Balintawak.jar.rev - Balintawak vs Pugadlawin PDF

Preview

Summary

Notes on the “Cry” of August 1896Jim Richardson March 2019IntroductionThe start of the revolution against Spain has been officially commemorated in recent years as “The Cry of Pugad Lawin.” The supposed site of “Pugad Lawin” is situated in Brgy. Bahay Toro, Quezon City, and is memorialized with a ta...

Description

Notes on the “Cry” of August 1896 Jim Richardson March 2019 Introduction The start of the revolution against Spain has been officially commemorated in recent years as “The Cry of Pugad Lawin.” The supposed site of “Pugad Lawin” is situated in Brgy. Bahay Toro, Quezon City, and is memorialized with a tableau of life-sized, oddly rigid Katipuneros tearing their cedulas.

The inscription on the marker at the site says that “In the vicinity of this place, Andres Bonifacio and about one thousand Katipuneros met on the morning of August 23, 1896 and decided to launch the revolution against the Spanish government in the Philippines. They affirmed their decision by tearing their cedulas, symbols of the enslavement of the Filipinos. This was the first cry of the oppressed people against the Spanish nation, and was given force by means of arms.” In 1896, according to the National Historical Commission (NHCP), the house and yard of Juan Ramos had stood on this site. Historians agree the precise date and location are not vitally important. They concur, a few mavericks excepted, that the “Cry” 1

took place between August 23 and 26, 1896 in what was then the municipality of Caloocan. The doubt about the exact site could be put aside, as Ambeth Ocampo has suggested, simply by calling the occasion the “Cry of Caloocan”.1 But this fudge would not end the controversy. Official history demands precise dates to commemorate and exact places to mark, and historians feel uneasy that decades of debate have not produced any clear answers. Pinpointing the “Cry” is a challenge they have failed to meet. Nicolas Zafra voiced such a view back in 1960. The detail of the “Cry” might seem insignificant in relation to the broader sweep of events, he acknowledged, and indeed it might seem “pointless and unprofitable” to pursue the matter, but the historical profession had a duty to ensure the facts of public history were as accurate as humanly possible. Settling the problem, he said, would redound to the “credit, honor and glory of historical scholarship in our country.”2 These notes aim firstly to clarify the issues of geography and terminology that have complicated the “Cry” debate over the years; secondly to summarize the current state of knowledge about the “Cry”; and thirdly, at some length, to discuss the long evolution and the credibility of the official version of events, namely (i) that the “Cry” took place on August 23, 1896; (ii) at a site known as Pugad Lawin, situated in what today is Bahay Toro, Quezon City; (iii) which in 1896 had been the house and yard of Juan Ramos. Geography The barrios, hamlets and farmsteads where the revolution began were all within the municipality of Caloocan in the province of Manila. The municipality was large, but sparsely inhabited. Its total population in 1896 was tallied at just 7,829. Of this number, 2,694 lived in the town (población), 977 lived in the largest barrio, Balintawak, and the remaining 4,158 were scattered in ten other barrios – Baesa, Bagobantay, Bahay Toro, Banlat, Culiat, Kangkong, Loma, Marulas, Talipapa, and Tangke.3

1 Ambeth R. Ocampo, Bones of Contention: The Bonifacio Lectures (Pasig City: Anvil Publishing Inc., 2001), 80. 2 Nicolas P. Zafra, “The ‘Cry of Balintawak’ as a Historical Problem,” Historical Bulletin, IV:3 (September 1960), 13-4. 3 Carlos Ronquillo, Ilang talata tungkol sa paghihimagsik nang 1896-1897 [1898], edited by Isagani R. Medina, (Quezon City: University of the Philippines Press, 1996), 676. [Hereafter, Medina in Ronquillo, Ilang talata].

2

No detailed maps of the municipality are known to have survived from the Spanish era, and perhaps none ever existed. The barrio boundaries of the time are said to have been sketchy, and are now forgotten. The terrain, moreover, was unremarkable, a mix of farmland and rough grassland, talahib and cogon, with few natural landmarks. Many of the sources on the “Cry” are consequently vague and inconsistent in how they identify and locate the settlements, roads and other features of the area. Most confusingly of all, the name “Pugad Lawin” came to be used in the twentieth century to refer not just to one of the contending “Cry” sites, but to two. First one site, and then another. Today, the Pugad Lawin marker is in Bahay Toro, where Juan Ramos had supposedly lived. But in previous decades, as will be discussed later, Pugad Lawin was said to have been three kilometers or so to the northeast, where Ramos’s mother Melchora Aquino (“Tandang Sora”) had lived near Pasong Tamo in barrio Banlat.

Pasya, Pagpupunit and Unang Labanan The debate has long been clouded by a lack of consensus on exactly what is meant by the “Cry”. The term has been applied to three related but distinct events –  the “pasya” – the decision to revolt; 3

 the “pagpupunit” – the tearing of cedulas; and  the “unang labanan” – the first encounter with Spanish forces. These three events, to state the obvious, did not all happen at the same time and place. When and where the “Cry” should be commemorated thus depends on how it is defined. Many of the older sources on the “Cry” do not say precisely which event they mean, and often we can only guess. This problem is so embedded in the literature that it is impossible to eradicate totally, but wherever practicable these notes will avoid the fluid, contested “Cry” word, and will seek instead to specify which distinct event is being discussed – the pasya, the pagpupunit or the unang labanan. Among the historians who have studied the “Cry” in greatest detail, there is a sharp divergence of opinion as to how the term should be defined.  Teodoro A. Agoncillo equates the term with the pagpupunit, which he says happened immediately after the pasya.4  Isagani R. Medina also takes the “Cry” to mean the pagpupunit, but says it happened before the decision to revolt had been taken.5  Soledad Borromeo-Buehler takes the view – the traditional view that KKK veterans took, she says - that the “Cry” should mean the unang labanan.6

4 Teodoro A. Agoncillo, The Revolt of the Masses: the story of Bonifacio and the Katipunan (Quezon City: University of the Philippines, 1956), 150; Teodoro A. Agoncillo, “Four Girls and a Man,” Part IX, Manila Times, October 27, 1956; Teodoro A. Agoncillo and Milagros C. Guerrero, History of the Filipino People, Fifth Edition (Quezon City: R. P. Garcia, 1977), 196. 5 Isagani R. Medina, “Ang Unang Deklarasyon ng Paglaya sa Pugadlawin, Bahay Toro, Kalookan, Agosto 23, 1896,” [1993] in Isagani R. Medina, May tainga ang lupa: Espionage in the Philippines (1896-1902) and Other Essays (Manila: UST Publishing House, 2002), 69-90. (Papel na binasa sa “Unang Kapulungang Pambansa ukol sa Pagbabalak sa Sentenaryo ng Rebolusyong Pilipino,” Adamson University, Hulyo 21, 1993). 6 Soledad Borromeo-Buehler, The Cry of Balintawak: A Contrived Controversy (Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press, 1998), 18-20. 4

It was the unang labanan, as Borromeo-Buehler points out, that was commemorated by the first monument to the events of August 1896. The main inscription on the plinth read “Homenaje del Pueblo Filipino a los Heroes de ’96 / Ala-ala ng Bayang Pilipino sa mga Bayani ng ‘96”, and a smaller plaque bore the date “26 Agosto 1896” . Unveiled before a huge cheering crowd in September 1911, the statue was erected in Balintawak, the largest and best-known barrio in the general area where the Katipuneros had congregated in August 1896. The name Balintawak was often used as shorthand to denote that general area, and the “Cry” had become popularly known as the “Cry of Balintawak” even before the monument was erected. Nobody professed in 1911, though, that the statue marked the “exact spot” where the first battle had been fought. It was simply in Balintawak, on a plot donated by a local landowner, Tomas Arguelles.7 The documentary evidence on the unang labanan is reasonably clear. The first battle, an encounter with a detachment of the Guardia Civil, was fought on the date inscribed on the Balintawak monument - August 26 – at a place about five kilometers north-east of Balintawak, between the settlements of Banlat and Pasong Tamo. A few sources give the date as August 25 but, as both BorromeoBuehler and Encarnacion have shown, the most solid, contemporary sources confirm August 26 to be correct.8 7 “La manifestación popular de 3 de septiembre,” Renacimiento Filipino,

September 14, 1911. 8 Borromeo-Buehler points in particular to (i) a report in the Manila newspaper El Comercio, August 27, 1896; and (ii) a telegraphic report dated August 27, 1896 sent by Francisco Pintos, a Colonel in the Guardia Civil, to the Governor General. Encarnacion cites another contemporary report, from the paper El Español, which includes a “Croquis de las operaciones practicadas,” or sketch map of the routes taken by detachments of the Guardia Civil on August 25, 26

5

The Balintawak monument continued to be the focus of the yearly “Cry” celebrations, held on August 26, for decades. 9 In the 1960s, however, the official definition of the “Cry” changed. Officially, the “Cry” ceased to mean the unang labanan and was defined instead as “that part of the Revolution when the Katipunan decided to launch a revolution against Spain. This event culminated with the tearing of the cedula”.10 This definition, which is more or less in line with Agoncillo’s, thus embraces both the pasya and pagpupunit, but excludes the unang labanan. At first sight, the official definition looks clear and straightforward. A number of sources, however, indicate that cedulas were torn on more than one occasion, in different places, presumably because Katipuneros were arriving to join their embryonic army over the course of a number of days, and many wanted to proclaim their rebellion, their commitment to fight Spanish rule, in the same way. It is even possible (as Medina believes) that the main pagpupunit preceded the pasya.11 But then it would have been premature, because the revolt might have been deferred. It seems more likely, as the official definition of the “Cry” assumes, that the largest, best remembered act of defiant cedula-tearing happened soon after the pasya had been taken, and in the same vicinity. When and where, then, should the “Cry,” as defined as the pasya and pagpupunit, be marked and commemorated? Was there really a “Sigaw ng Pugad Lawin” on August 23, 1896, or not? The decision to revolt: when was it taken? It is almost certain that the decision to revolt was taken on Monday, August 24, 1896, after a lengthy meeting (or series of meetings) that had begun on Sunday, August 23. Many veterans later recalled August 23 as the historic day (see the Appendix to these notes), but and 27. Borromeo-Buehler, The Cry of Balintawak, 81-92; Emmanuel Encarnacion, Ang pamana ni Andres Bonifacio (Quezon City: Adarna, 1997), n.p. See also Manuel Sastron, La insurrección en Filipinas, Tomo 1, (Madrid: Imprenta de la viuda de M. Minuesa de los Rios, 1897), 621-5; and Governor General Ramon Blanco’s own account, Memoria que al Senado dirige el General Blanco acerca de los últimos sucesos ocurridos en la isla de Luzón (Madrid: Establecimiento Tipográfico de “El Liberal,” 1897), 83. 9 The original statue was moved to Diliman in the 1960s due to massive road works in the vicinity, but another was later erected in its place. 10 “Report and Recommendation on The First Cry to the Honorable Chairman and Members of the National Historical Institute,” October 24, 2001, 6. [Hereafter NHI Panel, “Report.”]. 11 Medina in Ronquillo, Ilang talata, 668.

6

others specifically remembered the decision had not been taken until the early hours of August 24, and this latter date is given by at least four important sources, namely:  The Biak-na-Bato constitution of November 1897, which mentions “the current war, initiated on August 24, 1896.” The constitution’s signatories included at least one participant in the “Cry” (Cipriano Pacheco) and several others who would have read circulars and messages from the revolutionists in Caloocan in August 1896. 12  Carlos Ronquillo, in the first chronicle of the revolt against Spain by a Filipino, written in 1898. His work begins with the words “Sa isang arao ng pagpupulong sa Balintawak (24 Agosto 1896) kaarawan nang pasimulan ang Revolucion….”13  The Liga Filipina memorial erected in Tondo in 1903 by the Samahan ng May pag-asa, a patriotic society named in Bonifacio’s honor whose members included several KKK veterans. The inscription on the memorial lists many of those who attended the famous meeting addressed by Rizal on July 3, 1892, and alongside Bonifacio’s name it records that he was “Supremo del ‘Katipunan’ que dió el 1er grito de Guerra contra la tiranía el 24 de Agosto de 1896.”14  Santiago Alvarez, in his memoirs Ang Katipunan at Paghihimagsik, written in 1927 but based, he said, on records entrusted to him by the Katipunan’s first leaders and fighters. Internal evidence suggests that Alvarez’s account of the meeting on August 24 is based on information he obtained from Ramon Bernardo, a Katipunan leader from Pandacan who was a participant in the “Cry.”15 August 24 has now been confirmed as the date of the formal decision by the discovery of a contemporary document - a page 12 “Constitution of Biac-na-bato,” in John R. M. Taylor, The Philippine Insurrection against the United States: a compilation of documents, vol. I (Pasay City: Eugenio López Foundation, 1971), 376. 13 Medina in Ronquillo, Ilang talata, 198. 14 La Redencion del Obrero, December 31, 1903. 15 Santiago V. Alvarez, The Katipunan and the Revolution: Memoirs of a General [1927], translated by Paula Carolina S. Malay (Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press, 1992), 240; 254. 7

from what Medina calls the “borador ng pulong ng Kataastaasang Sangunian,” or rough copy book of the Katipunan Supreme Council. Since a proper borador was not to hand in Caloocan at this tumultuous moment, the Supreme Council’s communications were drafted in some kind of farm ledger, used under normal circumstances to record crop yields or sales. The text is therefore written across printed columns that are headed “ Maiz,” “Mani,” “Camote” and so on. The document is dated “Kalookan, Maynila ika 26 ng Agosto ng taong 1896,” and it begins as follows:“Ayon sa pinagkaisahan sa ginanap […?] pulong ng Kataastaasang Kapisanan […?] ikadalawang puo’t apat nitong umiiral na buan tungkol sa paghihimagsik (revolucion) at sa pagkakailangang […?] maghalal ng magsisipamahala ng bayan at mag aakay ng Hukbo…….” 16[In accordance with the decision taken by the meeting of the Supreme Assembly held on the twenty-fourth of the present month regarding the revolution, and given the necessity to elect leaders of the people and directors of the Army…..”]

16 Medina in Ronquillo, Ilang talata, 32. Medina’s acknowledgments (p.816) unfortunately omit any reference to this document, and from his 1993 “Unang deklarasyon” paper (p.86) it seems he did not know its source himself. Perhaps he just had a photograph of the one page. If anyone can find this borador and share its contents, they will be making a major contribution to the history of the 1896 revolution, a contribution potentially far more significant than settling the whole “Cry” debate. 8

The decision to revolt (ii) who took it? The decision to revolt, says the “ borador” document, was taken by the KKK’s Supreme Assembly. First constituted in December 1895, the Assembly was described by Emilio Jacinto as the primary and paramount body within the Katipunan (“ang una at lubos na kapangyarihang ay hahawakan ng Kataastaasang Kapisanan”). Anyone who failed to follow its decisions, he said, would be committing treason against the whole organization. 17 The Assembly comprised the members of the Supreme Council, the presidents of the Sangunian Bayan (popular councils) and the presidents of Balangay (branches) not affiliated to popular councils, but in practice the presidents were often accompanied by one or two other leading activists from their sections. 18

17 Kataastaasang Kapisanan, Record of meeting held on November 30 and December 1, 1895 [Archivo General Militar de Madrid: Caja 5677, leg.1.41 bis]. 18 Jim Richardson, The Light of Liberty: Documents and Studies on the Katipunan, 1892-1897 (Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press, 2013), 61.

9

Milagros Guerrero has suggested that the Supreme Assembly’s decision needed to be confirmed or ratified by the KKK Supreme Council.19 Such a “two-stage pasya,” however, is not corroborated by the “borador” document, which indicates the Supreme Assembly’s decision was final. Even had it wished to do so (which it did not), the Supreme Council did not have the authority to rescind the decision. In any case, it would have been impractical to call upon the Supreme Assembly to reconvene and reconsider. As soon as the decision had been taken, some of the Assembly members had hurried back to their branches in Manila and other provinces to tell their brethren what had happened, and to ready for the fight. The decision to revolt: (iii) where was it taken? Now that we know the decision to revolt was taken on August 24, after deliberations that had begun the previous day, we might hope to be clearer about where it was taken. We no longer need to worry, in this immediate context, where Bonifacio and the members of the Katipunan Supreme Assembly were on August 25 or 26. We only need to establish where the Assembly met on August 23 and 24. Unfortunately, this is not a great help. The sources are still conflicting. They broadly agree that the leading revolutionists went first to Caloocan (población) after leaving Manila, and then headed eastwards via Kangkong towards Pasong Tamo and eventually Balara. The sources still offer no accord, however, as to the whereabouts of the leading revolutionists on the critical dates of August 23 and 24. Some sources say they left Kangkong as early as August 2320, whereas others say they were still in Kangkong as late as August 2621. The task of determining the exact place at which the decision to revolt was taken, therefore, remains difficult and convoluted. The sources offer three specific possibilities:Apolonio Samson’s place in bo. Kangkong, Caloocan Melchora Aquino’s place near Pasong Tamo in bo. Banlat, Caloocan Juan Ramos’s place in bo. Bahay Toro, Caloocan Kangkong

19 Milagros C. Guerrero, “The Katipunan Revolution,” in Kasaysayan: The Story of the Filipino People, vol. 5 (Hong Kong: Asia Publishing Co, 1998), 166. 20 For example, Alvarez, The Katipunan and the Revolution, 254. 21 For example, Borromeo-Buehler, The Cry of Balintawak, 45-6.

10

In 1917 a Katipunan veterans’ association, the Labi ng Katipunan, erected a memorial on the site where they remembered the decision to revolt had been taken, at Apolonio Samson’s house on the Kaingin Road in barrio Kangkong. 22 “Sa pook na ito,” the inscription stated, plainly and simply, “...ipinasya ng KKKNMANB ang paghihimagsik noong ika-23 ng Agosto 1896”.23

Ceremony at the Kangkong marker. The Labi ng Katipunan was headed by the veterans Pio H. Santos (who had participated in the “Cry”) and Claudio P. Carreon.

The writer Nick Joaquin described the spot in the early 1960s, a time when it was still: “lonely, obscure, isolated, and very hard to find. It’s in an ‘interior’ reached by no street; you have to use a footpath. And the place itself is pure provincial countryside: giant thickboughed mango and tamarind and santol trees keep guard over the marker, which is always in shadow, and one guesses that this was deep woods in those days.” 24 Today, of course, the “provincial countryside” has been obliterated by Metro Manila’s relentless sprawl, not just in Kangkong but in every other locality mentioned in these notes. 22 Apolonio Samson (1854-?) was a local leader of the Katipunan in Caloocan

and the neighbouring town of Novaliches. Later in the revolution he was in Cavite together with Bonifacio, and he remained in the field until 1904, still leading guerrilla units in Bulacan long after the United Stat...