonry, possessed a collection of Masonic documents,
on which his book (till now the only available history of Philippine
Masonry) seems largely to have been based.* However, Kalaw did
not give adequate references to his documents in writing his book;
in any case, the collection seems to have been destroyed during the
past war.’ In this scarcity of documentation, the discovery of a
number of authentic Masonic records from the Filipino lodges—
both in Spain and in the Philippines—is invaluable. These docu-
ments were found among those confiscated from the Spanish lodges
by the Spanish Nationalist forces as they occupied Republican
territory during the civil war of 1936-39, and were gathered to-
gether by the government agency known as the Delegacién Nacional
de Servicios Documentales.’ Undoubtedly, the archive of this body
contains extensive documentation on Spanish Masonry, though I
was assured that most of it dealt with the twentieth century. Among
the records, however, were a few folders containing some scattered
Philippine documentation. Though the records are clearly incom-
plete and somewhat haphazard, they throw considerable light on
the early organization of Masonry in the Philippines and on the
Filipino lodges in Spain. With the aid of these documents, this
article proposes to attempt a new reconstruction of the role of
Masonry during the early part of the Propaganda period, without
intending to either glorify or disparage this role, but to establish
the basic facts as a first step toward an overall evaluation.
158 Philippine Masonry to 1890

Early Masonry in the Philippines

There were some vague reports of British Masonic lodges during

the oceupation of Manila in 1762-64.° But apart from these, the
first lodges set up in Manila seem to date from the mid—1850s,
formed among Spanish army officers in the Philippines, followed by
others among the foreign merchants.’ It is claimed also that
sometime before 1872, some Filipinos were admitted to a lodge in
the Pandacan district of Manila, but these apparently were among
those exiled in the aftermath of the insurrection of 1872." If any
Filipinos did remain in the lodges, they were eliminated in the
reorganization that took place under the auspices of the Gran Oriente
de Espafia in 1874. The Philippine Masonic lodges remained
completely European in their membership until Filipino lodges were
introduced in 1891 by Filipino Masons returning from Spain after
being initiated there.!? There is indeed mention of an invitation
being extended in 1884 to all indios and mestizos who “knew how
to read and write and had a responsible position, provided they
loved Spain and had a definite religion.”!* If such an invitation was
ever made, which is more than doubtful, it received no acceptance
except from José A. Ramos. Ramos, however, had been initiated in
London, and was, moreover, a Spanish mestizo married to an English
wife.'* In the extant lists of lodge members from 1884, the only one
identifiable as a Filipino is Ramos, affiliated with the lodge Luz de
Oriente. In 1887 Ramos again appears as one of the founders of the
lodge Constancia, likewise in Manila, in which all members are
explicitly noted as Europeans, with the exception of Ramos, de-
nominated “Philippine Spaniard” (espafol filipino). Therefore, with
the possible, but unsubstantiated, exception of the short period in
the 1870s, it would seem that no pure-blooded Filipinos (indios) had
been initiated into Masonry before the first Filipino lodges were
formed in Spain.

Early Filipino Masons in Spain

The fact that Masonry in the Philippines had not, at this time,
opened its doors to Filipinos, helps to explain the readiness of
Filipino students in Europe to join the Masonic lodges there where
the race barrier did not prevent them. The first clear evidence of
Filipino participation in Masonry that I have found is the member-
ship of Rafael Del-Pan, a criollo, whose father—José Felipe del
Pan—was a long-time prominent Spanish resident of the Philip-
pines and publisher of the Manila newspaper La Oceanta Espafola.'*
 Philippine Masonry to 1890 159

The elder Del Pan was a member of one of the Masonic lodges of
Manila, and this, no doubt, brought the son to be the first of the
Filipino student group in Madrid to join Masonry, though it is not
clear just when he did so.” In April 1886, however, Del-Pan ap-
pears, already possessing the eighteenth degree, as one of the
founders of a lodge called Solidaridad.'® Of the other seven found-
ers, two were Peninsular Spaniards, three were Cubans, one a
Puerto Rican, and one other Filipino—Ricardo Ayllon.’® Shortly
after its foundation, two other Filipinos—Evaristo Aguirre and
Julio Llorente—also joined Solidaridad. A large proportion of
those initiated in succeeding months were either Cubans or Puerto
Ricans.”
There are several indications that this lodge, largely made up of
students from Spain’s overseas provinces, was the work of Miguel
Morayta. At least one of the founders—a Puerto Rican named
Herminio Diaz—was a member of Morayta’s own lodge, Hijos del
Progreso. Moreover, Morayta himself is listed as an honorary member
of Solidaridad, with the title of Honorary Worshipful Master, the
highest honorary title that that lodge could give. Finally, though
founded in April 1886, the lodge had little life until the following
September. It seems to have passed through an early crisis when
all but two of those members holding higher degrees withdrew,
leaving only a handful of new adepts. When, however, the reorgani-
zation and apertura de trabajos took place the following September,
the first invitation to a joint session went to Morayta’s Hijos del
Progreso.
The surviving records of the lodge indicate that it led a rather
languid life. Del-Pan and Aguirre had both withdrawn before the
end of 1886; in general, there had been a large turnover of mem-
bers. Apparently already initiated a Mason in 1882 in the lodge
Porvenir but long inactive, Graciano Lopez Jaena affiliated with
Solidaridad in April 1887.2! One month later, however, the majority
of members of the lodge, including all the Cubans, voted to join with
certain other lodges to form a new lodge: Luz de Mantua, no. 1.
Among them, the only Filipino was Lopez Jaena. With this, Soli-
daridad apparently ceased to exist until it was revived as an all-
Filipino lodge a few years later.” Though the Filipinos never formed
more than a handful in the early lodge Solidaridad, the importance
of the episode is the introduction of Masonry among the Filipino
colony in Madrid. Even more noteworthy is the fact that these
contacts were established under the aegis of Miguel Morayta, who
was to play a significant role in Filipino Masonry for the next thirty
years until his death.
160 Philippine Masonry to 1890

The Lodge “Revolucién”

The first predominantly Filipino lodge, however, was to be founded

in Barcelona in April 1889, under the title “Revolucién.””? The
initiative seems to have come from a former Spanish army officer,
Celso Mir Deas, who, while in the Philippines, had married a Fil-
ipina.24 Mir Deas was at this time active in Republican circles in
Barcelona, especially as a journalist on the Republican newspaper
El Pueblo Soberano.” The original members of the lodge were Mir
Deas, Lopez Jaena, Marcelo H. del Pilar, Mariano Ponce, Jose Ma.
Panganiban, Juan José Cafiarte, and Justo Argudin. These latter
two were Cubans; Cafiarte had been collaborating with the Filipino
newspaper La Solidaridad for a few issues just before this time.”
Lopez Jaena was elected Worshipful Master; Argudin, Senior
Warden; Mir Deas, Junior Warden; Del Pilar, Orator; and Cafiarte,
Secretary. Immediately upon its organization, the lodge addressed
Morayta, who had founded a new federation—Gran Oriente Es-
pafiol—a few months earlier, recognizing the Masonic legality of
Morayta’s federation and petitioning affiliation for itself.?” Just two
weeks later, Morayta made a trip from Madrid to Barcelona,
where he was honored by the Filipino colony with a banquet. It was
at this time that Del Pilar made his first contacts with Morayta,
from which would spring a close association and friendship between
the two men. Del Pilar would eventually hold a high position in
Spanish Masonry; Morayta would collaborate with the Filipino
campaign.
The details of the foundation of Revolucién are not completely
clear. The records begin with 2 April 1889, as may be seen from the
document cited above. However, though this communication with
Morayta may well signal the beginning of the lodge, it might also
merely signify the move of a preexisting lodge to affiliate with
Morayta, who had recently won over various Masonic rivals and
succeeded in uniting under himself the Gran Oriente Espajiol.
Marcelo del Pilar already appears in the records of 2 April as
holding the third degree. Since, as we have seen, it is extremely
unlikely that he was initiated before leaving the Philippines, his
initiation must have taken place sometime within the three months
after his arrival in Barcelona on 1 January 1889. Two possibilities,
therefore, present themselves. Sometime during those three months,
Del Pilar had possibly joined another Masonic lodge and, at the
beginning of April—together with Lopez Jaena, Mir Deas, and
others—had withdrawn from his original lodge to form Revolucién
and affiliate with Morayta. Or perhaps Revolucién had already
 Philippine Masonry to 1890 161

been formed sometime earlier (between January and April) and

that it was only at this time that its records begin to appear among
those of the Gran Oriente Espajfiol, since it was only then that the
already existing lodge would have affiliated with Morayta.
The surviving records of Revolucién for the year 1889 show that
most of the Filipinos in Barcelona soon joined the lodge, and that
these Filipinos rapidly ascended to the higher degrees of Masonry.
In addition to those listed above, other Filipinos who joined during
1889 included Santiago Icasiano, Ariston Bautista, Galicano
Apacible, Damaso Ponce, Ramon Imperial, Agustin Blanco, Dom-
ingo Marcelo Cortes, and Teodoro Sandico. By 30 August, Del Pilar
and Mariano Ponce had reached the eighteenth degree; Bautista,
the fourteenth. On 17 September, Mir Deas, Argudin, Apacible, and
Panganiban were proposed for the thirtieth degree; Icasiano, Damaso
Ponce, and Imperial, for the eighteenth. Though the records are
incomplete, it seems very likely that Del Pilar and Mariano Ponce
had likewise reached the thirtieth degree by this time, inasmuch as
they had been cofounders with the others proposed for the thirtieth
degree, and had begun with them in the same degree. Certainly by
1890 both men already held the thirtieth degree in the Madrid
lodge Solidaridad, though there is no record among the documents
of that lodge of their promotion, indicating that it must have taken
place while they were still affiliated with Revolucion.
When compared with the rate at which men were promoted to
higher degrees in other lodges, this rapidity seems rather extraor-
dinary. It could perhaps be attributed to a desire, on the part of
Morayta, to build up the new lodges quickly, so as to consolidate the
still shaky position of his federation, or possibly also to financial
considerations. But, without completely excluding either of these
possibilities, it would seem to be the desire of the Filipinos, particu-
larly Del Pilar, to rise to positions in Masonry where they could
make use of their Masonic relationships more effectively for their
political purposes in the Philippines.* Certainly, whatever may
have been the motivation of Morayta or of Mir Deas, Del Pilar
intended to make use of Masonry in his campaign to destroy the
power of the friars in the Philippines.

Masonry and the Filipino Antifriar Campaign

Giving an insight into the strategy he proposed in his campaign

for Europe, two instances of this use of Masonic influence by Del
Pilar may be cited. The first of these was the sponsorship by Del
Pilar and his associates of Manrique Alonso Lallave, a renegade
162 Philippine Masonry to 1890

friar from the Philippines who had turned Protestant, and in 1889
returned to Manila to open a Protestant chapel there.” Lallave had
been a Dominican parish priest of the town of Urdaneta, Pangasi-
nan. He had been one of those who attempted to take advantage of
the shortlived decree of Segismundo Moret in 1870, authorizing the
exclaustration of friars in the Philippines. Dismissed from the
Dominican Order for this and other grave charges, he had been
expelled from the Philippines by the government of Gen. Rafael
Izquierdo. On his return to Spain, he had published a diatribe
against the friars, entitled Los frailes en Filipinas, in which he
accused them of every imaginable crime and demanded the disso-
lution of the orders.*! The pamphlet is full of the most manifest
falsehoods and exaggerations. It recklessly gives figures, for ex-
ample, on the enormous wealth of the friars, which admittedly had
no proof for them at all. But the author was by no means a friend
or defender of the rights of the Filipinos. In the light of the spon-
sorship given by Del Pilar to Lallave’s pamphlet and to the man’s
activities as well, it is interesting to note such a passage as the
following, in which Lallave denies all ability to Filipinos and insults
them in a way worthy of the worst of the detractors of the race
combatted by Rizal and others:

There you will not find that magnificent brilliance of intelligence . . . nor
will you discover there in the works of men the graphic expressions of
the power of their will; you will see only lowness, small-mindedness,
fear, servility in execution, poverty of will in every respect, and
degradation of the intelligence. That people still lacks poetry; as yet it
has not invented a song—rather its songs and its harmonies are the
harmonies and the songs of the savages!*?

Even worse are his remarks about the Filipinos being “liars by their
very nature. .. .” and his chapter on public morality, where he
denies all sense of morality to the entire race, men and women.
Despite all this, Del Pilar now proposed in his campaign to destroy
the influence of the friars in the Philippines, to cooperate with
Lallave and other elements in Spanish political life who were
sponsoring him, notably the ex-revolutionary, former Grand Master
of the Gran Oriente de Espafia, Manuel Becerra, now Overseas
Minister in the Liberal Cabinet of Sagasta.* The entire term of
office of Becerra was a continuous threat to the Church in the
Philippines, though few of his projects ever succeeded in winning
cabinet approval, even from the anticlerical government of Sagasta.
In an early circular to the governor-general, he ostentatiously called
 Philippine Masonry to 1890 163

on the latter to favor the work of the religious orders in the Phil-
ippines, but went on to say that he must not forget

that in the territory of that jurisdiction there are Europeans, Asiatics,

and Americans who profess different religions. All these should be
respected in their beliefs and in their worship, as they have been ever
since the wise Laws of the Indies were first laid down.*®

Beneath this seemingly innocuous statement, apparently simply

reiterating ordinary Philippine practice, there was a hidden plan.
The key to the plan is the phrase “in their worship,” which gave an
opening for freedom of worship, something never heretofore permit-
ted in the Philippines. Del Pilar, in a letter to Pedro Serrano Laktaw,
pointed out that he considered this to be

the gravest threat that can be made under current legislation against
the theocratic power. Becerra cannot descend to details. The question is
whether we know how to develop its potentialities.

He goes on to explain how he proposes to do so:

Under protection of that circular, you have coming to you there in

person, in body and soul, your Manrique Lallave, now a Protestant
pastor. The government will not be able to prosecute him, since he is
protected by the circular. If he succeeds in making proselytes, an
exposition will be presented to the government with 300,000 signatures
in demand of greater tolerance and even of freedom of worship. This
latter is still a remote possibility, but even toleration is already a great
step against the monastic power. As to their expulsion, you know already
that we cannot hope for this from the government; we have to do it
ourselves.*6

He then counsels Serrano to aid Lallave clandestinely with the

assistance of Doroteo Cortes and José Ramos. In a letter to Teodoro
Sandico a few weeks later, he urges him to work with Serrano in
helping Lallave, “because here you have the unfolding of one of the
plans of Becerra. . . .”°”
In his letter to Doroteo Cortes, contemporaneous with that to
Serrano, Del Pilar gives some idea of his relationship to Becerra in
this matter.

Sefior Manrique Lallave and his companions are going there to carry on
some business which they will explain to you. Believing their interests
to be antagonistic to those of certain monopolizers of the country, I
would wish that, on your part and that of your friends, you would bestow
164 Philippine Masonry to 1890

every kind of protection on them, being assured that these gentlemen

and the elements on whom they depend, with whom we are in complete
understanding, are disposed to render us service in return.”

The plan did not prosper, however, since Lallave contracted a

fever a few weeks after his arrival in Manila, and after two weeks
of sickness, died.*®
All this raises the question as to who were “the elements on
which they depend,” with whom Del Pilar was “in complete under-
standing,” and who were disposed to render him reciprocal services
in return for his cooperation with Lallave’s anti-Catholic project.
Two possible answers offer themselves: a group of Protestants or
one of Masons. The first of these seems highly improbable, since the
scattered Protestants in Spain at this time were scarcely in a position
to do anything for Del Pilar and his associates that would justify
the phrase “disposed to render us service in return.” Moreover, it
is known that shortly before this time, Lallave, who had been a
Presbyterian in Sevilla from 1874 to 1888, was deprived of his
pastorate by his church in the latter year, because of accusations
made against him. He was reduced to such a precarious economic
situation that he was scarcely able to support his wife and numer-
ous children. It is hardly likely that his church, even if it were
disposed to undertake such a project, would, after having deprived
him of his pastorate for alleged bad conduct, have entrusted him
with a new mission in the Philippines. It is known, however, that
he had translated the New Testament into Pangasinan, on commis-
sion from the British and Foreign Bible Society and, together with
a young Spanish Baptist, Felipe de P. Castells, also a Mason, had
been entrusted to bring his bibles into the Philippines. There is no
evidence that the Bible Society understood his intentions nor that
they had any “service in return” to render to Del Pilar, nor that they
would have so involved themselves. It was Lallave who offered his
services to them for introducing the bibles, without their knowledge
of his other commitments.*°
There is, however, a great deal of evidence that points to Lallave’s
support being Masonic, specifically, from the Gran Oriente Espajfiol,
headed by Morayta. Lallave had been a very active Mason for many
years, had published a number of Masonic works, and was editor
of the Masonic journal Taller from its foundation. Having first been
a member of the lodge Numantina of the Gran Oriente Lusitano
Unido, he had helped found the Gran Logia Simbélica Independi-
ente Espafiola in 1881, where he was Gran Orador. He had likewise
founded the lodge Numancia, of which he was Worshipful Master.
 Philippine Masonry to 1890 165

With this background, Lallave was certainly no stranger to Becerra

or to Morayta, since he was active in Masonic circles right up to the
period in question, and in circles friendly to those of Morayta and
Becerra.*!
In addition to this Masonic affiliation of Lallave, the considera-
tion of a few dates would seem clearly to point to Morayta and the
Gran Oriente Espafiol being the sponsor of Lallave. Del Pilar’s
letters to Serrano and Cortes in favor of Lallave are dated 1 May
1889. On the preceding 2 April, the lodge Revolucién had petitioned
Morayta for affiliation with the Gran Oriente Espafiol.‘2 Two weeks
later, on 16 April, Morayta arrived in Barcelona. During the period
of his stay, it is clear from Del Pilar’s letters that the latter had
several conferences with Morayta, the details of which he does not
divulge, besides the public banquet that the Filipino colony of-
fered.*® As will be seen below, it is from precisely this time that
Morayta showed himself active in behalf of the Filipinos, and that
Del Pilar seems to have taken his final decision to go to Madrid and
centralize his organization there in conjunction with the former. If
Morayta proposed to Del Pilar that the Filipino group should aid
Lallave, the first opportunity for Del Pilar to recommend that course
to his friends in Manila would have been precisely when he did
write, at the beginning of May when the next mail boat would have
been leaving for the Philippines. As a matter of fact, it is in this
same mail that he writes to his brother-in-law, Deodato Arellano,
concerning his meeting with Morayta.
The other side of this relationship of reciprocal assistance be-
tween Masonry and the Filipino nationalists that Del Pilar counted
on, may be seen in another project he undertook as a result of the
conferences between him and Morayta. At the banquet in honor of
Morayta, the Filipinos and their Spanish friends drew up an
exposition to the Overseas Minister Becerra, petitioning parliamen-
tary representation for the Philippines, abolition of the censorship,
and prohibition of administrative deportation.** A few weeks later,
Del Pilar wrote to Rizal, who seems to have joined Masonry some-
time earlier:*°

If you can take advantage of the support of the “Gran Familia,” now is
the time. For Becerra belongs to it, and besides, this oppressive measure
[administrative deportation] affects its prestige and good name, since it
is its own members and its friends who are subject to this persecution.*®

Rizal, however, was unwilling to make use of Masonic influence,

since he declared that he did not want “to owe the tranquility of the
166 Philippine Masonry to 1890

Philippines to anyone except the forces of the country itself. . . hes

Del Pilar was undismayed. Without communicating anything fur-
ther to Rizal, he began to campaign among other Masonic lodges to
obtain their support for a petition to Sagasta, the Prime Minister,
and to Becerra—both of them, Masons—against permitting admin-
istrative deportation in the Philippines.** On 2 July 1889, Lopez
Jaena, as Worshipful Master of Revolucion, forwarded to Morayta
two copies of an exposition making this petition, signed by various
lodges not only of the Gran Oriente Espajfiol, but also of other
“obediences.” He asked in an official letter that Morayta see to it
that these expositions be placed in the hands of the ministers to
whom they were addressed.
In another confidential, unofficial letter, which accompanied these
documents, he offered the activity of Revolucién in securing the
cooperation of lodges outside the Gran Oriente Espafiol as a proof
of the Masonic zeal of the Filipinos, pointing out that this might
well be a first step in bringing more lodges under Morayta’s lead-
ership. In return for this service, he asked to be rewarded with the
thirtieth degree, without having to make a formal request.*® In
spite of the letter of Lopez Jaena, however, it seems clear from the
correspondence of Del Pilar cited above that it was the latter who
was behind the whole move, though undoubtedly the political and
Masonic contacts of Lopez Jaena were largely instrumental in
making the move possible.
The incident is interesting as an example of what Del Pilar
hoped to accomplish through Masonry, and as an indication of the
close relationship with Morayta that he was nurturing from this
time. However, there is no evidence that anything was actually
accomplished by these Masonic petitions as far as achieving their
object is concerned. Becerra had already embarked on a program of
radical reforms for the Philippines, which was meeting extensive
opposition, and though he might well have supported the object of
the Filipino petition, he was not in a position to propose more new
reforms at this time. Sagasta was not willing to compromise himself
at any time for the sake of Becerra’s projects, and would scarcely
have allowed himself to be led into reforms in the Philippines that
many considered likely to weaken Spanish control, simply because
of lobbying from Masonic lodges.*!
After September, the records show an increase of non-Filipino
members in the lodge, and a corresponding decrease in Filipino
activity, no doubt due to the plans of Del Pilar to transfer opera-
tions to Madrid. Sandico, Bautista, Damaso Ponce, and perhaps
Apacible, all moved to Madrid about this time, as did Del Pilar,
 Philippine Masonry to 1890 167

with Mariano Ponce soon to follow. Since Panganiban already had

only months to live, all the Filipinos who had shown themselves
active in Revolucién, except Lopez Jaena, were now gone. The latter
resigned as Worshipful Master at the end of November, and there
is no mention of the few remaining Filipino members, if any, in the
other extant records for the months after November, only of Span-
iards and Cubans. The last records of Revolucién date from Febru-
ary 1890.
However, though Revolucién ceased to exist as a predominantly
Filipino lodge, the associations of the nationalist movement with
Spanish Masonry under the leadership of Del Pilar had only begun.
Once the reorganization in Madrid was underway, a new lodge
would be established and the part of Masonry in the activities of
the Filipino nationalists would be expanded.
 12
Filipino Masonry in
Madrid, 1889-1896

In the preceding essay, I have tried to trace the origins

of Filipino Masonry in Spain as it existed in Madrid and Barcelona
up to 1890, as a step to a more accurate estimate of the role Masonry
actually played in the events leading to the Revolution of 1896.
Revolucion, the first predominantly Filipino lodge, was organized in
Barcelona in 1889 with Graciano Lopez Jaena as Grand Master. As
evidence in the previous discussion shows, this lodge was conceived
by Marcelo H. del Pilar, the leading figure behind the scenes, as a
means of obtaining political assistance from Spanish Masons in the
campaign he was then initiating to destroy the influence of the
friars in the Philippines and to win political rights for the Filipi-
nos. Due to a variety of circumstances, but chiefly the removal of
Del Pilar and the Filipino newspaper La Solidaridad to Madrid,
Revolucién soon ceased to function, at least as a Filipino lodge.
 Filipino Masonry in Madrid 169

Even before the lodge’s demise became a fact, however, Del Pilar
had already moved to set up a new Filipino lodge in Madrid. Though
the initiative ostensibly came from Julio Llorente, as the ranking
Filipino Mason in Madrid, it seems that here, no less than in
Barcelona, where Lopez Jaena had been Worshipful Master of the
lodge, Del Pilar was the actual moving force. On 10 December 1889
a preliminary meeting was held at the quarters of Del Pilar, in
which it was decided to revive the old lodge Solidaridad, to which
a number of the older Filipinos had belonged, including Llorente,
before it had ceased functioning in 1887.! The reconstituted lodge
elected Julio Llorente as Worshipful Master; Del Pilar, Senior
Warden; Damaso Ponce, Junior Warden; Dominador Gomez, Ora-
tor; and Teodoro Sandiko [Sandico], Secretary. They then voted to
seek recognition and affiliation from the Gran Oriente Espajfiol, the
federation headed by Miguel Morayta.? In their petition they asked
him to grant them the charter that had belonged to the old lodge
Solidaridad of the Gran Oriente de Espafia, predecessor of the Gran
Oriente Espafiol.

The New Lodge “Solidaridad”

The revived Solidaridad was almost entirely Filipino in its

membership, unlike earlier lodges in which the Filipinos had
participated. The exception was Eleuterio Ruiz de Leén, who was,
however, married to a Filipina, and very possibly had lived previ-
ously in the Philippines.* Perhaps it was the suspicion aroused by
the all-Filipino character of the lodge that accounts for its not
actually receiving its charter until May 1890, for Morayta would
later be severely blamed for having permitted such a lodge to be
organized, which could become a center of nationalist agitation.* As
a matter of fact, the lodge continued to absorb many of the Filipinos
who came to Madrid, and who showed interest in working actively
in the nationalist movement.® The original membership included,
besides those already mentioned as officers in 1890, the following
men: Antonio Luna, Telesforo Sukgang [Sucgang], Ariston Bau-
tista, Jose Yzama, Jose Alejandrino, and Francisco Sunico.§ By the
following year, the original group had been joined by new arrivals
in Madrid, including Pedro Serrano, Baldomero Roxas, Galicano
Apacible, Mariano Kunanan [Cunanan], Lauro Dimayuga, Jose
Abreu, Gregorio Aguilera, Pablo Rianzares, Melencio Figueroa,
Moises Salvador, and Jose Rizal.” Others whom the records show
to have joined at one time or another during the succeeding years
170 Filipino Masonry in Madrid

are Simplicio Jugo, Tomas Arejola, Pio Crisostomo, Jose Ledesma,

Simeon Mercado, Flaviano Cor de Cruz, Francisco Liongson, Ro-
sauro Jocson, Jose Ma. Zuazo, Arturo Borromeo, Bernabe Busta-
mante, Jose Corominas, and Isidoro de los Santos.®
However, by no means were all of these active members. The
surviving records show several members being dropped after a time
for failure to attend meetings, while numerous others like Rizal,
Alejandrino, Bautista, and Cunanan, had to withdraw from the
lodge on leaving Madrid for the Philippines or elsewhere. A docu-
ment of 1894, listing the proxies from the lodge Solidaridad chosen
by lodges in the Philippines to represent them at the Assembly of
the Gran Oriente Espafiol to be held in April 1894, shows only six
representatives present out of the thirteen designated by the lodges
in the Philippines.®
What were the activities of Solidaridad? Though it is clear that
the surviving records of the lodge are incomplete, they indicate two
principal functions. The first of these was the education or indoc-
trination of the members with Masonic ideals, particularly with
regard to the Philippines. Kalaw refers to lectures by Damaso Ponce,
on Filipino representation in the Cortes; by Pedro Serrano Laktaw,
on the teaching of Spanish in the Philippines; by Rizal, on the
concept of virtue as the habitual fulfillment of daily duties; and by
Marcelo del Pilar, on the specific duty of Filipino Masons to carry
the message of Masonry to their country as the means of counter-
acting the evil influence of Catholicism in the Philippines.!° These
lectures apparently took place in 1890 and perhaps in 1891, though
there is record of a conference in January 1894 by Isidoro de los
Santos on “Emigracion filipina en los paises civilizados.”!!
Of more interest, however, is the second function—that of enlist-
ing political support for Filipino nationalist aspirations. The struc-
ture Del Pilar set up in Madrid was threefold. For the purposes of
propaganda for Filipino views and publicity for Philippine problems
and as organ of the Asociacién Hispano-Filipina, there was the
fortnightly newspaper La Solidaridad, now edited by Del Pilar. As
an organization in which to rally the support of concerned Span-
iards for Filipino interests, by means of public meetings and corpo-
rate representations to the government, there was the Asociacién
Hispano-Filipina. As an instrument for gaining support from other
quarters, not necessarily interested in the Philippines as such, but
willing to ally themselves with the Filipinos for certain ends, such
as the weakening or destruction of the influence of the friars in the
Philippines, Del Pilar employed the lodge Solidaridad, affiliated
with the Gran Oriente Espafiol. Though careful always to keep
 Filipino Masonry in Madrid 171

these latter two organizations separate in the public eye, Del Pilar
carefully coordinated the work of both by his dominant position in
each.}?

Masonic Ties and the Nationalist Campaign

Del Pilar’s use of the Masonic connections made possible by the

lodge Solidaridad is best illustrated in the campaign he waged for
representation of the Philippines in the Cortes. At a meeting of the
Asociacién Hispano-Filipina on 4 June 1891, an exposition to the
Cortes was approved that outlined the unjust situation of the
Philippines, supposedly an integral part of Spain, yet deprived of
any representative of its interests in the Cortes. This exposition
was shortly thereafter presented to both houses of the Cortes.!3 At
the same time, during the months of June and July, Solidaridad
circularized other Masonic lodges all over the country, asking for
support of all their members in petitioning the Cortes in favor of
Philippine representation as requested in the exposition.* As a
result, signatures began to come in from different parts of Spain,
supporting the petition of the Asociacién. In April 1892 Solidaridad
addressed a new circular to the lodges, reinforcing the previous
arguments, with an appeal to the preamble to the constitution of
the Gran Oriente Espafiol, which had pledged the federation to
work for the liberation of the Filipinos from the crushing yoke of
clericalism.!® In view of the pledge, Solidaridad asked the coopera-
tion of all the lodges in securing more signatures for the Filipino
petition.!* The success of this appeal may be seen in a bound volume
containing over three hundred pages with some seven thousand
signatures in all, coming from all parts of Spain and dating mostly
between mid—1891 and mid—1892."” This volume of signatures would
be presented to the Cortes in 1895 by the ally of Morayta and the
Filipinos, the republican deputy and newspaper editor, Emilio
Junoy.'® Though the maneuver itself of trying to get action from the
Cortes through petition was unsuccessful, the success in obtaining
signatures for the petition shows clearly the efficacy of the Masonic
ties forged by Del Pilar through the lodge Solidaridad.
As early as 1891 there appear to have been plans to extend
Masonry to the Philippines, where it had heretofore existed only for
those of Spanish blood. The story of the lodges in the Philippines
is outside the scope of this essay, but is of interest here to the extent
that it was connected with the activities of Solidaridad in Madrid.
It is said that a plan to organize Filipino lodges in the Philippines
under the auspices of the Gran Oriente Espafiol was drawn up at
172 Filipino Masonry in Madrid

this time by Antonio Luna and Pedro Serrano.’® Though the former
did not then return to the Philippines, Serrano did so late in 1891
or early in 1892. Moises Salvador, however, who had been a member
of Solidaridad and had perhaps also taken part in the plans for
Masonic organization in the Philippines, had already returned to
Manila in April 1891. He seems to have done some preliminary
exploration and planning with Timoteo Paez, one of the newer
leaders of the Propaganda work in the Philippines.”° It seems
unlikely, however, that Salvador was acting with authorization from
the Gran Oriente Espafiol.2! On the arrival of Serrano, however,
with this authorization, Serrano, Salvador, Paez, and José Ramos
joined in setting up the first Filipino lodge, Nilad, on 6 January
1892, with Ramos as Worshipful Master.” From this “Mother Lodge”
other lodges quickly sprang up both around Manila and in the
provinces, with Nilad acting as intermediary between these lodges
and the Gran Oriente Espajiol. Before too long, jurisdictional dif-
ficulties arose between Nilad and its Secretary Serrano on the one
side, and the dependent lodges on the other. As a result, the Fili-
pino lodges forced the Gran Oriente Espafiol to permit the erection
of a Grand Regional Council in 1893, and expelled Serrano and
Nilad.” Though these events do not concern us here, it may be
noted that prior to the break, under the direction of Serrano, each
of the lodges in the Philippines contributed financially to the support
of Solidaridad and of the Asociacién Hispano-Filipina and the
propaganda in Madrid. It appears that the Gran Oriente Espafiol
rented part of its headquarters to Solidaridad and other space to
the Asociacién.”* The lodges in the Philippines shouldered these
expenses, at least for a time, sending their contributions through
the Mother Lodge, Nilad. At the time of the quarrels between Serrano
and the other lodges, however, the system seems to have broken
down, particularly after the former was accused of mismanagement
of the funds and the autonomous Grand Regional Council was set
up in 1893.” Though various other devices for the support of the
Propaganda Movement in Spain were excogitated during the years
1893-95, and some of the Philippine lodges contributed from time
to time to Del Pilar for the expenses of the campaign, there was
apparently no longer any organized Masonic support as such.?6
The surviving records of Solidaridad extend only to 20 Septem-
ber 1894, when there is a communication to the Grand Council
informing it that Simon Mercado has been dropped from the list of
members. The previous April, when the lodges in the Philippines
had named members of Solidaridad as their representatives to the
Assembly of the Gran Oriente Espajiol, all but six of the thirteen
 Filipino Masonry in Madrid 173

named, as noted above, had either been dropped from the member-
ship or had left Madrid.”’ Since it can be shown from other sources
that almost all the other Filipinos known to have belonged to
Solidaridad had by this time left Madrid for the Philippines or
elsewhere, these six, plus Marcelo del Pilar, were perhaps the only
surviving members of the lodge.”* It seems likely that neither the
Asociacién Hispano-Filipina nor Solidaridad any longer functioned
much after 1894. The bulletins of the Asociacién, which earlier had
appeared regularly in the newspaper La Solidaridad, made no
further appearance after 1892, except for a letter of condolence to
Professor Blumentritt on the death of his father, signed by Morayta
and Eduardo de Lete in June 1894, and a message to the Congreso
de Diputados in support of parliamentary representation for the
Philippines in May 1895, signed by Morayta, Del Pilar, and Ponce.”9
Neither of these gives evidence of being any more than an act of the
signers. Though the headquarters continued to exist with the title
Asociaci6n Hispano-Filipina over its door until 1896, the testimony
of the officials of the Gran Oriente Espafiol arrested at the out-
break of the Revolution in the Philippines, indicates that these
headquarters for the previous two years had served no other pur-
pose than a place where the “Seccién recreativa” of the Asociacién
occasionally held dances for the Filipinos in Madrid. José Vic, vice-
president of the Gran Oriente Espafiol, makes no mention of Soli-
daridad, though he declared that a few Filipinos had belonged to
the Gran Oriente Espafiol formerly but that “it is now some time
since they disappeared.”
The Filipinos referred to by Vic as having formerly belonged to
the Gran Oriente Espafiol but since disappeared, were undoubtedly
Marcelo del Pilar and Mariano Ponce. After they had finally been
forced to suspend indefinitely the publication of La Solidaridad in
November 1895,°! the two men had eventually gone to Barcelona,
where they were preparing to take ship for Hong Kong and Japan
when Del Pilar died in July 1896.°2 Both men had risen to high
places not only in the Filipino lodge Solidaridad, where Ponce was
Secretary from December 1890, and Del Pilar Worshipful Master
from the time of Llorente’s departure for the Philippines in January
1891, but also in the governing body of the Gran Oriente Espafiol
as a whole. Both men were promoted to the thirty-first degree in
May 1893. By 1895 both possessed the thirty-third degree, and both
were members of the Supreme Council of the Gran Oriente Es-
pafiol, Ponce holding the position of “Segundo Consejero Suplente”
and Del:-Pilar that of “Gran Orador Adjunto.”*
As events moved toward the outbreak of the Revolution in the
174 Filipino Masonry in Madrid

Philippines in 1896 and tension increased, the leading opponent of

the Propagandists, Wenceslao Retana, editor of La Polttica de Espana
en Filipinas and now a deputy to the Cortes, denounced the head-
quarters of the Asociacién Hispano-Filipina and the Gran Oriente
Espafiol in Madrid as a center of conspiracy against Spanish sov-
ereignty in the Philippines. Though other newspapers joined in
Retana’s charges, nothing happened until the news came from Manila
in August of the discovery of the Katipunan and of Masonic papers
found among the possessions of some of those arrested in Manila.*
Immediately the police raided the headquarters, closed both cen-
ters, seizing their documents and arresting several men who formed
the junta directiva of the Asociacién.* Morayta, who was in the
north of Spain, saved himself from arrest by crossing the border
into France. There, from the town of Bourg-Madame, he addressed
a protest against the accusations of filibusterismo, denying that the
Gran Oriente Espajyiol had anything to do with any revolutionary
activity in the Philippines. While defending the Asociacién from
ever having mixed in political affairs, much less subversive activity,
he declared that for more than two years now, reduced to less than
a dozen members, and seeing the impossibility of gaining reforms
under the current regime, it had ceased to function. It had only
maintained the name of its headquarters because a few of the
remaining members had “created a recreational section to honor
their lady friends with dances and literary meetings.”*6
As it turned out, the only Filipino involved was Tomas Arejola,
who had been the head of the “Seccidén recreativa” of the Asociacién;
all the others arrested were Spanish officers of the Gran Oriente
Espariol and claimed to know nothing at all about the Filipinos,
except that some had formerly belonged to the Gran Oriente Espanol,
but had some time previously disappeared from the scene. Morayta
continued to fire off protests from France, and within a féw weeks,
the court dismissed the case and set those arrested at liberty in the
absence of any evidence against them.®’
The rival Masonic federation, the Gran Oriente Nacional de
Espafia, was not so fortunate. The latter body had likewise estab-
lished lodges in the Philippines, though in small numbers and with
few Filipinos. Among the latter was Faustino Villaruel, formerly
member of a lodge of the Gran Oriente Espajiol, but later founder
of the lodge Patria in Cavite, under the jurisdiction of the Gran
Oriente Nacional de Espafia.* When Villaruel was arrested as being
implicated in the Revolution, Masonic diplomas signed by the Grand
Master and Grand Secretary of the Gran Oriente Nacional de
Espafia, Jose Ma. Pantoja and Eduardo Caballero de Puga, caused
 Filipino Masonry in Madrid 175

word to be sent to Madrid asking for the arrest of these men. Less
fortunate than Morayta, their case dragged on for almost nine months
before they were finally released in June 1897. Though it seems
probable that Villaruel was actually implicated in the Revolution,
there is no evidence that the leaders in Spain of the Gran Oriente
Nacional de Espafia were themselves in any way involved.*® Nor
was there any relation between the two Masonic federations, cer-
tainly not in Spain, and most probably not in the Philippines either,
where they operated not only independently, but in competition
with each other.*°

The Role of Morayta

The question may be raised, however, as to what extent Morayta

and the Gran Oriente Espafiol may have been involved. Morayta
was able to return to Spain after the case against him was dis-
missed in September 1896, and resume his activity in Masonry and
in Republican politics. In the elections of 1899 he was returned as
Republican deputy from Valencia. When, however, he attempted to
take his seat in the Cortes, at a time when feeling ran high in Spain
over the debacle of 1898 and Spain’s loss of her empire, a vehement
outcry arose against him, led particularly by the Madrid newspaper
El Nacional.*! The question of his admission soon took on all kinds
of complicating political issues, and when the vote was finally taken
to exclude him, though it went heavily against him, large numbers
of deputies abandoned the benches rather than vote, and the absence
of a quorum prevented the exclusion from being valid.*?
In reality, however, there seems to be no evidence that Morayta
was involved in any direct complicity in Filipino revolutionary plans,
even if it could be shown that Del Pilar himself had a part in the
planning of the Revolution of 1896. Morayta’s indirect complicity,
however, is another question.
Kalaw’s account of Morayta’s reluctance to permit the organiza-
tion of a Grand Regional Council in the Philippines is evidence that
he realized that an autonomous Filipino council, not directly subject
to the Spanish federation, might be used for conspiring against
Spanish sovereignty in the Philippines.** However, rather than lose
the allegiance of the Filipino lodges to another Masonic federation,
he did finally agree, as he had agreed, though apparently with some
reluctance, to the foundation of an all-Filipino lodge in Madrid.
There is considerable evidence for the accusations made against
him in 1896 and again in 1899 that he had sold out his country to
the Filipino nationalists, at least to the extent of his closing his eyes
176 Filipino Masonry in Madrid

to what might be the consequences of Filipino lodges, led on by his

desire to get money out of the Filipinos. For it is clear that the
Filipino lodges did contribute substantial sums to the work in
Madrid, and that the Gran Oriente Espajfiol often urged increased
contributions from the Filipino lodges.*4 What personal advantage
Morayta may have gotten out of this, however, if any, is not at all
clear from the available evidence.
The best testimony in favor of the sincerity of Morayta is that of
Ponce, who in a private letter to the former in 1898 congratulating
him for his election to the Cortes, said:

It is a source of sorrow to see that even up to the present they continue

exploiting that slanderous specter of Masonry’s betrayal of the fatherland.
For the reactionaries, we Filipinos who, under your wise inspiration,
carried on a campaign in favor of the Hispanization of the Philippines,
so that it might cease to be like a piece of property, a fief of the Friars,
continue to be considered seditious, subversive, and traitors to Spain.
But has it not been sufficiently demonstrated by the facts that if Spain
lost the Philippines, it was because she did just the opposite of what we
were crying out for?®

Ponce’s absolution of Morayta, of course, presupposes that the

real purpose of the Propaganda Movement was what it publicly
professed—to obtain the rights of Spanish citizens for Filipinos,
assimilation to the motherland. It was on this level, as far as we
know, that Morayta’s collaboration took place. In fact, however,
much as Del Pilar believed that the goal of assimilation could be
attained by legal means, he, no less than Rizal, had a further goal—
”in due time and by the proper method, the abolition of the flag of
Spain as well.”“6 Ponce, who worked so intimately with Del Pilar at
every stage of the campaign in Europe, was certainly not unaware
of this. Was Morayta? At least Ponce chose to act and speak as if
he was in fact unaware.
This may be said from the Spanish point of view. From a Filipino
point of view, a further question may be raised, as to the effective-
ness of the Masonic connection for the Filipino nationalist cam-
paign. A final answer, of course, is only possible after further
investigation of the part played by the lodges and the Grand Regional
Council organized in the Philippines after 1892. To have served as
a bridge making possible the organization of such lodges might
prove to have been the chief contribution made by the existence of
the lodge Solidaridad in Madrid.
As to its specific role in the Madrid campaign, the success of the
lodge must be judged in the light of its place within the plan of
 Filipino Masonry in Madrid 177

campaign of Del Pilar. It did achieve some, though limited, success

in rallying Masonic support for Filipino aims, notably in the matter
of securing signatures for the petition of the Cortes. But since the
campaign to secure Filipino rights through propaganda, lobbying,
and other legal means, was a failure as a whole, Solidaridad could
hope for no more success than the campaign strategy of which it
was a part. As an instrument of unity among the Filipino colony in
Madrid, it seems to have achieved little. For not only were there a
good number of Filipinos in Madrid who had nothing to do with the
lodge, but there is some indication that the character given to the
work of the Propaganda Movement by its close association with
Masonry may have kept some Filipinos apart from the movement,
because of their unwillingness, for religious reasons or others, to
take part in what seemed to be a Masonic movement.*’
 13
Recent Perspectives
on the Revolution

Some writers consider the history of the Revolution to

have overly dominated the attention of historians of the Philip-
pines, to the detriment of more important subjects or of ones more
relevant to contemporary concerns with the effects of American
colonialism and ongoing neocolonialism. Rather than overworked,
however, it would seem more accurate to say that the real study of
the Revolution has until recently scarcely been touched, because of
the narrowness of the frameworks within which it has been studied,
and the monolithic explanations of the course of events that have
been advanced. As a matter of fact, it is arguable, as this essay will
attempt to show, that some of the new approaches to Revolutionary
historiography are indeed very relevant to our contemporary prob-
lems of neocolonialism, agrarian unrest, unjust distribution of the
nation’s resources, and military repression.
 Perspectives on the Revolution 179

A second factor bedeviling Revolutionary historiography has been

the looseness of class terminology employed in those works that
have tried to explain the Revolution, its successes and failures, in
terms of class conflict. Such words as elite, ilustrados, caciques,
principales or principalta, bourgeoisie, proletarian, plebeian, middle,
upper-middle, lower-middle classes, and class strata of uneven
consciousness, which abound in the literature, cry out for accurate
definitions. Even such terms as “the people,” masa, or “the masses”
are employed by different authors in different senses.
Two different types of studies opening new perspectives on the
Revolution have appeared in the past few years. Some of them have
been published; others unfortunately still languish in microfilm or
xerox form, and hence are known only to university-based scholars.
One class of such studies is the numerous dissertations and books
devoted to the social history of a particular province or region.
Though not addressing themselves specifically to the Revolution,
these studies overlap that period and provide ample evidence that
the Revolution had different causes, different effects, and a differ-
ent character in different regions of the Philippines, thus effectively
undercutting such monolithic generalizations as have frequently
been made. The other class of studies comprises a few works that
directly address themselves to the Revolution, but from points of
view hitherto unexplored.
Among the works of the second group, the most innovative in its
approach, at least as far as Philippine historiography is concerned,
is Reynaldo Ileto’s Pasyon and Revolution. It has been the subject
of intense discussion between Milagros Guerrero and its author in
the pages of Philippine Studies.’ To this I would like to add Guerrero’s
own unpublished doctoral dissertation, “Luzon at War: Contradic-
tions in Philippine Society, 1898-1902,” the main substance of which,
with the addition of further research into the subject, has appeared
in the collection on Philippine social history edited by Alfred W.
McCoy and Ed. C. de Jesus.” A third contribution is the section on
the Katipunan in the brief study by Jonathan Fast and Jim
Richardson, Roots of Dependency.’ Finally, without wishing to review
my own book Revolutionary Clergy, I would like to indicate how this
work complements and supplements the different approaches in the
other three works. The assessment of the positive contributions
made by each of these works will hopefully make clear how complex
a phenomenon the Revolution was and how much remains to be
done to give a comprehensive picture of it, not to speak of relating
it to contemporary problems.
180 Perspectives on the Revolution

Overview of Some Earlier Approaches

The earliest accounts of the Revolution, some of them written

while the fighting was still going on or shortly thereafter, were
largely based on the writings of participants or victims. On the one
hand were the accounts of anticlerical or anti-Catholic Filipinos,
some of them already holding positions under the American colonial
regime, which saw the Revolution principally as a struggle of the
Filipinos to free themselves from friar oppression.* Not a few antifriar
Spaniards took advantage of such a one-sided approach to place the
blame for the Filipino antipathy toward Spain on the friars alone.
These accounts provided the basis for American anti-Catholic
accounts in English, some of which have kept alive to the present
the antifriar stereotypes that fill popular accounts and even some
coming from professional historians. The converse of this one-sided
approach was the accounts written by a number of friars who had
suffered from the Revolution, which with equal myopia attributed
the Revolution and its antifriar character solely to an imagined
international Masonic conspiracy.° What makes the two different
approaches similar was that for all who propounded them, nation-
alism had scarcely been a factor in the genesis of the Revolution,
a conclusion convenient to Americans, Americanistas, and friars
alike.
A second major trend in Revolutionary historiography is charac-
teristic of the colonial period under American rule, and in some
cases persisted even after independence in historians of a tradi-
tional cast of mind. Intent on building a sense of nationhood and
disproving American contentions that further preparation was
necessary before independence could be beneficial to Filipinos, those
who were carrying on the peaceful campaign for eventual independ-
ence tended to take an exclusively nationalist view. These Filipinos
denied or passed over in silence any regional or class conflicts
within the Revolutionary movement. All the Filipino protagonists,
from Hispanophile reformists to radical revolutionaries became
heroes in these accounts, and even the deaths of Bonifacio and
Antonio Luna remained shrouded in obscurity.
Under the influence of the peasant revolts of the late 1920s and
1930s, and of the Communist-led Huk rebellion of the 1940s, the
growth of class conflict in Philippine society became an undeniable
fact, and there was a move to look back to the Revolution for the
roots of that conflict. Mabini himself had long before spoken of the
oppression of the poor by the rich under cover of the Revolution,
and denounced the landgrabbing in Batangas and other provinces
 Perspectives on the Revolution 181

by Revolutionary leaders, who abused their new power.’ The hint

had been almost completely ignored in the years since. The most
notable revisionist was Teodoro Agoncillo in his Revolt of the Masses,
which saw the pre-1896 nationalist movement as merely an ineffec-
tive ilustrado reform movement. The Revolution itself emerged from
the masses led by the proletarian ideals of Bonifacio, whose lead-
ership was wrested from him by Aguinaldo. In Agoncillo’s sequel,
Malolos, the theme was continued. The American assault of 1898
on Spain offered an opportunity to renew the struggle with more
hope of success, and this time the ilustrados who had held back in
1896 took charge over Aguinaldo. But once conflict with the United
States became imminent, the “haves” rapidly went over to the enemy,
betraying the revolution of the “have-nots” who were shedding their
blood in unequal fight against the new colonialists.
The theme of class struggle was more recently taken up in more
sophisticated and systematic form by Renato Constantino, who
recognized that Bonifacio was not of the proletariat but of the
lower-middle class.? He saw the Revolution of 1896 as a people’s
revolt, the culmination of a long series of revolts down through the
centuries, each raising the people’s revolutionary consciousness until
finally their anger erupted into the Revolution. The quantitative
series of rebellions produced a qualitative leap—the revolution of a
nation.? However, though Constantino acknowledges Bonifacio to
have been of lower-middle-class origins, he qualifies the term to
such an extent that it scarcely differs from proletarian—”lower
echelons of the middle class,” “instinctively identified with the
masses,” “almost plebeian in status,” “class differentiation was not
very marked at the lower levels,” etc. Thus, in the end for Con-
stantino, the Revolution has only an inchoate ideology, the inchoate
desires of the people being responsible for the inchoate declarations
of Bonifacio. Hence, it took the ilustrados to give these desires a
more explicit form. At the same time they took care that the result-
ing creation would carry their imprint, and the Revolution became
“a people’s war under elite leadership.”'°

The Katipunan’s Bourgeois Ideology

More recently, Richardson and Fast, though not giving any

extended treatment to the war against the Americans, take up
Constantino’s characterization of the Katipunan and show, conclu-
sively to my mind, that its membership was essentially middle
class. Indeed it was to a large extent ilustrado, if one is to under-
182 Perspectives on the Revolution

stand that term in its primary sense of an educated man. Emilio

Jacinto was a law student; Pio Valenzuela was a fourth-year medical
student at the time of his initiation into the Katipunan. So too,
other original members of the Katipunan had a university educa-
tion (in Manila) and held positions within the Spanish bureaucracy,
which demanded at least a certain level of Spanish education, such
as that of court clerk.!! Bonifacio himself, I would add, can be
considered ilustrado, even if a self-made one, in spite of his lack of
higher formal education. Anyone who was reading Victor Hugo’s
Les misérables, Carlyle’s History of the French Revolution, and the
Lives of the American Presidents in Spanish, among other books,
was clearly an educated man by the standards of Manila in the
1890s. Such a man was undoubtedly much better read in modern
thought than many of the more affluent students who frequented
the colleges and university in Manila for social prestige rather than
out of interest in education.!”
Obviously, as the authors point out, Bonifacio and his educated
associates were not ilustrados in the same sense as those who had
been educated in the universities of Spain, France, Belgium, and
Germany. On the other hand, being an employee of a foreign firm,
in Bonifacio’s case, gave him opportunities for advancement. It was
a position from which many men of later high position and standing
in Manila society had begun their careers. It also provided an
opportunity to view from the inside the economic protectionism and
other obstacles to foreign trade caused by Spain’s exploitative
economic policy with its harmful effects on the economic well-being
of the ordinary Manilefio. Similarly the bureaucratic positions held
by his fellow Katipuneros gave them an insight into the workings
of the Spanish administrative bureaucracy with its corruption and
inefficiency, and put them in a position to analyze the burdens of
colonial rule.'%
Richardson and Fast also emphasize the homogeneity between
the middle-class urban Katipuneros and the provincial elite—land-
owners like Aguinaldo and Makabulos, or schoolteachers like Ri-
carte—who also joined the Katipunan. However, the significant
difference was that Bonifacio and his urban comrades were “by the
nature of their jobs precluded from senior responsibility, while
Aguinaldo, the landowner, [and one might add, Malvar, Mariano
Alvarez, Makabulos, and other provincial elite] had no social supe-
rior in his own milieu. Simply put, the advancement of Bonifacio’s
career depended largely on his willingness to carry out orders.
Aguinaldo’s matrix demanded that he give them.”
 Perspectives on the Revolution 183

Finally, Richardson and Fast conclude that despite the asser-

tions of some elitist ilustrados at the turn of the century or of
subsequent historians, the Katipunan had no socialistic aspira-
tions.!© They sum up by citing Leon Ma. Guerrero in his biography
of Rizal on the lack of social radicalism common alike to Katipunan
and Propagandist philosophy, indeed “their basic identity.” As
Guerrero had put it:

There is nothing in Bonifacio’s “Decalogue” or in Jacinto’s Kartilla that

hints at the expropriation and distribution among the workers of the
great landed estates, at the seizure of mines, banks, corporations and
other private enterprises, at the equalization of wealth or even of
opportunity, or even at the organization of labor unions to protect the
workers from sweatshop wages and hours.’®

The continuity in the philosophy of the Propaganda Movement and

that of the Katipunan had earlier been stressed both by Cesar
Majul in his study The Political and Constitutional Ideas of the
Philippine Revolution and by myself in The Propaganda Movement."
The merit of Richardson and Fast is to have analyzed not only the
writings of the leaders of the Katipunan, but to have examined the
membership itself. Moreover, they draw the further conclusion,
implicit in the earlier works of myself and of Majul but not drawn
out, of it having essentially a bourgeois ideology, socially conserva-
tive, and, as the title of the chapter on Katipunan ideology puts it:
“A Product of the Times.”!®
In the extensive and incisive survey of Revolutionary historiog-
raphy that forms the first chapter of Milagros Guerrero’s unpub-
lished doctoral dissertation, she pointed out that in spite of the
concern for the role of the masses expressed by major historians
from Agoncillo onward, all (with the exception of Ileto’s then
unpublished dissertation) had in fact examined the Revolution from
the point of view of the elite rather than of the masses, from above
rather than from below.* Richardson and Fast emphasize this fact
likewise, in accordance with their analysis of the Katipunan. In one
chapter they treat briefly of some of the economic causes of unrest,
and point out those that would have affected the poor, so as to make
them receptive io the call for revolution. One particular cause cited
is the growing importation of rice and the protectionist policy of
Spain against the cheap British textiles used by the poor.” Thus,
the poor would have seen Spain as responsible not only for the
unjust laws and the abuses of the Guardia Civil, but also for the
“economic tensions created within native society by the transition
184 Perspectives on the Revolution

from subsistence to cash-crop agriculture.” However, other aspects

of the economic pressures on the poor are not pursued at any length,
and to what extent the authors put there the primary responsibility
for the supposed mass unrest is not fully clear.”

The “Revolution from Below”

As has already been pointed out, the attempts to portray the

Revolution as a “people’s war” fail to take account of the class
character of the Katipunan. Apart from those who gratuitously
suppose that the circulation of nationalist ideas by the Propagan-
dists and the Katipuneros, written in Spanish and Tagalog, could
have reached the Filipino people as a whole, other historians have
generally explained the adherence of the masses to the Revolution
in terms of patron-client relationships existing between landlords
and their tenants as well as of principales and caciques with their
subjects or followers.”* Thus, the abandonment of the Revolution by
the elite would likewise lead to its abandonment by the ordinary
people who were their followers. Yet in fact we know that the
transfer of allegiance by an important element of the elite of the
Malolos government—Pardo de Tavera, Arellano, Araneta—did not
bring about a cessation of resistance; the Filipino-American war
was indeed just beginning. Nor did the abject surrender, and even
welcome, given by the Negros hacenderos to the Americans stop
Papa Isio’s band of Babaylanes from carrying on the struggle against
the Americans under the banner of the Malolos Republic.74 Even
the capture of Aguinaldo and the surrender of other major generals
in the first half of 1901 did not bring an immediate end to the
fighting, as the campaigns of 1902 in Samar and Batangas make
clear.

Ileto’s Pasyon and Revolution

A closer examination of the revolution from below has long been

overdue. The first and most creative such attempt was that of
Ileto’s Pasyon and Revolution, a book that has aroused much inter-
est and considerable controversy. The object of much enthusiastic
attention and uncritical acceptance when it was still in unpublished
dissertation form, it has subsequently been seriously questioned.”
In large part this has been due, in my own opinion as well as that
of Ileto, to such overfacile misrepresentations of the thesis of his
book as the notion that the Pasyon produced the Revolution, or that
 Perspectives on the Revolution 185

the Pasyon became the ideology of the “Little Tradition.”26 As I

understand his position, however, the Pasyon is to be considered a
Filipino folk epic embodying different levels of meaning.
To be sure, the core of the Pasyon was the Gospel story of Jesus
and the whole cosmic history of salvation contained in the Scrip-
tures and handed on to the Filipino people by the Spanish mission-
aries. It was not, however, formed simply by repeating the biblical
story. Nor was the Pasyon Pilapil of the nineteenth century merely
an expanded version of the Pasyon written in 1703 by Gaspar
Aquino de Belen.”” Undoubtedly as the effect of the people’s pref-
erence for their own pasyon, the Pasyon Pilapil contained numer-
ous accretions and alterations proceeding from folk sensibilities. Fr.
Martinez de Zufiiga had lamented this very fact at the beginning
of the nineteenth century, and it was perhaps in response to such
complaints that Fr. Mariano Pilapil was commissioned to correct
the heterodox ideas that the clergy felt had infiltrated the text.” If
the Pilapil text has been judged inferior from a literary point of
view to that of Aquino de Belen, it certainly proved more popular,
and it seems hard to deny Ileto’s emphasis on it as the folk epic of
the Tagalogs par excellence. As he remarks, the question of author-
ship is irrelevant; it had become part of Tagalog folk sensibility.”9
What the author(s) intended, or what Father Pilapil had found
sufficiently orthodox to receive the ecclesiastical stamp of approval,
was not the only level of meaning possible, nor the meaning that
all the hearers of its chanting might take. Here, it seems to me,
Ileto is surely correct in saying that “a text is capable of generating
multiple meanings in relation to audience or context... .”%°
The problem raised by Guerrero in her review article alludes to
a statement of my own in regard to the necessity of taking into
account the Catholic character of Filipino nineteenth-century soci-
ety in order to “explain the responses of the people, ilustrado and
tao alike, to colonial rule.” She says, “a linguistic unity among
divergent groups of Filipinos insofar as the Catholic character of
nationalist expression is concerned,” existed.*! This same point has
been put more graphically in another review of Ileto’s book by
Richardson, in which he illustrates his point by citing Rizal’s well-
known letter, “To the Young Women of Malolos,” in Tagalog.** Here
he points out the use by Rizal of such key words of Ileto’s thesis as
lobb, matuid, ginhawa, and liwanag; and comments that a sequel
could be written to Ileto’s book entitled Pasyon and Bourgeois Re-
form. To this sally, I believe Ileto would reply, as he does to Guerrero,
that “distinctions between elite and mass thinking can be deline-
186 Perspectives on the Revolution

ated only in the popular interpretation (using units of meaning in

the Pasyon) of concrete historical events. . . .” Only the analysis of
both text and context can make this clear in the concrete.*
Ileto’s Structural Methodology
I believe that the real issue between Ileto and Guerrero in these
two articles is over methodology, specifically the so-called struc-
tural method. The latter takes its origin from the anthropological
theory of Claude Levi-Strauss, and has subsequently found appli-
cation in philosophy, literature, and biblical studies, as well as
history. As Ileto remarks, numerous historians have made use of
Levi-Strauss’ insights, citing the well-known Fernand Braudel of
the famous French “Annales school” as an example. What should be
added is that though historians generally recognize the value of
Braudel’s contributions, by no means are all fully in agreement
with him on the question of methodology.** The same can be said
of the other fields to which the structural method has been applied.
Most convincing to me is Ileto’s analysis of the Cofradia de San
José of Apolinario de la Cruz, and of the so-called colorum sects,
which sprang from its remnants on Mount Banahaw and exist to
the present day.* That the group led by Sebastian Caneo in 1896
to aid the Katipunan-initiated Revolution belongs to the same strain
is also convincingly demonstrated.** But when the same categories
are applied to the Katipunan, the evidence is to me much less
convincing. If with Richardson and Fast, Guerrero, and myself, one
accepts an essential continuity between the philosophy of the
Propaganda Movement and of the Katipunan, alternate explana-
tions impose themselves, or at least become more plausible, with
regard to various incidents interpreted by Ileto as manifestations
of peasant perceptions of events in terms of the Pasyon.
One such instance is the support initially given by the colorum
followers of Sebastian Caneo to the Revolution and the subsequent
efforts of Aguinaldo’s government to suppress them in 1898 because
they were urging “the gente proletaria to abandon their fields, to the
detriment of the landlords.”*’ By this time the followers of Caneo
were calling themselves the “Katipunan ni San Cristobal” (from Mt.
San Cristobal where they had their origin). Ileto therefore suggests
that as a result of the general dislocation following on the war with
Spain, Caneo interpreted the war as “tantamount to a cataclysm
leading to a total reordering of the universe,” a theme of the Pasyon.
As a result,
 Perspectives on the Revolution 187

the Colorums were mobilized by Caneo to support it wholeheartedly,

inspired by the promise of a perfect society in which the faithful of the
earth would be united in a community of brotherhood and equality. The
style of Bonifacio’s Katipunan, its use of traditional imagery and its
ethos of brotherhood, encouraged this fusion of popular “religious”
aspirations and new patriotic goals. Caneo’s use of the Katipunan name
in late 1898, at a time when the original secret society was proscribed
by the government, suggests that the Katipunan ethos lived on and gave
form to hopes that the revolution would still run its course.*®

That Caneo’s followers interpreted the Revolution as the cata-

clysm leading to the millenium as found in the Pasyon is indeed
probable. However, the fact that they used the name “Katipunan”
to designate their association or brotherhood need not connect them
with Bonifacio’s Katipunan. The word, it is true, has acquired since
the Revolution a connotation of Bonifacio’s Revolutionary organiza-
tion. But its obvious meaning of “association” had existed in Taga-
log long before Bonifacio appropriated the name, and it seems rash
to say that anyone using the word in 1898 had Bonifacio’s organi-
zation in mind.*® Hence, the idea that the ethos of Caneo’s associa-
tion was that of Bonifacio rests on the supposition that the Katip-
unan of Bonifacio had been inspired by such an ethos of brother-
hood and equality of all men, something which the analyses of the
class composition of the original Katipunan cited above belie. Though
an egalitarian element is to be found in some of the writings of
Bonifacio and Jacinto, its derivation seems rather from Bonifacio’s
reading on the French Revolution than from directly religious
inspiration.
This continuity between the Propagandist philosophy and that of
the Katipunan likewise impels the reader to look elsewhere than to
the Pasyon for two other key documents of the Katipunan to which
Ileto applies his structural analysis in some detail. One is Bonifacio’s
manifesto in the Katipunan newspaper Kalayaan, “Ang dapat
mabatid ng mga Tagalog” (What the Tagalogs should know); the
other is the Katipunan initiation rite.*° In both of them Ileto finds
a Lost Eden/Fall/Redemption sequence, which, he notes, is a struc-
tural feature of the Pasyon.
Rizal is acknowledged by Ileto to have been the source of the
historical content of Bonifacio’s manifesto. In his annotations to the
Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas of Morga, and in his major essay
“Sobre la indolencia del Filipino,” Rizal sketches the pre-Hispanic
past of the Filipinos, contrasting their happy state with the present
188 Perspectives on the Revolution

degradation to which they have been submitted in the name of

Spain and Catholicism. The content of Bonifacio’s manifesto in its
picture of the past and of the present has scarcely a phrase that
cannot be found in Spanish in Rizal’s writings, and the literary
dependence of this part—the major portion—on Rizal is, I think,
undeniable.*! Ileto, however, makes the point of his analysis not the
content but the structure, which indeed is that of the Pasyon, as
shown by “the temporal ordering of the speech in a Lost Eden/Fall/
Redemption sequence.”4? What he fails to notice, however, is that
the temporal sequence is precisely that of Rizal in his introduction
to the Sucesos of Morga.*® The second source of his analysis is the
language used. But here again, one would have to raise the point
made by Richardson—that when Rizal is translated into Tagalog,
the terms characteristic of a Pasyon mentality are often precisely
the ones used. These facts do not disprove the contention of Ileto
that Bonifacio is using the pasyon form, but they provide an ade-
quate alternative explanation—that Rizal is the source not only of
Bonifacio’s content, but also of the form and language.
The dependence of the Katipunan initiation ritual on Masonic
formulas is likewise acknowledged by Ileto, who says: “outwardly,
they appear to be Masonic. But if they were truly so, could unlet-
tered peasants have embraced the Katipunan as truly their own?”*4
In support of the answer implied in this rhetorical question, he cites
Isabelo de los Reyes (who was not a member of the Katipunan and
who was imprisoned or in Spain from shortly after the outbreak of
the 1896 Revolution until late 1901) to the effect that “at first,
[Katipunan leaders] adopted the Masonic formulas, but later sim-
plified them to the cultural level of the members, who belonged to
the workman and peasant classes.”4® De los Reyes was, of course,
an ilustrado who later introduced socialist and anarchist writings
into the Philippines for the nascent labor movement he would
organize in 1902, and was in any case a far-from-reliable source of
facts, even if he had access to them.*® On the other hand, even if
we were to ignore the evidence given previously of the middle-class
character of the Katipunan, as well as De los Reyes’s absence from
the events, what is presented here is not the initiation ritual of
Bonifacio, but one used in 1900.47 Moreover, its Masonic character
is very clear, however much it may have been simplified—”to take
part in the work of the temple,” “profane man,” the form of ques-
tioning the valor of the aspirant, the reference to “the true light,”
and the penalties that the initiate calls down on himself if he
should violate his oath. Like Ileto, one might possibly interpret
the ritual in terms of “an experience analogous to Christ’s redemp-
 Perspectives on the Revolution 189

tive act.”*° In the absence of other compelling evidence, however,

and in the light of the acknowledged Masonic origin of the initiation
ritual, it is more convincing to interpret it in the light of the known
facts about the middle-class character of the Katipunan.
The two instances just analyzed, that of the manifesto of Boni-
facio and that of the initiation ritual, indicate the fundamental
criticism that many historians will make of the use of the structural
method—what are its limits? The method has certainly been fruit-
ful as a heuristic device, but as acknowledged by Ileto, the struc-
tural parallelism and the different levels of meaning that a “master
text” like the Pasyon is capable of, do not appear from the content
of the text itself but from the “contextual signification of the words
and imagery,” which determines the level of meaning here.® But
this will be determined by the historian’s evaluation of that context,
which he will achieve by an analysis of the evidence for such a
context—an “analysis of the concrete struggles” of the Revolution,
as Ileto puts it elsewhere.*! This analysis is also the work of the
pejoratively termed “traditional historian,” but which I believe Ileto
has himself done in connection with the followers of Hermano Pulé
and the Colorums of Mt. San Cristobal.*?

Assessment of Ileto’s Book

Pasyon and Revolution has shown the existence of a strain of

thought and of perception, dependent to a large extent on the Pasyon,
which was present in nineteenth- and early-twentieth- century
Philippine society and operative in, but not controlled by, the
Revolution against Spain. With regard to the historiography of the
Revolution, however, I do not regard the Pasyon perception of reality
as the key to the Revolution or even to the Katipunan. It was one
of the strains of mass participation, but not the only one, and
probably not the most important one. It may have existed among
the masses of the Tagalog region who joined in the Revolution, at
times in ways quite disturbing to the elite leaders, such as the
Pensacola brothers with their doctrine that “it was already time for
the rich to be poor and for the poor to become rich.”** But individ-
ual incidents or groups are in need of further research to determine
precisely what the context of their perceptions of a new world was.
The Pasyon perception is clearly demonstrated thus far only for the
people’s movements stemming from Hermano Pulé and his Cofradia
de San José, and possibly also the Santa Iglesia of Felipe Salvador.
The larger part of mass participation in the Revolution has to be
explained on other grounds.
190 Perspectives on the Revolution

Two principal reasons, apart from the discussion of the Katip-

unan above, lead me to this conclusion. First, the Pasyon tradition
as described by Ileto can only be shown to have existed in the
Tagalog provinces.* Second, the religious tradition that was evi-
dently behind many of these movements from below was wider than
that of the Pasyon, even in the Tagalog region. Both of these
statements need proof.
The Pasyon Tradition. The Pasyon Pilapil, on whose analysis
the thesis has been based, inasmuch as it replaced that of Aquino
de Belen, is the only Philippine pasyon of sufficient antiquity to
have created the tradition presupposed in the method of analysis
used here.® For, with the exception of Ilokano, the first published
pasyon in any of the other principal Philippine languages dates
from the second half of the nineteenth century. The earliest listed
by Retana is an anonymous one from Pangasinan reprinted in 1855.
Neither Retana nor Pardo de Tavera is aware of the first edition,
but since it is merely a reprint, and not a new edition with correc-
tions or additions such as are found in the Tagalog and Ilokano
pasyons, it may be legitimately supposed to have been printed for
the first time shortly before.® Moreover, there is another Pangasi-
nan pasyon from 1861, of quite different character and length,
which would seem to indicate that there was no long pasyon tra-
dition in Pangasinan.°*’
In Bikolano, the first pasyon, recorded in a second edition, was
apparently written by Tranquilino Hernandez, but edited by Bishop
Gainza in 1868. Since the dedication by Hernandez to Gainza is
dated 1866, Retana concludes with good reason that the first edi-
tion must have been from 1866 or early 1867.° In Kapampangan
the first published pasyon was that by the diocesan priest Fr. Dionisio
Macapinlac, which appeared in 1876.°9
The first pasyon to be published in Hiligaynon was the work of
the popular religious writer Mariano Perfecto, and appeared only
in 1884. The censor specifically recommends it as a remedy for the
multitude of manuscript pasyons in circulation, “filled with errors
and astonishing barbarisms.” There were therefore manuscript
pasyons in Hiligaynon, and probably in other languages, before the
second half of the nineteenth century. But the lack of any standard-
ized printed text over a long period, such as existed with the Pilapil
pasyon (which was reprinted, according to Retana, “multitud de
veces’), would make difficult the formation of a pattern of pasyon-
based perceptions common to a whole linguistic group.*! Moreover,
it does not appear that any of the other pasyons listed above dealt
with the whole history of salvation in an apocalyptic fashion as the
 Perspectives on the Revolution 191

Pasyon Pilapil does, and hence would not lead to an integrated

world-view in the way that the Pasyon Pilapil could.
The only pasyon that at first sight could hold the distinction of
antiquity and widespread use is the Ilokano pasyon by Megia.
However, its most thorough investigator has shown that although
it was probably written before 1627 it was published only in 1845,
hitherto having existed in manuscript copies.*? Moreover, the text
was originally written by St. Vincent Ferrer in the fifteenth cen-
tury, and only translated by Megia into Ilokano. Finally, it was
meant to be read from the pulpit, not chanted by the people.®
The Wider Religious Tradition. The second point concerning
the existence and influence of a wider traditional religious idiom in
which people conceptualized the meaning of major events in life
does not invalidate Ileto’s methodology, though it calls for more
caution in the way it is applied. More important, it would help to
explain the existence of a religious tradition elsewhere, which at
least partly served the function the Pasyon Pilapil did in the Tagalog
provinces. The chief vehicle of this tradition was the hundreds of
different novenas and devocionarios that are to be found in every
major Philippine language. Many of them, of course, are largely or
even completely translations of novenas from other languages, mostly
Spanish. But just as the Spanish legendary hero Bernardo Carpio
was appropriated by a Tagalog awit-writer and in the course of time
became a vehicle for mediating the ordinary Tagalog’s conscious-
ness of his past, as Ileto has elsewhere elaborated, so too did these
novenas of European origin become transmuted into indigenous
forms of popular prayer and religious thought.™ It is arguable, I
believe, that the novenas did more to form folk religious percep-
tions, for better or worse, than did the catechisms memorized by
rote in the primary schools.
It would appear that only a fraction of these novenas have been
recorded by bibliographers. Yet they have been reprinted over and
over again from the eighteenth century right up to the present day,
not to speak of the numerous handwritten copies that must have
circulated even earlier, and continued to circulate after printed
ones became common.® All of this literature, which eventually
assumed a stylized structure, may prove to have been of greater
formative influence on folk consciousness than even the Pasyon
among the Tagalogs, and to have supplied for the lack of an exten-
sive pasyon tradition among other linguistic groups of Filipinos.
Obviously, these novenas were religious in purpose, but as Ileto has
observed, the distinction between religious and secular was not part
192 Perspectives on the Revolution

of folk consciousness in the period before the end of the nineteenth

century at least.®’
One illustration of the role these novenas played in people’s
thought is that Diego Mojica, Minister of Finance in the Magdiwang
government, was a writer of popular religious literature, and early
in the Revolution of 1896 composed a novena in the traditional style
“to ask God for the triumph of the independence of the country.”
But, the novena went on to beg, “if that were not fitting for God our
Lord and for the Blessed Virgin and for our Mother the Church...
[we ask] that Spain might not punish with all rigor those who had
risen in arms against her.”6§ Following the traditional novena
structure, there were a series of Gozos (Joys). These were ordinarily
petitions made through the “joys” of the life of the Blessed Virgin
or of the saint to whom the novena was addressed. One of the gozos
of Mojica’s novena asked: “May [the Spaniards’] bullets become
mud, and their powder turn into water.” The narrator of this
incident notes that the novena was prayed widely, not only in the
capital of San Francisco de Malabon, but also in other towns. These
brief phrases from the novena tell us a great deal about the per-
ceptions of the Revolution common among the ordinary people of
Cavite as well as of leaders like Mojica himself. They seem far from
the secular outlook of the ilustrado leaders of Malolos, or even from
that of Bonifacio, who though not without religious roots, had rejected
traditional Catholicism.
The criticisms and reserves I have expressed notwithstanding, I
believe Ileto’s work is a major contribution to Philippine historiog-
raphy, and not only of the Revolution. It has directed attention to
the role of religion in any serious study of Philippine society, and
in particular of any mass movement. That religious sensibility was
Catholic to the end of the nineteenth century, and has remained
rooted in traditional Catholicism well into the twentieth century.”

Provincial and Local Elite

Though Milagros Guerrero has done the most extensive criticism

of Ileto’s work, expressing reserves with which in part I have
concurred in my evaluation above, her own writing on the Revolu-
tion appears to me to complement rather than contradict Ileto’s
approach.”! Guerrero’s contribution is to be found both in her
conclusions as to the role of local and provincial elite in the Revo-
lution, a role which she sees as contributing to the disillusionment
of the masses with the Revolution, and in the indications she has
given as to inadequately studied topics still in need of research.
 Perspectives on the Revolution 193

The conclusion I consider most important in Guerrero’s research

is her demonstration of the essential continuity of power in the
Spanish and the Revolutionary periods, not only on the part of the
cosmopolitan national elite but most especially on the part of the
provincial and local elite.” These principales and super-principales
in Luzon, who for the most part supported the Aguinaldo govern-
ment, at least once the Revolution was underway, generally re-
tained their power and influence in the new order, even to being
reelected to the same positions that they had held under the
Spaniards. Dependent as he was on these provincial and local elite
for support, there was generally little that Aguinaldo could do, even
if he wanted to, to restrain abuses committed by them against the
ordinary Filipino. The conflict between the civil and military offi-
cials in the same territory only exacerbated the situation. Given the
heightened expectations among peasants in many places, as docu-
mented by both Ileto and Guerrero, when the peasants found
themselves continuing to suffer from the same tax burdens, the
forced labor, and abuses they had endured under the Spanish regime,
riots and millenarian revolts broke out among those who now found
themselves oppressed by Filipino rather than Spanish masters.”
Moreover, just as the Americans would, after the war, use the
cosmopolitan national elite as their junior partners in governing
the country, so too on the provincial and municipal levels a monop-
oly of power on the part of the prerevolutionary elite would for the
most part continue or even consolidate itself on higher levels.”
Here, I believe, we find a major point of intersection between the
studies of Ileto and of Guerrero. As Ileto had pointed out in a
somewhat different context, the kalayaan longed for by the peas-
ants was vastly different in content from the independencia pro-
claimed by the elite, be they national or provincial.”* This was to
show itself not only during the Revolution but all through the
American period in the peasant revolts from the Guardia de Honor
to the Sakdalistas that sought to overthrow not only the American
colonialists but also their Filipino collaborators, whose authority
and abuses touched them most directly.”* Indeed, though manipu-
lated by the Communists for their own ends, the search for kalayaan
in the sense of their predecessors can be seen as forming a large
stream within the Huk movement itself.

Postrevolutionary Peasant Resistance to the Elite

Brian Fegan in his study of Central Luzon peasant movements

has distinguished two strands in the early history of Central Luzon
194 Perspectives on the Revolution

peasant unions—that of the Colorums, the Santa Iglesia, the

Sakdalistas, the Tanggulan, and the Kapatiran Magsasaka founded
by Jacinto Manahan around 1918; and that of Socialist and even-
tually Communist inspiration, chiefly represented by the Kalipun-
ang Pambansa ng mga Magbubukid sa Pilipinas (KPMP) under
Manahan, now a Communist. After World War II the KPMP be-
came the Communist-controlled Pambansang Kaisahan ng mga
Magbubukid (PKM), the peasant arm of the Huk movement. It
was not only Manahan who moved from the first strand to the
second; many peasants belonged to groups from both strands, or
moved, e.g. from the Sakdalistas, after their abortive revolt, to the
KPMP, while other former Sakdalistas turned to the pro-Japanese
Ganap.”
The important point that Fegan has made is that the Communist
(or non-Communist) leadership by no means determined the ideo-
logical stance of the peasant membership. Just as the peasants
were often influenced by traditional folk-Catholic ideas in the first
strand, they also held “syncretic folk-Marxist ideas, adapted through
the earlier idiom of folk-Catholic ideas.””* Fegan disagrees, rightly
to my mind, with Kerkvliet, who argues that the peasants organ-
ized more spontaneously and that it was only in the later stages
that Communist participation became significant, with the Com-
munist leaders only taking over the movement when it went into
rebellion in 1948 as the Hukbong Mapagpalaya ng Bayan (HMB).”®
Even if one accepts Kerkvliet’s thesis, however, much of the mass
base of the Huks, perhaps even more than Fegan estimates, came
from the non-Communist strand of peasant movements, as Kerkvliet
does demonstrate.
This continuity between the Revolutionary period and the
American colonial period should also be extended backward into the
latter half of the nineteenth century. If we do so, we find peasant
religious and millenarian movements of resistance beginning a
decade or two after the implantation of commercial agriculture.
These movements often paralleled, even temporarily joined, the
Revolution, but essentially remained independent of it, and resur-
faced under different forms in twentieth-century agrarian protest.
Ileto and Guerrero have spoken of a few of these, but they were by
no means confined to Luzon or the Tagalog region. Many of these
need further research, but some obvious prima facie continuities
may be mentioned to illustrate the point.®!
Prerevolutionary Roots. The Leyte-Samar Pulahanes of the
postrevolutionary period were a continuation of the Dios-Dios move-
 Perspectives on the Revolution 195

ments of the 1880s and 1890s, and appear to have been at least one
current within the Surigao Colorum movement of the 1920s.® Though
it appears that some of the Pulahanes may earlier have aided
Lukban’s guerrilla army in the interior of Samar, their primary
targets were the coastal Filipino abaca buyers and the governmen-
tal establishment behind them.®
The Babaylanes of Papa Isio fought under the banner of the
Malolos Republic against the ephemeral hacendero-sponsored Negros
Republic in 1899 and its American successor, but had existed in the
1890s, attacking haciendas and calling for the abolition of sugar.®4
They themselves appear to have been a continuation of the move-
ment of Dios Buhawi from the 1880s, which was itself related to an
earlier Babaylan movement in Panay.®
Similarly, the Guardia de Honor, which came to center itself in
Cabaruan in eastern Pangasinan, had existed since the 1880s. At
the time of the 1896 revolution, it began to attack Spanish outposts,
but soon turned its wrath against the landlords of Tarlac and Nueva
Ecija as well, and likewise resisted the forces of the Malolos gov-
ernment. After many months of futile activity, the Americans
apparently brought an end of the movement with the execution of
its leaders in 1901. But significantly, the Colorum revolt of Pedro
Kabola in 1925 in San Jose, Nueva Ecija, and that of Pedro Calosa
in Tayug, Pangasinan in 1931, were in the same vicinity. Tayug is
a mere 25 kilometers northeast of Cabaruan and San Jose about 40
kilometers east of Tayug. Again, although directed against the
American-officered constabulary, both were religious in form and
both looked to the extermination of the landed elite and the redis-
tribution of land.%
Putting together these movements, stretching out over a half-
century or more, and other lesser ones not mentioned here, one can
say that there was a revolt of the masses. It was a people’s revolt
that extended far beyond the narrow limits of the Katipunan, both
in time and in space. The movement as a whole did have nationalist
elements to it, but they seem always to have been secondary, as the
ire of the people turned from the American or Spanish overlords to
the Filipino elite of various levels who, at least in their perception,
were the immediate oppressors. In most, if not all, of these move-
ments there were socioeconomic factors involved, even a dimension
of class struggle. In all of them there was a religious dimension,
whether this is to be explained as motivation, as the idiom in which
they expressed themselves, or as their respective universes of
meaning.
196 Perspectives on the Revolution

When taken together, however, all these movements, no matter

how numerous they have been and how durably they reappeared
under new forms, formed a small part of the Filipino masses. They
were marginal—or marginalized—groups, most of them, if not all,
living in areas where for diverse reasons the burdens of the tran-
sition from a semifeudal society to one dominated by the increasing
commercialization of the agricultural economy weighed especially
heavy on the little people, or at the least, were so perceived by
them.
Hence, it seems to me that the Pasyon perception of events, or
even the perception influenced by the wider religious tradition I
have pointed to, is not sufficient to explain mass participation in
the Revolution. Moreover, much of that mass adhesion—even most
of it—was quite independent of the Katipunan, even if one were to
admit that the Pasyon perception of events was an integral part of
the Katipunan. Only a very small proportion of those who fought
under Aguinaldo’s banner in 1896 were Katipuneros, and the
proportion in 1898 was infinitesimal in comparison with the total
Revolutionary army. In some sections of the country, like the Bikol
provinces, Panay, and other parts of the Visayas, there was mass
participation in the war against the Americans, even though the
Katipunan had never existed in those places in any significant way.
Even in the Tagalog provinces not only must such fantastic figures
as the 100,000 to 400,000 of LeRoy be rejected, but also the 30,000
given—in one of his several contradictory versions of the Katipu-
nan—by Pio Valenzuela.®’ Aguinaldo’s memoirs cite his cousin
Baldomero as speaking of 300 members in Cavite at the time of the
outbreak of the Revolution in 1896, and this after mass initiations
by Aguinaldo in the tribunal of Kawit.* If this be so in Cavite, and
if outside Manila membership was generally confined to the provin-
cial and municipal elite, a few thousands would probably be closer
to the actual number of members. Therefore, it is necessary to look
for another explanation for the mass participation in the Revolution
in its second phase, and Guerrero’s assertion of “the essentially
pluralistic and clientist nature of the Revolution” is surely correct,
as Ileto himself has agreed.®® He adds, however, that “it appears
that the masses also had a vision of the future that they were
fighting for,” a point which can surely be accepted of Caneo’s group,
but also, at least as a working hypothesis deserving of further
investigation for those who cannot be explained totally in terms of
a Pasyon vision.
 Perspectives on the Revolution 197

Insufficiency of the Clientist Explanation

At this point, however, one must also assert that neither were
patron-client ties sufficient to explain the mass participation in the
war against the Americans. One reason of great weight is provided
by Guerrero’s own detailed analysis of the abuses of local and
provincial elite and the reactions of those affected by them, at least
in Luzon. The existence of widespread civil and military abuses on
the ordinary people is undeniable; only their extent needs to be
determined.
That the ordinary people continued to support the war in spite
of these abuses, if it needed further confirmation, can be seen from
a source surely without any bias in favor of the Revolution. That
source is the Dominican Fr. Ulpiano Herrero, parish priest of Orion,
Bataan, until he was imprisoned—to the great distress of his people
incidentally, who begged Aguinaido to allow him to remain with
them as parish priest under the new government. In Herrero’s
account of the cruel odyssey that the imprisoned friars of Luzon
suffered in their transferral to the mountains of the north, he makes
the following reflections as the collective opinion of most of the friar
prisoners, and as his own observation on what he had perceived in
the various Tagalog and Ilokano provinces through which he had
passed:

The native masses welcomed with wild enthusiasm the victories of the
Revolution, attracted by the idea that in the future none but Indios
would be in command, and that they would constitute a nation, although
the majority did not really understand the meaning of nation. But they
did understand their being in charge and being the ones to govern... .
We do not believe that in the first months of their victories there would
have been a single Indio who was not overwhelmed with joy and pride
on considering themselves independent.”

After recounting the abuses by officials, military and civil, of the

Revolutionary Government, and the exploitation of Filipino by
Filipino, especially those committed by Tagalog troops in the Ilokano
provinces, he nonetheless concluded:

In spite of these bitter complaints about these and other abuses, let the
reader not think that the ideal of independence lost its following, even
in the northern provinces of Luzon. The people complained of the
numberless forms of oppression and exploitation, of the favoritism of
Tagalogs and the intrigues of scoundrels with no other merits than their
198 Perspectives on the Revolution

own boldness and the pack of rogues with them; they poured out words
of anger against the government. But in their souls the burning love of
being self-governing still blazed. . . . The heart of the people is still for
the defenders of independence, and we think it will continue to be so,
even though in the face of reality the peaceful citizen will wait for and
receive the Americans as the defenders of his interests, and as the only
possible government after the stupid and infamous behavior of his own
government.”

The value of that testimony lies precisely in the fact that earlier
it was the Spanish friars—as the Americans would do later—who
insisted that the whole revolutionary and resistance movement was
the work of a handful of elite leaders who did not represent the
people. Under pretext of independence they had exploited and
terrorized the ordinary people into joining a revolution for which
they had no desire. If, however, as the above-quoted passage indi-
cates, the case is that the ordinary Filipino peasants stood behind
the Revolution, even when it was exploited by those in power for
personal gain, then we must ask what it was that kept alive their
nationalism, their willingness to measure their bolos against
American Krags for another two or three years. This is the main
question that I have tried to answer in my book Revolutionary
Clergy, which I believe supplies the missing piece to complete the
works of Guerrero and Ileto in giving new perspectives to the
Revolution.

Role of the Filipino Clergy

This is not the place to give a review of my own book, which in

any case covers a wider topic than the point under discussion here—
a history of the role of the clergy in the development of nationalism
and their participation in the nationalist struggles within and out-
side the Church. The question here is the relation of the clergy’s at-
titude toward the Revolution to the support or nonsupport given it
by the masses. This influence can be briefly delineated at several
points in the Revolution.

Counterweight to Friar Influence

Ileto has raised the question of how it was possible to undermine

the sentiment of utang na lodb, which still bound the Filipino masses
to Spain in the 1890s and hence was an obstacle to stirring up mass
revolutionary feeling. That such a sentiment of utang na losb
existed in many parts of the country is a fact, but its chief cause
 Perspectives on the Revolution 199

was the religious sanction exerted by the friars. It was for that
reason that the most anticlerical governments in nineteenth-cen-
tury Spain, even if grudgingly, gave their support to the great
influence and authority exercised by the friar parish priests, and
marked out as inimical to Spanish sovereignty any attack on the
friars.* Moreover, contrary to the myth so common in superficial
historiography, and excepting the cases of individual causes for
resentment, significant antifriar feeling existed at the beginning of
the Revolution among only two classes in Filipino society—a large
part of the Filipino clergy, for obvious reasons, on the one hand, and
the cosmopolitan elite of Manila, Iloilo, and Negros on the other.
In the Tagalog provinces and some of the Ilokano region the
resentment extended to lower levels of the elite in some places, but
of mass antifriar sentiment there is no evidence.® After 1901 under
the influence of anticlerical and anti-Catholic Filipino elite, of
Protestant Americans, and later of Aglipayans, there would be a
more widespread, though still by no means general, antifriar sen-
timent. But at the time of the Revolution such sentiment was
extremely limited, though strong among those most influential in
a semifeudal society. This the Propagandists saw, and it was for
this reason that they aimed their attacks on the friars, with limited
success.%”
A religious sanction such as the friars exercised in favor of Spanish
sovereignty over Filipino consciences could only be undermined by
a countervailing religious force. Ileto has seen this force in the
Pasyon, a position we have accepted with regard to a certain segment
of the peasant masses, but which cannot account for the non-Tagalog
regions, nor even for the larger part of the Tagalogs. Nowhere were
the friars imprisoned except in the Tagalog provinces and Negros
or those provinces reached by Tagalog troops, such as Camarines
and in northern Luzon. Even then there were many exceptions as
the case of Fr. Ulpiano Herrero indicates.% Even where the towns-
people submitted unwillingly to having their friar parish priest
taken prisoner, they were urgent in demanding that Filipino priests,
or if there were not enough, even Spanish friars, be sent to them,
as not only friar accounts but the records of the Malolos govern-
ment in the Philippine Revolutionary Records show abundantly.”
In this situation, it was the adherence of the Filipino priests that
provided the countervailing religious sanction for the Cavite Revo-
lution in 1896, where two of the more prominent figures were the
nephew of the martyr Fr. Mariano Gomez, Fr. Manuel Trias, who
took part in all the Revolutionary junta meetings, and Fr. Cornelio
Ignacio, coadjutor in Bacoor since the time of Gomez, who was
200 Perspectives on the Revolution

elected “Presidente eclesidstico.”! As I have indicated elsewhere,

other priests played important roles, most especially Fr. Pedro
Dandan, an exile of 1872, who died in the mountains with the
remnants of Aguinaldo’s army.'®!

Inspiration of Resistance to Americans

This religious sanction was even more effective in 1898, at least

potentially so. For though the Revolution met with the general
adherence of the Filipino priests, all the more so now that the
enemy was Protestant America, the lines of demarcation between
those who supported the Revolution to the end and those who
withdrew their support by the end of 1899 can largely be traced out
along regional lines. Milagros Guerrero pointed out the lack of a
Pasyon tradition in the non-Tagalog provinces and suggested that
at least there one must look to the ties that bound the ordinary folk
to their ilustrado-cacique patrons. There is something to be said for
this, but it seems inadequate, as we have said, both in the light of
what Guerrero has said about the abuses of the local and provincial
elite alienating the ordinary people and because of the different
patterns the resistance took after Aguinaldo’s proclamation of
guerrilla warfare in November 1899.)
The answer, I would suggest, is largely to be found in the reli-
gious policy of the Malolos government. From June 1898 to January
1899, two views of religious policy struggled for supremacy: that of
Mabini (and to some extent Buencamino), executed largely through
Fr. Gregorio Aglipay; and that pursued by Fr. Mariano Sevilla with
the aid of Felipe Calderon and other laymen. By January 1899
Mabini had come to power after having won against the Sevilla
party in the questions of civil marriage, the appointment of Aglipay
as military vicar-general and ecclesiastical governor of Nueva Segovia
diocese, and the separation of church and state. Through these
means Mabini achieved his objective of putting the church at the
disposal of the state. A large part of the Tagalog and Pampango
clergy were already alienated by these measures, as well as by the
continued harsh imprisonment of the friars.'°* Nonetheless, in the
northern provinces comprising the diocese of Nueva Segovia,
Aglipay’s putative authority as ecclesiastical governor kept the clergy
united in support of the Revolution generally until his excommu-
nication became known at the end of July and the formal revocation
of his appointment by the bishop took place in September 1899.!%
From that point onward the situation among the Ilokano clergy
 Perspectives on the Revolution 201

became considerably more complex. Having abandoned his ecclesi-

astical position for that of military leader, Aglipay undoubtedly
continued to have a strong following in Ilocos Norte both among
priests and laymen, and kept the resistance alive until his surren-
der in 1901. In the other Ilokano provinces the situation was less
clear. In Ilokos Sur a number of priests were certainly active in the
resistance to the Americans. However, it seems that many of those
who had resisted Aglipay after his excommunication became known,
abstained from taking part in the guerrilla warfare. There was, of
course, no necessary connection between rejecting Aglipay’s eccle-
siastical pretensions and withdrawing support from the guerrilla
resistance. But the fact that punishment and even physical violence
had been meted out to a number of priests who in late 1899 had
refused to accept the military vicar-general’s authority, did not
encourage those priests to actively support the government from
which they had suffered. Nonetheless, when the actual authority of
the Republic was being exercised by Tinio (in Ilocos) and Tirona (in
Cagayan), both hostile to Aglipay’s influence, a good number of
priests did cooperate or even take active parts in the resistance, but
apparently less than would otherwise have been the case.!%
The other provinces that had never been directly subject to Malolos
and where the provincial elite leaders of the Revolution worked in
collaboration with the local clergy became the focus of guerrilla
resistance. Such was the case of Albay, Sorsogon, Masbate, and
Burias, where General Vito Belarmino and Colonel Ramon F. Santos,
a native of Albay, were assisted by the Bicol clergy with financial
and logistic support, with their moral influence among the people,
and in a few cases, with military roles like that of Aglipay.!
Similarly in Panay, the provincial leaders—not the cosmopolitan
elite of Iloilo City, who went over in a body to the Americans just
as their counterparts and relatives did in Negros—were similarly
assisted by the clergy. The latter, like their counterparts in the
Bicol region, belonged to the same social class and had frequently
had as their classmates in the local seminary the provincial elite
under Gen. Martin Delgado who kept up the resistance.” The
religious attitudes of the Bicol provincial elite and the [longo
provincial elite must be carefully distinguished from those of cos-
mopolitan ilustrados from the same regions, like Vicente Lukban
among the Bikolanos and the foreign-educated or foreign-influenced
hacenderos of Iloilo and Negros. In Negros, where there were almost
no Filipino priests, the only guerrilla resistance was that of Papa
Isio and his Babaylanes; in Panay, though Iloilo City was taken by
202 Perspectives on the Revolution

the Americans in February 1899, the guerrilla resistance ended

only in March 1901, and one of the last to surrender was Fr. Santiago
Pamplona, himself a military officer.’
Perhaps the most significant participation of the clergy in the
resistance movement was in the southern Tagalog provinces under
the overall command of Gen. Miguel Malvar. There were no clerical
military leaders as in Ilocos Norte, Albay and Sorsogon, and Panay,
but the parish priests played a most crucial role in the region. They
raised funds for Malvar, organized shadow governments for towns
occupied by the Americans, procured necessary supplies, even
performed the dangerous task of getting ammunition, and above all
encouraged the ordinary people to support the resistance. So wide-
spread was their activity that the American historian LeRoy
complained that while caciques in northern Luzon used their influ-
ence for peace, in the south “Filipino priests turned their flocks
with a mere word into unreasoning opposition to the Americans.”!”
In his order of 9 December 1901, Gen. J. Franklin Bell set in motion
the infamous reconcentration policy that led to the death of thou-
sands from starvation or disease. Here he addressed the problem
of the Filipino priests as follows:

Chief and most important among the class of disloyal persons are the
native priests. It may be considered as practically certain that every
native priest in the provinces of Batangas and La Laguna is a secret
enemy of the Government and is in active sympathy with the insurgents.
These are absolutely our most dangerous enemies—more dangerous
even than armed insurgents—because of their unequalled influence.
They should be given no exemptions whatever on account of their
calling.1?°

In the southern Tagalog provinces there was close cooperation

between the provincial and local elite on the one hand and the
Filipino priests on the other. Glenn May has shown that not only
the provincial and local elite in Batangas, but also the European-
educated cosmopolitan elite, such as Gregorio Aguilera and the
Dimayugas, were active in the resistance till the end.!!! On the
other hand, the objectionable religious policies of the Malolos
government seem not to have been put into effect to any significant
extent, since it was only one month after Mabini’s access to power
that the war with the Americans broke out. From that time onward
the southern Tagalog provinces were generally out of contact with
the retreating Malolos government, and Malvar operated with almost
complete independence for the rest of the war.!!2 Malvar, like
Aguinaldo and the other provincial elite of Cavite in 1896-97, shared
 Perspectives on the Revolution 203

none of the anticlericalism of the cosmopolitan elite of the Malolos

government; indeed, he made active efforts to cultivate the goodwill
of the clergy, as may be seen in his circulars directed to them, and
as it appears, his efforts and assurances were reciprocated.!°

A Pluralistic Approach to the Revolution

In the light of the studies that have been reviewed in this article,
together with other regional studies being done elsewhere that
have not received mention, it seems no longer tenable to advance
a monolithic explanation for the adherence to, sympathy for, par-
ticipation in, or betrayal of the Revolution. In a country as complex
as was late-nineteenth-century Philippines, with major difficulties
of communication even between different regions of the same is-
land, like Luzon; with an interregional language—Spanish—spo-
ken only by less than 5 percent of the population; with vast eco-
nomic, social, and cultural differences due to a variety of reasons,
of which the most obvious is the lack of easy communications; one
would a priori expect vast differences in response to a call for
revolution. What has happened in fact, up until very recently, is
that a priori “explanations” have been put forth, based either on
limited data from Manila and Cavite or on deterministic models
borrowed from alien ideologies. Such explanations have achieved
wide acceptance among those who are passionately working to de-
liver our country from oppression, militarization, neocolonialism,
and its consequent economic underdevelopment. But to the extent
history of the past may provide a key to present and future prob-
lems, it must be a history soundly based on facts as well as com-
mitment. Few would argue today that every historian has a point
of view from which he examines the facts, and some points of view
are more likely to see the implications of the raw data than others.
But any point of view, if it is to serve the cause of a sound analysis
of the past, must let itself be guided, modified, and revised by the
facts.
The new approaches and wider perspectives from which the
Revolution has been examined indicate that previously held gener-
alizations must be radically revised. The two major areas in which
this is necessary are statements with regard to class differentiation
in response to the Revolution, and generalizations that do not take
into account regional variations in response to the Revolution. In
addition, as far as such factors are capable of being determined, we
must look for the reasons and motives behind differences of behav-
204 Perspectives on the Revolution

ior between classes or regions, or even within a particular class or

region.

Class Distinctions

Almost all of the works treated here have made clear how
ambiguous the terms elite, ilustrado, “the wealthy,” “the haves,”
are. There is indeed some correlation among the four, since wealth
made possible an education abroad, and the combination of wealth
and education would put one among the political as well as intel-
lectual elite. On the other hand, the educational attainments of
several of the original Katipuneros certainly qualified them to be
considered educated men, even though from an economic point of
view they had to be considered middle class. At the extreme one can
find a Mabini, who coming from poverty, through his intelligence
and assiduity made himself an ilustrado in a way few of the
European-educated could match, and from here moved into the
national political elite, in spite of having no power base in his home
province. At the other extreme one finds a man like Aguinaldo, a
wealthy landowner and key figure among the political elite of Cavite,
soon to be catapulted to the national elite, and yet having little
more than primary education. The term ilustrado, therefore, seems
better banished from any discussions of socioeconomic class.
Wealth and political power were far more likely to be correlated.
Yet here too there were exceptions and the level of power might not
always correlate with the level of wealth, and vice versa. Milagros
Guerrero has distinguished the cosmopolitan elite from the provin-
cial and local elite. Even here it seems necessary to make some
further distinctions. One became a member of the cosmopolitan
national elite generally by having studied abroad, which presup-
posed a certain degree of wealth, and concomitant political power,
at least on the provincial level. Yet there were enormous differences
in wealth between a Pedro Paterno, with his Madrid mansion where
high society of Madrid were entertained, or a Pardo de Tavera, who
could live abroad for years devoting himself to scholarship and
possessing all kinds of international contacts, and a Rizal, Marcelo
del Pilar, or Jose Panganiban, who often were on the verge of
destitution in spite of help from other wealthy Filipinos at home.!"4
When we look at the examples that are always given as the “ilus-
trados who betrayed the Revolution,” we find Benito Legarda, T. H.
Pardo de Tavera, Cayetano Arellano, Gregorio Araneta, Florentino
Torres, Jose Luzurriaga, and the other Negros hacenderos and their
Iloilo counterparts.''® Legarda and Pardo de Tavera had large
 Perspectives on the Revolution 205

interests in Manila distilleries and cigar factories—almost the only

“industry” of the time; Arellano, Torres, and Araneta had large and
lucrative law practices; Luzurriaga and the Negros hacenderos had
never pretended allegiance to the Malolos government.}"®
These men were surely of the cosmopolitan elite, even though
most had not studied abroad, but derived their status from their
wealth and the cosmopolitan world of Manila and Iloilo in which
they moved. So were men like the former Propagandists—the Luna
brothers, Lauro Dimayuga, Jose Alejandrino, Edilberto Evangel-
ista, Gregorio Aguilera, Teodoro Sandico, and Galicano Apacible—
and others who supported the Revolution and the war against the
Americans until their death, capture, or at least until after the
capture of Aguinaldo in 1901, when American superiority became
so overwhelming that they had little choice but to surrender unless
they were in a uniquely protected situation like Lukban in Samar.2!”
One can therefore, even among the cosmopolitan elite, also distin-
guish at least two classes—those of the first group, who, after some
months in the Malolos Congress or as cabinet members, left the
Revolutionary cause and joined in the newly established American
government, and those who did not. Though we have no exact
measures of their relative wealth, in general we can say that those
of the first group were of the upper stratum, and were older, more
established figures. On the other hand, the second group included
men of means as well, but they were less wealthy and also much
younger (just a few years out of European universities), and almost
all belonged to the separatist group among the Propagandists long
before the Revolution of 1896. Yet there were also men of consid-
erable wealth among them, like Pedro Paterno, or of the older
generation, like Ambrosio Rianzares Bautista, who remained with
the Malolos government until captured by the Americans.'”®
Even when one looks at the wealthy figures of the first group,
the motivation of all is not that clear, though all had gone over to
the Americans before the war broke out in February 1899. In at
least two cases, that of Arellano and that of Araneta, the motivation
was at least in part religious. Arellano was said to have accepted
a position in the cabinet at the urging of Archbishop Nozaleda, so
as to be able to effect the release of the friar prisoners.'!® Araneta
took the position of Secretary of Justice, in which he was able to
frustrate the policy of Mabini to force the Filipino clergy into a
break with the jurisdiction of the Spanish bishops and to form a
national church. It was only when Mabini came to power and the
government put his anti-Church policy into effect that Araneta left
the government.!” These facts do not disprove the contention that
206 Perspectives on the Revolution

these men were also partly motivated by economic self-interest, but

they show that a simplistic economic class determinism is not the
only, nor even the most obvious, answer as to why some of the
cosmopolitan elite abandoned the Republic and why others, per-
haps even a majority, continued to be loyal till the inevitable end.
No doubt neither the one group of the cosmopolitan elite nor the
other envisaged a social revolution, but neither did any of the
forerunners, from Rizal and Marcelo del Pilar to Bonifacio and
Jacinto.
If it is difficult to generalize concerning the cosmopolitan elite,
who were, generally speaking, based in or connected with Manila,
much less can we generalize about the provincial and municipal
elite, where not only personal commitments, but regional differ-
ences affected their response to the Revolution. The principales of
a wealthy town like Lipa—the Calaos and Catigbacs—or of other
wealthy Batangas, Pampanga, or Iloilo provincial towns—Malvar
in Sto. Tomas, Joaquin Arnedo Cruz in Apalit, Martin Delgado in
Sta. Barbara—were not only municipal elite, but provincial or even
national elite, members of the military or participants in the Malolos
Congress, or eventually provincial governors under the American
regime. On the other hand, the principales of a town in Samar,
Cagayan, or Tayabas might have the status of elite only within
their own municipality, or like Aguinaldo and Mariano Alvarez in
Cavite before the Revolution, rank as provincial elite. Hence, the
sociopolitical denomination of principales could in fact embrace a
number of different economic levels, and is indeed not very useful
as an analytical category apart from the region, province, or town
to which the individual belonged. Likewise Owen’s “super-princi-
pales” or the more common term cacique could also denote a member
of the cosmopolitan elite like Mariano Abella from Camarines, Jose
Alejandrino from Pampanga, Gregorio Aguilera and Lauro Dimayuga
from Batangas, or of purely provincial status, like Mena Crisologo
in Ilocos or Juan Cailles or Paciano Rizal in Laguna.
In brief, though a distinct class line separated the lower class,
the peasants, the laborers, and the tenants, from the principales
and their superiors, there was considerable fluidity of class lines on
the upper levels. The variables included not only wealth, education,
and political power, but the regional context within which these
were influential. When serious studies are done on local history,
economic class determinism fails to explain the course of the
Revolution. Indeed, there is evidence to indicate that the Revolu-
tion itself and one’s role in it played a significant factor in upward
class mobility during the American regime, just as guerrilla lead-
 Perspectives on the Revolution 207

ership during the Japanese war would provide a ladder to enter the
national political elite for men earlier unknown outside their own
provinces.}2!

Regional Variations

Besides the diversity of meaning, often based on region, given to

elite terminology, other generalizations concerning the Revolution
need to be subjected to regional and provincial studies. Most of
them have been mentioned already in the course of this article, and
it will suffice to summarize them.
The variety of attitudes toward the Spanish friars has been seen
to depend on regional considerations. Only in the Tagalog prov-
inces—even here not universally—and to an extent in parts of the
Ilokano provinces was antifriar feeling at all widespread among the
ordinary people. Though it was more general among the different
levels of the elite, even here generalizations break down, as several
cases would show. Gen. Fernando Canon, for instance released friar
prisoners on his own responsibility in Nueva Vizcaya.!* Aguinaldo
warned his friar parish priest so that he might escape at the outbreak
of the Revolution.!# The majority of the friars in Negros suffered
harsh imprisonment, but individuals were protected, hidden, or
even allowed to continue their ministry in Negros.!** Pangasinan
delegate to the Malolos Congress Vicente del Prado forged a death
certificate for a friar friend so that he might escape to Hong Kong,
with the knowledge and tacit consent of Makabulos.!*
There seems to be some correlation between lay hostility to the
friars and the degree to which Filipino priests had been excluded
from the position of parish priest in a particular diocese. Thus, the
worst disparity existed in the dioceses of Manila and Nueva Se-
govia, while quite equitable proportions were to be found in the
dioceses of Cebu and Nueva Caceres, and to a lesser degree in
Jaro.! In Cebu and Nueva Caceres, antifriar feeling was almost
nonexistent, even among the elite. In Jaro, apart from Mindanao,
there was considerable ill-feeling among the Filipino clergy toward
the friars as well as among some of the cosmopolitan elite, but no
friars were taken prisoner except in Negros and all were allowed
to depart peacefully, as were the other Spaniards.’
The participation of the Filipino clergy in the support of the war
effort was almost universal in the southern Tagalog provinces, Albay
and Sorsogon, and Panay (except for Capiz, where the Tagalog
Ananias Diokno ruled), because of the good relationship between
the local military leaders and the clergy, the respect shown by the
208 Perspectives on the Revolution

former to ecclesiastical law, and apparently to a considerable extent

common school ties and blood relationships with the revolutionary
leaders. In all these areas guerrilla warfare was carried on with
considerable success, very largely because of the religious sanction
given it by the support of the priests.

The Masses and the Revolution

Finally, mass support of the war should not be exaggerated.

Peasants on whom fell the heaviest burdens of the war, in the
Philippines as elsewhere, did long for peace, and as the pressures
became more unbearable, and the abuses of many of the provincial
and local elite under pretext of patriotism became too evident, some
sought to extract themselves from the conflict. In many places where
they did continue to cooperate, the American accusation of guerrilla
terrorism was undoubtedly true—just as American counterterrorism
and torture were also true, of which Batangas and Samar are only
the most flagrant examples. But in spite of the forces between
which they were often trapped, the great majority of the little
people did support the war, as even the friars were ready to ad-
mit.!?8 The reasons varied and overlapped with one another—pa-
tron-client bonds, the influence of the Filipino clergy, or their own
perception of the war in categories of the Pasyon and of the wider
religious tradition.
When one asks, however, who profited from the Revolution, class
generalizations become much more easy to substantiate. Given the
American perception, exemplifed most notably in Taft, of the clien-
telist and semifeudal character of Philippine society, all levels of
the elite profited, whatever had been their role in the Revolution.
If those of the cosmopolitan elite who early abandoned the Revolu-
tion became Supreme Court justices and members of the Philippine
Commission, diehard generals and lesser figures of the Revolution-
ary Government became provincial governors—Generals Cailles,
Trias, Delgado, and Fullon—or were able to enter the new modern-
izing economy under favorable conditions—the friar lands sale being
one of the most flagrant examples of this. Privately, more respon-
sible colonial officials recognized and deplored cases of cacique
oppression of the masses, but in fact the policy of governing through
the elite was the course along which Philippine society would be
directed right up to independence. Just as the war had provided
opportunities for upward mobility, so in a much more positive way
did the public school system, which contributed to a growing middle
class, and even access to the elite classes. But in the end the basic
 Perspectives on the Revolution 209

social structure was largely intact, and the areas of social unrest
at the end of the Spanish regime would continue to be such through
the American regime. Indeed most of them—central Luzon, Samar,
Negros, with the addition of newly settled Mindanao—remain so
today. The Revolution of 1896-1902 was indeed a nationalist revo-
lution in which all classes of society participated. But beneath that
common surge of national feeling, a complexity of motives and forces
were at work, which no monolithic framework can adequately
explain. Whether through design or through benign neglect the
American regime eventually made possible the achievement of
independencia. Kalayaan, however, is still a goal to be won for a
large majority of Filipinos.
 Notes

Abbreviations Used in the Notes

ADN Archivo de la Delegacién Nacional de Servicios Documentales,

Salamanca, Spain.
AHN Archivo Histérico Nacional, Seccién de Ultramar, Madrid.
APPSJ Archives of the Philippine Province of the Society of Jesus, Quezon
City.
APSR AERIS de la Provincia del Santisimo Rosario de Filipinas, Quezon
City.
APTSJ Archivo de la Provincia de Tarragona de la Compania de Jesus,
Sant Cugat del Valles, Barcelona.
BR Emma Helen Blair and James Alexander Robertson, eds., The
Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 (Cleveland: Arthur H. Clark Co.,
1903-1909). 55 vols.
DPB E. Arsenio Manuel, Dictionary of Philippine Biography (Quezon
City: Filipiniana Publications, 1955-1970). 2 vols.
Ep. Pil. Epistolario de Marcelo H. del Pilar (Manila: Imprenta del
Gobierno, 1955-58). 2 vols.
Ep. Riz. Epistolario Rizalino, ed. Teodoro M. Kalaw (Manila: Bureau of
Printing, 1930-1938). 5 vols.
Espasa Enciclopedia Universal Ilustrada Europeo-Americana (Madrid:
Espasa-Calpe, 1923).
PNA Philippine National Archives, Manila.
PRR Philippine Revolutionary Records (Philippine Insurgent Records),
Philippine National Library, Manila.
PS Philippine Studies.

Notes to Introduction, pp. 1-6

Revised version of an article first published in Solidarity, no. 112 (May-

June 1987): 142-47; published with permission.
1. Father Jose Burgos: Priest and Nationalist (Quezon City: Ateneo de
Manila University Press, 1972); The Propaganda Movement, 1880-1895
(Manila: Solidaridad Publishing House, 1973); The Revolutionary Clergy:
the Filipino Clergy and the Nationalist Movement, 1850-1903 (Quezon
City: Ateneo de Manila University Press, 1981).
2. Asian Studies Association of Australia Review (1986): 133-39, espe-
cially pp. 134-35.
3. Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin
and Spread of Nationalism (London: Verso, 1986).
4. Ibid., pp. 15-16.
 Notes to Essay 2 211

5. Reynaldo C. Ileto, Pasyon and Revolution: Popular Movements in the

Philippines, 1840-1910 (Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press,
1979), especially pp. 315-19; David R. Sturtevant, Popular Uprisings in the
Philippines, 1840-1940 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1976).
6. William Henry Scott, Ilocano Responses to American Aggression,
1900-1901 (Quezon City: New Day Publishers, 1986).
7. Cesar Adib Majul, A Critique of Rizal’s Concept of a Filipino Nation
(Quezon City: University of the Philippines, 1959).
8. John N. Schumacher, SJ, “Integrism: A Study in Nineteenth-Century
Spanish Politico-Religious Thought,” The Catholic Historical Review 48
(1962): 343-64.
9. Mariano Ponce, “Sobre Filipinas,” in M. M. Norton, Builders of a
Nation (Manila, 1914), pp. 32-33.
10. Cesar Adib Majul, The Political and Constitutional Ideas of the
Philippine Revolution (Quezon City: University of the Philippines, 1957),
pp. 19-20, 90.
11. Raul J. Bonoan, SJ, “Religion and Nationalism in Rizal,” The Manila
Review 4 (June 1978): 15-23.
12. John N. Schumacher, SJ, “Church and State in the Nineteenth and
Twentieth Centuries,” in Church and State: the Philippine Experience, ed.
H. de la Costa, SJ, and John N. Schumacher, SJ (Manila: Loyola School
of Theology, 1978), pp. 25-64.
13. Sturtevant, Popular Uprisings, pp. 142-43, 189-90, 272-73, 291.
Though Sturtevant does not emphasize the point, and pictures a general
trend toward secularization of the popular revolts, the evidence he brings
forth in the places cited shows that all, or almost all, the movements he
studied, even the Sakdalistas, were from the time of the founding of the
church, largely made up of Aglipayans. There is no evidence, however, that
the official church encouraged such movements, and it is clear that many
were only nominally connected with the IFI, describing themselves equally
as “Aglipayans” and “Protestants.”

Notes to Essay 2, “Rizal in the Context of Nineteenth-

Century Philippines,” pp. 16-34
Revised version of a paper given in a lecture series on Rizal sponsored
by the Department of English of the Ateneo de Manila University and the
Cultural Research Society of the Philippines.
1. W. Cameron Forbes, The Philippine Islands (Cambridge, Mass.:
Harvard University Press, 1945), pp. 31-34; Renato Constantino, The
Philippines: A Past Revisited (Quezon City: Tala Publishing Services, 1975),
p. 171; Ferdinand E. Marcos, Today’s Revolution: Democracy (n.p., 1971),
. 56.
‘ 2. Vicente B. Valdepenas, Jr. and Germelino M. Bautista, The Emer-
gence of the Philippine Economy (Manila: Papyrus, 1977), p. 93.
3. See the essays of McLennan, Roth, Owen, and McCoy in Philippine
Social History: Global Trade and Local Transformations, ed. Alfred W.
McCoy and Ed. C. de Jesus (Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University
Press, 1982); and John A. Larkin, The Pampangans (Berkeley: University
of California Press, 1972). For the church haciendas, see essay 9.
212 Notes to Essay 2

4. Dennis Morrow Roth, The Friar Estates of the Philippines (Albuquer-

que: University of New Mexico Press, 1977), pp. 121, 171. On p. 143 Roth
gives the figure of 380 hectares. Jose S. Arcilla, “Documents Concerning
the Calamba Deportations on 1891,” PS 18 (1970): 586, n. 15, says 500
hectares. Different periods may have been involved, but Roth’s table on p.
171 seems the most reliable.
5. John N. Schumacher, SJ, The Propaganda Movement, 1880-1895
(Manila: Solidaridad Publishing House, 1973), pp. 222-25. See essay 9 in
this volume.
6. Ibid., pp. 2-5.
7. Eliodoro Robles, The Philippines in the 19th Century (Quezon City:
Malaya Books, 1969), pp. 134-35, 193; Theodore Grossman, “The Guardia
Civil and Its Influence on Philippine Society,” Archiviniana (December
1972): 2-7.
8. Robles, Philippines, pp. 243-73; Carl C. Plehn, “Taxation in the
Philippines,” Journal of History 10 (1962): 139-92.
9. Jonathan Fast and Jim Richardson, Roots of Dependency (Quezon
City: Foundation for Nationalist Studies, 1979), pp. 49-52, 94-95.
10. Leon Ma. Guerrero, The First Filipino (Manila: National Heroes
Commission, 1963), pp. 422-27.
11. See essay 3 in this volume.
12. Jose Rizal, Noli me tdngere, trans. Leon Ma. Guerrero (London:
Longmans, 1961), p. 333. See the academic grades of Rizal in Wenceslao
E. Retana, Vida y escritos del Dr. José Rizal (Madrid: Suarez, 1907), p. 30.
Though Rizal had not studied English at the Ateneo, it was certainly in the
curriculum shortly afterward. See Pablo Pastells, SJ, Misién de la Com-
pania de Jesus en Filipinas en el siglo XIX, 3 vols. (Barcelona: Editorial
Barcelonesa, 1916-17), 3: 97-98.
13. James J. Meany, SJ, “Escuela Normal de Maestros,” PS 30 (1982):
493-511; Jose S. Arcilla, SJ, “La Escuela Normal de Maestros de Instruc-
cién Primaria,” PS 36 (1988): 16-35.
14. Meany, “Escuela Normal,” pp. 497-98.
15. Si Tandang Basio Macunat. Salitang quinatha ni Fr. Miguel Lucio
Bustamante (Manila: Impr. de Amigos del Pafs, 1885), pp. 14-15, 29-30.
16. Memorias de un estudiante de Manila (Manila: Cacho Hermanos,
1949), pp. 23, 25.
17. Ep. Riz., 5: 111.
18. See essay 3 in this volume.
19. BR 52: 105.
20. For Rizal, see essay 6 in this volume.
21. Ep. Riz., 3: 251.
22. See essay 7 in this volume.
23. Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas, por el Doctor Antonio de Morga. Obra
publicada en Méjico el afio de 1609 nuevamente sacada a luz y anotada por
José Rizal y precedida de un prélogo del Prof. Fernando Blumentritt (Paris:
Garnier, 1890), pp. v—vi.
24. For the view blaming the friars, see, among others, Teodoro Agoncillo,
Revolt of the Masses (Quezon City: University of the Philippines, 1956) and
Malolos: Crisis of the Republic (Quezon City: University of the Philippines,
1960). For the accusation that Spanish anticlericalism and Masonry were
 Notes to Essay 2 213

responsible, see, in addition to all the apologias coming from the friars
themselves, Pastells, Misién, 2: 282-83, 294.
25. For an assessment of such abuses, see John N. Schumacher, SJ,
Readings in Philippine Church History (Quezon City: Loyola School of
Theology, Ateneo de Manila University, 1979), pp. 242-52.
26. Quoted in W. E. Retana, Mando del General Weyler en Filipinas
(Madrid: Minuesa de los Rfos, 1896), pp. 106-8.
27. AHN, leg. 5222, “Memoria escrita por el Excmo. Sr. D. Rafael
Izquierdo,” December 1872.
28. AHN, leg. 5242, “Memoria referente al Gobierno de las Islas Filipi-
see escrita ... por... Don Juan Alaminos y de Vivar,” Manila, 21 March
1874.
29. Schumacher, Propaganda Movement, pp. 272-76.
30. Ibid., pp. 222-25.
31. Ep. Riz., 3: 35-36. Italics supplied. Asanza was the Spaniard from
whom the Dominicans had acquired the Calamba hacienda.
32. John N. Schumacher, SJ, The Revolutionary Clergy: The Filipino
Clergy and the Nationalist Movement, 1850-1903 (Quezon City: Ateneo de
Manila University Press), pp. 102-4, 113. There are numerous petitions to
the Revolutionary government for priests, even friar priests, in PRR I-13,
Ecclesiastical Records, Petitions for Clergy.
33. Ulpiano Herrero y Sampedro, OP, Nuestra prisién en poder de los
revolucionarios filipinos (Manila: Imprenta del Colegio de Santo Tomas,
1900), p. 23.
34. J. Rizal, Noli Me Tangere, Novela Tagala (Berlin: Berliner Buchdruck-
erei-Actien-Gesellschaft, [1887]), p. 273.
35. Ep. Riz., 5: 523-25.
36. Noli me tdngere, trans. Guerrero, p. 46.
37. Schumacher, Revolutionary Clergy, pp. 13-32.
38. H. de la Costa, SJ, “The Development of the Native Clergy in the
Philippines,” in Studies in Philippine Church History, ed. Gerald H.
Anderson (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1969), pp. 65-104.
39. Schumacher, Revolutionary Clergy, pp. 1-12.
40. Manifiesto que a la noble nacién espanola dirigen los leales filipinos
en defensa de su honra y fidelidad gravemente vulneradas por el peridédico
“La Verdad” de Madrid (Madrid: E] Clamor Piublico, 1864) in John N.
Schumacher, SJ, Father José Burgos: Priest and Nationalist (Quezon City:
Ateneo de Manila University Press, 1972), pp. 58-115.
41. Ibid., 76-77.
42. Schumacher, Revolutionary Clergy, pp. 23-29.
43. Schumacher, Propaganda Movement, pp. 226-27, 233-34, 239-42.
44. See essay 3 in this volume.
45. Schumacher, Burgos, p. 60.
46. Ibid., pp. 118-33; John N. Schumacher and Nicholas P. Cushner,
“Documents Relating to Father Jose Burgos and the Cavite Mutiny of
1872,” PS 17 (1969): 488-93.
47. Schumacher, Revolutionary Clergy, pp. 28-29; Leandro Tormo Sanz,
1872. Documents Compiled and Edited by . . . Trans. Antonio Molina
(Manila: Historical Conservation Society, 1973), pp. 1-10 and passim.
48. Schumacher, Revolutionary Clergy, pp. 23-32. See for further details
214 #£Notes to Essay 3

and possible other reasons, Leandro Tormo Sanz, El obispo Volenteri

“combarcano” de Rizal (Madrid, 1977), pp. 68-88.
49. Schumacher, Revolutionary Clergy, pp. 54-56; 215-19.
50. Ibid, pp. 31-32.
51. Ibid., pp. 131, 134.
52. See note 31 above; also Ep. Riz., 2: 291-92.
53. Schumacher, Propaganda Movement, p. 4, n. 1; p. 15, n. 17.
54. Not only the Filipino clergy generally were opposed to a freedom of
religion that would involve separation of church and state, but also a
majority of the Malolos Congress under Felipe Calderon; see Agoncillo,
Malolos, pp. 296-306. Motives differed, however, in this majority.
55. Ep. Riz., 5: 533-34.
56. See Joaquin Bernas, SJ, “Filipino Consciousness of Civil and Politi-
cal Rights,” PS 25 (1977): 163-69.
57. In Spain alone, all the religious orders had been dissolved and their
property confiscated in 1836-37 by Liberal governments. Other similar
expulsions or expropriations took place in 1820, 1855, and 1868-69; friars
and Jesuits were murdered with the acquiescence of the Liberal govern-
ment in 1835, and their houses burned in many cases.
58. E.g., Manuel and Marcelo Azcdrraga, who were among the early
supporters of the Revista del Circulo Hispano-Filipino, and Pedro de
Govantes, a major figure in the Filipino newspaper Espana en Filipinas.
They and other criollos withdrew their support at the first sign of radical-
ism and remained in Spain, where they held high positions in the Conser-
vative party of Canovas. See Schumacher, Propaganda Movement, pp. 28-29,
57-71.
59. Peter W. Stanley, A Nation in the Making: the Philippines and the
United States, 1899-1921 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1974) pp.
52-54, 266-70.
60. Schumacher, Propaganda Movement, pp. 112-13, 128, 198, passim.
61. Agoncillo, Malolos, pp. 318, 707.
62. Ileto’s Pasyon is the first, as far as I know, to emphasize the distinc-
tion between perceptions of independencia and kalayaan. For mass support
of the Revolution, though with regional variations, there is increasing
consensus among scholars with such differing historiographical approaches
as Agoncillo, Ileto, Scott, and myself. See essay 13 in this volume.
63. See Schumacher, Propaganda Movement; “Rizal the Revolutionary
and the Ateneo,” PS 26 (1978): 231-40; and essay 6 in this volume.

Notes to Essay 3, “Philippine Higher Education and the

Origins of Nationalism,” pp. 35-43
Revised version of an article first published in Philippine Studies 23
(1975): 53-65.
1. Technically speaking, there was only one university existing in the
Philippines during the nineteenth century—the University of Santo Tomas.
Under the term higher education, however, we may include those institu-
tions which after 1865 were known as colegios de segunda ensenanza de
primera clase, namely, the Ateneo Municipal and the Colegio de San Juan
de Letran. For in the educational system of the time, the secondary education
 Notes to Essay 3 215

given in these institutions comprised not only what we would consider high
school subjects today, but also a number of courses in philosophy and the
physical sciences, as well as advanced courses in literature, which would
be included in the modern university curriculum. As a matter of fact, the
program of the Ateneo Municipal, providing an additional year of studies
beyond the official requirements and offering courses of philosophy that
duplicated or even went beyond what was required of the ordinary univer-
sity student, was a source of considerable friction between the two insti-
tutions in the 1880s (see Pablo Pastells, SJ, Misién de la Compajiia de
Jesus de Filipinas en el Siglo XIX, 3 vols. (Barcelona: Editorial Barce-
lonesa, 1916-17], 1: 423-25). At least after the Normal School was ele-
vated to the rank of Escuela Normal Superior in 1893, it too might be
considered an institution of higher education (see its program in Pastells,
Misién, 3: 39).
2. See El Filibusterismo, chapters 13: “La clase de Fisica,” and 27: “El
fraile y el filipino”; and “La Universidad de Manila. Su plan de estudios,”
La Solidaridad 1 (1889): 46-48, 59-60, 86-87. The latter series was not
completed due to the ill health of Panganiban.
3. Rizal, Noli Me Tangere, Novela Tagala (Berlin: Berliner Buchdruck-
erei-Actien-Gesellschaft, [1887]), pp. 291-92.
4. Ep. Riz., 5: 533-34.
5. The faculties of medicine and pharmacy were opened in the university
in 1875, the college for notaries in the same year, the faculties of sciences
and of philosophy and letters in 1896. Opened in 1865, the Escuela Normal
was expanded to an Escuela Normal Superior in 1893. The Ateneo Munici-
pal became a secondary school in 1865, together with Letran, adopting the
official program of the Peninsula that year. By the 1880s the Ateneo was
giving an additional year of advanced instruction beyond the official pro-
gram. (Evergisto Bazaco, OP, History of Education in the Philippines [2d
ed.; Manila, 1953], pp. 281-85, 396-401; Pablo Fernandez, OP, Dominicos
donde nace el sol (Barcelona, 1958], pp. 377—79; Pastells, Misidn, 1: 324-25,
423-25; 3: 39.).
6. Letter of Fr. Miguel Saderra Mata, SJ, rector of the Ateneo, to Fr.
Joaquin Sancho, SJ, procurator in Madrid of the Philippine Jesuits, 28
October 1896, later published in the Madrid newspaper E/ Siglo Futuro,
10 December 1896. Copy in APPSJ, V—2-—0/28/1896.
7. Escritos de José Rizal, tomo 1, Diarios y Memorias (Manila: Comisi6n
Nacional del Centenario de José Rizal, 1961), pp. 16-17.
8. Ibid., p. 18.
9. Manuel Artigas y Cuerva, Los sucesos de 1872: resena histérica-
biobibliogrdfica (Manila: La Vanguardia, 1911), pp. 34-35.
10. Numerous indications of this may be found in Fidel Villarroel, OP,
Father Jose Burgos, University Student (Manila: University of Santo Tomas
Press, 1971), passim.
11. Ibid., pp. 71-75. The dedication was made jointly by Burgos and D.
Francisco de Marcaida, but Villarroel shows that the composition must be
that of Burgos.
12. See the remarks in his Manifiesto, in John N. Schumacher, SJ,
Father José Burgos: Priest and Nationalist (Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila
University Press, 1972), pp. 90-91.
13. Villarroel, Burgos, University Student, pp. 96-109.
216 Notes to Essay 4

14. PNA, Patronato, letter of 7 May 1872.

15. Camilo Millan y Villanueva, El gran problema de las reformas en
Filipinas (Manila: J. Lafont, 1897), p. 35. A similar proposal was made by
Eduardo Navarro, OSA, Filipinas: estudio de algunos asuntos de actuali-
dad (Madrid: Minuesa de los Rios, 1897), pp. 159-60. See also Pastells,
Mision, 3: 283-85, for Jesuit fears as to the suppression of their schools in
1897.
16. Letter of 28 February 1881, quoted in Pastells, Misidn, 1: 335.
17. Ep. Riz., 5::111:
18. See, for one example among many, the semiofficial Jesuit publication
by Francisco Foradada, SJ, La soberania de Esparia en Filipinas (Barce-
lona: Henrich, 1897), a treatise written to show that any emancipation
from Spain, then or in the future, was contrary to justice and to God. It
was motivated by Jesuit anxiety to disprove the charge that their schools
had been responsible for the Revolution.
19. “E] Ateneo Municipal,” La Republica Filipina 1, 67 (3 December
1898), 1-2.
20. Cesar Adib Majul, Apolinario Mabini, Revolutionary (Manila: Na-
tional Historical Commission, 1970), p. 15; also in his The Political and
Constitutional Ideas of the Philippine Revolution (Quezon City: University
of the Philippines, 1957), p. 90.
21. Ep. Riz., 4: 35, letter of 1 September 1892.
22. For a description of the antiliberal doctrine of Sarda and the Inte-
grist faction within the Spanish church (including most Spanish Jesuits)
he represented, see my article, “Integrism: a Study in Nineteenth-Century
Spanish Politico-Religious Thought,” The Catholic Historical Review 48
(1962): 343-64, especially 358-59.
23. This point which has been brought out so well by Leon Ma. Guerrero,
when treating of the possibility of Rizal having been persuaded by the
arguments of Fr. Vicente Balaguer in his last hours, though he had long
since rejected similar arguments presented in more elaborate form in the
letters of Pastells. If anything, Balaguer was less cogent than Pastells, but
at that time Rizal was differently disposed. See Leon Ma. Guerrero, The
First Filipino (Manila: National Heroes Commission, 1963), pp. 462-71.

Notes to Essay 4, “The Authenticity of the Writings Attrib-

uted to Father Jose Burgos,” pp. 44-70

Revised version of an article first published in Philippine Studies 18

(1970): 3-51.
1. John N. Schumacher, SJ and Nicholas P. Cushner, “Documents
Relating to Father Jose Burgos and the Cavite Mutiny,” PS 17 (1969):
457-529.
2. Luis Ma. Araneta, “The Works of Father Jose Burgos,” PS 7 (1959):
187-93. The list is on pp. 189-90, taken from one of the typescript copies
in his possession.
3. There are six works, bound together under the title of the first in the
volume, “Como se forman las religiones.” They are numbers 22, 7, 28, 25)
31, and 43 in the Araneta list, though as will be seen below in other cases,
 Notes to Essay 4 217

there are considerable variations in the exact wording of the titles and in
the dates.
4. P. Dr. Jose A. Burgos martir filipino. Obras escogidas. Tomo primero
(Cebu: Barba Press, 1941). This volume contains a brief introduction signed
“Los editores,” dated May 1941, but says nothing of the provenance of the
works. The two works included are “La vida del Filipino pre-histérico” and
“Estado de Filipinas antes de la llegada de los Espafiles,” nos. 8 and 5 in
the Araneta list.
5. There is a list in the Luciano de la Rosa edition of La Loba Negra,
which the editor says he has taken from one published by Melecio Gar-
guena in Nueva Era (June 1951, pp. xvi-xvii); there is a briefer list in the
book of Hermenegildo Cruz referred to in n. 31 below.
6. A 1931 edition published by Luzuriaga is sometimes mentioned. But
the 1933 edition by Luzuriaga precisely calls itself “primera edicion,” and
the attribution of an edition to 1931 probably depends on the prologue to
the 1933 work by Jose E. Marco, which is dated 1 January 1931.
7. There is a copy in the Philippine National Library, originally from the
Ronquillo collection.
8. The copy in the Rizal Library of the Ateneo de Manila University has
a handwritten dedication on the flyleaf from Bishop Isabelo de los Reyes
Jr. to the Honorable Simeon Mandac, dated 14 June 1952, which thus sets
a terminal] date for its publication. Luciano de la Rosa, on the other hand,
in one of his prologues to his 1963 edition (p. iv), cites an article of Teodoro
M. Kalaw in La Vanguardia for 1 October 1938, in which the latter speaks
of the Linan work as having appeared shortly before (“Hace poco. . . .”).
However, no such article by Kalaw could be found in the issue cited.
9. The second prologue is on the fifth unnumbered page following p. xii.
10. The “primera edicién” of de la Rosa’s first title page perhaps refers
to his expanded edition containing the added prologues. The second pro-
logue, following the original title page where the “segunda edicién” is
spoken of, is dated 15 May 1963, while the first is dated 6 July 1963.
11. See p. 2. This citation and others to this work are given according
to the pagination of the second edition, unless otherwise indicated, simply
because this edition was most accessible to me. All of them, unless noted
otherwise, may likewise be found in the other editions.
12. Ibid., pp. 1-2. If the date of 1911 is correct, this is just a year before
Marco began supplying Robertson and the Philippine National Library
with various Povedano and Pavon manuscripts on pre-Hispanic Philip-
pines, including the so-called Code of Kalantiyaw. These have been shown
quite conclusively to be forgeries by William Henry Scott in his book, A
Critical Study of the Prehispanic Source Materials for the Study of Philip-
pine History (Manila: University of Santo Tomas Press, 1968), pp. 104-36.
As appears from Scott’s account, all these documents were sent from Negros
through intermediaries to Robertson. When I myself checked with Scott, he
assured me that he was not aware, neither from the information he had
gathered from those who knew Marco nor from his own research, that
Marco had ever actually worked in the National Library. Moreover, though
Robertson was to be unfortunately responsible for making widely known
the alleged pre-Hispanic “finds” of Marco, he never gave any indication of
being aware of the existence of any Burgos documents.
218 Notes to Essay 4

13. See pp. 5-6. No such person is listed in the exhaustive compilation
of Dominicans by Ocio y Viana. It is likely that Marco got the name from
the well-known Filipino diocesan priest, Fr. Mariano Garcia, who was for
many years professor and later rector of the Colegio de San José.
14. See pp. 8-9.
15. De la Torre arrived in Manila on 23 June 1869 (José Montero y
Vidal, Historia general de Filipinas desde el descubrimiento de dichas islas
hasta nuestros dias, 3 vols. [Madrid: Tello, 1887-1895], 3: 499). Archbishop
Melitén Martinez left Manila for Hong Kong en route to Europe on the ship
Marqués de Victoria five days earlier, 18 June 1869 (Diario de Avisos
[Manila], 18 June 1869). See also De la Torre’s Manifiesto al pais sobre los
sucesos de Cavite y Memoria sobre la Administracién y Gobierno de las
Islas Filipinas (Madrid: Gregorio Hernando, 1872), p. 26, where he men-
tions in passing that when he arrived in Manila, the archbishop had already
left the Philippines.
16. A la memoria, pp. 10-11.
17. A la memoria, p. 14. Other similar instances of ignorance of eccle-
siastical organization are to be found scattered through pp. 12-15.
18. Ibid., p. 15. This error of the first name of Father Gomez occurs all
through the book, including the supposed transcript from the records of the
trial. Though the name was corrected to Mariano in the title page of the
De la Rosa edition, even the latter was not consistent in correcting it all
through his edition. The error comes from Montero y Vidal, Historia, p.
579, where the latter inadvertently confuses Feliciano, the nephew, with
Mariano, his uncle. The fact that this was a momentary inadvertence is
clear, however, since everywhere else in his account, Montero correctly
speaks of Fr. Mariano Gomez. Fr. Feliciano Gomez was actually arrested
with his uncle, and sentenced to deportation to the Marianas for two years.
See Manuel Artigas y Cuerva, Los sucesos de 1872 (Manila: Imp. de “La
Vanguardia,” 1911), pp. 115 and 162, and the letter of the archbishop to
the governor-general in the documents published in PS 17 (1969): 516-17.
See note 1. The error of “Liian” making Zamora parish priest of Bacoor
comes from a careless reading of a somewhat complicated sentence in
Montero, Historia, p. 579, as comparison will show. Zamora was actually
acting parish priest of the Manila Cathedral alternating with Burgos, who
had been named canon of the Cathedral Chapter. See the PS documents
cited in n. 1, pp. 524-25.
19. A la memoria, pp. 26-28.
20. The printing press was founded in 1886. See W. E. Retana, Tablas
cronolégica y alfabética de imprentas y impresores de Filipinas (1593-1898)
(Madrid: Suarez, 1908) p. 73, no. 252.
21. PS 17 (1969): 516-21. See note 1.
22. Artigas, Los sucesos, p. 135. The original letter of the archbishop
refusing the demand of Izquierdo that the three priests be defrocked, though
not yet published, is in the archive of the Servicio Histérico Militar in
Madrid (Negociado de Ultramar, Filipinas, Arm. 14, Tab. I, Leg. 4). In it
he demands to be shown the evidence of their guilt before he could take
such a step. Since Izquierdo refused to do so, the archbishop in his turn
refused to take action against the priests.
23. See J. Rizal, El Filibusterismo: Novela Filipina, tercera edicién
prologada y anotada por W. E. Retana (Barcelona: Henrich, 1908), p. 4.
 Notes to Essay 4 219

24. Artigas, Los sucesos, pp. 130-34. Jaime C. de Veyra, “Donde ha ido
a parar la causa del P. Burgos?” Voz de Manila, 16 February 1953, p. 8,
refers to Retana’s statement and consequently questions Artigas’s version
of the sentence. As indicated in the article referred to in n. 1 above, the
publication of the document from the Philippine National Archives estab-
lishes the substantial genuinity of Artigas’s version, in spite of its errors
of transcription.
25. Artigas, Los sucesos, pp. 126-28.
26. PS 17 (1969): 522-29. See note 1.
27. See especially Montero, Historia, 3: 570-74.
28. See n. 18 above.
29. The book was first published in serial form in Renacimiento Filipino
(Manila), from vol. 1, no. 30 (14 February 1911) to no. 45 (7 June 1911).
There are further revisions in the book later published, but not of a
substantial nature.
30. Artigas died in 1925. See DBP, 1: 68.
31. Hermenegildo Cruz, El P. Burgos, precursor de Rizal. Breve ensayo
acerca del gran patriota agarrotado cuyos sacrificios fueron la inspiraci6n
del Héroe Nacional (Manila: Librerfa “Manila Filatélica,” 1941), p. 29.
There is in the National Library a typescript copy of this Luzuriaga edi-
tion mentioned by Cruz. In the failure to locate any printed copy of the al-
leged 1938 edition of Luzuriaga, one can only speculate about its actual
relation to such an edition.
32. Ibid., pp. 29-30.
33. Ibid., p. 27.
34. According to the prefatory note of Guillermo Masangkay (ibid., pp.
11-22) dated August 1941, Cruz’s original article had appeared in La Van-
guardia for 18 June 1941. Masangkay had offered to republish it in the
book form that has been consulted here. In it there had been made some
additions, according to Masangkay.
35. The Brun edition was apparently distributed by separate fascicles
together with Democracia, since the bound volume of the latter for 1941,
though announcing that it would publish it in succeeding numbers, does
not contain it within the text itself. There is a bound copy of the Brun
edition in the National Library, ending on p. 80 in the middle of a sentence,
thus leaving a section amounting to about twelve pages in the De la Rosa
edition unfinished. The publication of the Brun edition began, it would
seem from its preface, in July 1941.
36. See n. 35, and the preface by Luciano de la Rosa in the edition
described in n. 37, p. 1.
37. La Loba Negra. Novela veridica (histérica), por el Dr. Padre José A.
Burgos. Prélogo por Luciano de la Rosa. (Manila, 1958). Pp. i-xix, 9-99.
38. La Loba Negra (Novela histérica), por Dr. José A. Burgos, miembro
del clero filipino. 1869. Primera reproduccion al “offset printing” del
manuscrito original. This edition, with 273 pages, was published in 1960
by R. Martinez and Sons, Quezon City. The 273 pages are the actual
number in this edition, since the “original manuscript” reproduced is erratic
in its pagination, sometimes skipping a number while continuing the text.
In fact the final page, which should be, according to the copyist’s numeration,
276 is actually written as 176. References in this essay follow the correct
220 Notes to Essay 4

numeration of the Martinez edition, rather than the erratic numbers of the
manuscript.
39. Since the stamped paper would be folded, each sheet would contain
four pages for writing; thus only every fourth page bears the official stamp
(if genuine) for the years 1838 and 1839, but validated by a further stamped
notation for the years 1840 and 1841.
40. See figure 1. I am grateful to Brother William Yam, SJ, for the
photographs of the signatures reproduced in the figures here.
41. MS ed. (1960), pp. 4445; De la Rosa edition (1958), p. 22. Italics
supplied. The Brun edition (p. 21) and the typescript edition attributed to
Luzuriaga (p. 11) have the same text as De la Rosa.
42. MS (1960), p. 52; De la Rosa edition, p. 24. The Brun edition (p. 23)
and the typescript edition attributed to Luzuriaga (p. 14) have the same
text as De la Rosa. Italics supplied.
43. For a specimen of Burgos’s genuine signature see the signature in
figure 3, from the Archives of the Archdiocese of Manila. For a reproduction
of Burgos’s alleged signature in the “original manuscript” being questioned
here, see figure 4.
44. See figure 2 for a reproduction of De la Torre’s genuine signature.
Compare with figure 1.
45. MS (1960), pp. 272-73.
46. See the documents referred to in n. 1, pp. 488-89, 516-17.
47. La Loba Negra, ed. De la Rosa, p. 15.
48. Ibid., p. 80.
49. Ibid., pp. 81-88.
50. See Artigas, Los sucesos, pp. 119-22 for biographical details.
51. Manifiesto que.a la Noble Nacién Espanola dirigen los leales filipinos
en defensa de su honra y fidelidad gravemente vulneradas por el peridédico
“La Verdad” de Madrid (Manila, 1864). The genuinity of the Manifiesto is
demonstrated in my book, Father José Burgos: Priest and Nationalist
(Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press, 1972), pp. 22-23. The
text and translation are on pp. 58-115 in this book, which also contains
four genuine letters of Burgos (pp. 134-93). These letters give further proof
that Burgos could not have written such a work as La Loba Negra.
52. “Post Scriptum,” La Loba Negra, p. 89. An article entitled “La Loba
Negra’ no se ha escrita por el. P. Burgos como se afirma” came to my notice
after this paper was substantially completed. Written anonymously by one
who signed himself “E.F.L.” [Enrique Fernandez Lumba], in El Debate, 16
August 1958, it called attention to a series of articles written in the same
newspaper in 1941 by Prof. Jaime C. de Veyra. In these the latter (under
the pseudonym “Carlos Diaz”) gives a detailed critique of the “novel” on
account of its deplorable use of Spanish, its historical errors, its anachro-
nistic Americanisms, and its antireligious sentiments. The former Spanish
ambassador to the Philippines, D. Pedro Ortiz Armengol, more recently
identified E.F.L. for me. He gave me copies, which he obtained from Lumba,
of the polemic between De Veyra and Hermenegildo Cruz carried on in El
Debate in August-September 1941, as well as the polemic between E.F.L.
and Luciano de la Rosa in 1958, and the articles by Archbishop Gabriel M.
Reyes cited in n. 64 below. Both Cruz and De la Rosa ignore the arguments
of De Veyra and Lumba and chiefly resort to ad hominem accusations.
53. See n. 31 above.
 Notes to Essay 4 221

54. The quotation from El Filibusterismo is taken from the offset repro-
duction of the original edition (Quezon City: R. Martinez & Sons, 1958), p.
286. The quotation from La Loba Negra is from the De la Rosa edition, p.
56; it is likewise found in Cruz, pp. 83-84, with certain grammatical
variations or errors.
55. Escritos de José Rizal, tomo III: Obras literarias, Libro primero:
Poesias por José Rizal, p. 139; De la Rosa, p. 86; Cruz, pp. 85-86. Similar
echoes of Rizal may be found in De la Rosa, p. 70, in the words of Magpan-
tay over the dying “Loba Negra.”
56. The section on D. Emilio M. Melgar and his wife is in De la Rosa,
pp. 72-76.
57. De la Rosa, p. 62.
58. Ibid., pp. 62-63. Hagonoy, which is given a Dominican priest, was
Augustinian; Umingan, given a Recoleto, was Franciscan. Both of these
parishes were such from their foundation to the time of Burgos.
59. Ibid., p. 77. The suburban village, known officially as San Fernando
de Dilao, by the latter part of the nineteenth century was being called even
by the Spaniards by the common name of Paco, which became the official
name in the twentieth century. See the article on “Paco” in the Espasa,
tomo 40, p. 1351. Also Atlas of the Philippines Islands, ed. by José Algue,
S.J. (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1900), map no. 29.
60. De la Rosa, p. 78. The actual distance from one extreme of Ermita
to the other extreme of Malate is nearer to 3 kilometers.
61. Cf. Pablo Pastells, SJ, Misién de la Compania de Jesis de Filipinas
en el Siglo XIX, 3 vols. (Barcelona: Editorial Barcelonesa, 1916-17), 3: 439
for the letter of the Jesuit Superior Fr. Pedro Bertran to Governor-General
Izquierdo in October 1872, in which he tells how he admonished Burgos
against carrying on the secularization campaign in the public forum. Other
testimonies to the religious spirit of Burgos by contemporary Jesuits are
found in various scattered documents of APTSJ.
62. De la Rosa, pp. 86-87.
63. See n. 4 above.
64. Obras escogidas, p. xv. In two articles, “Nos resistimos a creer” and
“Vengan documentos,” appearing respectively on 25 June 1941 and 2 July
1941 in the Cebu newspaper Lungsuranon, the anonymous author (Arch-
bishop Gabriel M. Reyes) mentions “Sr. P. D. Delfin y compaferos” as
publishers. He demonstrates in detail the inauthenticity of these works,
both on the ground of their poor Spanish, especially the use of American-
isms, and their un-Catholic content, unbelievable in a Doctor of Theology
like Father Burgos. He likewise points to the incredibility of Burgos having
written the forty-two works attributed to him in so few years. See n. 52
above.
65. Obras escogidas, pp. 50 ff.
66. Ibid., p. 53.
67. Ibid., p. 40. See Fedor Jagor, Reisen in den Philippinen (Berlin,
1873), translated into Spanish by Sebastian Vidal y Soler as Viajes por
Filipinas (Madrid: Impr. Aribau, 1875).
68. Obras escogidas, pp. 57-67.
69. Ibid., p. 69.
70. Ibid., p. 164. No such book exists, of course, but the author undoubt-
edly had in mind the work by Juan Ferrando, OP, Historia de los pp.
222 Notes to Essay 4

Dominicos en las Islas Filipinas y en sus misiones del Japon, China, Tung-
kin y Formosa, ed. Joaquin Fonseca, OP, 6 vols. (Madrid: M. Rivadeneyra,
1870-1872).
71. Scott, Prehispanic Sources, pp. 125-28, 136.
72. Cf. Rebecca Ignacio, ed., The Povedano Manuscript of 1578 (“Phil-
ippine Studies Program Transcript No. 3”; Chicago, 1954), pp. 2, 39, and
49.
73. See notes 31 and 34.
74. Cruz, pp. 27, 37. Cruz does not cite the titles in the form in which
they actually appear in the published book nor as they appear in the MSS
in the Araneta collection, but rather in the altered form in which they
appear in the list appended to his typescript edition of “Maremagnum”
described below. He may then have had only the latter list at his disposal,
and not have seen the other works at all, either as MSS or in published
form.
75. Dr. Padre Jose A. Burgos, La Loba Negra, Novela veridica (histérica).
Palabras preliminares por Pio Brun. (Coleccién: “Escritores Filipinos del
siglo XIX,” tomo I; Manila: Democracia, 1941). These “Palabras prelimi-
nares” are dated July 1941.
76. This is to be found in the Araneta collection, and there is a microfilm
copy in the Ateneo de Manila library. The introduction there, dated
November 1941, says that the copy has been made from a manuscript
“which has come into our hands.”
77. At the end of his introduction, Brun adds: “The favor shown by the
reader to this book will determine in great part our carrying out of the task
we propose—to publish the ‘Coleccién de Escritores Filipinos del Siglo XIX’
which is begun with this work.”
78. It may well be, however, that these typescript copies were made
merely for sale by someone else, since they are carelessly done, unlike the
“Maremagnum” typescript of Cruz.
79. Pp. 9-12, 128.
80. Artigas, Los sucesos, pp. 227-28.
81. “Maremagnum,” pp. 1-8, 16-18, 40 ff. See n. 15 above.
82. Ibid., pp. 37, 131. Queen Maria Cristina had been expelled from
apd in 1840, and her daughter Isabela II declared of age three years
ater.
83. “Ostaeza” appears in “Maremagnum,” p. 16. The name does not
appear in the official list of Dominicans, [Hilario Ocio y Viana], Compendio
de la Reseria biogrdfica de los religiosos de la provincia del Santisimo
Rosario de Filipinas desde su fundacién hasta nuestros dias (Manila: Real
Colegio de Santo Tomas, 1895), which is especially authoritative for this
period, since Ocio came to the Philippines in 1867 (Ocio, Compendio,
p. 970). “Lindn” is found on p. 17 of “Maremagnum.”
84. Ibid., pp. ii-iv. There is a letter of Rizal to his father, written from
Rome (where he says he had been for several days, after travelling through
cities in Italy), dated 29 June 1887, in Ep. Riz., 1: 287.
85. “Como se forman las religiones,” p. 7.
86. Scott, Prehispanic Sources, pp. 123-24.
87. “Carpeta, Copiador de comunicaciones habidas entre el Exelentisimo
[sic] Capitan y Gobernador Carlos Ma. de la Torre y Navancerrada [sic] y
el que suscribe desde los afios de 1869 al 1871 [sicj,” pp. 69-71.
 Notes to Essay 4 223

88. “Carpeta,” p. 3, and passim. No such name appears among the

priests involved in the secularization controversy prior to 1872 in any
account or in any of the documents.
89. See the genuine signature in figure 3 above, taken from official
documents in the Archives of the Archdiocese of Manila.
90. “Leyendas y cuentos Filipinos,” (MS, Manila, 1860), pp. 10-12.
91. Scott, Prehispanic Sources, p. 128.
92. “Carpeta,” p. 160 [sic; should be 260]. The title of the MS as well as
the text consistently misspell De la Torre’s segundo apellido as Navancer-
rada instead of Navacerrada. This recurs through all the alleged Burgos
MSS and typescripts.
93. To be found on the title page of “Nol Basio y Tia Nila” (typescript;
Manila, 1866), and several others among the Ateneo typescripts.
94. See Paul Cid Noé [Francisco Vindel] (ed.), Pedro Vindel. Historia de
una libreria (1865-1921). (Madrid, 1945). In this book the editor, son of the
original owner, has edited his father’s day-book, which contains many
interesting comments about his customers, including those named in the
text here. He is frequently mentioned in the works of Retana, who assisted
in the publication of Vindel’s catalogues, and sold much of his own personal
collection to him.
95. Scott, Prehispanic Sources, p. 127.
96. For this theme, see “Maremagnum,” p. vi. For its recurrence in La
Loba Negra, cf. De la Rosa’s edition, pp. 11, 12-13, 87.
97. Cf. footnotes, De la Rosa edition, p. 99, and text to n. 64 above.
98. See n. 60 above and Scott, pp. 112-13.
99. “Maremagnum,” p. 138.
100. Cf. La Loba Negra, ed. De la Rosa, pp. 70, 77-80.
101. “Carpeta,” Ateneo typescript edition, p. 16.
102. La Loba Negra, MS ed., (1960), pp. 272-73.
103. I have not seen the printed 1938 edition, if any such exists, but only
the typescript copy existing in the National Library.
104. See the appendix to my original article in PS 18 (1970): 44-51.
105. Luciano de la Rosa, “‘La Loba Negra’ Novela Veridica ha sido
escrito por el P. Burgos,” La Nueva Era, 23 August 1958.
106. See n. 51 above.
107. Leandro Tormo Sanz, 1872. Documents Compiled and edited by
... trans. Antonio Molina (Manila: Historical Conservation Society, 1973).
Unfortunately the translation is not always accurate, but the Spanish text
is very informative. On the basis of these documents, I have concluded in
my The Revolutionary Clergy: The Filipino Clergy and the Nationalist
Movement, 1850-1903 (Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press,
1981), pp. 23-30, that Burgos and his fellow priests were not involved in
the Cavite Mutiny, but that Governor Izquierdo made use of the occasion,
perhaps with the help of others, to eliminate the priests and lawyers whom
he considered dangerous to the future of Spanish sovereignty.
108. Fidel Villarroel, OP, Father Jose Burgos, University Student (Manila:
University of Santo Tomas Press, 1971).
109. E.g., Carlos Quirino, “A Checklist of Documents on Gomburza from
the Archdiocesan Archives of Manila,” PS 21 (1973): 19-84. Fr. Cayetano
SAnchez, OFM, has recently located another article of Burgos in the Madrid
newspaper La Armonia, related to those I published in 1972.
224 Notes to Essay 5

110. Just before this article appeared in its original form, there ap-
peared an English translation of La Loba Negra, by Hilario A. Lim, edited
with notes by Teodoro A. Agoncillo, and with a lengthy introduction by E.
San Juan Jr. (Quezon City: Malaya Books, 1970). Lim adverts to the strong
doubts expressed by Agoncillo in his notes as to the authenticity of the
Martinez “original manuscript” (on which Lim bases himself, filling in the
missing sections of the “original” from De la Rosa’s printed edition). Agoncillo
notes the similarity of the handwriting to that of other writings of Marco,
and alludes to certain anachronisms that have already been pointed out
here, but makes no mention of the other pseudo-Burgos forgeries of Marco.
As to the lengthy philosophical-literary essay of San Juan (who apparently
accepts the novel as a genuine work of Burgos), one who has examined the
confused inconsistencies of Marco in his various productions can only marvel
at the profound meaning read into the novel by the literary critic; Marco
himself would have been the most surprised to see such profundities. One
may also be permitted to question the motives of the writers and publisher
of this anti-Catholic pamphlet.
111. In an appendix to the original of this article in PS 18 (1970): 44-51,
I tried to trace some of the interconnections among this mass of forgeries.
The correctness of my reconstruction is not necessary to the demonstration
of the fact that all these pseudo-Burgos works are forgeries of Jose Marco,
and has been omitted here.

Notes to Essay 5, “Published Sources on the Cavite

Mutiny,” pp. 71-90

Revised version of an article first published in Philippine Studies 20

(1972): 603-32.
1. See “The Authenticity of the Writings Attributed to Father Jose
Burgos,” PS 18 (1970): 3-51; essay 4 in this volume.
2. Nicholas P. Cushner, “British Consular Dispatches and the Philippine
Independence Movement, 1872-1901,” PS 16 (July 1968): 501-34, espe-
cially 501-6; John N. Schumacher and Nicholas P. Cushner, “Documents
Relating to Father Jose Burgos and the Cavite Mutiny of 1872,” PS 17
(1969): 457-529; Carlos Quirino, “More Documents on Burgos,” PS 18 (1970):
161-77; John N. Schumacher, SJ, Father José Burgos: Priest and Nation-
alist (Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press, 1972); Fidel Villa-
rroel, OP, Father Jose Burgos, University Student (Manila: University of
Santo Tomas Press, 1971); Leandro Tormo Sanz, 1872. Documents Com-
piled and edited by... , trans. Antonio Molina (Manila: Historical Con-
servation Society, 1973); idem, El Obispo Volonteri, “combarcano” de Rizal
(Madrid, 1977).
3. José Montero y Vidal, Historia general de Filipinas desde el descu-
brimiento de dichas Islas hasta nuestros dias, 3 vols. (Madrid: Tello, 1887-
95), 3: 498-602, especially 566-602 on the mutiny itself.
4. Ibid., pp. 595-601.
5. “L’archipel des Philippines,” Revue des Deux Mondes 232 (1877):
447-64; 896-913; 233 (1877): 885-924. The section on the events of Cavite
is in the last of these installments, pp. 910-24.
6. La Solidaridad 4 (15 February 1892): 629-35; also reprinted in
 Notes to Essay 5 225

pamphlet form as La algarada caviteria de 1872 (Manila: Imp. “Manila

Filatélica,” 1916), pp. 3-32. A Tagalog translation by Patricio Mariano is
in the second part of same pamphlet, pp. 3-37.
7. The original of the archbishop’s letter is reproduced in Schumacher,
Burgos, Priest and Nationalist, pp. 194-219.
8. For instance, on his own Plauchut could not have known the letter
of loyalty to Spain, later used against Burgos; the details of the reform
movement in Manila and Madrid, 1869-1871; and the speech of Rafael
Labra in the Cortes. All these details are found in the major article of
Regidor discussed below, and are reproduced in almost the same language
at times.
9. DPB, 1: 313-17, 367-71.
10. Ep. Riz., 5: 375-80, 383-89.
11. That Plauchut was actually an eyewitness of any event he relates
is by no means certain, and though generally assumed by historians is
nowhere actually stated by himself. He had been in the Philippines for ten
years in his youth (b. 1824), according to an account ofan apparently later
visit to southern Philippines that he published as part of a book Le tour
du monde en cent vingt jours (Paris: Michel Levy Fréres, 1872), pp. 259-338.
In the latter however, no mention is made of the events of 1869-72. Moreover,
inasmuch as the trip seems to have proceeded around the Cape of Good
Hope instead of the Suez Canal (he was shipwrecked in the Cape Verde
Islands in the Atlantic), the trip must have taken place before the opening
of the Suez Canal in 1869. He also published another brief article on the
Philippines with almost the same title in the Revue des Deux Mondes (15
June 1869): 933-64, which possibly was soon after this second trip. The
rest of the original French articles of 1877 make no mention of just when
he had been in the Philippines. Hence, in the absence of any positive
evidence of a third trip between 1869 and 1872, it seems likely that these
articles were based solely on his earlier experiences, and that the narrative
of the Mutiny comes from the “accounts worthy of belief” he speaks of
(Revue des Deux Mondes 233 [1877]: 919).
12. “A los martires de la Patria, Burgos, Gémez y Zamora,” Filipinas
ante Europa 2 (28 February 1900): 67-78.
13. Manuel Artigas y Cuerva, Los sucesos de 1872: reseria histérica-
biobibliografica (Manila: La Vanguardia, 1911), pp. 112-13. Though I erred
in my book Burgos, Priest and Nationalist in saying Artigas was editor of
Filipinas ante Europa (p. 25, n. 44), he was closely associated with De los
Reyes in the Filipino Revolutionary Committee.
14. [Regidor], “A los m4rtires,” p. 68; Plauchut, Revue des Deux Mondes
233 (1877): 923-24.
15. This incorrect date is also used by Rizal in the dedication of his El
Filibusterismo to the three priests. Rizal similarly errs in the ages of the
priests, though differing from Regidor.
16. Francisco-Engracio Vergara [pseud.], La Masoneria en Filipinas.
Estudio de la actualidad (Paris, 1896), pp. 14-15. The treatment of the
events of 1872 here is very brief and aimed at showing that Peninsulars
rather than Filipinos were responsible for the revolt in Cavite. For Regidor’s
authorship see Artigas, Los sucesos, p. 240; though the internal evidence
by itself is quite indicative of Regidor’s authorship.
17. Gregorio de Santiago Vela, OSA, Ensayo de una biblioteca ibero-
226 Notes to Essay 5

americana de la Orden de San Agustin (Madrid: Imp. del Asilo de Huérfanos,

1913-31), 3: 632.
18. [Hilario Ocio y Viana], Compendio de la Resefia biogréfica de los
religiosos de la provincia del Santisimo Rosario de Filipinas desde su
fundacién hasta nuestros dias (Manila: Tip. del Real Colegio de Santo
Tomas, 1895), pp. 681-82; Pablo Fernandez, OP, Dominicos donde nace el
sol (Barcelona, 1958), pp. 377, 683.
19. Domingo Abella, “The Bishops of Nueva Segobia,” PS 10 (1962): 584;
“The Bishops of Caceres and Jaro,” PS 11 (1963): 555.
20: See Cayetano Sdnchez Fuertes, OFM, “Rizal frente a los Francis-
canos,” Espara en Extremo Oriente: Filipinas, China, Japén (Madrid:
Editorial Cisneros, 1979), p. 556.
21. Fernandez, Dominicos, p. 683; Montero y Vidal, Historia, 3: 554.
22. John N. Schumacher, SJ, The Revolutionary Clergy: The Filipino
Clergy and the Nationalist Movement, 1850-1903 (Quezon City: Ateneo de
Manila University Press, 1981), pp. 23-29. This supersedes the more
tentative conclusions I had drawn in Burgos, Priest and Nationalist, pp.
28—32. It has been further corroborated by the evidence brought forward
in Tormo, El Obispo Volenteri, pp. 68—88 especially.
23. Madrid: Imp. de Segundo Martinez, 1872. The preface is signed by
Herrero.
24. The narrative portion is pp. 87-111. The first of these two chapters
(pp. 87-100) was reprinted in La Politica de Esparia en Filipinas 2 (1
March 1892): 58-61, as an answer to La Solidaridad’s publication of the
translation of Plauchut’s account, cited in n. 6 above.
25. Manila: Imprenta Amigos del Pafs, 1888. The relevant sections are
pp. 448-49 and 465-68.
26. Pablo Pastells, SJ, Misién de la Comparia de Jesis de Filipinas en
el Siglo XIX, 3 vols. (Barcelona: Editorial Barcelonesa, 1916-17), 1: 127—28.
27. The MS history is to be found in APTSJ, E-II-c-2. The history suddenly
comes to an end in mid-1874, hence the terminal date. Very probably the
author was Fr. Pedro Bertran, SJ, who was active in reconstructing the
history of the Philippine Jesuits. If so, it would be of greater value because
of the close relationship between Bertran and Burgos. See my book Burgos,
Priest and Nationalist, pp. 35-36, 110-11, 268-69.
28. The copies used for this article are found in APPSJ, I-3/Ja/5/97. To
judge from the notation at the bottom of each document, they must have
come to the Jesuits from Felipe Calderon, who is said there to possess the
originals. A copy may also be found in the Philippine National Library,
coming from the Ronquillo collection, and no doubt in other collections as
well. There is likewise a similar “confession” from Fr. Domingo Candenas,
OSA, who was a prisoner with the other two priests, but since he makes
no mention of the events in 1872, it has not been considered here.
29. The reading in the APPSJ copy is Arceo; likewise in the book of
Artigas as in n. 53 below. But since no such name appears in the catalogue
of Philippine Recoletos, it must have been a copyist’s mistake for Claudio
del Arco, who was actually parish priest of Santa Cruz, Zambales in these
years. See Francisco Sddaba del Carmen, ORSA, Catdlogo de los Religiosos
Agustinos Recoletos de la Provincia de San Nicolds de Filipinas (Madrid:
Imprenta del] Asilo de Huérfanos, 1908), p. 449.
 Notes to Essay 5 227

30. As shown by checking them against the catalogues of the respective

orders, e.g., Sddaba.
31. An account of the sufferings of these friars when prisoners of Mari-
ano Alvarez is found in the unpublished history of Telesforo Canseco, “His-
toria de la Insurreccién Filipina en Cavite, 1896.” A copy is in APSR, His-
toria Civil de Filipinas, tomo 7, pp. 68-70. Canseco, himself a Cavitefio, re-
lates how the priests had been well treated when prisoners of Aguinaldo,
but after the latter turned them over to Alvarez, they were tortured by one
of the Bonifacio brothers so severely that “they would have preferred that
they shoot them.” Finally, Andres Bonifacio had them executed in spite of
the efforts of Aguinaldo to prevent it. See Aguinaldo’s memoirs, Mga gunita
ng Himagsikan (n. p., 1964), pp. 117-18, 156.
32. T.H. Pardo de Tavera, Reseria histérica de Filipinas desde su des-
cubrimiento hasta 1903 (Manila: Bureau of Printing, 1906), pp. 66-71. This
Pardo’s original version, distinct from that which appeared in the Census
of 1903.
33. He does say on p. 70: “A historical study of greater length than this,
accompanied by documents, would demonstrate in irrefutable fashion the
part the religious orders took in that sad affair. . . ,” but does not further
explicitate what that part might have been.
34. Sobre una “Reseria histérica de Filipinas” (Manila: Imprenta de
Santo Tomas, 1906). The section on the events of 1869-72 comprises pp.
175-91.
35. See essay 7 in this volume.
36. E.g., Rizal to Blumentritt, Ep. Riz. 5: 105; and Isabelo de los Reyes,
Historia de Ilocos (Manila: La Opinién, 1890), 1: 151, 153-54; T.H. Pardo
de Tavera, Biblioteca Filipina (Washington: Government Printing Office,
1903), pp. 301-2.
37. Historia critica de Filipinas, 3 vols. (Manila: Imprenta “La Republica,”
1908); Historia de Filipinas,7 vols. (Manila: Imprenta “La Republica,” 1912).
38. Manila: Imprenta Reptblica, 1911. The sections dealing with the
events of 1872 are 1: 38; and 2: 121-22.
39. The whole pamphlet is reproduced in English translation in the
compilation of John R. M. Taylor, The Philippine Insurrection against the
United States (Pasay City: Eugenio Lopez Foundation, 1971), 1: 289-94.
The relevant passage is on pp. 290-92. Basa and Cortes later petitioned
President McKinley for American annexation of the Philippines.
40. The fact that it was printed, and in Spanish, makes it fairly obvious
that it was intended for more than the American consul to whom it was
addressed, especially since Basa could well have written in English, as he
did in Hong Kong newspapers on Philippine affairs.
41. E.g., Rizal to Basa, Ep. Riz., 2: 221-22; R. O. Serna [Pedro Serrano
Laktaw] to Del Pilar, Ep. Pil. 1: 137. See also Ep. Pil., 1: 176; Wenceslao
E. Retana, Vida y escritos del Dr. José Rizal (Madrid: Victoriano Suarez,
1907), pp. 149, 229, etc., for the implacable and active hatred of Basa
against the friars, attested by Regidor and other friends.
42. “Causes of the Dislike of the Filipino for the Friars” by I.M., Feb-
ruary 1900; translated from the Spanish in Taylor, The Philippine Insur-
rection, 1: 168-87. The pertinent passage is on pp. 179-80.
43. Sddaba, Catdlogo, p. 449.
228 Notes to Essay 5

44, See Leon Ma. Guerrero, “Nozaleda and Pons: Two Spanish Friars in
Exodus,” in Gerald H. Anderson, Studies in Philippine Church History
(Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1960), pp. 172-202.
45. Both books were published in Manila in the press of La Democracia
in 1900. The pertinent passage of the Defensa is on pp. 4449. Those of El
clero filipino are on pp. 16-17 and 97-100 for Burgos, and p. 120 for
Gomez. The two sections on Burgos give two distinct years for his birth,
apparently unconscious of the contradiction.
46. Apolinario Mabini, La Revolucién Filipina (con otros documentos de
la época), 2 vols. (Manila: Bureau of Printing, 1931), 2: 282-84.
47. Wenceslao E. Retana might perhaps share the place with Artigas,
both as regards fecundity as a writer, and as regards access to sources and
personal acquaintance with contemporaries of the events. His only treat-
ment of the Cavite Mutiny, however, is a few paragraphs in his prologue
to a third edition of Rizal’s El Filibusterismo: Novela Filipina (Barcelona:
Henrich, 1908), pp. v-vi. Though the general tone of the prologue is anti-
friar, and though he points to the struggle of the three Filipino priests
against transferral of the parishes to the friars as the reason for their
execution, he says clearly that it was the government which took advan-
tage of the occasion of the mutiny to silence all liberal tendencies in the
Philippines. Given the strongly antifriar character of all of Retana’s writ-
ings in this period, this seems significant, since he would hardly have
missed the opportunity to say so if he had had any reliable evidence for
a role of the friars in the execution of the three priests.
48. For a biographical account and bibliography of Artigas, see DPB, 1:
68-79. He had earlier published much of the material of Los sucesos in the
review Renacimiento Filipino. His treatment of the events in his Historia
de Filipinas (Manila: “La Pildrica,” 1916) is identical with Los sucesos
except for a recasting of the material. His other relevant work, Las revo-
luciones filipinas (Manila: Imp. de “La Vanguardia,” 1913), gives a great
deal more of the background to the period 1869-72, but in spite of frequent
allusions to subjects to be treated later, never does so. This book had begun
as a serial publication in Artigas’s review Biblioteca Nacional Filipina
(1908-1911), but was apparently never completed when the review ceased
publication; hence, the book remained incomplete as well.
49. E.g., the letter of the archbishop (pp. 14-31), though marred by
errors in transcription, is substantially the same as the original, which is
found in AHN, and has been published in Schumacher and Cushner,
“Documents,” PS 17 (1969): 462-87; the letter to the friar provincials from
Izquierdo (pp. 174-93) can be found in APSR, “Com. oficiales,” tomo 611,
ff. 1-9 (copy given me by Fr. Jose Arcilla, SJ); the attestation of the reading
of the sentence to the condemned men (pp. 130-34) is likewise a defective
copy of the original in PNA, published by Schumacher and Cushner, PS 17
(1969): 522-29. Though Artigas’s copies are carelessly done, even omitting
words and phrases, at least those cited are from genuine documents.
50. As head of the Filipiniana division and later acting director of the
National Library, Artigas apparently was able to borrow documents from
the archives, since slips of paper authorizing him and others in the prewar
period to do such borrowing are still to be found in certain bundles in PNA.
No doubt this practice accounts for the fact that some of these documents
can no longer be found.
 Notes to Essay 6 229

51. Artigas, Los sucesos, p. 197. Italics mine.

52. Artigas, Los sucesos, pp. 240-41. Italics mine. This version, in the
form in which it is stated, appears to be taken from La masoneria en
Filipinas rather than from Regidor’s article in Filipinas ante Europa, though
the two accounts, in spite of their differences, are not totally incompatible.
53. Like the Jesuit copy, Artigas uses the name Arceo instead of Arco.
Very likely Artigas too used the copy possessed by Felipe Calderon.
54. Artigas, Los sucesos, p. 240, n. 1.
55. DPB, 1: 73; i.e., one who gathers all kinds of ideas indiscriminately.
56. According to the note from the Spanish government made public by
Foreign Secretary Carlos P. Romulo on 22 August 1972, despite extensive
search in the military archives the Spanish government has been unable
to locate the documents and concludes that they may have been lost in the
Spanish civil war of 1936-39. See “Gomburza Papers” in The Philippines
Herald, 24 August 1972. Reliable sources in Spain, however, continue to
assert that the documents are in the Archivo General Militar in Segovia.
57. Both accounts are dated 5 January 1897. The concession that the
impostor might have been a Recoleto rather than a Franciscan is made in
a note at the end of the entire “confession,” subsequent to the narrative of
alleged events of the succeeding years. It is evidently an afterthought on
someone’s part.
58. Taylor, Philippine Insurrection, 1: 291. The document is dated 29
January 1897.
59. Regidor, Filipinas ante Europa, p. 76.
60. It appears that Fr. Juan Gémez was not even prior of the Recoleto
convento of Cavite in this period, as Regidor alleges. According to Sadaba,
Catdlogo, pp. 492-93, he was sub-prior in Manila and master of novices in
1870 and became secretary of the Recoleto Province in 1871, hence likewise
in Manila. It was he, according to Montero y Vidal, who assisted Fr. Mariano
Gomez at his execution, and the following month he took the latter’s place
as parish priest of Bacoor.
61. He does, on the other hand, note the contradiction between Regidor’s
version of the role of the friars and the letter from Izquierdo to the friar
provincials he had reproduced from official sources in the preceding chap-
ter (Los sucesos, p. 202). Rather unconvincingly, he explains it away by
attributing it to the letter being the product of a later, unexplained, moment
of frankness.

Notes to Essay 6, “The Noli Me Tdangere as Catalyst of

Revolution,” pp. 91-101
Revised version of a paper first published in The Noli Me Tangere a
Century After: An Interdisciplinary Perspective, ed. Soledad S. Reyes (Quezon
City: Phoenix Publishing House,1987), pp. 97-107; published here with
permission.
1. Amado Guerrero [pseud.], Philippine Society and Revolution (Manila:
Pulang Tala Publications, 1971), p. 26.
2. Renato Constantino, The Philippines: A Past Revisited (Quezon City:
Tala Publishing Services, 1975), pp. 152, 171.
230 Notes to Essay 7

3. W. Cameron Forbes, The Philippine Islands, 2 vols. (Boston: Houghton

Mifflin, 1928), 1: 53, n. 1.
4. Leon Ma. Guerrero, The First Filipino (Manila: National Heroes
Commission, 1963), p. 115.
5. Ep. Riz., 1: 122-23.
6. Ibid., 5: 291-92.
7. John N. Schumacher, SJ, The Propaganda Movement 1880-1895
(Manila: Solidaridad Publishing House, 1973), pp. 79-80.
&. Ep. Riz., 5: 64. Italics mine.
9. Ibid., 5: 75.
10. Schumacher, Propaganda Movement, p. 80, n. 8.
11. Ep. Riz., 1: 222.
12. Antonio de Morga, Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas, por el Dr. .. . Obra
publicada en Méjico el afio de 1609, nuevamente sacada a luz y anotada
por José Rizal y precedida de un prélogo del Prof. Fernando Blumentritt
(Paris: Garnier, 1890), p. v.
13. Ibid.
14. Wenceslao E. Retana, Vida y escritos del Dr. José Rizal (Madrid:
Victoriano Suarez, 1907), pp. 123-24.
15. Guerrero, First Filipino, p. 140.
16. Rizal, The Subversive (El Filibusterismo), trans. Leon Ma. Guerrero
(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1962), p. 295.
17. Ibid.
18. Ibid., p. 297.
19. Ibid.
20. Ep. Pil., 1: 246.
21. Schumacher, Propaganda Movement, p. 248.
22. Ep. Riz., 2: 209.
23. Ibid., 3: 250. The date of October 1891, conjectured by the editors,
is incorrect.
24. Schumacher, Propaganda Movement, pp. 250-51.
25. Ibid., p. 257.
26. Guerrero, First Filipino, pp. 422-26.
27. Ibid., pp. 426-27.

Notes to Essay 7, “The Propagandists’ Reconstruction of

the Philippine Past,” pp. 102-18

Revised version of a paper first published in Perceptions of the Past in

Southeast Asia, ed. Anthony Reid and David Marr (Singapore: Heinemann
Educational Books [Asia] Ltd., 1979), pp. 264-80; published here with
permission.
1. Pedro Chirino, Relacion de las Islas Filipinas i de lo que en ellas an
trabajado los Padres de la Compania de Iesus (Roma: Estevan Paulino,
1604); Marcelo de Ribadeneyra, Historia de las Islas del Archipielago, y
Reynos de la Gran China, Tartaria, Cuchinchina, Malaca, Sian, Camboxa
y Iappon, y de lo sucedido en ellos a los Religiosos Descalcos de la Orden
del Seraphico Padre San Francisco, de la Provincia de San Gregorio de las
Philippinas (Barcelona: Gabriel Graells y Giraldo Dotil, 1601).
2. [Casimiro Herrero, OSA], Filipinas ante la razén del indio, obra
 Notes to Essay 7 231

compuesta por el indigena Capitén Juan para utilidad de sus paisanos y

publicada en castellano por el espariol P. Caro (Madrid: A. Gémez Fuen-
tenebro, 1874), p. 277.
3. For the condescending view, see Francisco Foradada, SJ, La soberanta
de Espana en Filipinas (Barcelona: Henrich, 1897), pp. 191-201, 241-42.
A more odious work was that of Pablo Feced, Esbozos y pinceladas, por
Quioquiap (Manila: Ram{rez, 1898), and his newspaper articles, cited in
John N. Schumacher, SJ, The Propaganda Movement, 1880-1895 (Manila:
Solidaridad Publishing House, 1973), p. 56.
4. For the Propaganda Movement in general and the historical context
in which it arose, see my book cited in the preceding note.
5. The extant works of Burgos, together with a brief account of the
movement of the clergy, may be found in John N. Schumacher, SJ, Father
José Burgos: Priest and Nationalist (Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila
University Press, 1972). For his appeal to history, see esp. pp. 72-77.
6. Ep. Riz., 2: 116, 119, 149, 154; 3: 136-37.
7. W. E. Retana, Aparato bibliogrdfico de la historia general de Filipinas
(Madrid: Minuesa de los Rios, 1906), vol. 3, no. 2710 .
8. See Juan José Delgado, Historia general sacro-profana, politica y
natural de las Islas del Poniente llamadas Filipinas (Manila: El Eco de
Filipinas, 1892), pp. v, 961-1009.
9. Las Islas Visayas en le época de la conquista (Iloilo: Imprenta de E]
Eco de Panay, 1887); El Folk-lore Filipino (Manila: Imprenta de Santa
Cruz, 1889); Historia de Filipinas, vol. I: Prehistoria de Filipinas (Manila:
Balbas, 1889); Historia de Ilocos (Manila: La Opinién, 1890).
10. Retana, Aparato, 3, no. 2528.
11. Ibid., nos. 2788, 2789; T. H. Pardo de Tavera, Biblioteca Filipina
(Washington: Government Printing Office, 1903), nos. 2370-78.
12. La antigua civilizacién tagalog (Madrid: Hernandez, 1887); Los itas
(Madrid: Cuesta, 1890); El Barangay (Madrid: Cuesta, 1892); El Cristian-
ismo en la antigua civilizacién Tagdlog (Madrid: Imprenta Moderna, 1892);
La familia tagdlog en la historia universal (Madrid: Cuesta, 1892).
13. Pardo de Tavera, Biblioteca Filipina, no. 1940; see also nos. 1938,
1941-43. Also Rizal in Ep. Riz. 5: 105; and another Filipino, Evaristo
Aguirre, Ep. Riz., 1: 280.
14. Schumacher, Propaganda Movement, p. 207.
15. Ep. Riz., 5: 117; also pp. 30, 55.
16. Ibid., p. 112.
17. Ibid., p. 110.
18. Ibid., p. 111.
19. Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas, por el Doctor Antonio de Morga. Obra
publicada en Méjico el afio de 1609, nuevamente sacada a luz y anotada
por José Rizal y precedida de un prélogo del Prof. Fernando Blumentritt
(Paris: Garnier, 1890).
20. Ibid., pp. v—-vi. See essay 6 in this volume.
21. Ibid., p. 191, n. 2.
22. Ibid., p. 23, n. 1; p. 27, n. 4.
23. Ibid., p. 23, n. 3.
24. Ibid., pp. 229, 281-82, 284, 289.
25. Ibid., p. 337, n. 2.
26. Ibid., pp. 232-34, 289.
232 Notes to Essay 7

27. Ibid., p. xxxii, n. 4.

28. Ibid., pp. 298-99, 301.
29. Ibid., p. 295.
30. Ibid., p. 263, 308, 309.
31. Ibid., pp. 303-4, 305-6.
32s Tbid:;:ps-12,.n1s
33. Ibid., p. 57, n. 3.
34: Ibid:; p. 19, n.:1.
35. Ibid., p. 259, n. 2.
36. Ibid., p. 41, n. 3.
37. Ibid., pp. 299-300, n. 3.
38. Ibid., p. xxxiii, n. 3.
39. Ibid., p. xxxii, n. 1.
40. Ibid., p. 304, n. 4.
41. On contractual theory in the thought of the Filipino nationalists, see
Schumacher, Propaganda Movement, pp. 206-7.
42. Ep. Riz., 2: 118.
43. Antonio de Morga, Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas, por el Dr. .. . Obra
publicada en Méjico el afio de 1609, nuevamente sacada a luz y anotada
por José Rizal y precedida de un prélogo del Prof. Fernando Blumentritt
(Paris: Garnier, 1890).
44. Ibid., p. 259, n. 1.
45. Ibid., p. 331-32, n. 1.
46. Cited in Leon Ma. Guerrero, The First Filipino (Manila: National
Heroes Commission, 1963), pp. 204-5.
47. Rizal-Morga, Sucesos, p. 263, n. 1.
48. Ibid., p. 66, n. 1.
49. Ibid., p. 151, n. 3.
50. Ibid., pp. 142-43, n. 2.
51. Ibid., p. 71, n. 3.
52. Published in La Solidaridad 1 (1889): 96-99. The essay is continued
through several succeeding issues.
53. Published in La Solidaridad 2 (1890): 158-60, 167-70, 178-80,
190-95, 202-5.
54. Especially Teodoro A. Agoncillo, The Revolt of the Masses (Quezon
City: University of the Philippines, 1956), and subsequently in his other
books and essays; Renato Constantino, The Philippines: A Past Revisited
(Quezon City: Tala Publishing Services, 1975), and numerous other essays.
55. Agapito Bagumbayan [pseud.], “Ang dapat mabatid ng mga Taga-
log,” in The Writings and Trial of Andres Bonifacio, ed. T.A. Agoncillo
(Manila, 1963), pp. 68-69. The quoted passage is from p. 68; translation
mine.
56. Ibid.
57. See Schumacher, Propaganda Movement, pp. 207-8.
58. R. C. Ileto, “Tagalog Poetry and the Image of the Past During the
War Against Spain,” in Perceptions of the Past in Southeast Asia, ed.
Anthony Reid and David Marr (Singapore: Heinemann, 1979), pp. 379-400.
59. See my The Revolutionary Clergy: The Filipino Clergy and the
Nationalist Movement, 1850-1903 (Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila Univer-
sity Press, 1981), also the discussion in essay 13 in this volume.
60. Telesforo Canseco, “Historia de la insurreccién en Cavite,” APSR,
 Notes to Essay 8 233

Historia Civil de Filipinas, tomo 7, pp. 56, 62-63, and passim. For some
indications of the religious sanctions placed on the debt of gratitude alleged
to be owed by Filipinos to Spain, see the work of Fr. Casimiro Herrero,
cited in n. 2, and that of Foradada, cited in n. 3, only two among a multitude
of such works in the late nineteenth century.

Notes to Essay 8, “The Propaganda Movement, Literature,

and the Arts,” pp. 119-25
Revised version of an article first published in Solidarity 9 (March-April
1975): 17-21; published here with permission.
1. He offered to send his collected works of Herder to Blumentritt in
1890 (Ep. Riz., 5: 560).
2. John N. Schumacher, SJ, The Propaganda Movement, 1880-1895
(Manila: Solidaridad Publishing House, 1973), p. 22.
3. Among the politicians active at the time of the Propaganda Movement
who were known as writers and. historians, some of whom were members
of the Reales Academias de la Lengua or de la Historia, were Antonio
Canovas del Castillo, Emilio Castelar, Miguel Morayta, Wenceslao E. Retana,
and Vicente Barrantes, to name only a few who either helped or attacked
the Filipino Propagandists.
4. The celebration and its impact are described in Schumacher, Propa-
ganda Movement, pp. 44-47.
5. Graciano Lopez Jaena, Discursos y articulos varios, ed. Jaime C. de
Veyra (Manila: Bureau of Printing, 1951), pp. 30-35.
6. Los Dos Mundos, Madrid, 8 July 1884, pp. 5-6; Wenceslao E. Retana,
Vida y escritos del Dr. José Rizal (Madrid: Victoriano Suarez, 1907), pp.
93-99.
7. Schumacher, Propaganda Movement, p. 49; Leon Ma. Guerrero, The
First Filipino (Manila: National Heroes Commission, 1963), pp. 107-8,
128-29.
8. Retana, Vida, p. 73; Guerrero, First Filipino, pp. 119-21.
9. Ep. Riz., 5: 291-92.
10. Retana, Vida, p. 170 and plate 4, gives Blumentritt’s description and
reproduces one of the sculptures.
11. Text in Retana, Vida, pp. 125-26, in French. This is a draft, con-
tained in Rizal’s notebook, “Clinica médica,” of a letter to an unnamed
friend, probably Felix Resurreccion Hidalgo. See Schumacher, Propaganda
Movement, p. 75, n. 2.
12. Schumacher, Propaganda Movement, pp. 65-71.
13. Impresiones, por Taga-Ilog [Antonio Luna] (Madrid: Imprenta de E]
Progreso Tipografico, 1891), preface. This is a collection of the majority of
the articles that had appeared in La Solidaridad under Luna’s pseudonym.
14. Ep. Riz., 3: 180.
15. See his biography and an account of his principal paintings in DPB,
1: 372-83.
16. Ibid., 2: 252-53.
17. Ep. Riz., 5: 421.
18. Ibid., 3: 214, 232; DPB, 2: 249.
19. Schumacher, Propaganda Movement, pp. 206-7.
20. DPB, 2: 245-46.
234 Notes to Essay 9

Notes to Essay 9, “Economic Factors in the Revolution,”

pp. 126-33

Revised version of a paper delivered at the Sixth National Conference

on Local-National History, Manila, 11-14 December 1984.
1. E.g., Teodoro A. Agoncillo and Milagros C. Guerrero, History of the
Filipino People (Quezon City: R. P. Garcia, 1971), pp. 127-29; Renato
Constantino, The Philippines:APast Revisited (Quezon City: Tala Publish-
ing Services, 1975), pp. 138—40.
2. John N. Schumacher, SJ, The Propaganda Movement, 1880-1895
(Manila: Solidaridad Publishing House, 1973), pp. 28-29, 62-72.
3. Ibid., pp. 73, 115-19.
4. Ep. Riz., 1: 232; Wenceslao E. Retana, Vida y escritos del Dr. José
Rizal (Madrid: Victoriano Suarez, 1907), p. 229, n. 259; p. 228, n. 256;
Schumacher, Propaganda Movement, p. 219, n. 70.
5. Ep. Riz., 3: 200-201.
6. Retana, Vida, pp. 200-201; Leon Ma. Guerrero, The First Filipino
(Manila: National Heroes Commission, 1963), p. 209.
7. Ep. Riz., 3: 281-82, 296; Schumacher, Propaganda Movement, p. 24,
n. 40; Schumacher, “Due Process and the Rule of Law,” PS 25 (1977):
242-43.
8. Schumacher, Propaganda Movement, p. 264.
9. Ibid., pp. 113, 138-39.
10. Ibid., p. 136.
11. Ibid., pp. 256-57, 263.
12. Ibid., p. 128; 256-57.
13. Edilberto de Lepore] [Eduardo de Lete], “Los sucesos de Kalamba,”
La Solidaridad 4 (31 January 1892): 615-20; Apolinario Mabini, Las cartas
politicas de Apolinario Mabini, ed. Teodoro M. Kalaw (Manila, 1930),
pp. 24, 26, 33; Schumacher, Propaganda Movement, pp. 181-82.
14. Schumacher, Propaganda Movement, pp. 184-85.
15. Ep. Pil., 2: 162.
16. Schumacher, Propaganda Movement, pp. 262-63.
17. Ma. Fe Hernaez Romero, Negros Occidental Between Two Powers
([Bacolod]: Negros Occidental Historical Commission, 1974); Caridad Alde-
coa-Rodriguez, Negros Oriental and the Philippine Revolution (Dumaguete:
Provincial Government of Negros Oriental, 1983); Angel Martinez Cuesta,
OAR, History of Negros, trans. Alfonso Felix Jr. and Caritas Sevilla (Manila:
Historical Conservation Society and the Recoleto Fathers, 1980).
18. Fast and Richardson, in their treatment of the Revolution in Negros,
following the American John R. M. Taylor, include all the Filipino land-
owning class with the Negros hacenderos, but give no evidence for their
position (Jonathan Fast and Jim Richardson, Roots of Dependency: Politi-
cal and Economic Revolution in 19th Century Philippines [Quezon City:
Foundation for Nationalist Studies, 1979], pp. 103-12).
19. For the continuity of thought from Burgos to Bonifacio and Jacinto,
see essay 7 in this volume. For the clergy’s role, see John N. Schumacher,
SJ, The Revolutionary Clergy: The Filipino Clergy and the Nationalist
Movement, 1850-1903 (Q. C.: Ateneo de Manila Press, 1981), passim, but
especially for Panay under General Delgado, pp. 176-92.
 Notes to Essay 10 235

20. Garel A. Grunder and William E. Livezey, The Philippines and the
United States (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1951), p. 130.
21. The other lands were the haciendas of Lian in Batangas and of San
Pedro Tunasan in Laguna, both belonging to the Colegio de San Jose; that
of Dinalupihan in Bataan, belonging to the archdiocese of Manila; that of
Buenavista in Bulacan, belonging to the Hospital of San Juan de Dios. All
these haciendas are studied in Michael Joseph Connolly, “The Church
Lands and Peasant Unrest: A Study of Agrarian Conflict in 20th Century
Luzon” (Ph.D. diss. in politics, Monash University, Melbourne, 1986).
22. John Foreman, The Philippine Islands, 2d ed. (New York: Charles
Scribner’s Son, 1899), p. 307.
23. Marshall S. McLennan, “Changing Human Ecology on the Central
Luzon Plain: Nueva Ecija, 1705-1939,” in Philippine Social History: Global
Trade and Local Transformations, ed. Alfred W. McCoy and Ed. C. de
Jesus (Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press, 1982), pp. 63-77.
24. Apolinario Mabini, La Revolucién Filipina (con otros documentos de
la época) 2 vols. (Manila: Bureau of Printing, 1931) 2: 146-47.
25. Thus Dennis Morrow Roth begins his book, The Friar Estates of the
Philippines (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1977), with a
chapter on the Calamba hacienda, but nowhere shows its connection with
the rest of the book.
26. Ibid., pp. 16-17.
27. Schumacher, Propaganda Movement, pp. 222-24.
28. ibid., p. 222.
29. U.S. Congress, House, 61 Cong., 3 sess., House Report 2289, Inves-
tigation of the Administration of Philippine Lands, 1: 82; quoted in Jose N.
Endriga, “The Friar Lands Settlement: Promise and Performance,” Philip-
pine Journal of Public Administration 14 (1970): 412.
30. Endriga, “Friar Lands,” p. 410.

Notes to Essay 10, “Wenceslao E. Retana in Philippine

History,” pp. 134-55

Revised version of a paper delivered at the Silver Anniversary History

Symposium of the Philippine National Historical Society, Manila, 6-7 August
1966.
1. For biographical studies of Retana see: “Retana y Gamboa (Wenceslao
Emilio),” Espasa 50, 1378-79; Vicente Castafieda, “Noticias,” Boletin de la
Real Academia de la Historia LXXXIV (1924), 374-76; Manuel Artigas y
Cuerva, ;Quién es Retana? Su antafio y hogan (Manila: J. Fajardo, 1911);
and Epifanio de los Santos Cristobal, Wenceslao E. Retana: ensayo critico
acerca de este ilustre filipinista (Madrid: Fortanet, 1909). The Espasa
encyclopedia article is a eulogy, perhaps written by Retana himself, who
was one of the collaborators of the encyclopedia; Castafieda’s article is an
obituary; Artigas’s book, which originally appeared as a series of articles
in 1908-1909 in the review Biblioteca Nacional Filipina, is hostile, but
generally well informed; and the book of De los Santos, who was a close
friend of Retana, is extremely laudatory and uncritical.
236 Notes to Essay 10

2. Espasa, p. 1378; Castafieda, “Noticias,” p. 374; Artigas, éQuién es

Retana?, p. 2.
3. Espasa, p. 1378; Artigas ;Quién es Retana?, p. 18; De los Santos,
Wenceslao E. Retana, p. 29.
4. Ibid.; see also Retana’s book, Filipinas: cosas de alla (pdginas liter-
arias) (Madrid: Minuesa, 1893), p. v.
5. Manila, 1888; later reprinted together with three other essays of the
period in the book mentioned in n. 4. In this latter edition, published five
years later, there are many depreciatory remarks on the Philippines and
the Filipinos.
6. El indio batanguefo: estudio etnogrdfico, tercera edicién (Manila:
Chofre, 1888). The first two editions were not in book form but in the
Manila newspapers La Espafia Oriental and La Oceania Espajiola.
7. For Filipino reaction to Retana, see e.g., the letter of Laong Laan
[Rizal] to Mariano Ponce, 9 November 1888, Ep. Riz., 2: 74. Feced’s articles
were later largely reprinted in the book Esbozos y pinceladas (Manila:
Ramfrez, 1888).
8. Espasa, p. 1378; Artigas, ;Quién es Retana?, p. 25.
9. Folletos filipinos: I. Frailes y clérigos (Madrid: Minuesa, 1890). A
second edition appeared in 1891. The other pamphlets, all published
simultaneously, were: II. Apuntes para la historia (aniterias y solidari-
dades); III. Sinapismos (Bromistas y critiquillas); and IV. Reformas y otros
excesos.
10. Retana, Reformas y otros excesos, p. 7.
11. La Politica de Espana en Filipinas. Quincenario defensor de los
intereses espanioles en las colonias del extremo Oriente. The first number
appeared in January 1891.
12. I have demonstrated this in some detail in my The Propaganda
Movement, 1880-1895 (Manila: Solidaridad Publishing House, 1973), pp.
254-63, 270-71.
13. Madrid: Minuesa, 1892.
14. Mando del general Weyler en Filipinas (Madrid: Minuesa, 1896).
15. Joaquin Martinez de Zuniga, OSA, Estadismo de las islas Filipinas,
6 mis viajes por este pais, publica esta obra por primera vez extensamente
anotada W.E. Retana (Madrid: Minuesa, 1893). Though, as Artigas notes
(;Quién es Retana?, p. 29, n. 1), Fr. Pedro Pelaez had earlier begun to
publish the manuscript in the newspaper El Catélico Filipino, the publi-
cation was apparently never completed. Retana, in recognition of the
erudition shown in his edition of Martinez de Zuniga, was named corre-
sponding member of the Real Academia de la Historia of Madrid (Cas-
tafieda, “Noticias,” p. 375).
16. In a review in the German geographical journal Globus, as trans-
lated in La Politica 4 (3 July 1894): 187-88.
17. Francisco Combés, SJ, Historia de Mindanao y Jolé. Obra publicada
en Madrid en 1667, y que ahora con la colaboracién del P. Pablo Pastells
de la misma Compafifa saca nuevamente a luz W.E. Retana (Madrid:
Minuesa, 1897).
18. The correspondence of Fr. Pablo Pastells avith his superiors, pre-
served in APTSJ, discusses the propositions apparently made by Retana,
while Pastells asks advice on whether to trust him.
19. Combés-Retana, Historia, pp. cxlii—cxliii.
 Notes to Essay 10 237

20. Archivo del bibliéfilo filipino, recopilacién de documentos histéricos,

cientificos, literarios y politicos y estudios bibliograficos por W.E. Retana;
5 vols. (Madrid: Minuesa, 1895-1898; Suarez, 1905). The fifth volume
appeared after a lapse of seven years from the fourth. Promised succeeding
volumes never were published.
21. Ibid., 52 xvi.
22. Ibid., pp. 478-84.
23. Paul Cid Noé [Francisco Vindel], ed., Pedro Vindel. Historia de una
libreria (1865-1921) (Madrid, 1945), p. 115.
24. Beginning in 2: 26 (2 February 1892). Later published in book form
ae de la biblioteca filipina de W.E. Retana (Madrid: Minuesa,
i :
25. “Bibliografia de las islas Filipinas,” Martinez de Zuniga, Estadismo,
vol, 2, apéndice B, pp. 93-352.
26. “Epitome de la bibliograffa general de Filipinas. Parte primera:
Obras que posee el autor,” Archivo, 1: 381-465; 2: 455-510; 3: 499-546; 4:
447-544. See also ibid., 1: xxxvii-xxxviii.
27. Catdlogo abreviado de la biblioteca filipina de W.E. Retana (Madrid:
Minuesa, 1898).
28. Bibliografia de Mindanao (Epitome) (Madrid: Minuesa, 1894).
29. “Inventario oficial de las obras que se hallaban a la venta en la
porteria del Colegio de San Ignacio de Manila al tiempo que los padres
Jesuitas fueron proscriptos del Archipiélago,” La Politica 6 (1896), nos.
129-37. Later reprinted in the work cited in n. 32, cols. 55-76.
30. De los Santos, Wenceslao E. Retana, p. 15.
31. J. T. Medina, La Imprenta en Manila desde sus origenes hasta 1810
(Santiago de Chile, 1896).
32. La imprenta en Filipinas, 1593-1810. Adiciones y observaciones a
“La Imprenta en Manila” de D.J.T. Medina (Madrid: Minuesa, 1899). Medina
himself later came out with a further edition, incorporating many, though
not all, of Retana’s contributions: La Imprenta en Manila desde sus origenes
hasta 1810. Adiciones y ampliaciones por J.T. Medina (Santiago de Chile,
1904).
33. Aparato bibliogrdfico de la historia general de Filipinas, deducido de
la coleccién que posee en Barcelona la Compafifa General de Tabacos de
dichas Islas (Madrid: Minuesa, 1906).
34. El periodismo filipino (1811-1894) (Madrid: Minuesa, 1895).
35. Tablas cronoldgica y alfabética de imprentas e impresores de Filipi-
nas (1593-1898) (Madrid: Victoriano Suarez, 1908).
36. See notes 31 and 32.
37. Angel Pérez, OSA, and Cecilio Giiemes, OSA, Adiciones y continua-
cién de “La imprenta en Manila” de d. J.T. Medina (Manila: Santos y
Bernal, 1904).
38. Origenes de la imprenta filipina: investigaciones histéricas, bibli-
ogrdaficas y tipogrdficas (Madrid: Suarez, 1911).
39. See below for a discussion of the origins and value of this work.
40. Artigas, gQuién es Retana?, p. 25. Retana’s writings contain many
references to obtaining various favors through friends in the Ministerio de
Ultramar.
41. Julio Cejador y Frauca, Historia de la lengua y literatura castellana
(Madrid, 1919) 10: 131. In his letters to Father Pastells in 1896, Retana
238 Notes to Essay 10

tells of the Conservative party giving him the seat in the Cortes. According
to James A. Robertson, in 1902 he was also governor of the Spanish Province
of Teruel (BR, 53: 81).
42. For a sketch of the system as it existed throughout the latter part
of the nineteenth century, see Harold Livermore, A History of Spain, 3d ed.
(New York: Grove Press, 1960), pp. 396-97.
43. E.g., “Lo de Calamba,” La Politica 2 (2 February 1892); also La
Politica 1 (23 June 1891): 113 and 120; “Carta interesante,” La Politica 2
(10 May 1892): 127.
44. The notes in Retana’s own handwriting may be found in a bound MS
volume in the Navarro Collection in the library of the Augustinian College
in Valladolid, Spain (no. 25.432). The notes were taken from the documents
of the original proceedings, and the volume has at the end a note from
Retana: “D.J. Rodriguez Costas, . . . fué quien me presté todas las
piezas.”
45. As court-martial records these are presumably in the Archivo General
Militar in Segovia. But at least in 1963, it was not even possible to find
out whether or not they were actually there, much less to consult them.
46. The book of Father Fernandez Arias, Paralelo entre la conquista y
dominacién de América y el descubrimiento y pacificacién de Filipinas
(Madrid: Minuesa, 1893) was published by Retana in La Politica, and later
in book form at the latter’s expense. See also Artigas, ;Quién es Retana?,
joe Ae
Father Font was active in working to weaken the antifriar campaign of
the Filipinos in Madrid and Barcelona. Marcelo del Pilar believed him to
be the one sponsoring La Politica (see the letter of Marcelo to Tsanay [his
wife] in Ep. Pil., 2: 131, 14 April 1892). In any case, Retana was certainly
in frequent contact with him, as appears in the columns of La Politica.
Father Navarro, who succeeded Father Font as procurator of the
Augustinians in Madrid, seems to have maintained the same close rela-
tions with Retana, to judge from the columns of La Politica. In 1897, when
Father Navarro published his reactionary book on the Revolution of 1896,
Filipinas: Estudios de algunos asuntos de actualidad (Madrid: Minuesa,
1897), Retana reprinted large sections of it in La Politica.
47. See La Politica, passim; also the Aparato.
48. E.g., Ep. Pil., 1: 33, 67, 69, 222, 229, 266, 271; 2: 142, 161.
49. See his letters, especially to his wife Tsanay, in Ep. Pil., 2: 125, 127,
128, 137, 139-40.
50. Ibid., 1: 108; the letters in Retana, Archivo, 3: 67-100; Apolinario
Mabini, Las cartas politicas de Apolinario Mabini, ed. Teodoro M. Kalaw
(Manila, 1930), pp. 10, 24, 26, 28.
51. See the “nuimero-prospecto” of La Politica, and for La Solidaridad,
see Artigas, “Los periddicos filipinos,” Biblioteca Nacional Filipina 4 (May
1911): 222.
52. Artigas, ;Quién es Retana?, p. 24.
53. Ibid., p. 27.
54. Ibid., pp. 35-36, citing an article of Father Giiemes in the Manila
newspaper El Comercio.
55. Letter of 26 April 1904, in the Robertson Collection, Duke University
Library (Durham, North Carolina), X-F, Letters, 1902-1904.
 Notes to Essay 10 239

56. Mabini, Cartas, letters of 27 May, 19 August 1895, pp. 40-42.

57. “Crénica,” La Solidaridad 7 (15 November 1895): 192.
58. “Al lector,” La Politica 6 (15 January 1896): 3.
59. Ibid.
60. See his article “Desde Sevilla,” La Polttica 5 (18 June 1895): 158-60.
61. E.g., Buenaventura Campa, OP, “Etnografia filipina. Los Mayoyaos
y la raza Ifugao,” which Retana published in La Politica beginning in June
1894, nos. 88-104. In 1897 he republished Blumentritt’s Diccionario
etnografico de Filipinas, beginning with 7 (15 April 1897); and later the
articles of Father Pastells referred to below.
62. “Un separatista filipino, José Rizal,” La Politica 6 (30 September
1896): 335-38.
63. E.g., “Antonio Luna Novicio,” La Politica 6 (15 November 1896):
434-35; “E] Catipunan,” La Politica 6 (31 October 1896): 406-7.
64. Letter of Blumentritt to A. B. Meyer, 17 June 1897, in Blumentritt-
Meyer correspondence, MSS Division, Library of Congress, Washington,
D.C. Romero Robledo seems to have been particularly concerned about the
execution of Francisco Roxas, with whom he had political and business
relations.
65. Ibid. Retana, who generally reported in detail every speech he made
in the Cortes, makes no mention of this occasion in his newspaper.
66. Blumentritt’s Diccionario etnogrdfico (see note 61 above) was re-
printed.
67. See, for example, the articles entitled “Rifirrafe,” appearing in most
numbers, such as 1 (17 March 1891): 33; also José Feced, “La isla de
Mindanao y los misioneros,” 1 (12 July 1891): 136-38.
68. There is an extensive series of letters between Retana and Pastells,
not only about their joint work on the edition of Combés but also on other
matters, in APTSJ.
69. This is the main theme of the anonymous pamphlet Filipinerias: A
proposito de un folleto (Iloilo, 1913), which was written against the lauda-
tory pamphlet of Epifanio de los Santos Cristobal, Wenceslao E. Retana,
referred to in n. 1. The same accusation is made at considerable length in
Artigas, jQuién es Retana?, and in the correspondence of James A. LeRoy,
found in the Robertson Collection of the Duke University Library.
70. Los frailes filipinos, por un espanol que ha residido en aquel pafs
(Madrid: Minuesa, 1898).
71. La tristeza errante (Madrid: Fernando Fe, 1903). According to Cejador
(Historia 10: 136), there were further editions in 1916 and 1918.
72. Letter of Zulueta to LeRoy from London, 26 April 1904, in Robertson
Collection, Duke University Library, X-F, Letters, 1902-1906.
73. Letter of LeRoy to Fernando Ma. Guerrero, Director de El
Renacimiento, 23 March 1905, from Durango, Mexico. Copy in Robertson
Collection, ibid.
74. See the copy of a letter of LeRoy to Trinidad H. Pardo de Tavera,
apparently of 1906, ibid. Zulueta himself in a letter of 20 September 1902
(ibid.) had spoken of Retana as “consummate Filipinologist and well-known
antifilipino.” Epifanio de los Santos attempts to make this necrological
article of Retana’s the beginning of his articles of “purified Filipinism.”
75. In APTSJ, E—I—~-7.
240 Notes to Essay 10

76. See e.g., pp. 149, 150, 153, 456 ff.

77. “Vida y escritos del Dr. José Rizal,” Nuestro Tiempo 4-IV-372, and
succeeding numbers up to 6-III-502.
78. See the letter of LeRoy to De los Santos, Durango 2 May 1906,
Robertson Collection, ibid.; also that to Pardo de Tavera cited in n. 74
above.
79. See De los Santos’s “Marcelo H. del Pilar,” originally published in
the Malolos newspaper Plidridel, and then in the Philippine Review in
altered form, 3 (1918): 775-803, 861-85, 947-75).
80 See n. 33 above.
81. For a demonstration of this, one has only to glance at such a modern
bibliography as Streit and Dindinger’s Biblioteca Missionum, e.g., vol. 9, on
mission history of the Philippines from 1800 to 1909, where Retana is the
most frequent source cited.
82. Catalogo sistemdtico e ilustrado de la Biblioteca Filipina reunida y
puesta en venta por P. Vindel, 3 vols. (Madrid: 1904-1905).
83. Retana, Archivo, 5: 478-84.
84. Vida y escritos del Dr. José Rizal (Madrid: Suarez, 1907).
85. Antonio de Morga, Sucesos de las islas Filipinas, nueva edicién,
enriquecida con los escritos inéditos del mismo autor, ilustrada con
numerosas notas que amplian el texto y prologada extensamente, por W.E.
Retana (Madrid: Suarez, 1909).
86. An earlier edition had been published by Rizal in 1891. However,
due to confiscations by the Spanish authorities, this edition almost imme-
diately became quite rare. Moreover, the annotations by Retana are con-
siderably more extensive, and the large number of unpublished documents
he added make his the more useful edition today for historians.
87. E.g., “La Iglesia Filipina Independiente,” Por Esos Mundos (Madrid:
April 1908); “Espafia y los Estados Unidos,” Nuestro Tiempo 4 (1904): 307
ff.; “El régimen colonial de Espafia en Filipinas,” Nuestro Tiempo 7 (1907):
34 ff.; “Revista de Filipinas,” 8 (1908): 171; 8 (1908): 165; 8 (1908): 16 ff.;
9 (1909): 5ff.; “De la evolucién de la literatura castellana en Filipinas: los
poetas,” ibid. (January 1909); and “Un nuevo cisma religioso: La Iglesia
Filipina Independiente,” La Esparia Moderna 242 (February 1909): 5—34.
Some of these were later published separately.
88. “La censura de la imprenta en Filipinas,” Nuestro Tiempo 7 (Novem-
ber 1907), published the following year separately by Suarez in Madrid; La
primera conjuracién was first published in Nuestro Tiempo in October
1908, later separately by Suarez; La Inquisicién (Madrid: Suarez, 1910);
Noticias histérico-bibliogrdficas (Madrid: Sudrez, 1910), originally appeared
in Nuestro Tiempo, vols. 26—32 (1909-1910).
89. Artigas, ;Quién es Retana?, p. 72. See also pp. 52-53 and 68-69 for
other examples of this nature.
90. El Renacimiento, 2 January 1909, cited by Artigas, ibid., p. 68.
91. Artigas, ;Quién es Retana?, p. 68.
92. In a letter to David Barrow, then director of the Bureau of Education
in Manila, cited by Artigas, ibid., p. 73.
93. Ibid., p. 72.
94. See n. 38 above.
95. The article is reproduced by Retana in the appendix to his book.
 Notes to Essay 10 241

96. See Epifanio de los Santos Cristobal, Informe acerca de una obra
sobre los origenes de la Imprenta Filipina (Madrid: Fortanet, 1911).
97. Besides the treatment in jQuién es Retana?, see Artigas’s pamphlet,
El Concurso del tercer centenario de la Imprenta (Manila: La Vanguardia,
1911). Prior to the contest’s conclusion Artigas had published a book of his
own on the subject, not submitting it to the contest: La primera Imprenta
en Filipinas (Manila: Germanfa, 1910); also printed in Biblioteca Nacional
Filipina (January 1910 to May 1911).
Among the Robertson papers in Duke University Library may be found
the minority opinion of Robertson (X-F, “Articles and notes, n. d., V”). The
draft of his protest over the way the decision was formulated, and the
irregularities connected with it may be found there also (X-F, “Articles and
notes, 1911”).
98. Retana, Origenes, Apéndice.
99. Artigas, ;Quién es Retana?, p. 89.
100. Espasa, p. 1378; Cid Noé, Pedro Vindel, p. 115.
101. “Qué queda en Filipinas de la nobleza espafiola que alli florecié?”
Nuestro Tiempo 19 (1919): 239 ff.; “El marquesado de Villamediana,” ibid.,
22 (1922): 32 ff.; “La parentela de Legazpi,” ibid., 23 (1923): 275 ff.; “La
raza de los antiguos prelados filipinos,” ibid., 23 (1923): 22 ff.; “Alteraciones
que han experimentado en Filipinas algunos apellidos espafioles,” ibid., 23
(1923): 147 ff.
102. Indice de personas nobles y otras de calidad que han estado en
Filipinas desde 1521 hasta 1898 (Madrid: Suarez, 1921). Indice biogrdfico
de los que asistieron al descubrimiento de Filipinas (Madrid: Sanz Calleja,
1921). The first of these works had previously appeared in the Boletin de
la Real Academia de la Historia, vols. 76—78 (1920-1921). The second
appeared in Raza Espariola 27 (1921): 9-88.
103. The dictionary was published in New York and Paris in 1921.
104. “E] Padre Vicente Alemany, SJ: Tercera parte de la vida del Gran
Tacafio,” 54 (April 1922): 417-558; “Noticia de dos escritores filipinos: Manuel
de Zumalde, Luis Rodriguez Varela,” 62 (1924): 377-439.
105. “Noticias,” Boletin de la Real Academia de la Historia 81 (1922):
415-16.
106: Castaneda, “Noticias,” p. 378.
107. There are a number of letters of Retana to Father Pérez in the
Archivo Franciscano Ibero-Oriental in Madrid. Fr. Antolfn Abad, OFM,
custodian of the archive in 1960, very kindly provided me with extracts
from a number of these letters of the years 1920-1922, in a communication
of 19 August 1960. These extracts clearly manifest Retana’s change of
heart and his turning back to his Catholic faith. See also the note in Robert
Streit, OMI, and Johannes Dindinger, OMI, Bibliotheca Missionum (Zen-
trale in Aachen: Verlag Franziskus Missionsverein, 1937), 9: 478, note to
nos. 1308-9.
See Francisco Mateos, SJ, “La Coleccién Pastells de documentos sobre
América y Filipinas,” Revista de Indias 27 (1947): 18 for Pastells. For
Bayle, the noted historian of the Spanish missionary enterprise in Amer-
ica, see n. 108 below.
108. In a letter from Father Bayle, printed in the Manila review Cultura
Social 12 (1924): 222. It was also published in papers in Madrid, according
242 Notes to Essay 11

to the letter of Bayle, and at the express wish of Retana was sent to the
Philippines.
109. A serious question must therefore be raised as to the reasons why
Epifanio de los Santos, who was well aware of all this, collaborated with
Retana in the period when the latter was engaged in rehabilitating himself
with Filipinos.

Notes to Essay 11, “Philippine Masonry to 1890,” pp. 156-67

Revised version of an article first published in Asian Studies 4 (1966):

328-41; published here with permission.
1. See Antonio Ballesteros y Beretta, Historia de Espana y su influencia
en la historia universal, 2d ed. (Barcelona: Salvat, 1943 ff.), 10: 183-84;
Gerald Brenan, Spanish Labyrinth, 2d ed. (Cambridge: University Press,
1950), 206-8. Books such as Eduardo Comin Colomer, La Masoneria en
Esparia (Apuntes para una interpretacién masénica de la historia patria)
(Madrid: Editora Nacional, 1944) and the annotated edition by Mauricio
Carlavilla of Miguel Morayta’s Masoneria espanola. Paginas de su historia
(Madrid: Nos, 1956), are almost paranoid in their monomania for finding
Masonry at every turn of Spanish history from the early nineteenth cen-
tury to the present. In the original edition of Morayta’s book, the latter
details the part of Masonry in Spanish history until 1868, likewise with
exaggeration, but favorably, of course, to Masonry.
2. Salvador de Madariaga, The Fall of the Spanish Empire (N.Y.:
Macmillan, 1948), pp. 254-62, 338-39; John Francis Bannon, SJ, and Peter
Masten Dunne, SJ, Latin America:A Historical Survey (Milwaukee: Bruce,
1947), pp. 406, 409.
3. Luis Martin y de Castro, La masoneria en la Isla de Cuba y los
Grandes Orientes de Espana (Guantanamo, 1890); Francisco J. Ponte
Dominguez, La masoneria en la independencia de Cuba (Habana, 1954).
4. The Jesuit correspondence preserved in APTSJ is full of references
to “la gente del mandil” [“those of the apron”], “la influencia del tridngulo”
(“the influence of the (Masonic) triangle”], etc. Some of this reappears in
the works of Fr. Pablo Pastells, SJ, La masonizacién de Filipinas: Rizal y
su obra (Barcelona: Tipografia Catélica, 1897) and Misién de la Compania
de Jests de Filipinas en el Siglo XIX, 3 vols. (Barcelona: Editorial Barce-
lonesa, 1916-17).
5. Comin Colomer, La masonerta, pp. 275, 284-88, 311, and passim;
Carlavilla, Masoneria espafiola, pp. 26, 298, and passim. The prototype of
these works was Mauricio, La gran traicién (Barcelona, 1899). Both Comin
and Carlavilla are violently antisemitic also.
6. Teodoro M. Kalaw, Philippine Masonry, trans. and ed. Frederic H.
Stevens and Antonio Amechazurra (Manila, 1956). In spite of some valu-
able information, the book is in the hagiographical tradition, and contains
considerable pious Masonic rhetoric together with its factual material.
7. Kalaw, Philippine Masonry, p. 221, n. 4.
8. The ADN is located in Salamanca. I was permitted to consult the
archive, at that time not yet open to general research, through the kind
permission and generous assistance of the director, Don Pedro Ulibarri.
9. Kalaw, Philippine Masonry, p. 1.
 Notes to Essay 11 243

10. Ibid., pp. 9-11. There is some inconsistency in the date given by
Kalaw here, and he appears to have used conflicting testimony from dif-
ferent sources. The principal source for this chapter in Kalaw, though he
only occasionally cites him, is Nicolas Diaz y Pérez, in the works cited in
n. 11. Kalaw also once cites Vital Fité, Las desdichas de la patria (Madrid,
1899), but this author’s treatment of Masonry is entirely taken from Diaz
y Pérez, though rarely crediting him, even when transcribing whole para-
graphs. Among the initiates of one of the foreign lodges was Jacobo Zébel
de Zangréniz, whom Kalaw (p. 10) notes as “the first Filipino Mason ini-
tiated in the islands.” Zébel, however, was the son of a German father and
a Spanish mother, and though born in the Philippines, had been educated
in Germany. As a German by culture, he joined a predominantly German
lodge. There is an extensive biographical sketch of Zébel by E. Hubner,
“Jacobo Zébel de Zangréniz. Ein Lebensbild aus der jiingsten Vergangen-
heit der philippinischen Inseln,” Deutsche Rundschau 90 (1897): 420-45;
91 (1897): 35-51.
11. Kalaw, Philippine Masonry, p. 11, apparently in dependence on
Francisco-Engracio Vergara [Antonio Maria Regidor], La Masonerta en
Filipinas (Paris, 1896), pp. 10-13. Nicol4s Diaz y Pérez, “La francmason-
erfa en Filipinas,” La Epoca (Madrid), 31 August 1896, however, denies
that there were any Filipino Masons before 1884. (This article forms the
basis for what is said of Philippine Masonry in the pamphlet by his son,
Viriato Diaz-Pérez, Los Frailes de Filipinas [Madrid: A. Pérez, 1904], p.
20.) Though Nicolas had earlier been prominent in Masonry in Spain, he
had been inactive since 1885 and seems to have had no contact with
Masonry at the time he wrote (“Diaz y Pérez, Nicolas,” in Lorenzo Frau
Abrines and Rosendo Arts Arderiu, Diccionario enciclopédico de la Mason-
eria, 2d ed. rev. [3 vols.; Buenos Aires, 1947], 315.) Juan Utor y Fernandez,
Masones y ultramontanos (Manila: Chofre 1899) denies that any Masonry
existed in the Philippines before 1873, and declares that at least until 1886
no native Filipino was initiated in the Philippines (pp. 46, 51-53, 59). Utor
had likewise held high positions in Masonry, having brought about the
union of various lodges under the Gran Oriente de Esparia in 1875, when
he became Gran Maestro Adjunto. (“Utor Fernandez, Juan,” Frau-Aris,
Diccionario, 2: 851-52.) Both Diaz-Pérez’s and Utor’s pamphlets are anti-
friar polemic tracts and though their authors could well have had consid-
erable knowledge of early Philippine Masonry, both have a number of
unreliable or clearly false statements that make it difficult to know to what
extent they can be relied on.
12. Kalaw, Philippine Masonry, pp. 11-16, but the story is somewhat
confused.
13. Ibid., p. 17, summarizing Dfaz-Pérez, “La francmasonerfa,” p. 19.
The statement is repeated in “Historia esquematica de la masoneria filip-
ina,” Latomia 3 (1933): 126; but the article seems to depend on Kalaw’s
book (in the earlier Spanish edition). Latomia was a Masonic publication
of Madrid.
14. Kalaw (Philippine Masonry, p. 17) cites a letter of Morayta of 1916,
addressed to himself, asserting that the doors of Masonry were only opened
to Filipinos in 1889. For Ramos’s initiation in London, see Antonio Regidor,
El pleito de los Filipinos contra los Frailes (Madrid, 1901), p. 6. (This
pamphlet is a translation by Isabelo de los Reyes of an interview given by
244 Notes to Essay 11

Regidor to The Independent of New York, 7 February 1901). Also, DPB 1:

355, based on Ramos’s unpublished memoirs.
15. ADN, legajo 219-A’.
16. I refer to Del-Pan as a Filipino even though he was by blood a
Spaniard, since he always seems to have considered himself a Filipino, and
associated himself with the other Filipinos involved in the Propaganda
Movement, while other criollos, like Antonio Regidor and the Azcaérragas,
though also born in the Philippines, considered themselves primarily
Spaniards and later remained in Europe. At a time of transition like the
late nineteenth century, when the Filipino nation did not yet exist as such,
but the idea of Filipino nationality was already evolving, the criterion of
self-identification seems to me to be the most useful for distinguishing
between Filipinos and Spaniards among those of European blood born in
the country.
For biographical details of José Felipe del Pan, who seems always to
have concealed his Masonic affiliation and never exhibited any anticleri-
calism, see Retana, Aparato, vol. 3, no. 4483, p. 1570, According to Retana,
when Rafael succeeded his father as publisher of La Oceania Espanola, a
radical change in policy took place, as far as that was then possible in the
Philippines.
17. José Felipe del Pan’s name appears as affiliated with the lodge
Lealtad of the Gran Oriente de Espafia in a list that should be dated from
the 1870s, probably 1874, since some of the other lodges on the list are still
in process of formation (ADN, legajo 219—A?).
18. In the charter for Solidaridad, signed by Manuel Becerra as Grand
Master of the Gran Oriente de Espana, and dated 30 March 1886, Del-
Pan’s name does not appear. But the records of the lodge date its founda-
tion from 4 April 1886, and Del-Pan is listed as Junior Warden (ADN,
legajo 736, expediente 11).
19. I have not been abl to find any further information on Ricardo
Ayllén, who held the eighteenth degree, and who withdrew to return to the
Philippines before 15 October 1886, as did Del-Pan. Ayllén’s name does not
appear in any other document of the Filipinos in Spain prior to 1886, nor
does he appear connected with nationalist activity in any way afterwards.
20. Aguirre and Llorente were both students at the University of Madrid,
and close friends and classmates of Rizal from the Ateneo. Both were active
in the Filipino colony during these years, especially in the Filipino newspaper
Espana en Filipinas. Of the thirty-three members initiated or affiliated up
till the end of October 1886, ten were Cubans, two Puerto Ricans, four
Filipinos, and one was from Martinique. The rest were presumably Pen-
insular Spaniards, since their place of origin is not usually noted (ADN,
legajo 736, expediente 11).
21. From Lopez Jaena’s documents, as found in these records, it seems
that he had joined Solidaridad at its founding on 5 April 1886, but because
he lacked the necessary document of withdrawal in good standing (plancha
de quite) from his former lodge, he did not take the oath and become
formally affiliated with Solidaridad until 4 April 1887 (“Expediente del
..- Bolivar, . .. Graciano Lopez, gr . . . 3,” ibid.) The article on Lopez Jaena
in the Encyclopedia of the Philippines (ed. Zoilo M. Galang, 2d ed., 3: 241),
declares that he was initiated in the lodge Porvenir in Madrid in 1882.
 Notes to Essay 11 245

Though no source is given, it seems that this should be accepted in the

absence of any contrary information, and since it fits well with other known
facts. In this case, of course, Lopez Jaena may have been prior to Del-Pan
in joining Masonry.
22. ADN, leg. 736, exp. 11. Seventeen members are listed as voting for
the fusion of the lodges. It is not clear whether these are simply the
affirmative votes, or whether they are the only members left at this time.
To judge from the other records of withdrawals, dismissals, and initiations,
it would seem that there was a minority of dissenters, among whom was
Llorente. This is confirmed by the fact that Llorente in 1890 would propose
the reconstitution of Solidaridad rather than any other, on the grounds
that he was a member of it, something he could hardly have said if he had
withdrawn prior to the fusion.
23. The records of the lodge, apparently incomplete, are found in ADN,
leg. 620, exp. 14. Though Kalaw (Philippine Masonry, p. 26) gives the date
of the charter as 1 April 1889, the meeting to petition affiliation was not
held till 2 April.
24. A letter found in APTSJ from a Barcelona Jesuit, Fr. Antonio Codo,
to the provincial, Fr. Juan Ricart, who had recently come from the Phil-
ippines, casts light on the origin of the lodge:
Another reason which has moved me to write to your Reverence is
to inform you, as I promised, . . . of the name of that active propagator
of Masonry, a former military man in the Philippines, of whom I spoke
to your Reverence shortly before leaving here. His name is Celso Mir.
. . They have finally founded the lodge of which I spoke to your Rev-
erence with the title of ‘La Revolucién’.
This Celso is a very active collaborator and propagandist who prom-
ises money and protection to the incautious who allow themselves to be
initiated; he is trying to revive in this lodge the statutes which have
fallen into disuse in the others, of assassinating the traitor who makes
known its secrets. For this reason, and because of having roundly re-
fused to sign a certain document which they presented to him, it will
be difficult for me to acquire other information from the man who favored
me with this.
Though the letter is dated 23 June 1889, it is clear that the lodge had been
founded some time before, and planned earlier. For Codo mentions that he
had not written about the matter sooner, because he did not consider it
important.
25. From a friend and supporter of the Filipinos, Mir Deas was even-
tually to become their bitter enemy because of the articles of Antonio Luna
in La Solidaridad satirizing Spanish foibles. He eventually denounced
them to the police, who raided the house of Ponce in Barcelona in search
of subversive literature in December 1889. La Solidaridad published a
separate supplement on 15 December 1889, giving the Filipino side of the
story. For biographical data on Mir Deas, see Joan Givanel i Mas, Mate-
rials per a la bibliografia de la premsa barcelonesa (1881-1890) (Barcelona,
1933), pp. 97-98.
26. La Solidaridad 1 (15 April 1889): 52-53; 1 (15 May 1889): 77-78.
27. In 1888 after a series of schisms and recombinations following the
246 Notes to Essay 11

resignation of Manuel Becerra as Grand Master in 1886, Morayta had been

defeated in an election of the new federation. He protested the election and
broke with the Gran Oriente Nacional, recently formed. Followed by
apparently the larger number of lodges, he then formed the Gran Oriente
Espajiol on 9 January 1889. (These facts are taken from a source friendly
to Morayta, Frau-Arus, Diccionario 3: 457-59, but the hostile account,
favoring the Gran Oriente Nacional, to be found in Martin y de Castro, La
masoneria, pp. 89-91, agrees as to the substantial facts.)
Revolucién’s first meeting, the minutes of which accompany the petition
(ADN, leg. 620, exp. 14), took place on 2 April 1889, and the petition bears
the same date. The meeting was held at Rambla Canaletas, 2, 3°, which
was the home of Del Pilar, Ponce, and Lopez Jaena at this time, and the
publishing office of La Solidaridad.
28. Though there are fees recorded for each advance in degree, they do
not seem to be excessive amounts, usually ten or fifteen pesetas for each
promotion. In any case, it is likely that Del Pilar would have considered
the money well-spent for the political connections thus afforded him.
29. The data on Lallave and his activities are taken from the biographi-
cal article “Lallave, Manrique Alonso,” Frau-Aris, Diccionario, 1: 614-15;
and from the letters of Del Pilar cited below.
30. The account of Lallave’s dismissal from the Dominicans and expul-
sion from the Philippines with three companions, parish priests of towns
in Pangasinan, is in AHN leg. 2223, “Sobre expulsién de las Islas Filipinas
de los Religiosos de la Orden de Sto. Domingo, Fr. José Ma. Isla, Fr. Nicolas
Manrique Alonso [Lallave], Fr. Joaquin Palacios y Fr. Remigio Zapico.” All
had been found guilty by their order of a number of serious charges. The
documents show on the one hand the possibility of serious abuses on the
part of friar parish priests, and on the other hand, the stern measures
taken by the Dominican order to expel members who had shown them-
selves unworthy. It reflects little credit on Del Pilar, however, to have made
use of such a man against the friars. An article by T. Valentino Sitoy, “An
Aborted Spanish Protestant Mission to the Philippines,” Silliman Journal
15 (1968): 243-80, though useful on Lallave’s connections with the British
and Foreign Bible Society, is unaware of Lallave’s real background and
quite misinterprets the man and the episode.
31. Manrique Alonso Lallave, Los frailes en Filipinas (Madrid: Impr. de
J. Antonio Garcfa, 1872).
32. Ibid., p. 44.
33. For the former remarks, see ibid., p. 48; the chapter on public
morality is on pp. 53-57.
34. For Becerra’s Masonic career, see Frau-Aris, Diccionario 3: 457. His
eg ae projects are narrated, and attacked, in Pastells, Misién, 2:
1 ‘
35. Text in the newspaper El Dia (Madrid), 19 January 1889.
36. Carmelo [Del Pilar] to P. Ikazama [Pedro Serrano Laktaw], 3 May
1889, Ep. Pil., 1: 112. The editor of Ep. Pil. wrongly identifies P. Ikazama
as Pedro Icasiano instead of Serrano. For proof that Serrano is the ad-
dressee see my The Propaganda Movement 1880-1895 (Manila: Solidaridad
Publishing House, 1973), p. 110, n. 38.
37. Piping Dilat [Del Pilar] to Teofilo Codisan [Teodoro Sandico], 30 May
1889, Ep. Pil., 1: 161.
 Notes to Essay 11 247

38. Marcelo H. del Pilar to Doroteo Cortes, 1 May 1889, ibid., p. 106.
39. R. O. Serna [Pedro Serrano] to Marcelo H. del Pilar, 21 June 1889,
ibid., p. 178. There is a more detailed account in “Correo de Filipinas,” El
Dia (Madrid), 2 August 1889. These two contemporary accounts, both of
them from sources hostile to the friars, make clear that there is absolutely
nothing to the charge, often made in later antifriar writings, that Lallave
was poisoned by the friars. Rather, he contracted a fever and died after two
weeks. The story concocted by his companion for the benefit of American
Protestant missionaries at a later date seems quite clearly an effort to play
up to Protestant antifriar biases.
40. For the situation of Protestantism in Spain at this time, see Bal-
lesteros, Historia, 12: 97-98. For Lallave’s relations with the Presbyterian
Church, see Frau-Arus, Diccionario 1: 614-15. For his relations with the
Bible Society, see Sitoy, “Nineteenth Century Evangelical Beginnings in
the Philippines,” South East Asia Journal of Theology 9 (1967): 49-53.
41. Ibid. The clearest evidence that Lallave must have been closely
connected with Morayta is the laudatory article on him, to which reference
is here made. For the Diccionario, first published by Frau in 1891, is highly
biased in favor of Morayta and his associates, so that prominent Masons
of other federations, and even the federations themselves, are simply ignored,
or even attacked bitterly.
42. ADN, leg. 620, exp. 14.
43. Marcelo H. del Pilar to Ka Dato [Deodato Arellano], 17 April 1889,
Ep. Pil., 1: 97; 2 May 1889, ibid., pp. 107-10.
44. Tbid., 103-4.
45. The question of when and where Rizal was initiated into Masonry
is complicated and obscure. In any case, he was not a member of either
Revolucién or Solidaridad in the period considered in this essay.
46. To Laong Laan [Rizal], 18 May 1889, Ep. Pil., 1: 127.
47. Felipeno [Del Pilar] to Ikazama [Serrano], 27 June 1889, Ep. Pil.,
TmlO22
48. Ep. Pil., 1: 192. After saying that the exposition was to be presented,
Del Pilar continues: “The petitioners are not ourselves, but other social
entities. . . Ramos there will understand this better.” The reference to
Ramos is intended to convey the information that the “social entities” in
question are Masonic lodges. Elsewhere in his effort to use cryptic lan-
guage, guarding against possible opening of the mail by the authorities in
Manila, Del Pilar speaks of Masonry as “la familia de Pepe Ramos” (Ep.
Pil., 1: 186). This use of Ramos’s name to designate Masonry further confirms
that Ramos was the only Filipino initiated into Masonry in Manila at this
time.
49. ADN, leg. 620, exp. 14.
50. Later, when both Lopez Jaena and Rizal were at odds with Del Pilar,
the first would write to the second: “I have been everything for them on
their arrival here in Spain; I have made something of them; I have intro-
duced them to the societies, to political personalities.” (Graciano—Rizal, 15
October 1891, Ep. Riz., 3: 252.)
51. As a matter of fact, the Sagasta ministry never sanctioned Becerra’s
projects, and when the ministry fell a year and a half later, they were
withdrawn by his successor. Even the laudatory article on Sagasta in Frau-
Aris (Diccionario, 2: 661-62) admits: “Although an old and tried Freema-
248 Notes to Essay 12

son, Brother Sagasta took very little part in Masonic affairs,” and though
he was persuaded to take the highest post in the Gran Oriente de Espana
in 1876, he resigned it as soon as he had the opportunity to form a cabinet
in 1881.
52. ADN, leg. 620, exp. 14.

Notes to Essay 12, “Filipino Masonry in Madrid, 1889-96,”

pp. 168-77
Revised version of an article first published in Philippine Historical
Review 1, 2 (1966): 168-82.
1. For the original lodge Solidaridad, see essay 11 in this volume.
2. ADN, leg. 736-A, exp. 11-A, 10 December 1890.
3. In 1894 he went to the Philippines with his Filipino wife as a Treas-
ury official. See “Crénica,” La Solidaridad 6 (31 May 1894): 119.
4. Teodoro M. Kalaw (Philippine Masonry, trans. Frederick H. Stevens
and Antonio Amechazurra [Manila, 1956], p. 21) gives the date as 15 May
1890. This is perhaps the date of the charter. In ADN, leg. 736-A, exp. 11-
A, there is a letter dated 19 May 1890, signed by the secretary of Solidari-
dad, Teodoro Sandiko, inviting the members of the lodge Iberia to attend
the meeting of installation on 21 May, to be presided over by the Grand
Master.
5. Kalaw says: “All Filipino Masons in Spain became affiliated, includ-
ing those who had belonged to Lodge Revolucién, which was then dissolved”
(Philippine Masonry, p. 21). There is, however, no evidence of this in the
existing documents in ADN. Those of Revolucién who moved to Madrid,
such as Del Pilar, Mariano Ponce, Damaso Ponce, Ariston Bautista, Gali-
cano Apacible, Teodoro Sandico, did become members of Solidaridad, but
there is no mention of those who are known to have stayed in Barcelona,
such as Graciano Lopez Jaena, Santiago Icasiano, Jose Ma. Panganiban.
The records of Revolucién in ADN, leg. 620, exp. 14-A, terminate with a
document of 21 February 1890, but it is not clear that the lodge went out
of existence. There is, however, no mention of any Filipinos after 29
November 1889, when Lopez Jaena resigned as Worshipful Master, though
in the probably incomplete state of the records, it is somewhat hazardous
to say that no Filipinos remained in the lodge after this time.
6. ADN, leg. 736-A, exp. 11-A, 10 December 1889.
7. Ibid., 15 December 1890, 4 January 1891, 25 February 1891.
8. Ibid., 4 January 1894; 20 September 1894; “Relacién de los hh. de la
R...L... Solidaridad, 53, nombrados representantes ante la Asambléa
del Gr... Or... Espajiol el 2 de Abril de 1894, segiin comunicacién hecha
por el Gr... Cons. . . Regional de Filipinas.”
9. Ibid., “Relacién. . . .”
10. Kalaw, Philippine Masonry, pp. 28-37. The lecture of Del Pilar is
reproduced almost verbatim. He also gives excerpts from a number of
initiation speeches on pp. 23-28.
11. ADN, leg. 736-A, exp. 11-A, 4 January 1894, invitation of lodge
“Iberia” to meeting on 10 January.
12. I have treated the multifaceted organization set up by Del Pilar at
 Notes to Essay 12 249

length in my The Propaganda Movement, 1880-1895 (Manila: Solidaridad

Publishing House, 1970), pp. 177-78.
13. “Boletin oficial de la Asociacién Hispano-Filipina,” La Solidaridad
3: (15 June 1891): 425. The text of the exposition may be found in the
article “No estamos solos,” ibid., 3 (30 June 1891): 437-38. The original is
in AHN, leg. 5329, exp. 36. There is a note attached, dated 14 February
1892, transmitting the exposition to the Ministro de Ultramar “para los
efectos oportunos” (that is, to be filed in the archives).
14. See the introduction of the document cited in n. 16 below.
15. The text of this preamble may be found in Kalaw, Philippine Ma-
sonry, p. 22. According to Kalaw (p. 23), the Gran Oriente Espajol itself
had circularized its lodges to work in favor of Filipino representation in the
Cortes in October 1890.
16. There is a printed copy of this letter, addressed to the lodge Firmeza
of Cadiz, in ADN, leg. 736-A, exp. 11-A, 5 April 1892.
17. This volume may be found in AHN, leg. 5264. It makes no mention
of Masonry, but was presented under the name of the Asociacién Hispano-
Filipina.
18. The details of the project are treated in my Propaganda Movement,
pp. 183-85.
19. See the testimony of Luna when he was imprisoned at the outbreak
of the Revolution in 1896, in Archivo del biblidfilo filipino, ed. W.E. Retana,
5 vols. (Madrid: Impr. de la Vda. de Minuesa de los Rios, 1895-1905), 3:
361-62. However, the reality of Luna’s participation is open to question,
since there is no evidence for it beyond this declaration, which was ex-
tracted under threat of torture and cannot be fully relied upon, like the
other declarations made by prisoners in Manila at this time. There is
ample evidence of the barbarous tortures employed by the Spanish authori-
ties in 1896, and of the falsity of many of the admissions made by the
prisoners interrogated. See Teodoro A. Agoncillo, The Revolt of the Masses
(Quezon City: University of the Philippines, 1956), pp. 161-63, 321.
20. Paez, who had not been in Spain, is said to have been initiated into
Masonry by Graciano Lopez Jaena “under the celestial dome” on the latter’s
brief visit to the Philippines in 1890 (Kalaw, Philippine Masonry, p. 42).
For the collaboration of Salvador and Paez, see the declaration of the
former in Retana, Archivo, 3: 292.
21. A document of 25 February 1891 of Solidaridad notes that Salvador
had been dropped from the list of members of the lodge, together with
Damaso Ponce, for his absence (ADN, leg. 736-R, exp. 11-A). He actually
arrived in the Philippines, as he affirms in the declaration above, in April
1891 (Ep. Pil., 2: 92, 98).
22. Kalaw (Philippine Masonry, p. 42) incorrectly places the founding of
the lodge on 6 January 1891, and therefore places the arrival of Salvador
and Serrano in 1890. Moreover, since the approval of the Gran Oriente
Espajiol was received on 10 March 1892, he is obliged to concoct a theory
to explain the lengthy period that intervened. Salvador, as pointed out in
n. 21, only returned in April 1891. Serrano left Spain sometime after 31
October 1891, when he had received his certificate of Maestro Superior in
the Normal School of Madrid, so that it could only have been near the end
of 1891 at the earliest that he returned to Manila (see “Crénica,” La Soli-
daridad, 3 [15 October 1891]: 536; [31 October 1891]: 548.) Salvador in his
250 Notes to Essay 12

declaration (Retana, Archivo, 3: 292) correctly puts his own arrival in

Manila in April 1891, and declares Serrano to have arrived in 1892. If the
latter is correct, it must have been during the first few days of 1892, since
Nilad was certainly founded on 6 January 1892 (see the Masonic letter of
Panday Pira [Serrano] to Dimasalang [Rizal], 9 February 1892, Ep. Riz.,
3: 295).
23. Kalaw, Philippine Masonry, pp. 52-102.
24. See the correspondence between the Gran Oriente Espafiol in Madrid
and Serrano, reproduced in Retana, Archivo, 3: 87-95. These letters seem
to have fallen into the hands of the police and somehow been transmitted
to Retana or his colleague, Pablo Feced (Quioquiap), who printed extracts
from them in their paper, La Politica, in a series of articles from December
1893 to February 1894, entitled “La Masonerfa en Filipinas.” Del Pilar in
an article entitled “Tampoco,” La Solidaridad 6 (31 January 1894): 16-17
(wrongly dated in Retana, Archivo 3: 100-106), denied the authenticity of
these letters. Not only do the further letters later captured by the police
and reproduced in Retana, Archivo, 3: 111-20, show that they were authen-
tic, but there is further correspondence from the lodge Solidaridad, signed
by Del Pilar and Mariano Ponce, which recognizes that at least part of the
extracts printed by Quioquiap were authentic (ADN, leg. 736-A, exp. 11-
A, 4 January 1894; 13 January 1894).
25. Kalaw, Philippine Masonry, pp. 59-68; 114-15; also the declaration
of Antonio Salazar, in Retana, Archivo, 3: 244-46.
26. Certain lodges sent support, but apparently on an irregular basis
(see the October 1894 letters of Apolinario Mabini to Del Pilar in Las cartas
politicas de Apolinario Mabini, ed. Teodoro M. Kalaw (Manila, 1930),
pp. 24, 26; also the letter of Del Pilar to Antonio Salazar, in December
1894, Ep. Pil., 1: 271-72. In January 1894 the Grand Regional Council
decided to invite all members to contribute fifty centavos a month, but
since the persecution of Masonry by the government began in March of the
same year, forcing many lodges to disband or suspend activities, it is
doubtful if much was achieved by this means (Kalaw, Philippine Masonry,
pp. 114-18).
27. “Relacién .. . ,” ADN, leg. 736-A, exp. 11-A.
28. Though there are some individuals on whom I have been able to find
no information, neither have I been able to find any positive indication of
the continued presence in Madrid of any of the known members at this
time. At the time of the outbreak of the Revolution in 1896, Morayta spoke
of the Asociacién Hispano-Filipina as having practically ceased to exist in
1894, since “the death of some and the absence of the majority reduced the
Association to less than a dozen members.” (“Protesta del Sr. Morayta,” El
Pats [Madrid], 27 August 1896). If the Asociacién, which certainly included
members who were not members of Solidaridad, was reduced to less than
a dozen, Solidaridad is not likely to have had many more than those
indicated.
29. See the statement of Morayta quoted in n. 28. The last two bulletins
named here are to be found in La Solidaridad 6: (15 June 1894): 121; and
La Solidaridad 7 (15 May 1895): 104.
30. “Los filibusteros,” La Epoca (Madrid), 24 August 1896. An article
entitled “Masones y filibusteros” in La Correspondencia de Espafia (Madrid),
23 August 1896, reproduces a document signed by four Masons of the Gran
 Notes to Essay 12 251

Oriente Espafil and presented in one of its assemblies some time earlier,
protesting the fact that the headquarters of the Gran Oriente Espajiol still
bore a sign indicating that it was the Asociacién Hispano-Filipina, and
complaining that what should be a sacred Masonic temple was being used
for dances “donde se acentua la nota realista.”
31. “Crénica” La Solidaridad 7 (15 November 1895): 192. Actually, until
this valedictory issue, no issue had appeared since September.
32. Mariano Ponce to Saturnino A. Doria, 10 September 1897, Cartas
sobre la Revolucién, 1897-1900 (Manila: Bureau of Printing, 1932), p. 35;
J. P. Bantug, La Vanguardia, 16 June 1926, cited by José P. Santos, Buhay
at mga sinulat ni Plaridel (Maynila: Palimbag ng Dalaga, 1931), p. 115;
“Los precursores de la Revolucion filipina,” Filipinas ante Europa (Madrid)
3 (25 February 1901): 267.
33. ADN, leg. 736-A, exp. 11-A, 15 December 1890, 31 January 1891, 14
May 1893; Anuario del Gran Oriente Espafiol, 1894-95, cited in Mauricio
[pseud.], La gran traicién (Barcelona: Borras, 1899), p. 92; Kalaw, Philip-
pine Masonry, p. 222, n. 4.
34. See El Heraldo de Madrid, 8 July 1896, of which Retana was a
correspondent; also El Tiempo (Madrid), 10 July 1896; La Unién Catélica
(Madrid), 10 July 1896; as well as various articles in La Politica during
July and August 1896.
35. La Correspondencia de Espana, 22 August 1896; El Globo, and El
Liberal, 23 August 1896; La Epoca, 24 August 1896. All these are Madrid
newspapers.
36. “Protesta del Sr. Morayta,” El Pais, 27 August 1896.
37. El Imparcial (Madrid), 26 August 1896; “Carta del Sr. Morayta,” El
Liberal, 3 September 1896.
38. Kalaw, Philippine Masonry, p. 194.
39. Some of the correspondence of the Grande Oriente Nacional de
Espana is found in ADN, leg. 220-A?; also in La Voz Espanola (Manila), 15
November 1896. See likewise the cable of Gov.-Gen. Ramon Blanco to the
Ministro de Ultramar, in AHN, leg. 5349, no. 31, 18 October 1896; also
Alfredo Vicenti,“Revista polftica,”"El Republicano (Madrid), 1 (1July 1897): 5.
40. See the letter of the lodge Modestia in Retana, Archivo, 3: 128. The
judgment of Melchor Fernandez Almagro, Historia politica de la Espana
contempordnea 2 vols. (Madrid: Pegaso, 1956-59), 2: 340, to the contrary
seems quite thoroughly disproved by the facts in the Philippines.
41. “jFuera traidores!” El Nacional, 4 June 1899; followed up by daily
articles until 12 June.
42. “La gran felonfa,” El Nacional, 13 June 1899; Fernandez Almagro,
Historia, 2: 640-41.
43. Kalaw, Philipine Masonry, pp. 80-102.
44. “Lo de Filipinas,” El Nacional, 22 August 1896; “jFuera traidores!,”
El Nacional, 4 June 1899; Gabriel Maura Gamazo, Historia critica del
reinado de Don Alfonso XIII durante su minoria (Barcelona, 1919), pp.
292-93; Retana, Archivo, 3: 87-100.
45. Ponce, Cartas, p. 383.
46. Marcelo to Ka Dato [Deodato Arellano], Ep. Pil., 1: 246. See also
Schumacher, Propaganda Movement, pp. 233-34.
47. A perusal of the issues of La Solidaridad will provide notices about
a number of Filipinos who were in Madrid or elsewhere in Spain, some
252 Notes to Essay 13

even active in nationalist activities, like Pedro Paterno and Guillermo

Puatu, but who seem never to have been associated with the lodge Solidari-
dad or with the associated activities. A notable example is the protest of
Manuel Santa Maria against an article in La Solidaridad on his scientific
achievements. Even though the article was laudatory in tone, Santa Maria
clearly did not want to be associated with the orientation of La Solidaridad
and those affiliated with it. See La Solidaridad 5 (1893): 1078, 1093, 1104.

Notes to Essay 13, “Recent Perspectives on the Revolu-

tion,” pp. 178-209
Revised version of an article first published in Philippine Studies 30
(1982): 445-92.
1. Milagros C. Guerrero, “Understanding Philippine Revolutionary
Mentality,” PS 29 (1981): 240-56; Reynaldo C. Ileto, “Critical Issues in
‘Understanding Philippine Revolutionary Mentality,” PS 30 (1982): 92-119.
2. Milagros Guerrero, “Luzon at War: Contradictions in Philippine Society,
1898-1902,” (Ph.D. diss., University of Michigan, 1977); idem, “The Provin-
cial and Municipal Elites of Luzon during the Revolution, 1898-1902,” in
Philippine Social History: Global Trade and Local Transformations, ed.
Alfred W. McCoy and Ed. C. de Jesus (Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila
University Press, 1982), pp. 155-90.
3. Jonathan Fast and Jim Richardson, Roots of Dependency: Political
and Economic Revolution in 19th Century Philippines (Quezon City:
Foundation for Nationalist Studies, 1979), especially pp. 67-112.
4. This was especially true of Americanistas, who wanted to downplay
the notion of nationalism; e.g., Trinidad H. Pardo de Tavera, Reserva histérica
de Filipinas desde su descubrimiento hasta 1903 (Manila: Bureau of Print-
ing, 1906).
5. E.g., Graciano Martinez, OSA, Memorias del cautiverio (Manila: Imp.
del Colegio de Sto. Tomas, 1900).
6. E.g., Teodoro M. Kalaw, The Philippine Revolution (Manila: The Manila
Book Co., 1925; reprinted in 1969).
7. “Cuestiones en relacién con las corporaciones religiosas,” in Apoli-
nario Mabini, La Revolucién Filipina (con otros documentos de la época),
2 vols. (Manila: Bureau of Printing, 1931), 2: 147-48.
8. Renato Constantino, The Philippines: A Past Revisited (Quezon City:
Tala Publishing Services, 1975), p. 162.
9. Ibid., p. 385.
10. Ibid., pp. 163, 165, 166.
11. Fast and Richardson, Roots, pp. 70-71.
12. Though coming from a well-to-do landowning family, Aguinaldo spent
three years unsuccessfully at San Juan de Letran College and with private
tutors, yet never really learned Spanish well. See Carlos Quirino, The
Young Aguinaldo (Manila: Aguinaldo Centennial Year, 1969), p. 26; Emilio
Aguinaldo, Mga Gunita ng Himagsikan (n.p., 1964), pp. 14-15.
13. Fast and Richardson, Roots, p. 70-71.
14. Ibid., pp. 71-74. The quotation is on p. 74.
15. Isabelo de los Reyes, who was already dabbling in socialist and
anarchist writings, and who would later introduce them to the Philippines,
 Notes to Essay 13 253

spoke of the Katipunan as intended to introduce into the Philippines a

“communistic republic,” a conclusion supporting his ideological leanings at
that particular moment. Florentino Torres, about to be appointed by the
Americans attorney-general of the Philippines, testified before the Taft
Commission that the Katipunan was “socialistic.” To one like Torres who
had found the Propaganda Movement too radical, and who was among
the first to go over to the Americans, the Katipunan no doubt seemed
“socialistic.”
16. Leon Ma. Guerrero, The First Filipino (Manila: National Heroes
Commission, 1963), p. 431, cited in Fast and Richardson, Roots, p. 84.
17. Cesar Adib Majul, The Political and Constitutional Ideas of the
Philippine Revolution (Quezon City: University of the Philippines, 1957),
p. 15 and passim; John N. Schumacher, SJ, The Propaganda Movement,
1880-1895 (Manila: Solidaridad Publishing House, 1973), pp. 207-8, 272;
also “The Propagandists’ Reconstruction of the Philippine Past,” in Percep-
tions of the Past in Southeast Asia, ed. Anthony Reid and David Marr
(Singapore: Heinemann, 1979), pp. 269-78. See essay 7 in this volume.
18. Fast and Richardson, Roots, pp. 75-84.
19. Guerrero, “Luzon at War,” pp. 24-28.
20. Fast and Richardson, Roots, pp. 94-95.
21. Ibid., p. 96.
22. The statement that the hatred against the friars was not confined
to an educated minority but extended to all levels of society, especially in
Laguna and Cavite, where most of the friar haciendas were located, is
supported only by a self-serving statement of Primo de Rivera. This cer-
tainly cannot be sustained in any way for the non-Tagalog provinces, as I
have shown, among other places in my The Revolutionary Clergy: The
Filipino Clergy and the Nationalist Movement 1850-1903 (Quezon City:
Ateneo de Manila University Press, 1981), for all the dioceses outside
Manila. Even in the Tagalog provinces it was largely confined to the elite—
and those of the little people whom they dominated or terrorized. As far
as unrest on the friar haciendas is concerned, I have never encountered any
evidence for it among the kasamd, except in the well-known statement of
Isabelo de los Reyes in his antifriar tract, La sensacional memoria de...
revolucion filipina de 1896-1897 (Madrid: J. Corrales, 1899). De los Reyes’s
credibility on such subjects is almost nil. See essay 9 in this volume.
An economic effect of the transition to the commercial crop economy,
which was indeed affecting the peasants and driving them to violence, was
what was happening in Nueva Ecija, Tarlac, and eastern Pangasinan (the
territory of the Guardia de Honor) in the formation of lay-owned haciendas,
as treated in detail in Marshall S. McLennan, The Central Luzon Plain:
Land and Society on the Inland Frontier (Manila: Alemar-Phoenix, 1980),
and more succinctly in his “Changing Human Ecology on the Central Luzon
Plain: Nueva Ecija, 1705-1939,” in Philippine Social History, ed. McCoy
and de Jesus, pp. 57-90; and Brian Fegan, “The Social History of a Central
Luzon Barrio,” in Philippine Social History, pp. 91-130, for northern Bulacan
(Santa Iglesia territory).
23. I distinguish the three terms “landlords,” “principales,” and “ca-
ciques” on the basis of the foundation of their power, though, as is obvious,
one man could combine in himself all three sources of power. The landlord’s
power over his tenants was of course economic; the principales were those
254 Notes to Essay 13

who were actually holding political power in a town, or as past officials,

still participating both directly and through their families in the political
affairs of the town; the power of the cacique connoted a wider, though often
informal, kind of power, based on wealth, whether in land or not, and
political connections, whether formal or informal. I would think that the
term caciques is roughly equivalent to Norman Owen’s “super-principales”
as he defines them in “The Principalfa in Philippine History: Kabikolan,
1790-1898,” PS 22 (1974): 319-20, though Owen himself does not make
this identification.
24. For the Babaylanes, see Evelyn Cullamar, Babaylanism in Negros,
1896-1907, (Manila: New Day Publishers, 1986); also Ma. Fe Hernaez
Romero, Negros Occidental Between Two Foreign Powers ([Bacolod]: Negros
Occidental Historical Commission, 1974), pp. 168-88.
25. The original title of the dissertation was “Pasion and the Interpre-
tation of Change in Tagalog Society (ca. 1840—-1912),” Corneil University,
1975. As may be seen, the original title applied the thesis only to Tagalog
society. The book extends it to Filipino society in general, which, as will
be seen below, is much more dubious.
26. Ileto, “Critical Issues,” pp. 95-97.
27. The Aquino de Belen pasyon limited itself (apart from certain prayers
added) to the Passion story itself; the Pasyon Pilapil contained the whole
history of salvation from creation to the end of the world. Ileto speaks of
it being “to a large extent based upon De Belen’s earlier pasyon” (Pasyon
and Revolution: Popular Movements in the Philippines, 1840-1910 [Quezon
City: Ateneo de Manila University Press, 1979, p. 16). However, Bien-
venido Lumbera, whom he cites, actually speaks of only three passages
that were plagiarized. Hence, it would seem to be an essentially new work,
twice as long as its predecessor, as Lumbera notes in his “Consolidation of
Tradition in Nineteenth-Century Tagalog Poetry,” Philippine Studies 17
(1969): 389-91.
28. Joaquin Martinez de Zuniga, OSA, Estadismo de las Islas Filipinas,
6 mis viajes por este pais, ed. W.E. Retana (Madrid: Minuesa, 1893), 1: 291,
in his discussion of the province of Tondo, speaks of a printed Tagalog
version of the Pasyon by a Franciscan, of which nothing else appears to be
known. He goes on to say that the people preferred “other Pasiones which
they themselves have composed.” These he claimed to be full of fables and
marvels. It is evident that these other Pasyons must have been handwrit-
ten copies.
29. Ileto, “Critical Issues,” pp. 106-7.
30. Ibid., p. 94.
3 oe Guerrero, “Understanding Philippine Revolutionary Mentality,” p.
43.
32. Jim Richardson, “Revolution or Religious Experience?,” Journal of
Contemporary Asia 10 (1980): 317-18.
33. Ileto, “Critical Issues,” p. 95. However, Ileto does not explain why
only the masses could be moved by a certain level of understanding or
interpretation. This appears to be economic class determinism in another
form. Moreover, he objects to Guerrero’s and my use of the term “Catholic”
or even “religious” to describe the images in appeals made by the elite
deriving from the Pasyon, because “the term ‘Catholic’ . . . seems to pre-
suppose certain institutionalized meanings in mass religious behavior and
 Notes to Essay 13 255

in the Pasyon.” (p. 94). This statement seems to me to presuppose a univocity

in the understanding of what is “Catholic,” which few but ultraconservative
theologians would accept. There is no reason to say that different levels of
meaning in the pasyon could not be equally Catholic, and they were so in
fact (see n. 70 below).
34. “Critical Issues,” p. 97, n. 9.
35. Ileto, Pasyon, chapter 2. Ileto remarks that it was by his observation
of the Watawat ng Lahi peasant society that he was confirmed in the
direction of his thinking. The lengthy Tagalog account of the life of Agapito
Illustrisimo, founder of the Samahan Tatlong Persona Solo Dios, who are
centered in barrio Kinabuhayan on Mt. Banahaw, as reconstructed by Fr.
Vicente Marasigan, SJ, shows a close relationship to the descendants of
Hermano Pulé. But I would not call either the Watawat group or the
Samahan typical peasants. See Vicente Marasigan, SJ, A Banahaw Guru:
Symbolic Deeds of Agapito Illustrisimo (Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila
University Press, 1985), pp. 60-129.
36. Ileto, Pasyon, pp. 93-97. But that they were “just like the Katipunan
of the Sons of the People at the time brotherly love had not been dissolved,”
as Santiago Alvarez was to say at the time he wrote his account in 1927,
does not square at all with Telesforo Canseco’s 1897 account of the two
groups, to neither of which was Canseco sympathetic. It is possible that
Alvarez’s recollections of the early days of the Katipunan had become
excessively romanticized, since Canseco notes that in 1897 “Santiago Alvarez,
a revolutionary general, was deposed from his position and degraded for
the abuses he had committed, . . . especially with women” (“Historia de la
insurreccion filipina en Cavite,” quoted in my Readings in Philippine Church
History [Quezon City: Loyola School of Theology, Ateneo de Manila Univer-
sity, 1979], p. 273). Since it was Alvarez who had introduced Aguinaldo to
the Katipunan in 1895, it is understandable that he should have found
more brotherhood then than later.
37. Ileto, Pasyon, p. 148.
38. Ibid., pp. 148-49.
39. Ileto (Pasyon, p. 101) enumerates a number of religious katipunans
existing before the Katipunan of Bonifacio, but implies that all were popular
organizations with a “common language.” But there seems to me to be no
reason why there could not be and were not katipunans that had no “common
language” and/or were not popular organizations, just as there were many
peasant cofradias quite different in spirit and perceptions from that of
Apolinario.
40. For Ileto’s discussion of the manifesto, see his Pasyon, pp. 102-9; for
the initiation rite, pp. 114-22.
41. Ileto (Pasyon, p. 103) acknowledges that Rizal had written about a
flourishing pre-Hispanic civilization in his annotations to the book of Morga.
However, it is not merely a general similarity of concept that we are
speaking about, but strict literary dependence in specific ideas and phrases.
42. Ileto, “Critical Issues,” p. 104.
43. See Rizal’s programmatic presentation of his work in the preface to
his edition of Morga, quoted in essay 6 in this volume. For details of Rizal’s
reconstruction of the past in the Morga edition, see essay 7.
44. Ileto, Pasyon, p. 114.
45. La religién del Katipunan, p. 202, cited in Ileto, ibid.
256 Notes to Essay 13

46. For De los Reyes, see the biographical sketch in Gregorio F. Zaide,
Great Filipinos in History (Manila: Verde Book Store, 1970), pp. 457-63.
De los Reyes undoubtedly knew something about the Katipunan, but if he
is correct about the simplification of the initiation ritual, he must be referring
to Aguinaldo’s practice of initiating members in broad daylight in the
Kawit tribunal, simply by their inscribing their names in blood (Aguinaldo,
Mga Gunita, pp. 45-46). Moreover, his interpretation of the Katipunan as
socialist or plebeian, besides having been already refuted, is to be seen in
the context of his interest in socialism after being released from prison in
Barcelona in 1898.
47. Tleto, Pasyon, p. 115. Many katipunans were being organized by
1900, without any connection with that of Bonifacio.
48. Not all of these elements appear in Ileto’s quotation, but they are
found in John R. M. Taylor, The Philippine Insurrection against the United
States: A Compilation of Documents with Notes and an Introduction (Pasay
City: Eugenio Lopez Foundation, 1971), 1: 219, in English translation only,
as is also true of the document in the Philippine Revolutionary Records
from which Taylor copied. No Tagalog original has been found.
49. Ileto, Pasyon, p. 115.
50. Ileto, “Critical Issues,” pp. 95, 104.
51. Ibid., p. 95.
52. Because the verification of the meaning of the language in the
context is done much more thoroughly and with more available factual
evidence in the treatment of Hermano Pulé and his followers, I find myself
convinced of the level of understanding to be given to it in a way that I do
not find concerning the Katipunan, where too many inferences are made
on dubious or incorrect evidence. It is not the method, but the possibility
of its application in a particular case that seems insufficiently justified.
53. Ileto, Pasyon, p. 147; Guerrero, “Luzon at War,” pp. 170-75.
54. Ileto (“Critical Issues,” p. 104) disputes this objection of Guerrero
(“Understanding Philippine Revolutionary Mentality,” p. 245) and main-
tains that “a region with friars and churches that did not have some
version of the Pasyon has yet to be shown.” The burden of proof rather
seems to me to rest on Ileto.
55. Retana, Aparato, vol. 2, no. 845, considers that no pasyon was
published before that of Aquino de Belen, and, secondly, the 1814 Pilapil
pasyon, except for the Ilokano one by Megia. With regard to Megia he is
mistaken, as will be seen below in the text to n. 62.
56. Retana, Aparato, vol. 2, no. 882; T. H. Pardo de Tavera, Biblioteca
Filipina (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1903), no. 1934, p. 301.
57. Retana, Aparato, vol. 2, no. 987.
58. Ibid., vol. 2, no. 1179.
59. Ibid., vol. 2, no. 1528.
60. Ibid., vol. 3, no. 3209.
61. Ibid., vol. 2, no. 845.
62. “Megia’s Pasion: a Historico-Critical Study,” in Marcelino A. Foronda
Jr., and Juan A. Foronda, Samtoy: Essays on Iloko History and Culture
(Manila: United Publishing Co., 1972), pp. 122, 125-27.
63. Ibid., pp. 122-25. The most complete bibliography of pasyons, by
Rene B. Javellana, SJ, “Pasyon Genealogy and Annotated Bibliography,”
PS 31 (1983): 460-67, confirms that all known pasyons in languages other
 Notes to Essay 13 257

than Tagalog, with two possible exceptions, date back to the second half
of the nineteenth century. The possible exceptions are a Hiligaynon pasyon
by Juan Sanchez, dated 1717, for which the only evidence is an assertion
by Vicente Barrantes; and a Cebuano pasyon related to the Tagalog one of
Gaspar Aquino de Belen. The oldest extant copy, however, is a manuscript
from 1884. Even though the possibility of early Cebuano and Hiligaynon
pasyons cannot be ruled out, however, the fact that no copy is extant
indicates that if they existed, their influence would be small in comparison
to the Tagalog pasyon.
64. R. C. Ileto, “Tagalog Poetry and Image of the Past During the War
against Spain,” in Perceptions of the Past in Southeast Asia, ed. Anthony
Reid and David Marr (Singapore: Heinemann, 1979), pp. 370-400.
65. For the ineffectiveness of the catechism in the nineteenth century,
see Schumacher, Readings, pp. 237, 238. On the other hand, this was the
period of great flourishing of the novenas and devocionarios.
66. Such bibliographies as Retana, Pardo de Tavera, Isagani Medina’s
Filipiniana Materials in the National Library, and the Catalogue of Filip-
iniana Materials in the Lopez Memorial Museum all list numerous such
publications. Yet my own experience with students analyzing the consid-
erable number to be found in the Special Collections of the Rizal Library
of the Ateneo de Manila University, is that there is relatively little over-
lapping among the various collections, so that the total production must
have been far greater. Moreover, since these novenas continue to be re-
printed year after year, one may find that a particular novena goes back
to the time of Archbishop Basilio Sancho de Sta. Justa y Rufina (1767-87),
who grants the indulgence that prefaces the novena, even though the
publication date on the title page may be of the twentieth century. To judge
from the novenas I have examined in Tagalog, Archbishop Sancho must
have been a great promoter of novenas.
67. Ileto, “Critical Issues,” pp. 98-99.
68. Canseco, “Historia,” quoted in Schumacher, Readings, p. 273.
69. Ibid.
70. Ileto’s reluctance to use the word “Catholic” to describe elite appeals
to the masses “framed in traditional terms” (“Critical Issues,” p. 95; also
p. 94) seems to stem from a rather narrow and highly institutionalized
notion of establishment Catholic orthodoxy. Just as the sixteenth-century
friars drew on a hitherto little-exploited part of the Catholic tradition to
condemn the encomenderos and conquistadores who conceived themselves
as bearers of Catholicism to the unenlightened pagan Filipinos, so too there
are many strains of thought within Catholicism that have their roots in
Catholic tradition, though they may deviate considerably from the thinking
of contemporary prominent members of the “Catholic” elite establishment.
Though Rizal would not have considered himself a Catholic any longer
when he wrote his El Filibusterismo in 1891, his concept of national
redemption in the words of Padre Florentino in the closing chapter bears
deep marks of the pasyon tradition. It showed such influence not only much
more than did the thinking of Bonifacio, but even than that of many of the
masses, although it contradicted a far less legitimate “Catholic” tradition
of the Spanish clergy who could see the Revolution only as little less than
an apostasy from Catholicism. This view of the Revolution, for instance, is
258 Notes to Essay 13

expressed by the Jesuit Fr. Francisco Foradada (quoted in Schumacher,

Readings, pp. 268-69) in his book La soberanta de Esparia en Filipinas.
There was more in Rizal’s use of such language than the mere unconscious
use of religious terminology embedded in a culture, as suggested by
Richardson (“Revolution or Religious Experience?,” p. 317), as his personal
writings show. Just as there were many ways of thinking among the
Katipuneros—Aguinaldo vs. Bonifacio—so there were also among the
Propagandists—Rizal vs. Marcelo del Pilar vs. Lopez Jaena, etc.—a point
I made but did not make sufficiently explicit in my Propaganda Movement.
71. Ileto himself agrees with this assessment, though it seems to me
only partly, because of his extension of the pasyon categories of perception
to all those “from below” (see his “Critical Issues,” p. 103, n. 20, and
Pasyon, p. 146).
72. Guerrero, “The Provincial and Municipal Elites of Luzon during the
Revolution, 1898-1902,” in Philippine Social History, ed. Alfred McCoy and
Ed. C. de Jesus, especially pp. 169-73.
73. Ileto, Pasyon, pp. 146-53; Guerrero, “Provincial and Municipal Elites,”
pp. 155-56, and more extensively in her “Luzon at War.”
74. Guerrero, “Provincial and Municipal Elites,” pp. 175-79.
75. Pasyon, pp. 107-8; also p. 5. Whether or not one accepts Ileto’s
relating the word to layaw, a point on which I am not competent to comment
myself, the difference in the content of the expectations of elite and peas-
ants is clear.
76. See, for example, the interview with Salud Algabre in David R.
Sturtevant, Popular Uprisings in the Philippines, 1840-1940 (Ithaca: Cornell
University Press, 1976), pp. 286-99. Sturtevant, however, sees Sakdalism
in a more “secular” light than earlier protest movements, wrongly I think.
77. Brian Fegan, “The Social History of a Central Luzon Barrio,” in
Philippine Social History, pp. 91-129, especially pp. 106-11.
78. Ibid., p. 107.
79. Benedict J. Kerkvliet, The Huk Rebellion: A Study of Peasant Revolt
in the Philippines (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1977); Fegan,
“Social History,” p. 128, n. 47.
80. Fegan also includes the Katipunan in the first strand of organiza-
tions, citing Ileto and an unpublished paper of his own, “Light in the East:
Pasion, Vigil, and the Idiom of Central Luzon Peasant Movements,
1896-1970” (1978). Not having seen the paper, I cannot comment on his
inclusion of the Katipunan, except to the extent I have argued against
Nleto’s including it in the pasyon tradition.
81. Relevant here is the suggestion made by Norman Owen that “in
economic history we may yet conclude that 1898 is less significant than
1869, when the Suez Canal opened” (“Philippine Society and American
Colonialism,” in Compadre Colonialism: Studies on the Philippines Under
American Rule, ed. Norman G. Owen [Ann Arbor: Center for South and
Southeast Asian Studies, University of Michigan, 1971], p. 6). To the extent
that these movements were often set under way by economic factors of
dislocation, a similar judgment could be made.
82. For the Dios-Dios movements and the pulahanes, see Bruce
Cruikshank, Samar: 1768-1898 (Manila: Historical Conservation Society,
1985), pp. 187-98, 212-14. For the entrance among the Surigao Colorums
 Notes to Essay 13 259

of former Samar and Leyte Pulahanes, see Sturtevant, Popular Uprisings,

pp. 142-43.
83. Dean C. Worcester, The Philippines, Past and Present, ed. J. Ralston
Hayden (New York: Macmillan, 1930), pp. 317-18; Richard Arens, SVD,
“The Early Pulahan Movement in Samar and Leyte,” Journal of History 7
(1959): 303-71. Arens notes a revival of pulahanes during World War II.
84. Cullamar, Babaylanism, pp. 19-70.
85. Donn V. Hart, “Buhawi of the Bisayas: The Revitalization Process
and Legend Making in the Philippines,” in Studies in Philippine Anthro-
ee ed. Mario D. Zamora (Quezon City: Alemar-Phoenix, 1967), pp.

86. Sturtevant, Popular Uprisings, pp. 96-114, 175-92.

87. James A. LeRoy, The Americans in the Philippines, reprint edition
(New York: AMS Press, 1970), 1: 85; Valenzuela, “Memoirs,” cited in
Agoncillo, Revolt, p. 97.
88. Aguinaldo, Mga Gunita, p. 154.
<i Guerrero, “Understanding Philippine Revolutionary Mentality,”
p. 3
90. Ileto, “Critical Issues,” p. 101.
91. Ulpiano Herrero y Sampedro, OP, Nuestra prisién en poder de los
revolucionarios filipinos (Manila: Imprenta del Colegio de Sto. Tomas, 1900),
p. 23.
92. Ibid., p. 813; italics mine.
93. Ibid., p. 817.
94. Tleto, “Tagalog Poetry and Image of the Past during the War against
Spain,” in Reid and Marr, Perceptions, pp. 379-80, 396, and passim; also,
less pointedly, in Pasyon, passim.
95. Schumacher, Readings, pp. 253-54, 224-25, 226-27.
96. Taylor, Philippine Insurrection, 2: 92; Schumacher, Propaganda Move-
ment, pp. 271-72; idem, Revolutionary Clergy, passim, especially pp. 137-38,
157, 178.
97. Schumacher, Propaganda Movement, pp. 273-76; Marcelo del Pilar
to “Pinakamamahal kong Kaibigan,” 25 March 1889, Ep. Pil., 1: 73;
Schumacher, Readings, p. 266. For the identification of Del Pilar’s ad-
dressee as Rizal, see Schumacher, Propaganda Movement, p. 152.
98. See the books of Herrero and of other prisoners, such as Graciano
Martinez, Memorias del cautiverio; also A Friar’s Account of the Revolution
in Bicol, ed. Apolinar Pastrana Riol, OFM (Quezon City: Franciscan Friary
of St. Gregory the Great, 1980); Romero, Negros Occidental, pp. 111-14;
Martinez Cuesta, History of Negros, pp. 447-56.
99. PRR, I-13, Ecclesiastical Records 1898-1899, Petitions for Clergy;
also Herrero, Nuestra prisién, p. 809, also 387, 720, 820, and passim.
100. Schumacher, Revolutionary Clergy, pp. 53-56.
101. Ibid., pp. 54-56; Schumacher, “The Religious Character of the
Revolution in Cavite, 1896-1897,” PS 24 (1976): 410-13.
102. “Understanding Philippine Revolutionary Mentality,” p. 245; idem,
“The Provincial and Municipal Elites,” pp. 171, 175-79.
103. Schumacher, Revolutionary Clergy, pp. 65-97; 117-21.
104. Ibid., pp. 97-114.
105. Ibid., pp. 106-16. I have modified the assessment made in an
260 Notes to Essay 13

earlier version of this article, on the basis of the evidence brought forward
by William Henry Scott, Ilocano Responses to American Aggression,
1900-1901 (Quezon City: New Day Publishers, 1986), pp. 82-87.
106. Schumacher, Revolutionary Clergy, pp. 156-75. The same was not
true in Ambos Camarines, where Lukban arrived before the friars of those
provinces, who had confided heretofore in the friendly attitude of the
Bikolanos, were able to leave. Lukban imprisoned them and they had to
suffer some months of imprisonment with alternating temporary release
and return to prison, depending on the character of the Tagalog command-
ers who succeeded one another, until the Americans conquered Camarines.
Because of this persecution of the friars, apparently, and because of the
absence of a Bikolano leader, there is little evidence of the clergy taking
part in the resistance in Camarines, unlike Albay and Sorsogon. See for
Camarines, Pastrana Riol, ed., A Friar’s Account, passim. Though Be-
larmino, the commander-in-chief in Albay, was a Tagalog from Cavite,
whether because he shared the good relations with the clergy that had
prevailed in the first stage of the Revolution in 1896-97 (as Aguinaldo had
until he came under the control of Mabini), or because of the influence of
Santos, or because he was sufficiently close to Aguinaldo to operate freely
in spite of the policy of the central government without fear of being
countermanded, he shared the policy of Santos, who was the most influ-
ential Bikolano leader in Albay and Sorsogon.
107. Schumacher, Revolutionary Clergy, p. 176-92.
108. Roque Lopez, the first of several presidents of the Federal Council
of the Visayas and Gen. Pablo Araneta, as well as a number of other of the
original officials and their successors, had all returned to American-occu-
pied Iloilo city within six months from the American occupation, and Delgado
became Revolutionary politico-military governor of Panay, with nominal
relations with the Malolos government. In Negros, all the hacenderos and
other prominent men, some of whom were closely related to their counter-
parts in Iloilo, temporarily established their cantonal government, only to
hand over control to the Americans as soon as they arrived. See Taylor,
Philippine Insurrection, 2: 375-410; Romero, Negros Occidental, pp. 86-187.
109. LeRoy, Americans, 2: 231. See also Schumacher, Revolutionary
Clergy, pp. 124-29.
110. J. F. Bell, Brigadier General Commanding, “Instructions to All
Station Commanders,” 9 December 1901, in U.S. Senate Document, no.
331, part 2; 57th Congress, 1st Session, 1902, p. 1610.
111. Glenn A. May, “Filipino Resistance to American Occupation: Batan-
gas, 1899-1902,” Pacific Historical Review 48 (1979): 531-56; also his
“Filipino Revolutionaries in the Making: The Old School Tie in Late
Nineteenth-Century Batangas,” Bulletin of the American Historical Collec-
tion 9 (July-September 1981): 53-64. In this latter article May shows how
many of the military commanders from Batangas—several of them from
the wealthy provincial elite who later went on to study in Manila or even
in Europe—had been classmates of Gen. Miguel Malvar at the school of
Tanawan run by FY. Valerio Malabanan (from which Mabini had graduated
just before Malvar’s entrance). The high number of provincial and even
cosmopolitan elite, like the Dimayugas and Galicano Apacible, who coop-
erated with Malvar to the bitter end in 1902, gives a quite different picture
from provinces like Iloilo and Negros. Though May gives no data on the
 Notes to Essay 13 261
point, it is not unlikely that many of the priests who cooperated with
Malvar’s forces might also have been students in Fr. Malabanan’s school
or others (Batangas had an extraordinarily large number) where they
would have made personal contacts with the military leaders of the Batan-
gas resistance.
112. It is noteworthy that when Aguinaldo in July 1897 had the Depart-
mental Government of Central Luzon set up, of which Father Dandan was
elected president, the only provinces in revolutionary hands that were
excluded from Dandan’s jurisdiction were Cavite and Batangas, an indica-
tion of Malvar’s independent position (see Kalaw, Philippine Revolution,
pp. 58-59).
113. Schumacher, Revolutionary Clergy, p. 129.
114. For Rizal not having money with which to buy food, see Leon Ma.
Guerrero, The First Filipino, pp. 169-71; for Del Pilar sick from the cold
and having to pick up cigarette butts in order to be able to smoke, see
Schumacher, Propaganda Movement, p. 256; for Panganiban’s lack of funds
and his early death from tuberculosis as a result of the poverty in which
he lived, see Zaide, Great Filipinos, p. 375.
115. Teodoro A. Agoncillo, Malolos: The Crisis of the Republic (Quezon
City: University of the Philippines, 1960), p. 676 and passim; Constantino,
Past Revisited, pp. 232-34. Constantino includes Ambrosio Rianzares
Bautista, but it appears that he was still with the Malolos government at
least till two months before Aguinaldo proclaimed guerrilla warfare (see
Schumacher, Revolutionary Clergy, p. 120.) According to Zaide (Great Fili-
pinos, pp. 93-97), he would have been 69 (or 59; there is conflict of dates
in Zaide’s article) at that time, and it was understandable that he did not
join the guerrillas. Constantino also includes Paterno and Buencamino,
who were quickly to become ardent Americanistas, to be sure, but who in
fact did not surrender, but were captured (Agoncillo, Malolos, p. 545; Zaide,
Great Filipinos, p. 391).
116. Zaide, Great Filipinos, p. 68; Bonifacio Salamanca, The Filipino
Reaction to American Rule (N.p.: Shoestring Press, 1968), pp. 140-41; Peter
W. Stanley, A Nation in the Making (Cambridge: Harvard University Press,
1974), pp. 72, 120-21; Angel Estrada and Vicente del Carmen, trans. and
ed., The World of Felix Roxas (Manila: Filipiniana Book Guild, 1970), pp.
152, 206-7.
117. Schumacher, Propaganda Movement, pp. 133, 245-46; Encarnacion
Alzona, Galicano Apacible: Portrait of a Patriot (N.p., 1970), pp. 45-46;
258-59; DPB, 2: 120, 123.
118. Rianzares Bautista was the last president of the Malolos Congress,
succeeding Paterno. The latter was captured in Benguet in April 1900; for
Rianzares Bautista’s capture, the exact date is uncertain, but to judge from
a letter of General MacArthur of 23 November 1899, it had taken place
shortly before (see Taylor, Philippine Insurrection, 2: 260).
119. LeRoy, Americans, 1: 323, citing Nozaleda’s Defensa of 1904.
120. Schumacher, Revolutionary Clergy, pp. 74-87; Mabini to Galicano
Apacible, 8 December 1898, The Letters of Apolinario Mabini (Manila:
National Heroes Commission, 1965), p. 79.
121. After the Revolution, Generals Delgado, Fullon, Cailles, Trias, and
perhaps others became provincial governors within a few months after
their surrender in 1901. The best known examples from World War II
262 Notes to Essay 13

are Ramon Magsaysay and Ferdinand Marcos (the latter on his alleged
exploits).
22. “Historia de las conquistas de Cagayan por los revolucionarios
tagalos, y de la prisién y cautiverios de los Padres Dominicos... por...
Padre Fray Florentino Fernandez,” in Isacio R. Rodriguez, OSA, Gregorio
Aglipay y los origenes de la Iglesia Filipina Independiente (Madrid: Consejo
Superior de Investigaciones Cientfficas, 1960), 2: 266.
123. Aguinaldo, Mga Gunita, pp. 70, 85; Isacio R. Rodriguez, Historia
de la provincia agustiniana del Smo. Nombre de Jesis de Filipinas (Manila:
n.p., 1968), 4: 392.
124. Martinez Cuesta, History, pp. 447-56.
125. Herrero, Nuestra prisién, pp. 136-37.
126. See table I in Daniel Doeppers, “The Philippine Revolution and the
Geography of Schism,” The Geographical Review 66 (1976): 163; and Schu-
macher, Readings, pp. 309-10. To form a more accurate picture, moreover,
one must note that in Cebu and Jaro a large number of the parishes listed
under Spanish religious were Recoleto and Jesuit missions in Mindanao,
where there were no secular clergy. Hence, the proportion of parishes
possessed by the Filipino clergy in Cebu and Jaro was even much higher
than appears in the tables, and the evaluation I have made in the text has
taken that into consideration.
127. Schumacher, Revolutionary Clergy, pp. 137-39, 157, 176-77.
128. Herrero, Nuestra prisién, pp. 813-17.
 Index

A Ayllén, Ricardo, 159, 244n. 19

Abella, Mariano, 206 Azcdrraga, Manuel, 214n. 58
Abreu, Jose, 169 Azcaérraga, Marcelo, 214n.58
Aglipay, Gregorio (Fr.), 2, 200-201
Agoncillo, Teodoro, 1-2, 181 B
Agudo, Guillermo (Fr.), 83 Babaylanes, 184, 195
Aguilera, Gregorio, 169, 202, 205, 206 El Barangay, 107
Aguinaldo, Emilio, 133, 204, 252n.12 Barrantes, Vicente, 94, 233n.33
Agtirre, Evaristo, 95, 124, 159, 244n. 20 Basa, José Ma., 33, 81-82
Alaminos, Juan, 24 La Batalla de Lepanto, 125
Alejandrino, Jose, 169, 170, 205, 206 Bathalismo, 107
Alejandrino, Mariano, 38 Bautista, Ariston, 161, 166, 169, 170
Alvarez, Mariano, 227n.31 Bayle, Constantino (Fr.), 152
Alvarez, Santiago, 255n. 36 Becerra, Manuel, 162, 246n. 34
Ang Dapat Mabatid ng mga Tagalog, 9 Belarmino, Vito (Gen.), 201
“Annales school,” 186 Bell, J. Franklin (Gen.), 30, 202
La Antigua Civilizacién Tagalog, 107 Bertran, Pedro (Fr.), 221n.61, 226n.27
Apacible, Galicano, 161, 166, 169, 205 Beyer, H. Otley, 117
Aparato Bibliogrdfico de la Historia Biblioteca Histérica Filipina, 105
General de Filipinas, 140, 147-48, 153 Blanco, Agustin, 161
Los Apellidos Espafioles en el Extremo Blood compact, 108, 111-12, 125
Oriente, 151 Blumentritt, Ferdinand, 8-9, 25, 31, 35,
Aquino de Belen, Gaspar, 185, 190 93, 94, 108-9, 120, 122-23, 136, 138,
Aragonés, Juan (Bishop), 38 146, 173
Araneta, Gregorio, 204 Bonifacio, Andres, 2, 3, 9, 79, 114-16,
Araneta, Luis, 45 130, 180, 182, 187-88, 227n.31
Araneta, Pablo (Gen.), 260n. 108 Borromeo, Arturo, 170
Archivo del Biblidfilo Filipino, 139, 142 Bourgeois ideology, and Katipunan,
Arco, Claudio del (Fr.), 79, 82 181-83
Arejola, Tomas, 170, 174 Braudel, Fernand, 186
Arellano, Cayetano, 204, 205 British and Foreign Bible Society, 164
Arellano, Deodato, 99, 165 British Museum, 8, 95, 109
Argudin, Justo, 160 Brun, Pio, 50, 64, 68, 219n. 35
Artigas, Manuel y Cuerva, 48-49, 74, Burgos, Jose (Fr.), 2, 21, 22, 26, 27, 38,
83-88, 117, 143, 228nn. 48, 50 51; on alleged Filipino inferiority, 27;
Asilo de Huérfanos, 48 forged works attributed to, 13, 44~70;
Asociacién Hispano-Filipina, 170, 171, as influence on Rizal, 26; and national
172, 173, 174 consciousness, 27—28, 120; and secu-
Association Internationale des Philippin- lar clergy, 27, 105; signature (genu-
istes, 73 ine) of, 220n.51; and the university,
Ateneo Municipal, 20, 35, 38, 214—15n.1 38-39
Avisos y Profectas, 139, 142 Bustamante, Bernabe, 170
264 Index

Bustamante y Bustillo, Fernando de, 58 Compendio Histérico de Filipinas, 77

Constantino, Renato, 17, 92, 181, 261n.
C 115
Caballero de Puga, Eduardo, 174-75 Cor de Cruz, Flaviano, 170
“Caciques,” 253-54n.23 Coria, Joaquin de (Fr.), 76
Cailles, Juan, 206 Corominas, José, 170
Calamba, Hacienda of, 17-18, 24, 128, Cortes, Domingo Marcelo, 161
129 Cortes, Doroteo, 33, 81, 163
Calderon, Felipe, 117, 200 Cracks in the Parchment Curtain, 9
Calosa, Pedro, 195 Craig, Austin, 117
Caneo, Sebastian, 186 Criollos, 21, 28
Canon, Fernando (Gen.), 207 Crisologo, Mena, 206
CAnovas del Castillo, Antonio, 137, 142, Crisostomo, Pio, 170
233n. 3 El cristianismo en la antigua civilizacion
Canseco, Telesforo, 227n.31, 255n. 36 Tagalog, 107
Cafiamaque, Francisco, 124 Cruz, Hermenegildo, 50, 59, 64, 68, 219n.
Canarte, Juan José, 160 31, 2200. Oo
Castelar, Emilio, 233n.3 Cruz, Joaquin Arnedo, 206
Castells, Felipe de P., 164 Cuartero de Medina, Mariano (Fr.), 76
Castro, Rafael, (Fr.), 75 Cuartero del Pilar, Mariano (Fr.), 75, 76
Catdlogo Abreviado de la Biblioteca Fil- Cuestiones Filipinas: Avisos y Profesias,
ipina, 140 137
Catholic education, failure of, 42-43 Cunanan, Mariano, 169, 170
Cavite Mutiny, 29, 45, 47, 69
Cavite Mutiny, accounts of: Artigas y D
Cuerva, Manuel, 83-87; Basa, Jose Dancel, Arturo, 133
M., 81-82; de Govantes, Felipe M., Dandan, Pedro (Fr.), 2,29, 200, 261n.112
77; Echegoyen, Agapito (Fr.), 78; De Govantes, Felipe M., 77, 78, 87
Herrero, Casimiro (Fr.), 77; Mabini, De Govantes, Pedro, 214n.58
Apolinario, 83; Montero, Jose y Vidal, De Jesus, Ed. C., 179
72; Pardo de Tavera, T.H., 79-80; De la Cruz, Apolinario, 186
Pastells, Pablo (Fr.), 77-78; Paterno, De la Rosa, Luciano, 46, 50, 58, 68, 217n.
Pedro, 79-81; Piernavieja, Antonio 8, 220nn. 42, 52
(Fr.), 78-79; Plauchut, Edmond, De Lifian, Francisco, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49,
72-74; Pons, Salvador (Fr.), 82-83; 63, 65, 68
Regidor, Antonio, 74-77 De los Reyes, Crisanto, 49
La Censura de Imprenta en Filipinas, De los Reyes, Isabelo: 68, 74, 106, 108,
149 150, 188, 252n. 15, 256n. 46; histori-
Chapuli Navarro, Antonio, 124 cal works of, 106; Retana’s attacks
Chirino, Pedro (Fr.), 103 on, 136
Clemente, Manuel, 143 De los Santos, Epifanio, 147, 150, 242n.
El Clero Filipino, 82 109
Code of Kalantiyaw, 13, 217n.12 De los Santos, Isidoro, 170
Codo, Antonio (Fr.), 245n. 24 De Luzuriaga, Augusto R., 46, 50, 68
Cofradfa de San José, 186, 189 De Veyra, Jaime, 46, 68, 117, 220n. 52
Colegio de San Jose, 21, 39 {pseud. Carlos Diaz]
Colegio de San Juan de Letran, 21, 36, Defensa del Clero Filipino, 82
39, 41-42, 214-15n.1 Del Pan, José Felipe, 158-59, 244nn.16,
Colorums of Mt. San Cristobal, 189 17
Combés, Francisco (Fr.), 138 Del-Pan, Rafael, 158-59
Comité de Propaganda, 104, 128 Del Pilar, Marcelo H.: 21, 28, 173, 204;
 Index 265

death of, 173; and Masonry, 160-67, Figueroa, Melencio, 169

169-77; nationalist strategy of, El Filibusterismo, 8, 95-98
99-100, 127-30, 142-43, 176-77 Filipinas ante Europa, 74
Del Pilar, Toribio H. (Fr.), 28 Filipinas: Estudios sobre algunos asun-
Del Prado, Vicente, 207 tos de actualidad, 145
Delgado, Juan (Fr.), 105 Filipinertas, 150
Delgado, Martin (Gen.), 130, 201, 206 Filipino clergy, and nationalism, 198-203
Desengafios. See Retana, Wenceslao E. Filipino society, pre-hispanic, 110-11
Diario de Manila, 143 Filésofo Tasio, 20, 35
Diaz, Carlos. See De Veyra, Jaime C. El Folk-Lore Filipino, 106
Diaz, Herminio, 159 Folletos filipinos, 136, 146
Diccionario de Filipinismos, 151 Font, Salvador (Fr.), 142, 238n.46
Dimayuga, Lauro, 169, 205, 206 Foradada, Francisco (Fr.), 216n. 18
Diokno, Ananias, 207 Forbes, W. Cameron, 92
Dios Buhawi Movement, 195 Los Frailes en Filipinas, 162
Dios-Dios Movement, 194 Frailes y clérigos, 136, 146
La Discusién, 76 Friar lands, 130—33, 208, 235n.21, 253n.
Dominican institutions, and early nation- 22,
alist leaders, 21, 22, 38-39
G
E Gafnza, Francisco (Bishop), 190
Echegoyen, Agapito (Fr.), 78, 86 Ganap, 194
El Eco de Panay, 135 Garcia, Mariano (Fr.), 47, 218n.22
Economic development: and inquilinos, Gijon, Eustacio, 49
17-18; and nationalist movement, Gomez, Dominador, 169
17-18, 127-30, 183-84 Gomez, Feliciano (Fr.), 48, 218n.18
Education, higher, 25-48, 214-15n.1 Gomez, Juan (Fr.), 26, 84, 229n. 60
“E.F.L.” See Fernandez Lumba, Enrique Gomez, Mariano (Fr.), 48, 218n.18
Endriga, Jose, 133 Gran Oriente de Espafia, 158, 162
La Epoca, 137, 141, 142 Gran Oriente Espafiol, 160, 164-66,
Escuela Normal de Maestros, 20, 39, 170-77
215n.5 Gran Oriente Nacional de Espana,
Escuela Normal Superior, 215n.5 174-75
Espana en Filipinas, 124, 127 Guardia civil, 19, 94
La Espana Moderna, 149 Guardia de Honor, 193, 195
La Espara Oriental, 135 Giiemes, Cecilio (Fr.), 143
Estadismo de las Islas Filipinas, 138, 140, Guerrilla resistance, Negros, 201, 208
153, 254n.28 Guerrero, Amado, 92
Evangelista, Edilberto, 205 Guerrero, Leon Ma., 96, 183
Guerrero, Milagros, 179, 1838, 185,
F 192-938, 196-97, 200, 204
La familia Tagdlog en la historia univer-
sal, 107 H
Fast, Jonathan, 179, 181-83, 234n. 18 HMB. See Hukbong Mapagpalaya ng
Feced, José, 136 Bayan
Feced, Pablo, 94, 124, 136, 250n. 24 Hermano Pulé. See De la Cruz, Apoli-
[pseud. Quioquiap] nario
Fegan, Brian, 193-94, 258n.80 Hernandez, Tranquilino, 190
Fernandez Arias, Evaristo (Fr.), 142 El Heraldo de Madrid, 145
Ferndndez Lumba, Enrique, 220n. 52 Herrero, Casimiro (Fr.), 25, 75, 77
Ferrando, Juan, 221n.70 Herrero, Ulpiano (Fr.), 197, 199
266 Index

Hijos del Progreso, lodge, 159 L

Historia Famosa ni Bernardo Carpio, Labra, Rafael Ma., 65
iG yetow Laktaw, Pedro Serrano, 163
Historian, task of, 7-15 Lallave, Manrique Alonso, 161-65,
Historia Veridica, 46, 47, 49, 68 246nn. 29, 30, 247n. 40
Historical method, and use of documents, Lam-co, Domingo, 18
11-12 “Landlords,” 253n. 23
History, 9, 11, 12-15 Ledesma, Jose, 170
History, and nationalist struggle, 105-14 Legarda, Benito, 204
Huerta, Felix (Fr.), 75, 76 LeRoy, James A., 143, 196, 202
Hukbong Mapagpalaya ng Bayan, 194 Lete, Eduardo de, 173
Letran. See Colegio de San Juan de
I Letran
Icasiano, Santiago, 161 Levi-Strauss, Claude, 186
Iglesia Filipina Independiente, 106 El Liberal, 136, 137
Ignacio, Cornelio (Fr.), 199 El liberalismo es pecado, 42
Tleto, Reynaldo, 12, 115-16, 179, 254n. Liga Filipina, 100
33, 255nn. 35, 39,41, 257 Lim, Hilario A., 224n.110
Ilustrados, 23, 25, 104 Liongson, Francisco, 170
Illustrisimo, Agapito, 255n. 35 “Little Tradition,” 185
Imperial, Ramon, 161 Llorente, Julio, 159, 169, 173, 244n. 20,
La Imprenta en Filipinas, 141 245n. 22
El indio batanguefio, 136 La Loba Negra: 13, 45, 49; description,
Inocencio, Maximo, 49 219n. 38, 224n.110; language defi-
Inquilinos, 17-18, 127, 132, 133 ciency of, 58-59; “original manuscript”
La Inquisicion en Filipinas, 149 of, 51-52; plot, 53, 58; signatures on,
Izquierdo, Rafael (Gen.), 23, 29, 39, 66, 52-53; 54-57 (fig. 14); and works of
69, 76, 162, 218n.22 Rizal, Jose, 59-61
Lopez Jaena, Graciano, 121, 128, 159,
J 160, 166, 167, 168, 244-45n.21
Jacinto, Emilio, 21, 115, 130, 182 Lopez, Roque, 260n. 108
Jesuits, 20-21, 40-41, 138-39 Lucio y Bustamante, Miguel (Fr.), 20
Jocson, Rosauro, 170 Lukban, Vicente, 195, 201
Jugo, Simplicio, 170 Lumbera, Bienvenido, 254n.27
Junoy, Emilio, 129, 171 Luna, Antonio, 124, 169, 172
Luna, Juan, 93, 121, 124
K Luz de Mantua, lodge, 159
KPMP. See Kalipunang Pambansa ng Luz de Oriente, lodge, 158
mga Magbubukid sa Pilipinas Luzurriaga, Jose, 204, 205
Kabola, Pedro, 195
Kalaw, Teodoro, 46, 157, 243n.14 M
Kalayaan, 114, 197 Mabini, Apolinario, 21, 83, 128, 131-32,
Kalipunang Pambansa ng mga Mag- 180, 200, 204
bubukid sa Pilipinas, 194 Macapinlac, Dionisio (Fr.), 190
Kapatiran Magsasaka, 194 Majul, Cesar, 183
“Kasam,” 17, 18, 132 Makabulos, Francisco (Gen.), 182, 207
Katipunan, 101, 114-16, 174, 181-84, Malabanan, Valerio (Fr.), 260n.111
187-89, 252-53n. 15, 256n.46 Malolos government, 184, 195, 200
Katipunan ni San Cristobal, 186-87 Malvar, Miguel (Gen.), 202, 206, 260n.
Kerkvliet, Benedict J., 194 ital
 Index 267

Manahan, Jacinto, 194 O

Manifiesto of Fr. Jose Burgos, 27, 83 La Oceanfa Espanola, 135, 158
Marasigan, Vicente (Fr.), 255 La Opint6n, 135, 143
Marco, Jose E.: 12, 18, 46-47, 63, 65, Origenes de la Imprenta Filipina, 141,
217nn.6, 12; and Burgos’s works (spu- 150
rious), 66-69; forgeries of, 12-13
“Maremagnum,” 65, 67, 222n. 74 i
Martinez de Zifiiga, Joaquin (Fr.), 138, PKM. See Pambansang Kaisahan ng mga
140, 185, 236n. 15 Magbubukid
Masangkay, Guillermo, 219n. 34 Paco. See San Fernando de Dilao
Masonry, Philippine: 156-77; and anti- El Pacto de Sangre. See Blood compact
friar campaign, 161-67; early history Paez, Timoteo, 172, 249n. 20
of, 158-67; in Madrid, 168-77; and Palma, Rafael) 1, 2, 7.
nationalist campaign, 171-75; “Revo- Pambansang Kaisahan ng mga Mag-
lucion,” 160-61; “Solidaridad,” 169, bubukid, 194
ial Pamplona, Santiago (Fr.), 202
Matta, Juan de la, 21 Panganiban, Jose Ma., 35, 160-67, 204
May, Glenn, 202, 260n.111 Pantoja, Jose Ma., 174
Medina, A.G., 81 Papa Isio, 184, 195, 201
Medina, José Toribio, 140 Paraiso, Enrique, 49
Melitén Martinez, Gregorio (Archbishop), Pardo de Tavera, Joaquin, 28, 73, 79
47, 65, 73, 218n.15 Pardo de Tavera, Trinidad H., 32, 73,
Mercado, Simeon, 170, 172 107, 128, 204
Mir Deas, Celso, 160, 245n.25 Pastells, Pablo (Fr.), 42,. 77-78, 87,
Missionary chronicles, 102-3 138-39, 145, 146, 147, 152, 236n.18
Mojica, Diego, 192 Pasyon and Revolution, 12, 179, 184-90
Montero y Vidal, José, 72, 73, 87 Pasyon Pilapil, 185, 190-91, 254n. 27
Morayta, Miguel, 159, 160, 164, 165, 169, Pasyon tradition, 190-91
173, 175-76, 250n. 28 Paterno, Maximo, 79, 80
Morga, Antonio de, 8, 22, 93, 95, 109, Paterno, Pedro: 12, 115, 116, 122, 204,
148-49, 240n. 85 205; and Cavite mutiny (account of),
79-80; and first Filipino novel, 122;
N historical writings of, 107-8; poetry
Navarro, Cipriano (Fr.), 79, 238n.46 of, 120-21; on racial equality, 106-8
Navarro, Eduardo (Fr.), 142, 145 Payo, Pedro (Archbishop), 138
Nilad, lodge, 172 Pavon manuscript, 12-13, 271n.12
Ninay, 122 Peasant revolts, 180, 193—96
Noli me Tdngere: as catalyst of revolu- Pelaez, Pedro (Fr.), 2, 27
tion, 91-101; and El Filibusterismo, Pérez, Lorenzo (Fr.), 151-52
95-98; as a Filipino novel, 122-24; Perfecto, Mariano, 190
interpretation of, 96-97; message to Philippine Society and Revolution, 92
Filipinos, 94; and national conscious- Piernavieja, Antonio (Fr.), 78-79, 81
ness, 97; and nationalism, 93-95; Pilapil, Mariano (Fr.), 185
purpose of, 91 Plasencia, Juan de (Fr.), 103
Novenas, 191-92 Plauchut, Edmond, 72—74, 87, 225nn.8,
Nozaleda, Bernardino (Archbishop), 24, ila!
205 La Politica de Espana en Filipinas, 136,
Nuestro Tiempo, 147, 149, 151 137, 139, 141, 143, 144, 145, 146, 174
Numancia, lodge, 164 Ponce, Damaso, 161, 166, 169, 176
Numantina, lodge, 164 Ponce, Mariano, 5, 147, 160, 173, 176
268 Index

Pons, Salvador (Fr.), 82-83 The Revolutionary Clergy, 179, 198,

Povedano manuscript, 12-13, 63, 217n. 223n. 107
12 Rianzares Bautista, Ambrosio, 205, 261n.
Pre-hispanic Sources for the History of 115
the Philippines, 13 Rianzares, Pablo, 169
La primera conjuracion separatista: Ribadeneyra, Marcelo de (Fr.), 103
1587-1588, 149 Ricart, Juan (Fr.), 39, 245n. 24
Primo de Rivera, Fernando (Gov. Gen.), Richardson, Jim, 179, 181-83, 234n. 18
253n. 22 Rizal, Jose: and Catholicism, 25; eco-
“Principales,” 193, 253n. 23 nomic support of, 127-28; and Filipi-
Propaganda movement: 104, 119-25; and nos in Spain, 29; and history, 108-14;
creative literature, 120-24; and fine nationalist strategy of, 33-34, 94-101,
arts, 121-25; financing of, 127-30; and 108-14; novels of, 122-23; as propa-
influence on the American regime, gandist, 104, 108-14; as reformist,
116-18; and revolution, 114~-16; and 33-34, 92, 98-101; as revolutionary,
use of history, 104-14 22, 98-101; and Spanish conquest,
La Publicidad, 129 111-12. See also El Filibusterismo;
El Pueblo Soberano, 160 Noli Me Tangere
Pulahanes, 194-95 Rizal, Paciano, 24, 28, 38, 147, 206
Robertson, James Alexander, 47, 117,
150, 217n. 12, 241n. 97
Quioquiap. See Feced, Pablo Romero Robledo, Francisco, 145, 239n.
63
R Roots of Dependency, 179
Ramos, José A., 158, 163, 172 Roxas, Baldomero, 169
Raza Espafiola, 151 Roxas, Francisco, 145, 239
Regidor, Antonio, 28, 73-77, 84, 87 Roxas, Pedro, 128
Regidor, Manuel, 65 Rufidn, Antonio (Fr.), 84
El Renacimiento, 146, 149-50, 151 Ruiz de Leén, Eleuterio, 169
La Republica Filipina, 41
Resurreccion Hidalgo, Felix, 93, 121, Ss
124-25 Sakdalistas, 193, 194, 211n.13
La Revolucién Filipina, 83 Salvador, Felipe, 189
Retana, Wenceslao E., 48, 92, 105, 174, Salvador, Moises, 169, 172
228n.47, 233n.3 , 239n.74; as biblio- Sampaguitas, 120, 121, 122
grapher, 139-41; birth of, 135; death San Fernando de Dilao, 61, 221n.59
of, 151; as historian, 1387-39, 149-50, San Jose, Colegio de. See Colegio de San
152-55; as polemicist, 136—37; retrac- Jose
tion of, 152, 241n.107; scholarly works Sancianco, Gregorio, 38
of, 147-49 [pseud. Desengafios] Sancho de Santa Justa, Basilio (Arch-
Revista del Circulo Hispano-Filipino, 127, bishop), 26
214n. 58 Sandico, Teodoro, 161, 163, 166, 169, 205
The Revolt of the Masses, 181 Santa Iglesia, 189, 194
“Revolucién” (lodge), 160-61, 245n. 24 Santa Maria, Manuel, 252n. 47
Revolution: and class distinctions, 204-7; Santos, Ramon F. (Col.), 201
economic factors in, 126-33; and Sarda y Salvany, Felix (Fr.), 42
Filipino clergy, 198-203; land factor Scott, William Henry, 2, 9, 13, 66, 217n.
in, 130-33; mass participation in, yy
195-98, 208-9; regional variations of, Serrano Laktaw, Pedro, 169, 172, 249n.
207 22, 250n. 24
 Index 269

Sevilla, Mariano (Fr.), 2, 28, 29, 38, 200 Treserra, Domingo (Fr.), 75
Silang, Diego, 137 Trias, Manuel (Fr.), 199, 261n. 121
Smith, Jacob (Gen.), 30 La Tristeza Errante, 146
La Soberanta de Espana en Filipinas,
216n. 18 U
La Soberanta Monacal, 128 University of Santo Tomas, 35, 38-39,
Sobre la Indolencia del Filipino, 114, 187 214n.1
Solidaridad (lodge), 70, 159, 169-71,
248n. 5 Vv
La Solidaridad, 24, 31, 72, 83, 92, 99, Valenzuela, Pio, 182, 196
124, 128, 136-37, 142, 143, 144, 168, La Verdad, 83
170 Vic, Jose, 173
Spoliarium, 121 Vida y Escritos del Dr. José Rizal, 147,
Stanley, Lord Henry, 110 148, 154
Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas, 8, 22, 95, Vilanova, Pedro (Fr.), 76
109, 114, 148-49, 187 Villaruel, Faustino, 174
Sukgang, Telesforo, 169 Vindel, Pedro, 66, 141, 148
Sunico, Francisco, 169 Vincent Ferrer, Saint, 191
Virgenes Cristianas Expuestas al Popu-
4h lacho, 121
Tablas Cronolégica y Alfabética de
Imprentas e Impresores de Filipinas, W
141 Weyler, Valeriano (Gov. Gen.), 23, 138,
Taft, William H. (Gov.), 30, 92 142, 151
Tamayo, Serapio (Fr.), 80
Teodoro, Basilio, 38 Y
To the Young Women of Malolos, 185 Yzama, Jose, 169
Tormo Sanz, Leandro, 69
Torre, Carlos M. de la (Gov. Gen.), 28-29, Z
Ad, 47, 72,°77, 218n. 15 Zaldua, Francisco, 48
Torres, Florentino, 204, 253n. 15 Zamora, Jacinto (Fr.), 26, 48
Transformismo: Didlogos con un “Bago,” Z6bel de Zangréniz, Jacobo, 243n. 10
135 Zuazo, José Ma., 170
Treaty of Paris, 132 Zulueta, Clemente Jose, 143, 146
 tg
= Pare | wy -
s aor

eee
aed en ee ae
Pet te fad

iar 133 oe
y sat Fopariae,
ee
Be ey wr
sch Ef ee ity : rire
iets rams @

aac eee, Re iy ence

. WS Vorbrent eyed : af none
ét oBf8 TT 200g
RYo a i mt.
ee. uh eee | ATi ge” 4 oe "
3
bi
xh spin ab oare
GL wie toes, .
y
fen REY mhan,
TF a
c . “de
i one bh ee
“Ac 3S
seq!
Hat) + ‘ so 5ay*
The Making of a Nation is a collection of essays
that center on the emergence of Filipino national .
consciousness in the second half of the nineteenth
century. They range from the first beginnings of
Filipino national awareness with Father Jose Burgos
to its full flowering in the Revolution and the war in
defense of national independence against the
Americans. The fruit of thirty-five years of research
into the period, and three earlier books on the subject,
the essays represent the mature thought of the author
on key aspects of the process by which the Filipino
people formed themselves into a nation.

John N. Schumacher, S.J., is professor of history in

the Loyola School of Theology, Ateneo de Manila
University. In addition to several books on Philippine
church history, he has written three earlier major
works on nineteenth-century Filipino nationalism:
Father Jose Burgos, Priest and Nationalist (1972);
The Propaganda Movement: 1880-1895 (1973); and
The Revolutionary Clergy: The Filipino Clergy and
the Nationalist Movement, 1850-1903 (1981).
ISBN 971-550-019-6

Ateneo de Manila University Press

Bellarmine Hall, Loyola Hts., Q.C.
P.O. Box 154, 1099 Manila

000000