The Katipunan; or, The Rise and Fall of the Filipino Commune

by Francis St. Clair · English · Gutenberg #37587 · 394,677 chars · public domain (US)

The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Katipunan; or, The Rise and Fall of the Filipino Commune

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States,
you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located
before using this eBook.

Title: The Katipunan; or, The Rise and Fall of the Filipino Commune

Author: Francis St. Clair

Release date: October 1, 2011 [eBook #37587]

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/37587

Credits: Produced by Jeroen Hellingman and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net/ for Project
Gutenberg. (This book was produced from scanned images of
public domain material from the Google Print project.)

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE KATIPUNAN; OR, THE RISE AND FALL OF THE FILIPINO COMMUNE ***

Produced by Jeroen Hellingman and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net/ for Project
Gutenberg. (This book was produced from scanned images of
public domain material from the Google Print project.)

THE KATIPUNAN

An Illustrated
Historical and Biographical Study
of the Society which Brought about the
Insurrection of 1896-98 & 1899
Taken From Spanish State Documents

By
FRANCIS ST. CLAIR

Manila
Tip. "Amigos del Pais," Palacio 258
1902

THE KATIPUNAN
Or
The Rise and Fall of the Filipino Commune

By
FRANCIS ST. CLAIR

Manila
Tip. "Amigos del Pais," Palacio 258
1902

TO THE HONORABLE FILIPINOS
Who, True to the
Principles of
Patriotism

have not harbored in their hearts sentiments of ingratitude toward that
noble Nation which raised them to the level of civilization to which
they have attained, not have at any time conspired against the lawfully
constituted authorities, Spanish or American, of this Archipelago.

To such honorable Filipinos as these, it gives me the greatest pleasure
to dedicate this small work, as a token of the genuine respect in
which they are held by

The Author.

INTRODUCTION

"Manila, 21st (Aug. '96).--The Governor General to the Colonial
Minister:

Vast organization of secret societies discovered with anti-national
tendencies.

Twenty-two persons detained, among them the Gran Oriente
(of Philippine freemasonry) of the Philippines, and others of
importance.....................................................
...............................................................
Immediate action taken and special judge will be designated for
greater activity in the proceedings............................
...............................................................

--Blanco.

Such was the telegram sent by Gen. Blanco and read by Sr. Castellano
in the Spanish Camara, announcing the discovery of the revolutionary
movement headed by the Katipunan, the bastard child of Filipino
freemasonry.

Freemasonry in the Philippines was but a pretext: under this pretext
the enemies of Spain, in days of Spanish rule, and the enemies of
the U. S. in these days of American rule, put themselves into close
and secret communion, to earn out plans of revolt.

This Filipino masonry cast its net far and wide, and in its meshes were
caught many fish of all classes and conditions; some of them men of
money who sought in masonry what money could easily purchase,--honors
and titles, grand crosses and medals; others were men whose pockets
were more or less replete, and whose aims were of a great variety of
natures; whilst others were men whose treasuries were more or less
empty and who sought in masonry what they did not care to earn by
honest labor--a livelihood.

Masonry was imported into the Archipelago, shortly after the Spanish
Revolution, and was, during the first years of its life, confined
to Spaniards; but later on it opened its doors to half-castes and
indians. In 1887 it extended by leaps and bounds; but upon the
coming of Gen. Weyler to the Archipelago, as Governor General, in
1888, it dwindled away almost into nothingness. Gen. Weyler was,
and has ever shown himself, a patriotic Spaniard; and he would not
permit the existence here, under his Governorship, of anything which
tended to the detriment of his country. Well did the masons of the
Philippines and elsewhere know this, and hence the vicious and cruel
campaign they carried on against him both in the Peninsular and Cuba,
but more especially in the U. S. of America.

The Katipunan, the bastard child of filipino masonry, that ungrateful
offspring which was unfaithful even to the mother which brought it
forth, was a society within the bosom of which was redeveloped the
malay instinct which had lain dormant for some three centuries. This
instinct, brutal, savage, intensely ignorant, immoral, ungodly;
an instinct found still among some of the uncivilized tribes of the
mountain fastnesses of Luzon; an instinct once almost blotted out after
many years of most difficult labor and self-sacrifice on the part of
the Religious Orders, once again burst forth in all its strength.

The indian left to himself, deprived of the curbing influence of the
christian religion, speedily falls back into the condition of depravity
in which Urdaneta and Legazpi found him. The malay instinct, like the
volcano, vomits forth when least expected; the history of the revolt of
the Tagalogs gives overabundant proof of it. Take one by one the many
leading characters in the revolution, and the instinct will be found
so plainly marked, that it is unmistakable. Take for instance Marcelo
H. del Pilar, in whose brain was conceived the plot of the Katipunan
farsical-tragedy; Andres Bonifacio, whose duty was the materializing
of the plot; the Lunas, Juan especially, who had some time previous,
in Paris, given an example of how easily the malay burned through the
veneer of civilization to which the Filipino indian is susceptible;
and so on, including the Aguinaldos, the Mabinis, the Agoncillos
and even many of those, who in these days boast in public of their
americanist ideas, and in private plot with treacherous zeal to
overthrow the government of those they call their deliverers from
Spanish tyranny. In them all may be traced the strange instinct
of the old time filipino indian. Entering the fold of freemasonry,
they threw off the bridle of religion which restrained them; loosing
respect for Almighty God and for their faith they soon lost respect
for others and for themselves. The result is well known. History,
the history of the last five or six years, has shown it to us.

It is of this society of notables--for such is the meaning of the full
title of the Katipunan--that I wish to say a few words in the following
pages. I have taken as a foundation for my study, a very concise
statement of the whole situation, drawn up by Capt. Olegario Diaz,
Commander of the Guardia Civil Veterana de Manila. This document being
an official statement, is of vital interest in the study of the birth,
life and internal corruption of that diabolical association which,
gigantic though it was, comparatively speaking, could, by reason of
its infantility, have been easily stifled, had it been dealt with,
with a strong hand. I have taken the document as a base, and by a
series of notes in the form of a somewhat more lengthy appendix,
have endeavored to provide my readers with a file of interesting
items of historical value.

This pamphlet is not intended to be a history of the rebellion; I have
endeavored to confine myself to the society which brought about the
revolt, and if at any time I have strayed from the path I laid out
for myself, it has been because there was by the wayside some flower
I wished to pluck to add to the bouquet I herewith present to you.

STATEMENT OF CAPT. OLEGARIO DIAZ [1]

FREEMASONRY

It is fully proved that freemasonry has been the principal factor
for the development in these islands, not only of advanced (2)
and anti-religious ideas, but chiefly for the foundation of secret
societies, possessing a character especially separatist (3). This
conviction I have come to after the examination of a countless number
of documents, and the much correspondence this Corps (4) fell in with,
after laborious work and investigations, in the possession of several
well known filibusters (5) who are at the present time prisoners;
these documents and parcels of correspondence were included in the
military suit tried before Colonel D. Francisco Olive (6).

"Some 20 years ago, there was installed in this country, a lodge
dependent upon the Gr. Or. Espanol (7): a lodge which was inoffensive
in its beginning because it was composed of peninsular Spaniards, with
the absolute exclusion of the native element of the Archipelago. In
this form it developed languidly until the year 1890.

"During this epoch, the Filipino colony resident in Madrid, Hong-Kong
and Paris, in the which figured as exalted separatists Jose Rizal (8),
Marcelo H. del Pilar (9), Graciano Lopez, Mariano Ponce, Eduardo Lete,
Antonio and Juan Luna (10), Julio Llorente, Salvador V. del Rosario,
Doroteo Cortes (11), Jose Baza, Pedro Serrano (12), Moises Salvador,
Galicano Apacible and many others, who were in communication with
the seditious elements of Manila, strove hard to influence don Miguel
Morayta (13), (Grand master of the Oriente Espanol), in Madrid, and
with whom they sustained close relations, to the end that the statutes
should be reformed so that the native element might be affiliated,
and even more, that lodges of a character exclusively Tagalog (14),
might be created in the Archipelago. Conferences, general gatherings,
and finally compromises of certain magnitude decided in the favor
of the Filipinos, Morayta thus, unconsciously sowing the seed, the
fruit of which we are to-day gathering.

"D. Alejandro Roji, resident in this capital, Captain of Engineers, was
nominated general delegate to direct the works, and with ample powers
from Morayta, came the native school-teacher Pedro Serrano, who enjoyed
in Manila the confidence and protection of the said Colonel, assisted
by the Flores, lieutenants of Infantry, Numeriano Adriano, Ambrosio
Rianzares, Juan Zulueta, Faustino Villaruel (15), Agustin de la Rosa,
Ambrosio Salvador, Andres Bonifacio (16), Apolinario Mabini (17),
Estanislao Legaspi Domingo Franco (18), Roman Basa, Deodato Arellano,
Antonio Salazar, Felipe Zamora, Nazario Constantino, Bonifacio Arevalo,
Pedro Casimiro, Dionisio Ferraz, Timoteo Paez and a thousand others,
all indians, but having a career or a comfortable social position;
they commenced a silent and tenacious propaganda which resulted in
180 Tagalog lodges, extended throughout the territory of Luzon and
part of the Bisayas, being constituted in 5 years. The character of
the native (19), so propitious to all the mysterious and symbolic,
easily accustomed itself to the ridiculous practices of freemasonry:
the initiations (20), the proofs (21), the oaths (22), attributes,
signs and pass words, and the pseudonyms, all and everything surrounded
by shade and mystery, appealed to the native and served him as an
educative ladder which prepared his mind for his entry into other
associations of graver transcendencies, according as the initiators
and apostles of filibusterism, Rizal, Pilar, Lopez, Cortes and Zulueta
had forseen, as can be proved by that correspondence which has come
to my hands.

"In order to direct the organization of the lodges dependant upon the
Gran Oriente Espanol, there was constituted by Morayta, a Gran Consejo
Regional (23) which received its instructions from him, and which was
presided over by Ambrosio Flores (h. Muza), and formed of Adriano,
Villaruel, Flores (A), Mabini, Paez, Zamora, Mariano and Salazar. The
newspaper La Solidaridad (24) which, in the previous year had been
founded in Barcelona by M. Pilar, as a delegate of the propaganda of
Manila, and the publishing centre of which was later on translated to
Madrid, was declared the official organ of all Filipino masonry; and
in its collaboration, all the Filipinos of a medium culture resident
in the capital, took a hand, under the auspices and direction of its
new proprietor, the oft-mentioned and ill-starred Morayta.

"In 1893 the Gran Oriente Nacional, of which the Grand Master
is Sr. Pantoja, reporter of the highest tribunal of justice,
conceded powers to the lieutenant military councillor Sr. Lacasa,
and the sergeant of Infantry, Jose Martin, to carry on propaganda
in these islands among the native element, and in competition with
the other Oriente. The result did not correspond to the efforts of
the propagandists, who only succeeded in creating some few lodges
in the Capital, in Cavite, Cagayan, Iloilo and Negros. How could it
be expected to prosper, when the Gran Oriente Espanol had already
catechized the masses of the country!

"It must be declared, although it makes one blush to do so, that many
peninsular Spaniards, and among them some holding important official
positions in the country, have contributed to this propaganda,
scandalous, and from all points of view, aimed at the integrity of
the nation (25). Only candor can exculpate them. May the country
pardon them.

"From the first moments, both in the organ of Filipino freemasonry,
La Solidaridad, and in the circulars which the Gran Oriente sent to
Spain for the information of the brethren there resident, was commenced
a coarse and shameless campaign against the Monastic Orders (26), and
of scoffing and ridicule of religion. Later on, this campaign acquired
a political character, attacking the government of the metropolis,
and the authorities of the archipelago, demanding liberal reforms
for the country, such as representation in the Cortes, the colonial
Camara, municipal autonomy, increase of individual rights etc. etc.,
Let anyone with half an eye examine carefully the collections of the
cited paper, and he will certainly meet with something contrary to
the national unity, artfully and modestly hidden. Let him read the
almost countless number of documents (27) pertaining to the Tagalog
lodges, and sent by me to the judge, Senor Olive, which were united
to the charges, and the most incredulous will be convinced that the
lodges and their aids and abettors devoted themselves to something
more than the propaganda of freemasonry. There is not a single one
of the chiefs and organizers of the filibuster organizations up to
this time discovered, who is not a freemason."

"LA PROPAGANDA" AND THE "ASOCIACION HISPANO-FILIPINA."

At the end of the year 1888, Marcelo del Pilar, a lawyer of Bulacan,
and a frenetic filibuster, considering himself in peril of deportation
in consequence of juridical proceedings formed against him in
the said province, decided to translate his residence to Spain,
under the shelter of a certain element of the country (28). In those
days was created in Manila a committee of propaganda (29) formed by
Doroteo Cortes, Ambrosio Rianzares Bautista, Pedro Serrano and Deodato
Arellano, under the presidency of the first named, its mission being
the gathering from among the better class and more wealthy element,
funds for the propagation throughout the Archipelago, of all classes
of pamphlets and proclamations written to depreciate and cast slurs
upon the Monastic Orders (30), and upon Religion; and likewise
for the implantation in the country democratic doctrines; finally
the nomination was agreed to of a delegation which should depend
directly upon the committee recently constituted, and which should
have its residence in Barcelona, its duty being to make overtures
to the public authorities for the concession to the Archipelago of
greater liberties and of representation in the Cortes in the first
place. And in order to sustain and defend these ideals together with
some few more, the foundation was authorized of a bi-monthly newspaper.

"The committee of propaganda fully fulfilled its mission; it overcame
all the wealthy element of Luzon (31), gathered grand quantities,
and Marcelo del Pilar set off for the Peninsular, installing himself
comfortably in the "Ciudad Condal" [2] at the expense of his
countrymen (32).

"In January 1889, he commenced the campaign in union with his companion
of the delegation Mariano Ponce. They founded the paper La Solidaridad
and constituted the Hispano-Filipino association, into which were
drawn a large number of the native students residing in Barcelona
[3]. The committee made great progress in Manila, added to the number
of its followers and collected funds in return for subscriptions to
La Solidaridad which, day by day, had more readers; it distributed
books, pamphlets and proclamations of the worst class, for which a
good price was collected.

"The association had increased hand over hand; its aspirations (33)
were most radical; and considering its action limited in Barcelona,
it determined to translate its headquarters to Madrid, where it
would have a wider field for its pretensions. About this same time
Serrano, Rizal, Luna, Lopez etc., were united to the delegation and
they succeeded in implanting Tagalog masonry in their country (34),
and from this precise moment, commenced their relations with Morayta.

"In January 1890 the "Asociacion Hispano-Filipina," [4] the delegation,
and the paper La Solidaridad were installed in Madrid. Morayta
accepted the presidency of the Association and became proprietor of
the newspaper from which such good results were expected, it counting
with an increased output to supply enforced subscriptions among masons
and their associates at the rate of a peso a head.

"From that moment Morayta was made the idol of the turbulent indians,
who considered him as their redeemer; no one is ignorant of the
labors undertaken by the said personage in Spain, both in the realms
of journalism and around and about the powers that be, on behalf of
the securing representation in the Cortes, the liberty of association
(35) and that of the press, municipal autonomy and even under a hidden
guise, of that of the colony; in the memory of all is preserved
the remembrance of the banquet given by the Filipinos inspired by
Morayta, to Sr. Labra, the autonomist deputy for Cuba, and no one has
forgotten the proposition presented to the Congress by Sr. Junoy, the
republican deputy, also inspired by the Association and the delegation
presided over and protected by Morayta. And who finally, does not
feel indignation upon calling to mind the articles published in La
Solidaridad by the Filipinos Kalipulako (M. Ponce), Jaena (G. Lopez),
Dimas-Alang (Jose Rizal), Eduardo Lete, Taga-Ilog (Antonio Luna),
Juan Totoo (J. Zulueta) and Kupang or Maitalaga (M. del Pilar)?

"What Spaniard is not fired to anger, upon reading the books and
pamphlets written by Rizal, Luna and Lopez and the infinite number of
printed libels which circulate here full of falsities and loathsome
calumnies against the most sacred and venerated, the Fatherland? Have
we forgotten, perhaps, Dr. Blumentritt (36) who repaid our most
generous hospitality by making common cause with our enemies? Do
we not call to mind, peradventure, that all the filipino colony in
Spain and a good portion of that here resident, sympathised with that
ungrateful man, conferring upon him the honor of banqueting him and
extending to him their congratulations?

"Fortunately these labors obtained no practical result in the peninsula
(37), but they caused the native element of some amount of culture
to harbor imaginary ills and want of confidence in the Metropolis,
covert discontent with the authorities of the islands (38), and
finally, sowed the seed of aspirations which could never be realized
[5]. but a seed which is to-day, unfortunately, bearing fruit.

"A casino of recreation known as the Centro Filipino, was also
organized in Madrid: a revolutionary club was the only thing to
which that center could be compared. There Spain was discussed,
criticized and slandered under the shelter of the law of association
which prevails in the Peninsula, and shielded by the hypocrisy and
deception so proper of cowards.

"Personal rivalries and the want of morality in the administration of
the funds (39) remitted from Manila by the committee of propaganda,
gave rise to a grave disagreement between the two apostles of filipino
filibusterism, Rizal and Pilar; with the former sided the young
and impetuous element; with the latter the mature and thoughtful
(40). Both elaborated the same material, but each using a different
process; the one boldly insolent and hostile, the other masked with
hypocrisy and calm. Both being ambitious, each found the world too
small to contain him. This state of things ceased with the coming
of Rizal to these islands in 1892 (41), Pilar remaining the absolute
possessor of the field at Madrid.

"In the meanwhile the committee of propaganda was not inactive. It
created delegations throughout the archipelago, and by their means
introduced the La Solidaridad and all kinds of revolutionary printed
matter into the utmost corners of the archipelago.

THE "LIGA FILIPINA"

"Rizal, magnanimously pardoned by His Excellency the Captain General
of the Archipelago, D. Eulogio Despujol (42), after the making of a
thousand and one lying protests of repentance, reached this capital in
May 1892, being received by his countrymen with extraordinary proofs
of enthusiasm and rejoicing; and converting himself into an apostle
of filibusterism, commenced a campaign of scandalous propaganda.

"Three days after his arrival he convoked a large reunion (43) in
the house of the Chinese half-caste Ongjungco in Tondo, and under his
presidentship there gathered Franco, property owner; Flores, Lieutenant
of Infantry; Rianzares, lawyer; Zulueta, government employee; Adriano,
notary; Reyes, tailor; Paez, business agent; Francisco, industrial;
Serrano, school-teacher; A. Salvador, contractor; Salazar, industrial;
Mariano, property owner; Legaspi, industrial; Jose, property owner;
Bonifacio, warehouse porter; Plata, curial; Villareal, tailor; Rosa,
book-keeper; Arellano, military employee; M. Salvador, industrial;
Arevalo, dentist; Rosario, merchant; Santillan, industrial; Ramos,
industrial; Joven, property owner; Villaruel, merchant; Mabini,
lawyer; Nacpil, silversmith; and many other Filipinos well known by
their ideas. To this assembly Rizal made known the motive which had
inspired him to call it together, which was no other than the creation
of a secret society to be known as the "Liga Filipina", founded for
the purpose of fomenting the advancement and culture of the country and
the attaining, later on, of emancipation from Spain (44). He read out a
list of provisional regulations drawn up by himself; these regulations
were unanimously approved; a commission formed of Ambrosio Salvador
and Deodato Arellano as president and secretary respectively, was at
once nominated for the studying and development of Rizal's project,
and the reunion was dissolved till it should be again convoked.

"The opportune deportation of Rizal (45), Cortes and Salvador,
upset the plans of the "oath bound" conspirators and the panic thus
brought about dispersed them for the moment. In the beginning of the
year 1893 they re-assumed the work (46), sometimes in the house of
Domingo Franco, and at others in that of Deodato Arellano; and after
it had been agreed that they should be ruled by the regulations of
Rizal, and votes having been cast, the Supreme Council of the "Liga"
was constituted in the following form:

"Before continuing, and in order that the facts which follow
may be better understood, I will give some idea of the "Liga"
according to the mentioned regulations. Its determined ends (47),
were the independence of the islands; its means, the propaganda of
advanced political ideas (48), availing themselves of conferences,
books, pamphlets and the paper "La Solidaridad" which was declared
the official organ of the association; the culture of the country
by means of study, and its material advancement by stimulating the
creation of large enterprises and industries; and, as a final means,
armed rebellion (49). The catechised or initiated submitted themselves
to a solemn oath before a human skull, which they afterwards kissed,
signing with their own blood (50) a compromising document, after
making the corresponding incision in one of their arms.

"All those initiated incurred the duty of making propaganda (51) by all
means in their power, and of increasing the number of the associates,
of preserving under severest penalties, the most impenetrable silence
on all matters relating to the "Liga" and blind obedience to their
superiors. The association was governed by a Supreme Council with
residence in Manila, and composed of a President, a Treasurer, a
Fiscal, a Secretary and twelve Councillors; for the Peninsular and
Hong-Kong, the delegations composed of Marcelo del Pilar and Ildefonso
Laurel [6].

"In each province was formed a provincial council with the same
organizations as the Supreme Council, but with only six councillors,
who, in their turn, had under their orders as many popular councils as
there should be pueblos in the province in which the council should
be constituted. The popular councils with analogous organization to
the provincial councils, had jurisdiction within the demarcation of a
pueblo; they depended directly upon the respective provincial council
and the provincial upon the Supreme.

"All the members of the Supreme Council were to constitute in the
capital of Manila a popular council formed of their converts within
the zone of their residences; and all the members had to recruit among
the natives of some culture, till the society should be thoroughly
developed.

"Each treasurer collected a peso as entrance fee from the initiated and
a medio (half) peso, as a monthly subscription for each member. With
the said funds there was created a central deposit in the treasury
of the Supreme Council, for the covering of the expenses of the
delegations, and the sustainment of the Solidaridad; and it was agreed
that once there should be sufficient capital, great enterprises,
of a nature undetermined, should be undertaken.

"The eternal question of money in this class of organizations
(52) gave rise to a serious falling out between Rizal and the Liga
(53), on which account their official relations were severed. The
subscriptions were badly collected, and those encharged with the
custody and turning in of what few funds did exist misapplied them
(54); this was what brought about the decadence of the league and
the cause of its falling into discredit and disrepute and for its
not prospering, in spite of the fact that among those who aided
it with their moral and metalic aid, but without formal or written
compromise (55), were a number of shameless filibusters, so much the
more repugnant as the brilliant social position they held under the
protection of Spain was elevated. Among many others may be cited the
wealthy proprietors Pedro and Francisco Roxas (56), Mariano Linjap,
Telesforo Chuidian, Luis R. Yangco, Antonio and Juan Luna, Felipe
Zamora, Eduardo Litonjua, Marcelino de los Santos, Maximo Paterno
(57) and Nazario Constantino (58).

"Of the members of the Supreme Council, only the following succeeded
in forming popular councils: Estanislao Legaspi who organized one
in Tondo, known as Talang Bakero; Andres Bonifacio, one in Trozo,
known as Mayon; and Francisco Nacpil, one in Santa Cruz, known as
Mactan (59). The rest of the members of the Supreme Council only
succeeded in forming the following fruitless sections: Flores, one
in Ermita and Malate; Zulueta in Binondo; Rianzares in San Nicolas;
Francisco in Quiapo; Adriano and Mabini in Sampaloc and Nagtajan,
and Salvador in Pandacan.

"In the provinces also the Liga enjoyed such slow progress, that it was
not possible to organize to popular councils, but sections only, and
these were organized in the Laguna, by Vicente Reyes; in Batangas by
Felipe Agoncillo (60); in Nueva Ecija, Bentus and Natividad; in Tarlac
the notary del Rosario, and in Bulacan, Pampanga and other provinces
wealthy persons of the same. In time, there was not a Filipino of
wealth or career or of medium social position, who did not pertain to,
or aid and abet the Liga, apart from a few most honorable exceptions
(61) which it pleases me to recognize.

"At the commencement of the year 1894 and when the league had reached
the age of one year, the members agreed to the dissolution of the
society, both on account of the discords which continually sprung up in
its bosom, and for the fear of discovery by the authorities which had
already perceived something of the goings on (62). A grand assembly
of the leaders was called together and it was determined to gather
in as many documents as had been drawn up or circulated, and make a
bonfire of them, so that all compromising indications should be made
to disappear. The society became dissolved but it took a form more
hypocritical. The popular councils re-entered the masonic lodges, and
these took up the work of the Liga, a thing very easy to accomplish,
when we remember that there was not a single member of the society
who was not a freemason.

"There remained however, as a living remembrance of the Liga, a
committee formed of the lawyer Numeriano Adriano and Deodato Arellano
(a brother-in-law of Pilar) president and secretary, who had at their
orders some 20 or 30 members from among the most important of the
defunct Liga and who were known under the name of the compromisarios
(63). These enjoyed no special organization and worked with almost
entire independence. Their mission was the propagation of the La
Solidaridad and the gathering of funds for the sustainment of the
paper, and of the delegations in the Peninsula and elsewhere, with
which they sustained active political correspondence. The work was
continued with greater cunning by the lodges and by the compromisarios;
and they succeeded in keeping alive the spirit of protest in a good
part (the most influential) of the native element till the end of
the year 1895.

"About this time the populous empire of China was defeated by the
Japanese, and the Japanese Empire, having won the laurels of victory so
easily, began to consider the weaving of a net of preponderance in the
Occident. The Filipinos who followed with interest and satisfaction
our contrarieties in Cuba, considered the occasion propitious for
the Empire of the Rising Sun to copy in these islands the conduct
of the Americans in the Antilles. Japan became the fashion in the
Archipelago and its inhabitants were chosen as models of culture (64),
wealth, of liberty and strength. They sighed for their protection and
assistance, and to the attaining of it they uselessly directed their
efforts. Doroteo Cortes emigrated to Yokohama (65), and with him Ramos,
Baza, Espanol and others, where they established a separatist committee
in correspondence with that of Manila. Marcelo del Pilar prepared to
leave Madrid to join them, but died suddenly in Barcelona and finally
the foolish political schemers dreamed of the liberation of Rizal
(66) who had been deported to Dapitan, in order that he also should
follow Cortes and the others. From Manila there departed frequently
parties of wealthy Filipinos who went to Japan under the pretext of
making recreative, instructive or artistic voyages, but in reality
to conspire, and it is assured that they were listened to by some of
the official element of that nation (67). The Japanese corvette Kongo
(68) arrived in Manila in the month of May and no one could explain
its sudden appearance in the bay; but on the other hand the officers
were mysteriously banqueted by a commission of Filipinos in the Bazar
Japones (69) where they lodged. Causalities perhaps, but....

K. K. K. N. M. A. N. B.

KATAASTAASANG KALAGAYAN KATIPUNAN NANG MANGA ANAK NANG BAYAN.

Supreme Society of the Sons of the People [7].

Whilst Rizal, in Manila, was engaged in the organization of the
"Liga Filipina" into which only the well-to-do or educated classes
could enter (70), an attempt which, for that time, failed on account
of his immediate deportation, Marcelo H. del Pilar, from Madrid,
in July 1892, advised the creation of another association, which
was to be similar thereto, but which was to include the agricultural
laborers and persons of little or no education and instruction (71),
but who directed in the localities by the caciques and chiefs, were
to form an enormous nucleus which should, at the proper time, give
forth the cry of rebellion. He (Pilar) provided minute instructions
concerning the organization and forwarded a project of regulations.

"Deodato Arellano (brother in-law of Marcelo), Andres Bonifacio,
Ladislao Dina and Teodoro Plata where those commissioned to carry into
practice the project of Pilar (72); they discussed the regulations and
added to them making them still more terrifying, agreeing that they
should all immediately proceed with the preparatory works, and they
were not interrupted till the conspiracy was discovered on the 19th of
August of this year (1896). Both the said organizers and the others who
composed the first Supreme Council, belonged to the "Liga filipina".

"The organization given to the society was analogous to that enjoyed by
the "Liga" (73) but amplified to the extent of anarchism, swearing
hatred and destruction to everything of a character or nature Spanish
(74), and sowing the seed of a race-hatred which has developed to
a great extent (75). The Supreme, the Provincial and the popular
Councils, the sections and the delegations ruled this horrible
association. The first governed the whole Tagalog Katipunan (76);
the second, that corresponding to a pueblo and the sections were
sub-divisions or fractions into which the popular councils were
divided. Those commissioned to form sections were called delegations,
and whilst they remained unconstituted, they depended directly upon
the Supreme Council. Every associate paid an entrance fee of a medio
peso, and a monthly subscription of a real. The collections were made
by the respective treasurers and passed into the central treasury
of the Supreme Council. The funds so gathered were utilized for the
succor of the brethren in their afflictions and sicknesses, for the
covering the expenses of the works of propaganda, and for the secret
acquisition of fire and other arms (77).

"As in freemasonry, the initiations (78) were performed with a wealth
of the ridiculous, and with unending extravagances; but of such a
nature, that the ignorant indian was fascinated and became converted
into a slave of his oath.

"The initiated were masked (79) as also was the person to be initiated;
before a table was placed a skull and crossbones, a triangle and two
candles; the person about to be initiated was told that the object of
the Katipunan [8] was the liberating of the Tagalog people, and the
expulsion of the Spaniards from the archipelago, or their destruction
(80); following this, came a series of questions and replies in the
which the martyrdom of Gomez, Burgos and Zamora (81), native priests
judged and condemned for their part in the rebellion of Cavite in 1872
was exalted, and they passed on to the proofs (82) which consisted in
imitating an assassination, a suicide, etc. This was followed by the
taking of an oath of striving to effect the liberation of the people
till death, an oath which demanded a blind obedience to the commands
of the superior and the preservation of the secrets of the association
under the pain of death (83). Finally, to terminate the ceremony,
they made with a dagger especially adapted to that use, an incision
in the arm of the person initiated and with the blood which flowed
from the wound thus made, the new katipunero signed his compromise
(see note 50.)

"The initiated were called brethren and had their "sacred words"
and their special signs of recognition. They were ruled by a code
which established punishments ranging from whipping till death (84)
and received no orders from anyone, or had no intercourse with anyone,
except with their immediate superiors. The details which might be
made mention of are infinite and curious, but it would make this
short memorial unending to speak of them all.

"All the matters of importance and organization were dealt with
in assemblies (85) constituted by the Supreme Councils and all the
presidents of the provincial and popular councils. The accords were
taken and discussions decided by a nominal votation and at least by
a majority of votes.

"Both the Supreme, the provincial and the popular Councils and the
sections held their periodical sessions in the which were discussed a
thousand different affairs, and the decisions of the Councils had to
be submitted to the approval of the immediate superior. The gatherings
were always held in different houses and localities, no day being set
aside as fixed, but the days of festivities or those upon which was
observed some ecclesiastical feast were chosen for that purpose (86),
under the pretext of banquets or dances in which the authorities had no
suspicion, and because on the said days these semi-public rejoicings
were permitted without the necessity of seeking the license of the
governing authorities.

"Both the provincial and the popular councils and the sections were
known by special names; the initiated were "baptized" with symbolic
appellations; and the documents were drawn up in the Tagalog dialect,
the most important being in secret code.

"The first Supreme Council was constituted on the 15th of July 1892,
and was as follows:

President Deodato Arellano.
Secretary Andres Bonifacio.
Treasurer Valentin Diaz.
/ Ladislao Dina.
Councillors + Bricio Pantas.
\ Teodoro Plata.

Delegates were immediately appointed to establish sections in Tondo,
Binondo, Trozo, Sta. Cruz, Nagtajan, Sampaloc, Quiapo, Dilao (Paco)
and Intramuros. Commissioners set out with all rapidity to the
neighboring pueblos and provinces, and in a few weeks councils
were in working order in Caloocan, Malabon, Mandaloyan, San Juan
del Monte, Pandacan, Sta. Ana, and Pasay. In the Capital of Cavite
was constituted a popular council, and sections in Noveleta, Cavite
Viejo and Imus. The same occurred in San Isidro, Gapan and several
other pueblos of these provinces.

'Andres Bonifacio, Secretary of the Supreme Council, displayed a
notable audacity and energy, and this united to a clear intelligence,
gave him a great predominance over his companions. This predominance
he asserted, and in 1893 brought about the destitution from the
presidency, of Deodato Arellano, Roman Baza (87), chief clerk of
the Comandancia General de Marina being elevated to that office. On
account of the want of character and initiative on the part of the new
president, Bonifacio decided, by a coup-d'etat if we may so call it,
to depose him also, putting himself in that office and becoming the
"dictator" of the Katipunan.

"Under the Presidency of Bonifacio, the society commenced an era of
febrile activity; the greater number of the tribunales of the pueblos
were converted into centres of propaganda, which were directed by the
municipalities. Pamphlets and proclamations against the friars and
the whole Spanish element were circulated in profusion (88). Injuries
and outrages were invented, and by these and a thousand and one other
infamous means, little by little, hatred and revenge were inculcated
into the mind of the indian.

"In 1895 Bonifacio took the first decisive steps towards the
organizing of an armed rebellion; he sent different delegations to
Dapitan to confer with Rizal and receive his advice and instruction
(89); he opened negotiations with the Japanese Government (90),
but did not succeed therein. But with his immense ascendancy over
the popular masses, an ascendancy beyond imagination, he declared
himself dictator. The secret aiders of the Katipunan who pertained
to the upper classes, offered funds of considerable amount, with the
which were acquired a good number of arms which were landed on the
coast of Cavite and Batangas with the aid of wealthy persons (91).

"In August of this year (1896) exaltation among the masses reached
its full height, and Bonifacio realizing the fact, prepared what
was necessary in order that in a short time, the conspiracy which
was to take effect on the same day and hour in almost all Luzon,
should be in readiness. The plan of the attack and taking of Manila
was coarsely conceived but it might have been successful and massacre,
sacking and pillage would have crowned the iniquitous work.

"At this time the Supreme Council was was composed as follows.

"In Tondo existed the popular Council Catagalugan presided over by
Alejandro Santiago; and the sections Cabuhayan, Catotohanan, Pagtibain,
Calingaan and Bagongsilang, presided over by Hilarion Cruz, Braulio
Rivera, Cipriano Pacheco, Nicolas Rivera, and Deogracias Fajardo.

"In Sta. Cruz the popular Council Laonlaan presided over by Julian
Nepomuceno, and the sections Tanglao and Dimas Alang [9] by Procopio
Bonifacio and Restituto Javier.

"In Trozo the popular Council Dapitan [10] presided over by Francisco
Carreon, and the sections Silanganan and Alapaap, by Juan de la Cruz
and R. Concha.

"In Binondo the popular Council Ilog Pasig by Faustino Manalac.

"In Concepcion and Dilao (Paco) the popular Council Mahiganti,
presided over by Rafael Gutierrez, and the sections Panday and Ilog
with a delegation in Ermita.

"But why continue? It would not be exaggerating to assert that the
fourth of the native population pertained to the Katipunan, and the
task of consigning more names would be useless, as nothing new would
be discovered.

"Astounding is the number of the initiated; in Manila and its province
alone they exceed 14,000, and in the provinces of Cavite, Batangas,
Laguna and Nueva Ecija there are no less than 20,000. Adding to
this number those of the remainder of Luzon, the total will ascend
to an enormous mass of "illusioned" who bowed in obedience to an
inquisitous schemer. It must be recognized, however, that Bonifacio
is not a common man; of active character, energetic and bold, gifted
with a facility of expression in his language which suggested itself
to his countrymen; of a criterion clear but badly cultivated by the
reading of books of an elevated style and a pernicious character [11]
and possessed of an unfathomable ambition--such was the warehouse
porter who had charge of the store house of the foreign commercial
house of Fressel and Co. in Calle Nueva, Binondo [12].

"His proclamations, pamphlets, and circulars although not a model of
literature were possessed of a certain amount of culture.

"In Calle Clavel, in the dwelling house of Alejandro Santiago, the
Katipunan possessed a secret printing establishment, in which were
prepared many most injurious and insulting publications. There also was
edited and published the paper Kalayaan (Liberty) (93) which only twice
saw the light and which was supposed to have been printed in Yokohama,
(it bearing the name of that town as the place of publication) and
was published over the signature of Marcelo H. del Pilar. This was
all false, all studied out for the purpose of throwing dust in the
eyes of the local authorities. The paper was edited by Bonifacio, his
brother-in-law Teodoro Plata and the secretary of the Supreme Council,
Emilio Jacinto, a young student of law, of no scanty intelligence.

"On the 19th of August last (1896) the conspiracy was denounced and
a great number of imprisonments were made by this Corps. Bonifacio
and those more closely connected with him in his schemes, fled aghast
to the neighboring pueblo of Caloocan and there remained hidden in
the house of the Capitan Municipal (a native) and in that of the
Capitan Pasado (also a native) Adriano de J, father-in-law to Andres
Bonifacio. On the 23rd Bonifacio set out for the barrio of Balintauac,
followed by some 200 inhabitants of Caloocan; on the 24th they were
combatted by the Civil Guard in the fields of the said pueblo and
fled to their former hiding place.

"The Supreme Council convoked a large assembly to be held on the
following day in the said barrio, to which gathered more than 500
members; there a discussion took place concerning the steps which
would have to be taken in view of the failure of the conspiracy, and
of the imprisonments which were being made. Some, feeling repentant,
desired to return to a legal status, submitting to the Spanish
authority but the president Bonifacio protested, proposing immediate
rebellion. Both propositions were put to the vote, and as a result,
that of the president gained by an immense majority; so much for the
prestige of Andres Bonifacio! (94).

"The orders were circulated with rapidity throughout Manila, Cavite,
Nueva Ecija and other provinces, commanding that armed rebellion
should commence at day-break of Sunday the 30th. The day and hour
assigned finally arrived, and the whole province of Manila broke out;
the rebels committing a thousand and one abuses and crimes upon as many
Europeans and loyal natives as were encountered. Like wild beasts they
attacked the waterworks and the powder station situated at San Juan
del Monte from whence they were valiantly driven back by a section
of artillery and another of the 70th regiment. Simultaneously they
attempted to invade the suburb of Sampaloc by way of Santa Mesa and
there also they were combatted and dispersed by 60 Veteran Guards
who prevented, by their defence, a day of mourning for the city of
Manila. All Cavite, except the capital, arose in insurrection on
the afternoon of the 31st., assassinating and disarming the whole
of the Civil Guard of the province, after an heroic defence on the
part of the latter. They assaulted the convents and estates of the
Religious Orders and murdered the defenseless ministers of the Lord
(95). On the 3rd of September the capital of Nueva Ecija was attacked
by large masses of rebels, and the colony [13] and the Civil Guard
heroically resisted until the arrival, from Manila, of a column which
combatted the enemy and saved that handful of Spaniards from a certain
death. But why continue to relate events so well known to all [14].

DENOUNCEMENT OF THE CONSPIRACY AND ITS DISCOVERER.

"Teodoro Patino. A name which all Spaniards should pronounce with
pleasure, because, by his repentance, inspired by divine Providence
(96), Spain was saved from an unending series of bitter experiences.

"Patino, a workman in the printing establishment of the Diario de
Manila, pertained to the Katipunan of Tondo, as did also the majority
of the compositors and book binders of the said establishment.

"Repentant and fearful of the increase of the association, and of
the criminal projects it pursued, he decided to denounce it to
his sister, a student of the College of Looban, directed by the
learned and virtuous Sisters of Mercy (97). His sister made known
the denunciation to her Superior who called Patino into her presence;
and realizing the gravity which surrounded the matter, sent him to the
Rev. P. Mariano Gil, parish priest of Tondo (98), a suburb of Manila;
to this Rev. Father, Patino repeated all that he had manifested, and
all that he could know, he being only a simple initiated member. He
affirmed that in the printing establishment of the Diario receipts
and proclamations were printed, and daggers were secretly made for
the Katipunan, and he offered, moreover, to make known where the
lithographic stones used for the printing were hidden.

"Srs. Grund and Cortes, lieutenants of the sub-division of the Veterana
of that district, were called to the convent by P. Gil, who expounded
to them all that had occurred. These officers made known the facts to
their chiefs, and constituted themselves into a "cuartelillo". That
same night there fell into the power of P. Gil the lithographic stones,
some receipts and printed regulations of the Katipunan: objects which
were placed at the disposition of this Corps. In the "cuartelillo"
Patino was minutely examined, and immediate proceedings were commenced
for the arrest of 22 oath bound katipuneros, whose houses were also
searched. In this search an abundance of documents and effects which
justified the denunciation were encountered. From that time no stone
was left unturned by the officers and guards of this Corps, who for
15 days worked unceasingly and untiringly that their labor might be
crowned with the greatest success.

"More than 500 prisoners of importance, among those who were convicted
and among those who confessed, were handed over to the Courts of
Justice together with all the documents, books, pamphlets, seals,
attributes and the archives of the Supreme Council. The back of the
vast conspiracy was broken; some of the guilty have already expiated
their crimes (99), many have suffered deportation, (100) whilst no
few still remain in prison awaiting the decision of human justice.

"If with our aid we have contributed to the salvation of this portion
of Spanish territory, what better recompense and reward for this
Section of the Guardia Civil Veterana?

"Manila, 28th October 1896--Olegario Diaz--Signed--The document bears
a seal which reads: Seccion de Guardia Civil Veterana.--Manila.

Here ends the document which forms the text. In continuation follow
the notes with their corresponding numbers.

NOTES.

These notes are, as regards historical
matter, chiefly taken from Spanish
official documents drawn up as a
result of juridical procee-
dings against certain
individuals accused
of treason.

Note 2. In that period of time in which the evil effects of freemasonry
began to tell upon the public and private life of the government
officials and upon the morals of the people in general, the Civil
Governor of Manila, D. Justo Martin Lunas (1886), gave a ball to
which the cream of Manila society was invited. Among the selections
for the evening was an extravagant item, nothing more or less than
... a can-can! This in itself was enough; but what made the matter
so much the worse was that the governor had invited the venerable
Archbishop of Manila to the ball. The news of the innovation spread
far and wide, and very soon the whole city was in a state of wild
excitement. In the defense of public morals the Archbishop deemed it
necessary to issue a pastoral letter condemning such spectacles.

Although not directed at that particular "school of scandal", this
pastoral was interpreted by all those concerned, as well as by the
public in general, as a severe lesson for Sr. Lunas and those who
had gathered in the government house to dance the can-can or to take
pleasure therein. Hence Sr. Luna and his party considered themselves
offended, and did not hesitate to take revenge when an opportunity
occurred, upon the aged and infirm Archbishop who did all he had done,
in defense of the morals of his flock.

From this event sprung the seed which gave rise, later on, to the
famous, or rather infamous manifestation of '88: an insensate campaign
inspired against the Religious Orders by these offended ones and
their followers (See note 30).

The Civil Governor at that time was D. Jose Centeno y Garcia an active
propagator of freemasonry, holding the 33rd degree. He, together
with Sr. Quiroja, fostered and godfathered the "manifestation". In
this semi-official insult to Archbishop Payo, an insult so ably
analysed by Sr. Retana [15], we have one of the best examples that
could be furnished of the methods adopted by the masonic enemies of
the Catholic faith in this archipelago. This manifestation, fostered
by a governor who drew down upon himself the righteous ire of all
honorable men and women by reason of his protection of the houses
of ill-fame in and about the city, was a truly masonic invention by
which many, in fact some 98% of those who signed it, were grossly
deceived. The following notes taken from the analysis of Sr. Retana,
will give an idea of the real value of the "manifestation" and the
part the people had therein. In the Suburb of Sta. Cruz there were
144 people who signed the document, that is to say there were 144
names. Of these no less than 56 were unknown, 3 were minors and 3 did
not recognize their signatures; 52 were natives and 8 were Chinese
half-castes. In Sampaloc: 61 signatures, all of which were of indians
none of whom followed trades or professions which necessitated the
use of brain power. In Malate: 38 signatures, 31 of indians, only 15
of whom understood Spanish. In Binondo: 41, 31 of whom were indians;
five minors. In Sta. Ana, out of 104, the number of minors was 14,
and 50 did not understand Spanish; 66 were indians. In Caloocan: 80
signatures of which 55 were indians who did not understand Spanish; 38
were laborers, 7 were minors. In Navotas: 140 signatures; 49 laborers,
and 49 fishermen; 127 did not understand Spanish. In Mariquina:
68, 38 of whom were laborers, 51 did not understand Spanish. In San
Fernando de Dilao (Paco): 35; 6 minors and all indians. In San Mateo,
50 signatures; 39 laborers, 45 indians, 41 of whom did not understand
Spanish. In San Miguel 49; and here comes the crowning piece of the
magnificent work, for of these 49 no fewer than 16 had died! yes died
previous to the drawing up of the document and therefore could not
possibly have signed it; moreover 7 did not recognize their signatures,
and all were indians.

In recapitulation; there were 810 signatures; of these 85 did not
declare on examination, 56 were unknown, 39 were minors, 22 did not
recognize their signatures and 16 had died previous to the drawing
up of the document (Feb. 20th 1888). This brings the 810 down to
592. Of these 592 signatures 208 were of laborers, 50 of fishermen,
31 of carpenters, 7 washermen and 5 barbers: a total of 301 persons
whose occupations called for no particular amount of education, and
whose interest and concern in such a movement as this may be judged
from their social standing. Deducting these 301 from the remaining 592
we have 291 left for further analysis. Of these 25 were of tailors,
4 singers (!) and 3 school masters; 58 escribientes whose occupation
it is to make clean copies of documents and other manuscript, the most
that can be said of the majority of them being that they can write
well, not an uncommon thing anyhow for a filipino; 11 of musicians,
men who lead the life of crickets, enjoying hunger by day and noise
by night; 9 type-setters, men who after having set a dozen columns
of material could not tell you anything of the subject they were
composing, in other words, men who like the escribientes reproduce
mechanically without knowing what they are reproducing; this gives us
107 of another grade leaving 184 to be divided among the many odds
and ends of occupations followed by the native to earn his "fish
and rice". No less than 384 of the number did not understand Spanish
and 13 could not write. In the matter of races: ONE was a Spaniard,
Enrique Rodriguez de los Palacios who called himself a merchant and
was domiciled in Binondo. Upon investigation it turned out that he
also had been fooled and that he had signed the protest because he had
been told that other Spaniards had also signed it; as to its contents
he affirmed that he knew nothing. One was a Spanish mestizo, 66 were
Chinese half-castes and 524 were indians. So much for the famous
manifestation which resulted in giving a most decisive blow to the
moral and social standing of those who prepared and those who signed
it. Those concerned therein learned the bitter lesson that "they who
dig pits for their neighbors are apt to fall therein themselves."

The common opinion has always been that the document in question
was drawn up by Doroteo Cortes (see note 11) who had on several
occasions been under police vigilance; had been expelled from Navotas
and compelled to reside within the walled city, later on pardoned,
but still kept under police surveillance. But however that may be,
the document was infamous in the extreme, and was the precursor of
the modern campaign against the Religious Orders. From that time to
this present, this campaign has continued to spread, and is still
being fostered by the Federal Party.

Another of the advanced ideas which saw the light of day during
the interim governorship of D. Jose Centeno y Garcia, a 33rd
degree freemason and a stout republican, was the toleration, for
the first time in the history of the Archipelago, of houses of
prostitution. Centeno was a governor who, having erred considerably
during his governorship, attempted some years later to regain public
confidence by the publication of an insulting pamphlet against the
Religious Orders. This novelty of semi-official houses of ill-fame was,
for Manila, a most genuine expression of modern democracy. Scandals
until then unheard of or undreamed of in Manila, became the order
of the day. White girls imported or inveigled, were hired out by
their mistresses to pander to the sensual appetites of blacks, merely
because the said black-skinned sensualists were wealthy enough to pay
the price demanded. What edification! Fundicion street became a centre
in which the scandals daily increased in number and importance. The
native weaned after many long years of careful training at the hands of
the Religious Orders, from the vices in which he was found submerged
at the time of the Spanish Conquest, was brought face to face with
the same scandalous surroundings, introduced by people of the same
white race which had removed his forefathers therefrom. Gradually but
surely this leaven of corruption has eaten its way into the customs
of the people, and to-day we are witnesses of its terrible effects. A
comparison of the public morals of to-day with those of 20 years or
so ago, would reveal facts which would astound many of those who are
at a loss to account for the reason of the existence of the "querida"
evil among so many of the Filipinos of modern Manila. A quarter of
a century ago Manila was a paradise to what it is to-day, crimes so
common in these days that they are scarcely worth recording, were
unheard of; and even drunkenness was almost entirely confined to
foreign sailors. What Manila is to-day it owes to the advanced and
anti religious ideas introduced by freemasonry and modern democracy.

Note 3. Separatism, vulgarly called filibusterism, has always,
in the Philippines, been marked by essential characteristics. It
was always, under the circumstances by which it was surrounded,
necessarily anti-patriotic. One thing which helped to give it the
robust life it enjoyed among the middle class of people, was the
supposition of the existence of a Tagalog civilization anterior
to the discovery of the archipelago by the famous Magallanes. This
fantastic doctrine was preached and propagated principally by two
of the more prominent Filipinos, Pedro Paterno and Jose Rizal. The
former, much less cultured than Rizal, was the one to whom the most
insensate ideas on this subject were owing, and this because although
Rizal upheld the idea, he was led to do so by his perverse character
rather than by his belief; whilst Paterno really believes in this
pre-Spanish civilization, and that to such a degree that many of his
own country-men call him a fool and ridicule him. Another essential
mark was the enmity demonstrated against the Religious Orders. But few,
if any at all of the propagators of the doctrines of separatism labored
outside of the four walls of the masonic lodge room. In other words
they were freemasons. Masonry was to them a medium through which they
might carry on their conspiracies; it was an excuse for the creation
of the spirit of association, till then unknown in the Philippines.

The aims of separatism may be classed as direct and indirect. The
indirect aim was the independence of the country from the yoke of
Spain. At the best this idea of independence was but second hand,
a lesson learned by heart by a scholar whose power of thought was
insufficient to enable him to grasp the true meaning of the words of
the lesson. The average Filipino lacks the sentiment of nationality;
hence in the minds of the majority of the people independence is
but the enjoyment of the unbridled liberty to do as they please,
in fact to revert to the times of their ancestors when everyone who
could exert an authority was a king, a prince or a ruler of some
description. To the Filipino it is of little importance whether his
sovereign or his supreme ruler be the King of Spain or the President
of the U. S. of America, as long as he is protected from his "friends"
and from his own country-men and may enjoy his cock-fighting and have
the necessary supply of rice and fish for his daily sustenance.

The direct aims of the separatists were those they sought in public,
viz: representation in the Spanish Cortes, the expulsion of the
Religious Orders, etc., etc. The result of representation in the Cortes
would have been a veritable comedy; that of the expulsion of the Friars
a decided tragedy for Spain, in as much as the Religious was ever the
backbone of the administration of the colony. The consequences of the
independence of the country would have been equally disastrous. There
would have been the tremendous preponderance of the black over the
white and eventually inter-tribal disputes and even armed struggles
for the mastery. This would entail the complete stagnation of the
moral and material progress of the people, who would gradually but
surely drift back into the savage ways of their ancestors. And at
last, who knows but that Japan or perhaps China would have to step
in to save the inhabitants from becoming cannibals.

This doctrine of separatism was the doctrine disseminated by Filipino
masonry, a daughter of Spanish freemasonry. Filipino freemasonry
however, was to a great extent addicted to views not held or sustained
by the Gr. Or. Espanol, and hence did not make common cause with
Universal Freemasonry, although it used its ritual, its signs and
its name, to shield from public view those of its labors which could
not be allowed to see the light of day. Hence the diving into the
subject of Universal Freemasonry is somewhat irrelevant to our present
study, suffice it to say that the brotherhood, universal as it is,
suffers no other division than that into families. Its aim is one;
its methods one; its doctrine one [16]; it is the worldly imitation
of the unparalleled Catholic unity of divine foundation.

The Spanish family was founded in 1811 by the Count de
Grasse-Tilley. On the 21st of February 1804 the Supreme Council
of Charleston issued a circular to the Count in which it said
among other things which demonstrate the aim of the foundation:
"Above the idea of country is the idea of humanity"; "frontiers are
capricious demarcations imposed by the use of force." And others of
the same nature.

When the Count set forth to found the Spanish Supreme Council he was
armed with a letters patent issued by the Supreme Council of Charleston
containing this sentence: "the masonic solidity will never be effective
whilst the brethren do not recognize one only power, as is one only
the earth we inhabit, and one also the horizon we contemplate.... To
unify, therefore, the masonic labors we all journey to the one end to
which the work of this Supreme Council is directed, and hence what
we have pointed out to Spain as one of the points in which is more
necessary than elsewhere the one direction to which we refer."

In 1882 Spanish freemasons were divided into different Orientes each
of which claimed continuity with the institution of Grasse-Tilley;
the matter was finally settled by the Supreme Council of Charleston.

Opinion is divided on the question of the responsibility of the
Spanish freemason lodges or rather the ruling "Oriente" for the
beliefs and practices of their filipino brethren. That they were
indirectly responsible is more than certain; and oft-times they were
so indirectly. D. Manuel Sastron ex-Deputy to the Spanish Cortes,
ex-Civil Governor of the Philippines, speaking on this subject says:
"It is not possible for us on any account to fall in line with these
suspicious reasonings: never have we had a disposition to form a part
of such a sect, because we are old time Christians; but we repeat that
we cannot believe nor do we imagine that any masonic centre composed of
peninsular Spaniards could tolerate, and much less foment consciously,
the propagation of doctrines which, whatever masonry brought about
in the Philippines, could have given origin to the congregation of
separatist elements."

"Nevertheless side by side with this firm conviction we repeat
what we tersely maintained, viz: that freemasonry has been the
medium which marshalled the element which generalled the Filipino
insurrection. Filibusterism knew how to exploit it to a fine point."

"We do not find it inconvenient to affirm, but just the opposite, we
repeat with pleasure and absolute belief that Spanish freemasonry was
ignorant of the true ends of the Filipino masons. But it is proved to
our way of thinking, to the point of evidence, that Filipino masonry
pursued no other ends than the independence of those islands (the
Philippines.)" [17]

It must be noted that this is the opinion of a Spanish patriot, for
a patriot Sastron certainly was, and what is more natural than that
a true patriot should doubt the possibility of his own countrymen
mixing themselves up in anti-patriotic movements: Yet while Sastron
and other writers would redeem their fellow countrymen from such a
stain as that of treason, I am inclined to believe that the asserted
ignorance of the Spanish freemason was too often official, that is
to say it was not genuine, but limited to the members of the society
who enjoyed the privileges of the lower degrees.

There are two sides to every question, however, and that the "other
side" may be given a fair hearing, I will quote a declaration of
Antonio Luna on this subject. Luna, among the many statements made
before the Lieut. Col. in command of the Cuartel de Caballeria, on the
8th of October 1896, confessed that "in the year 1890 or 91, of his
own free-will, he formed a masonic project based on Spanish masonry:
a project which might, at its proper time be applied to filibuster
conspiracy. This project was discussed and approved by the Oriente
Espanol in Madrid; but that center did not know the secondary ends
to which it would be applied.... Of his own free-will he manifested
that his ideas were, when he formed the project, anti-Spanish...."

With rare exceptions the Filipinos who left their native soil to
finish their education in the Spanish peninsula, were those to whom
the real work of separatism is owing. The Filipino at home who has
fallen into line with his foreign educated brother is but a blind
worker. And the Filipino who went to Spain was as a rule, a very
general rule, taken under the sheltering care of Miguel Morayta (see
note 13). The responsibility therefore for the ideas inculcated into
the minds of those "students" lies, and that heavily, upon Morayta,
the chief of that family of freemasonry which claims ignorance of the
aims of its filipino membership. The only logical excuse that can be
brought forwards is that filipino freemasonry degenerated. When once it
took root in the Archipelago it spread with wonderful rapidity. The
adepts were for the most part Chinese half-castes; and little by
little that strange train of thought of the native, whether he be
full blooded or mixed, a train of thought which, like the filipino
pony is accustomed to walk backwards when it should go forwards,
or like the patient carabao which too often lies down just at the
moment when its services are the most needed to drag a load over a
mud hole, carried the would-be citizens of an independent country to
the verge of political insanity. Certain it is that as the idea of
separation became more and more developed the Spanish masons who were
member of the Filipino lodges severed their connection therewith. But
yet it does not appear within the limits of common sense to believe
that the Spanish masons were ignorant; the greater probability is
that they were too indulgent, too confiding. To hold too fast to the
excuse of ignorance is to profess oneself very ignorant. But whether
it was ignorance or the wanting of even that species of patriotism
which one expects to find in beasts of burden (for every horse knows
his own stables) the black fact still remains that Spanish masonry
gave birth to, and fostered, Filipino freemasonry or in other words,
the katipunan.

However, be the degree of ignorance what it may, we cannot overlook
the fact that the actions of the Tagalog freemasons, the katipunan
if you will, for the one and the other are the same thing under
different names, were the cause of no little surprise to the Grand
Oriente Espanol. The filipino mason was a traitor to the mother which
gave him being and nourished him into activity: a traitor who used
the cover of the freemason lodge only that he might the easier and
safer hatch out his plot to gain, by the most brutal means imaginable,
the independence of his country.

In his declaration made in the presence of Colonel Francisco Olive
y Garcia and others on the 23rd of September 1896, Moises Salvador
Francisco, of Quiapo (Manila) stated that "in April 1891 he came to
Manila bringing with him a copy of the agreements arrived at by the
Junta of Madrid, and these he handed over to Timoteo Paez to see if
masonic lodges could be established as a commencement of the work. In
the following year of 1892 Pedro Serrano arrived from Spain and then
Masonry (native) was introduced into the Philippines, the first lodge
instituted being the Nilad."

To give some idea of the separatist aims which gave life and
nourishment to the Tagalog revolt, I will quote a few extracts taken
from masonic documents, and from the declarations, made by persons
complicated in the conspiracy. These declarations were made in the
presence of the appointed judge, Col. D. Francisco Olive y Garcia,
and others, and are of capital interest in the study of the rise and
fall of the filipino "commune".

The citations are as follows:

I. In an act of Session of the Katipunan Sur at the commencement of
the year 1896, the session being opened, the president don Agustin
Tantoko, a native priest [18], invited the membership present to
express its opinion concerning the questions proposed, viz: how
ought we to act towards society; towards ourselves; and how ought
we to act in case of surprise. Mariano Kalisan considered, dealing
with the first question, that "as their principal object was not to
leave alive any Spaniard in all the future Filipino republic" they
should procure to make friends with them as much as possible in order
to be able to carry out their plans with more surety when the time
should arrive to give the cry of independence. D. Gabino Tantoko,
brother of the president, considered that the said principle should
be carried out especially in dealing with the members of the Religious
Orders. Both propositions were accepted.

As regards the second question, Epifanio Ramos proposed that meetings
should be held as seldom as possible "in order to avoid scandals".

In case of surprise, Hermenegildo Garcia considered that "the
strongest fort lay in denial." The brothers Tantoko remarked that such
surprise was almost impossible seeing that they had determined "not
to leave alive any of those who might surprise them." The president
moreover remarked that, from that time forward, in case of danger,
"they should destroy all the papers they held in their power, such
as acts, receipts, letters, plans and especially the arms they held,
in case the blow they were to deal in Manila should not succeed." This
was accepted unanimously.

In reply to a question, the president affirmed that "all the sections
of Katipunan existing in the future Filipino republic pursued the
same end: viz: the independence of the Filipino people, the release
from the yoke of the step-mother [19] Spain."

II. In a document dated the 12th of June 1896 and giving instructions
to those who should carry out the proposed slaughter of all the
Spaniards in Manila, we read:

"2nd. Once the signal is given every bro. shall fulfill the duty
imposed upon him by this Gr. Reg. Log. without considerations of any
kind, neither of parentage, friendship nor of gratitude, etc."

"4th. The blow having been struck at the Captain General and the other
Spanish Authorities, the loyals shall attack the convents and shall
behead their infamous inhabitants, respecting the wealth contained
in the said convents; this shall be gathered ... etc."

"6th. On the following day the bbro. designated shall bury all the
bodies of their hateful oppressors in the field of Bagumbayan together
with their wives and children, and on the site shall later on be raised
a monument commemorative of the independence of the G. N. F. (Gran
Nacion Filipina)."

"7th. The bodies of the members of the Religious Orders shall not be
buried, but burned in just payment for the felonies (sic) which they
committed during life against the Filipino nation during the three
hundred years of their nefarious domination." [20]

This infamous document is signed by the president of the
executive commission by the Gr. Mast. adj. Giordano Bruno, and the
Gr. Sec. Galileo. [21]

III. In his declaration made before Col. Olive y Garcia, the second
Lieutenant D. Benedicto Nijaga y Polonis, a native of Carbeyeng,
province of Samar, stated that the conspiracy was entered into for
the purpose of securing from Spain, by peaceful means, or by the
process of revolution, the independence of the country. He affirmed
moreover that, in the case of revolution, the aid of Japan was to be
sought and that the co-operation of the native troops was expected:
and that the plan of campaign of the rebels who were in San Mateo,
was to "fall upon Manila", the native infantry sent out to meet the
attack to pass over to the rebel ranks.

IV. In his declaration made in Manila before the same judge, Pio
Valenzuela y Alejandrino stated that he was one of the members of the
Interior Supreme Council of the Katipunan, the aim of which was to
collect a large amount of money and promote a general rising in order
to declare the independence of the islands under the protectorate
of the Empire of Japan. Further on he stated that the rising was to
have taken place at 7 o'clock p. m. on the 29th of August, entry being
made into Manila and its suburbs, the rebels "killing the Spaniards,
and the natives and Chinese who did not wish to follow them, and
then devoting themselves to the sacking of the town, to robbery and
incendiarism and the violation of women."

V. Romualdo de J., sculptor of Sta. Cruz, Manila, declared that he had
founded the Katipunan in 1888, the year in which the manifestation
against the Archbishop was made; he defined the aim of the society
to be "the killing of all the Spaniards and the taking possession of
the islands."

VI. In his declaration made in Cavite, September 3, 1896, Alfonso
Ocampo affirmed that according to the plans formulated, they
were "to make the assault, killing and robbing all the peninsular
Spaniards." And moreover, that "the rebellion had for its object the
assassination of all the peninsular Spaniards, the violation and
beheading afterwards of their wives and of their children even to
the youngest."

Many others might be cited; with these six samples an idea may be
gathered of the progressive idea advocated or fostered by Rizal,
Pilar, Lopez, Ponce, the Lunas, Rosario, Cortes, and others who were
inspired by Morayta, the Grand Master of the Gran Oriente Espanol.

Note 4. The then Civil Governor of Manila, in a report to the Colonial
Minister concerning what was taking place in Manila says, speaking
of this Corps:

"... this Corps of Vigilance which, although composed of no more than
45 persons including the inspectors of the same ... renders a service
(to the Government in secret service work) which should be confided
to 100 persons, considering the nature and the amount of the work
undertaken and performed daily, from the day of the formation of the
Corps to this day: a period of about a year. The interesting body of
police which under my orders has performed such valuable services,
is that which has attained greatest success in the fruitful labor of
making clear the vandalistic events we have been experiencing."

Note 5. Filibusters: more properly called separatists. Noah Webster
describes a filibuster as a "lawless military adventurer, especially
one in quest of plunder; a free-booter, a pirate." Hence, taken
in its true meaning, the word does not apply to the separatists of
the Philippines. Retana classifies the filibuster in three groups:
the first: he who, thinking little or nothing of the independence
of his country, showed more or less aversion to the peninsular
Spaniards. 2. He who, under the pretext or without it, of illustrating
his countrymen, inculcated into their minds political ideas which,
without meriting the qualification of subversive, tended to incite
them against supposed oppressions of the Spaniards; against all
things which appeared behind the times, hence according to their way
of arguing, against the Religious Corporations, to which they owed
everything except their anti-Spaniardism. As a rule those belonging
to this group professed great love for the mother-country and did
not preach ideas of independence; they held the belief that theirs
was the duty to prepare the way for the emancipation which should
be attained by their grandchildren. And 3. Those whose aim was to
attain the emancipation of their country as soon as possible. This
latter group were the true separatists. It is however difficult to
distinguish between the filibuster so called, and the true separatist;
perhaps the only admissible distinction is that the separatist is a man
of peaceful methods whilst the filibuster is a man of struggles. Rizal
was more or less a separatist, Andres Bonifacio a veritable filibuster.

Note 6. Sr. Olive was a gentleman who well deserved the respect and
honor paid to him by his nation, and the hatred of those whose plans of
treachery he thwarted and who, in spiteful revenge, have gone so far as
to accuse him of using torture and other forcible means of extorting
confessions, many of which they claim to have been false. Sr. Olive
was too kind-hearted a man to stoop to such methods even had the
circumstances demanded the use of moderate physical persuasion.

At one time Sr. Olive was the Governor of the Marianas Islands
concerning the which he wrote and published a very interesting
memoir. He was at that time Lieut. Colonel.

Later on he was made Colonel and as such was placed at the head of
one of the sections of the Guardia Civil of Manila. He was secretary
of the sub-inspection of arms of the Philippines. When a state of
war was declared, the charges which were at that time being prepared
in connection with the insurrection, were handed over to Sr. Olive,
who with a zeal worthy of praise, and an energy too seldom exerted,
commenced to deal out strict justice to the enemies of their
country. About a year and a half ago Sr. Olive was made General
of Brigade.

Note 7. According to a pamphlet written by a pseudonymous freemason and
printed in Paris in 1896, the first lodge founded in the Philippines
was that established in Cavite about 1860 under the name of Luz
Filipina and subject to the Gr. Or. Lusitian, enjoying immediate
correspondence with the Portuguese lodges of Macao and Hong-Kong
which served as intermediaries between that lodge and those of other
neighboring countries.

Another statement however, from the pen of Sr. Nicolas Diaz y Perez
who formed his data from the original documents of the lodges, places
the first foundation at the end of the year 1834. At this time,
says Sr. Diaz, D. Mariano Marti, who died twenty-seven years later,
whilst on his return to Spain, founded, together with others, lodges
in various parts of the Archipelago, but they did not prosper and soon
dissolved. The epoch of intrigues which produced so much disquietude
and perversion of moral customs and ideas, more especially in the
Tagal provinces, commenced about 1868. The masonic activity at that
time was owing greatly to the political intriguers who were deported
from Spain to this archipelago, where their influence was felt in no
small degree, to the detriment of public morals.

About 1872, during the interim government of Gen. Blanco Valderrama,
a lodge was founded in Sampaloc, subject to the Gr. Or. Esp.,
and composed entirely of peninsular Spaniards with the exclusion
of natives.

In the same year D. Rufino Pascual Torrejon reached Manila and united
his efforts to those of Marti, founding lodges purely Spanish.

On the first of March 1874 was created the lodge "Luz de Oriente" under
the obedience of the Gr. Or. de Esp., the Gr. Comend. being D. Juan
de la Somera. This was really the first successful establishment of
masonry in the Philippines. The cited Sr. Diaz y Perez says on this
point; "It may be said that freemasonry regularly constituted in the
Philippines, dates from the 1st. of March 1874, with the creation of
the lodge Luz de Oriente...."

On the 1st of March 1875 was installed the Gr. L. Departmental,
D. Rufino Pascual Torrejon being the Gr. President.

Up to the year 1884 the lodges of the Philippines did not admit to
their membership either indians or half-castes; but since that time,
and upon the initiative of the Gr. Mast. of the Gr. Or. Esp. the doors
of the lodges were opened to all indians and half-castes who could read
or write. Later on purely native lodges were founded and from that time
Spain lost, little by little but surely, her hold upon the people,
with the result that she eventually lost her colony. What masonry
has accomplished in other parts of the world it also accomplished
here very effectually. It laid the foundation for the undermining of
society, bringing forth a generation of traitors and building up a
kingdom for anti-Christ.

As has been proved over and over again by the many masonic documents
which have been discovered, freemasonry was ever anti-Catholic
in the Philippines; but it was not until it had degenerated into
filibusterism that the anti-Spanish spirit really took shape. Year
by year this spirit spread and more, especially among the natives
and half-castes of less intellectual capacity. Among this element,
separatist ideas spread with marvelous rapidity owing to the
peculiarity of the character of the native and of the half-caste,
more especially the Chinese half-caste. (See note 19).

Up to 1890, even Filipino masonry enjoyed but insignificant
development. By 1892, however, it had spread widely, and in the
following year Manila was gifted with a female lodge founded on the
18th of July of that year, under the name of "La Semilla", of which
Rosario Villareal, the daughter of Faustino Villareal, was declared
the Ven. Gr. Mistress.

From this time the element of politico-social decomposition
gained ground among the native and half-caste population. New ideas
continually gave place to the old and as the aims and purposes of the
lodges degenerated, these centers of anti-catholic propaganda became
more and more anti-Spanish.

Isabelo de los Reyes, in an attempted defense of his "friends",
makes the important confession that "Filipino freemasonry was not so
inoffensive as it was believed.... The "Liga" at least was a school of
conspiracy, and in truth, the Filipinos did not turn out bad pupils."

Another demonstration of the inoffensiveness of freemasonry is the
following series of facts taken from a pamphlet published in 1896 in
Paris by Antonio Regidor under the pseudonym of Francisco Engracio
Vergara. Regidor was a distinguished figure in the attempted revolt
of 1872, and hence may justly be supposed to know something of the
matter of which he speaks. He says:

"By reason of the rising of Cavite many Filipinos characterized as
progressives were deported to Marianas.... To the masons of Hong-Kong
was owing the flight of several Filipinos...."

"The foreign masons distributed arms in Negros, Mindanao and Jolo. The
official bank of Singapore distributed in Cebu, Leyte and Bohol over
L80,000 stg., and that of Hong-Kong more than L200,000 in Panay and
Negros.... The French freemasons at the petition of brother Paraiso,
went to aid also the escape of the deported in Marianas."

Note 8. Rizal and others: Of this group Rizal, Pilar, the Lunas and
Cortes, formed the more guilty part, they being men of superior
education and more enlightened minds. Rizal was the center upon
which almost everything connected with the revolt turned. During
his younger days he lived with his parents in Calamba, where they
occupied a stretch of land owned by the Dominican Corporation. The
Rizal family was one of those most favored by the Dominicans [22],
and one of those ungrateful ones too, which commenced law-suit against
the said Corporation to unjustly possess themselves of the land they
held at rent.

Rizal received his secondary education at the Ateneo Municipal
conducted by the Jesuit Fathers, and was always a bright attentive and
successful pupil. At that time he was secretary of the Sodality of the
Blessed Virgin and Promoter of the Apostleship of Prayer. Whilst he
remained true to the traditions of Catholic Spain, he was an upright
pious youth. Much of his time he spent in carving wooden images of the
Blessed Virgin and of the Sacred Heart, and in writing compositions,
some of them remarkable for their beauty, in which were reflected a
pure love for Spain.

Having attained the degree of Bachelor he left the Ateneo and passed to
the University of Manila, continuing his studies under the Dominican
Fathers. There he studied medicine with great success for some years,
and at length went to Europe to terminate his career and take his
degrees.

Rizal left school like so many other filipino students, overloaded
with science he was unable to direct, full of pride because of his
accomplishments, and very ambitious. He terminated his studies in
Madrid and Germany, in both of which places he fell in with a class
of people who utilized him as a tool to accomplish an end at that
time unknown to him. They filled his head with new and false ideas,
making him vain promises which appealed to his pride, and by their
dark arts made of him a separatist. He also studied English and
German, his studies in this latter language making him enthusiastic
in the things of Germany and, in an extraordinary degree, with those
of protestantism.

Among his own people he was the possessor of an exceptional
intelligence and talent but outside his own circle his most famous
accomplishments are but poor to the student of Literature. His sadly
famous Noli me tangere and El Filibusterismo cannot pass for more
than very second-hand for their ingenuity and literary taste, but
they possess the quality of being a mirror in which is reflected the
inclinations, character and perverse moral sense of their author. In
them he is reflected as a restless spirit anxious for human glory,
haughty and above all, anti-Spanish and ungrateful in the extreme.

It was in Berlin that he published his Noli in 1886. That this novel
was written by Rizal there in no doubt, but that the ideas therein
expressed came directly from his own head is more than doubtful. Like
the vast majority of Filipino productions, it is but a copy taken
from models which had struck the fancy of the author. The pictures
he draws therein of the disadvantages suffered by the Filipinos who
have become espanolized, are but reproductions prepared in his own
coarse and crude way of thinking, of the most scurrilous anti-Spanish
and anti-Catholic works of propaganda produced by the Bible Societies
and spread abroad throughout the world as gospel truth. Taking away
the insults hurled against the Church and the Religious Orders,
and against Spain, there is absolutely nothing new in the novel. Its
object was to attack the friars and the chiefs of the Guardia Civil,
both of which the author well knew to be the sustainment and guarantee
of peace and order in the Archipelago and consequently the strongest
support of the Spanish sovereignty in the Philippines, a sovereignty
he wished to overthrow. To a reader whose library consists of a half
a dozen books of insignificant literary value, the noli of Rizal is a
masterpiece; but to the reader who has seen a book with a cover, who
has had some experience of that portion of the world which lies outside
the limits of the town of his birth, and who is gifted with more or
less ability to think for himself, and sift the wheat from the straw
in a literary composition, noli me tangere is but a half-tone picture
cut from a newspaper and colored with water-colors by a ... school-boy.

Towards the end of 1887, Rizal returned to the Archipelago, remaining
about two months, during the which he made active propaganda of the
ideas and fancies he had picked up in Europe: ideas which he himself
could not really understand.

In February 1888 he left Manila for Japan, from whence he returned
to Europe, living for a while in Paris and later on in London.

In 1892 Rizal, relying upon the generous character of D. Eulogio
Despujols, the then Governor General of the Archipelago, decided
to return to Manila. From Hong-Kong where he was then residing, he
wrote to the governor, asking permission to return to his home; the
Governor replied by means of the Spanish Consul at Hong-Kong, that
he had no reason to prohibit him from returning, and that he could
do so when it so pleased him, providing he came with no intention to
disturb the peace then reigning in the Islands.

This Rizal lost no time in doing; he arrived together with his
sister. The baggage of both was carefully examined and in one of the
trunks was discovered a bundle of leaflets in the form of anti-friar
proclamations which indicated the bad faith of a traitor. These were
handed over to Despujols unknown to Rizal. The Governor preserved
them in his desk for future reference. In an interview with the
Governor, Rizal begged pardon for his father who was under sentence
of deportation for certain events which had taken place in Calamba;
this was granted him without reserve.

Our hero soon forgot the aims he professed to the Governor; instead
of thinking about his folks and making his arrangements for the
colonizing scheme he professed to have worked out in Borneo, he set
to work to stir up disrespect towards the authorities, and the spirit
of political unrest. He together with Doroteo Cortes and Jose Basa
were the objects of careful vigilance on the part of the secret police.

After a few days a prolonged conference took place between the Governor
General and Rizal. During this conference the latter made patent his
political feelings, at the same time making protestations of respect
for Spain. His political programme however was not in keeping with
his protestations of patriotism, and this fact so angered Despujols,
who now saw that Rizal's idea was to fool him, that he took from his
drawer the proclamations discovered in the agitator's baggage and
thrusting them under the nose of the traitor, said:

--And these proclamations; what are they, what do they mean?

Rizal taken by surprise and confounded, cowardly declared that they
were the property of his sister, a declaration which only enraged
the General the more, and he ordered his detention in Fort Santiago;
on the following day he decreed his deportation to Dapitan.

Whilst in exile his opinion and advice were sought concerning the
advisability of immediate armed rebellion. But he, crafty, more or
less far seeing and, above all, jealous of Bonifacio's increasing
ascendancy over the people, refused to countenance the idea. Granting
the unselfish desire he professed of seeking merely the independence
of his country, Rizal's jealousy was justified. Bonifacio's one
great idea was the presidency; Rizal's: the honor and glory of having
prepared the way for, and eventually, by his labors accomplishing his
country's deliverance from what he was pleased to call the oppression
of the Spanish Government. Had such oppression existed, Rizal's idea
would have been worthy of classifying as noble. George Washington well
deserved the name of the "Father of his Country," for he, laying aside
all selfish aims and desires, led a handful of men against a horde of
mercenaries sent by a cruel monarch who oppressed his people, not only
in the colonies but in the mother-country also. Washington was a man
who deserved and received the respect of those against whom he fought,
for he fought for a principle. Such an honor never has, and never
can be received by Rizal from his own countrymen. The campaign Rizal
fought was inspired by and worked out in the freemason lodges which
used our "hero" as a willing tool. Rizal was a Filipino Garibaldi,
never a Filipino Washington, and hence the honors paid to his memory
as a "patriot" must emanate from the lodge rooms which made him what
he was, and not from the people of his country.

In Dapitan the Filipino agitator was not inactive. On one occasion
he directed a letter (which never reached its destination on account
of its having fallen into the hands of Spanish authorities) to the
Capitan Municipal of the province of Batangas, giving him information
of the work of filibusterism which was at that time being carried on.

Rizal, tiring of his position in Dapitan, eventually asked permission
of the Governor General, Gen. Blanco, to be sent to Cuba as physician
to the Spanish forces there. Blanco agreed to the proposition and
ordered his return to Manila in preparation for the voyage to Spain,
where he was to be sent and placed at the disposition of the Minister
of War.

From Spain came word, however, that the petition could not be accepted;
and for a very good reason. Rizal's idea of becoming an army surgeon,
was a manifest pretence, his real aim was to aid the separatist
movement there, if he ever got there, but primarily to make his
escape at an intermediate port, Singapore probably, if opportunity
occurred. Moreover, it having come to the ears of the authorities that
certain people of Pampanga and Bulacan were preparing a reception for
the agitator, the Governor ordered that he should not be allowed to
leave Dapitan, and that should he have left there, he should not be
allowed to land in Manila on his arrival, but be transferred to another
ship which should carry him back to Mindanao. It happened that he had
left Dapitan on board the S. S. Espana, and in due time he arrived
at Manila. At 11 a. m. on the 6th of August the ship on which he came
anchored in the bay and everyone landed except Rizal. A lieutenant of
the Veterana went aboard and took possession of the person of Rizal,
holding him as a prisoner till 7:30 p. m., at which time, through an
error in the delivery of an order, he was allowed to disembark. This he
did in company with his sister Narcisa, and they made their way to the
office of the Captain of the Port and later on to the Comandancia of
the Veterana. His sister not having been under sentence of deportation,
was allowed to go to the home of her relatives.

During the evening of the same day Gen. Blanco gave a reception
at Malacanang at which were present the Archbishop of Manila, the
Illust. Sr. Bernardino Nozaleda; Sr. Echaluce; Sr. Fernandez Victorio,
President of Audiencia; Sr. Bores Romero, the Civil Director and
others. During the reception Gen. Blanco received a telegram from the
Governor of the province of Batangas stating that in the pueblo of
Taal, in the house of the brother of the filibuster Felipe Agoncillo,
had been discovered a quantity of arms and ammunition, among other
things being 10 revolvers, 10 winchesters, 10 other guns, a case of
explosive bullets, a quantity of dynamite, a Japanese flag, another
composed of red and blue with a representation of the sun in the
center surrounded by seven stars--the flag of the future Filipino
republic. Blanco realizing the importance of the news, formed a
committee from among those present, choosing those who were members
of the Junta of Authorities, to take steps in the matter. Orders were
immediately given that Rizal should be placed on board the cruiser
Castilla which was stationed at Cavite; this was carried out, the
start from Manila being made at 11 p. m. the same night. This action
was considered necessary, in as much as the news of the landing of
Rizal spread fast and caused no little stir among his followers.

Whilst Rizal was on board the cruiser Castilla which was awaiting
orders, the Katipunan revolt broke out in Manila and the suburbs. Very
soon afterwards his voyage Spainwards was commenced on board the
S. S. Colon, the insurrection becoming more and more wide-spread
daily. On finding to what an extent Rizal was complicated in the
work of the revolution, his return to the Archipelago, as a prisoner,
was demanded, and so our "hero" returned to be judged as were so many
of his fellow agitators, for the crimes for which he was morally and
physically responsible.

A council of war was constituted under the presidency of
Lieut. Col. Tabares, Capt. Tavil de Andrade taking charge of the
defense of the prisoner. The accusation preferred against him was that
he was the chief organizer of the revolution. The trial took place in
the hall of the Cuartel de Espana in the presence of a large audience
among whom were his sister and the woman with whom he had been living
in Dapitan. The charge having been read out, several declarations were
made by Rizal, some before his voyage to Spain and others since his
return were also read. During his trial Rizal denied the knowledge
of several persons who were his intimate friends and co-workers;
among them Maximo Inocencio and Mariano Linjap, and others with whom
he had been in almost continual communication. He denied knowledge
of the "Liga Filipina" stating that not only did he not found it,
but that he was not aware of its existence. He affirmed ignorance of
who Valenzuela was, and almost immediately afterwards stated that he
had held an interview with him in Dapitan when that individual had
been sent there by Bonifacio to consult him on the subject of armed
rebellion. Throughout the whole trial he pursued the same tactics,
proving that, of himself, he was but an ordinary Filipino indian who,
when left to himself to stand on his own merits, gave no signs of
particular judgement or power of thought. The Filipino on trial,
even for some significant affair, cannot tell a lie to advantage:
Rizal was no exception even in this. The trial being ended he was
condemned to execution.

Previous to meeting his death he confessed and received the Holy
Communion from the hands of the Jesuit Fathers having after long
consideration, made the following retraction of his errors:

"I declare myself Catholic and in this religion in which I was born
and educated I wish to live and die. I retract with all my heart
all my words, writings and actions that have been contrary to my
condition as a son of the Catholic Church. I believe and profess
whatever She teaches and I submit to whatever She demands. I
abominate masonry as an enemy of the Church and as a society
condemned by the Church.

"The diocesan prelate, as superior ecclesiastical authority, may
make public this spontaneous manifestation, to make reparation
for the scandals which may have been caused by my works, and that
God and my fellow-men may pardon me."

"Manila 29th December 1896.--Jose Rizal.--Witnesses: Juan del
Fresno, Chief of Picket.--Eloy Maure, Adjutant."

He also entered the holy bonds of matrimony with the young woman
with whom he had been living for some time in Mindanao. On the way
to the place of his execution he remarked to one of the Fathers who
accompanied him. Father, it is my pride that has brought me here."

Of the political error committed by the Spanish Authorities in
the execution of Rizal, I do not hold myself up as a judge. All
governments, like human beings, commit mistakes and at times grave
ones. The Spanish authorities, feeling themselves justified in so
doing, ordered the execution of the prisoner who was responsible
for one of the most bloody revolts since the time of the French
revolution: the pattern taken by the Filipino leaders, for the means
of the foundation of the Filipino republic. Rizal was executed on the
Luneta. To assert that he was offered up as a victim to gratify the
wishes of the Religious Orders is but a crude and vicious argument
worthy of its inventors and propagators. Nothing, absolutely nothing,
can be brought forward to prove such an assertion, but on the contrary,
those members of the Religious Orders who concerned themselves in
the stirring affairs of the revolution were, as a very general rule,
opposed to harsh and extreme measures being taken; and among these
was the Illustrious Archbishop of Manila, Sr. Nozaleda, a noble,
tenderhearted and compassionate prelate, a prelate who has been dubbed
by Foreman as "the blood-thirsty Archbishop". Had the friars held the
reins of government as they are stated to have done, history would not
have to record the names of so many, many people who were executed:
people who were scarcely to be held as guilty, in as much as they
were but sheep who thoughtlessly followed their shepherds without
even looking to see where the road they trod would lead them.

In politics Rizal had his party composed of a number of insignificant
petty-lawyers, petty-doctors and others possessing academic titles and
a semi-formed cerebral power. These were backed by a mass of the people
of Calamba, Rizal's birthplace. In their eyes he was a "Messiah", a
"Mahdi", their prophet and redeemer. As an individual he was bright
and intelligent, and had he not been led astray by those who made a
"cat's paw" of him, and who cruelly deserted him in his hour of need,
he would doubtless have been one of the foremost Filipinos of to-day
in that sphere of life in which God had placed him.

A Spanish proverb says: "In blind man's land the one eyed man is a
king." Rizal was a king.

Note 9. Marcelo Hilario del Pilar y Gatmaytan was a native of
Bulacan. He was, by profession, a lawyer, and had been enabled to
complete his studies in that direction through the good offices of the
Augustinian Fathers of Manila, who had given him the money necessary
to matriculate and to pay the cost of his title of "abogado." [23]

Pilar left Manila for the peninsula about the end of '88 for fear of
deportation: a punishment at that time staring him in the face. He
was one of the earliest workers on the "La Solidaridad", the official
organ of Filipino freemasonry in all its sections. He later on became
its director.

Pilar was another of the many malays whose ways were beyond human
comprehension. Spaniards who have lived a life-time among the indians
and studied them carefully from all points of view agree that the
deeper one studies the native character the more incomprehensible it
becomes. That is, the study of the average filipino: Pilar was one of
the average. He was not gifted with the education enjoyed by Rizal,
nor was he such a stupid visionary as Pedro Paterno; he possessed
touches of the character of both.

Like so many of those Filipinos who fed at the hands of the Religious
Orders, he eventually turned to bite the hand that fed him. As in the
case of the others who had done the like, he did so, not because he had
cause to, but because he fell, as did they, under the evil influence
of those who utilized them to work out their schemes of treachery.

Pilar was sent to Spain as a delegate of the Committee of
propaganda. Owing to this position of chief of the delegation in
Madrid, and by reason of his intimate friendship with Morayta,
he occupied a position from which neither Rizal nor even the whole
of the progressive indians combined, could drive him. He held, for
some time, high office in the Gr. Or. Esp. as will be seen from the
following clipping taken from page 107 of the Annual of that Orient
for the year 1894-95.

"GRAN CONS. DE LA ORDEN
1894-1895
Muy Ven. Gran Maestre Presidente
Ven. H. Miguel Morayta y Sagrario, Gr. 33
...................................
Ven. Gran Orador Adjunto
V. Marcelo H. del Pilar Gr. 33" (h. Kupang)

It was Pilar who conceived the plan of the Katipunan; and yet after
all it was not his conception, for the scheme he formed was at the
best, a piece of patch work made up of the plans worked out in the
various revolutions which had taken place in some part of the world.

What Pilar's ambition was, it is hard to say; from his actions and
writings one is almost driven to the supposition that he had none
in particular, but was led to the separatist labors he performed by
force of compromise.

When the time was ripe for action Pilar determined to leave Madrid and
make his way to Japan. He commenced the journey arriving at Barcelona,
from whence he was to make his way east. There, however, he was taken
suddenly ill, and died on the 4th of June 1896, in the Hospital of
that city.

In many things Pilar was superior to Rizal. Unlike that agitator, Pilar
was not a sneaking, skulking petty-politician; he was straight-forward
and had the courage of his opinions. What Pilar would have done if
placed in the same circumstances as Rizal it is hard to say, but we
may be assured that he would not have acted the coward as did Rizal.

Note 10. Antonio and Juan Luna were two of four brothers. The former
was a bacteriologist, the latter an artist who at one time, whilst
he followed the instruction, and remained under the guidance of
his master, showed no little talent. Antonio went to Spain in '88,
and later on passed to Paris where he lived with his brother Juan
who supported him. There he devoted himself to the study which made
him famous; this he did in the laboratory of Dr. Roux. He became an
assistant editor of the Solidaridad, the official organ of filipino
freemasonry, and wrote many vicious articles in its columns over the
pseudonym of Taga-Ilog. As a member of the freemason fraternity he
was known as Gay Lussac.

On his return to Manila he established, for a livelihood, a school
of fencing, and like the vain, insensate "magpie in borrowed plumes"
that he was, he once sent his seconds to a Spanish officer, inviting
him to a duel!

During the second half of the rebellion of '96, Aguinaldo offered
Antonio the position of director of the War Department with the
grade of General of Brigade. This honor, however, he declined. The
Independencia speaking on this incident, says:--

"The military knowledge of Sr. Luna, acquired during his captivity
(sic) in the prisons of the peninsula (Spain), is to be found condensed
in two small works, one concerning the organization of the army, having
as its base the idea of obligatory service in which he demonstrates
that Luzon might put on a war footing 250,000 to 400,000 men, and
the whole archipelago as many as from 800,000 to 900,000. The other
work is a practical course in field fortifications as adopted by the
French and German armies." [24]

Juan, from childhood, was of an artistic turn of mind and found among
his many protectors those who sent him to Spain to study art. In
Spain he met with Sr. Alejo Vera, a noteworthy artist, under whom
he studied, receiving an exceptional education both in art and in
morals, Sr. Vera being a Christian gentleman. Later on he went to
Rome, and there formed part of the Spanish artistic colony. After some
two or three years of study there he sent to Spain his first painting
[25]. Being an artistic production of a Filipino indian it was received
with open hands and given a reception greater than it really deserved,
as a result of the influence of Luna's friends. From Rome he went
to Paris. It was in that city that he committed the fiendish double
murder which so startled and shocked his friends and acquaintances,
his victims being his wife and his mother-in-law, sister and mother
of a prominent political aspirant of modern Manila. The result of
the trial was that the courts of Justice of Paris absolved him. He
then returned to Madrid, and soon after, to Manila.

What Spain did for the Filipino brought forth fruit in only a few of
the people who fell under her beneficent christian influence. The Lunas
were among the few. They, like so many other ungrateful children,
repaid their benefactors by becoming leaders of the insensate and
inexcusable revolt against them: a revolt, the first act of which was
to be the brutal murder of all Spaniards irrespective of parentage or
other claims of consideration. Both the brothers suffered arrest by
the Spanish authorities for rebellion and sedition, but in spite of
the degree to which they were complicated, they remained practically
free from punishment, and ever at the right hand of the imbecile
General Blanco, himself a freemason, and friend of the enemies of
his country. Eventually the two brothers left the ante-chamber of
the Governor to enter the security of the military prison.

Both brothers eventually retracted their errors only to fall into
them again as soon as the lying protests of repentance had fallen
from their lips.

Juan died in Hong-Kong; Antonio, after a career of militarism succumbed
to the same unprincipled ambition which carried Andres Bonifacio to
an untimely grave.

Note 11. Doroteo Cortes was banished by Governor Despujol in the year
1893, to the province of La Union where he founded in San Fernando,
the Capital, aided by Arturo Dancel, the lodge "Rousseau" and two
others in the pueblos of San Juan and Agoo. He was a lawyer and became
the president of the committee of Propaganda which was formed with
the idea of gathering pecuniary resources for covering the expense
of the distribution of all classes of pamphlets and anti-Religious
proclamations. He was at one time the president of the Superior Supreme
Council of the Katipunan [26], and received the funds collected for
the payment of the expenses of the political commission sent to Japan
to seek the aid and protection of that power. Cortes was a co-worker
with Andres Bonifacio and whilst the former devoted his efforts to the
enlistment of people for the general rising throughout the country,
the latter continued his negotiations with Japan to the end of forcing
some international struggle between Spain and that Power [27]. By
order of the Superior Council Cortes went to Japan to join Ramos and
aid in the purchase of arms. Shortly after his arrival he communicated
by letter with Ambrosio Bautista informing him that he had seen and
spoken on the subject with the Japanese ministers of State and of
Foreign Affairs [28], and that the said ministers "demanded guarantees"
of the probable success of the undertaking before entering into the
scheme. According to a statement of Isabelo de los Reyes, Cortes was
"the first person of means and position who came to the decision of
attacking, in the Philippines, the Religious Corporations. He was the
soul of the manifestation of '88." (See appendix B.) At the time of
the American occupation of the Archipelago the Cortes family showed
themselves friendly to the new sovereignty and aided in many ways
the establishment of good feeling between the two peoples.

Note 12. Pedro Serrano, symbolic name Panday-Pira, was a 24th degree
mason. He was a school-master of the municipal school of Quiapo. After
having done considerable work of propaganda in masonry he abjured
it. He was the cause of the entry into the lodges of hundreds of indian
and half-caste clerks, laborers, employees, petty merchants and others
of all classes and employments. He was accused by his fellow masons of
exploiting the society [29] and of treason, of frequenting the Palace
of the Archbishop and the College of San Juan de Letran, and of many
things unbecoming a mason. In a document dated the 31st of March 1894,
dispatched by the G. Cons. Reg. of Filipino masonry to the lodge
Modestia, Serrano was denounced, and all masons were urged to flee
from him. In the said document, a translation of which will be found
in Appendix C, is poured forth the complaint of the president of the
Gr. Cons. (h. Muza) of a leakage somewhere in the treasury in which
were stored up the secrets of the treasonable labors being carried
out in the Filipino lodges. By way of specific charges the president
denounces Panday-Pira because he had the courage to give vent to his
opinions concerning the doings of the Filipino lodges, to a foreign
mason; because he was known to have, for some reason or other, visited
the Archbishop's palace and Dominican College; that he had demanded
the possession of certain documents, threatening the possessors if
they did not give them up, etc. etc. On this account he was denounced
as a traitor and dubbed "reptile", the pot calling the kettle black.

Note 13. Morayta, the famous Don Miguel, the "papa" of the rebellious
Filipinos! It is an almost world-wide belief that the number 13 is
an unlucky number. If this be so, then Miguel Morayta well deserves
his name, for in it there are thirteen letters; the first letter of
each word commences with the thirteenth letter of the alphabet and
it happens also that this miserable individual falls to note 13. I
will therefore complete the coincidence by saying all I have to say
of this person in thirteen lines.

Morayta was at one time Gr. Master of the Gr. Or. de Espana, but was
later on expelled therefrom, according to a masonic publication. In
1888 he founded the Gr. Or. Espanol, the mother of the Katipunan. In
1890 he took over the proprietorship of La Solidaridad then published
by Marcelo del Pilar for separatist ends. Morayta was the idol of
the Filipino students who sought education in the Peninsula. Using
him as a means towards an end they aimed at, they banquetted him and
thus assiduously attacking his stomach they finally captured him.

Note 14. Tagalog: The Tagalogs are a branch of the Malay family
which, in former times, dominated from Madagascar to the ends of the
Pacific. They form part of what we might call the Malay-Chinee race,
i. e. the cross between the female on the Malay side and the Chinee
on the side of the male. This cross has been taking place from time
immemorial, commencing long before the islands were discovered by
the Spanish explorers. The present Tagalog indian enjoys more of the
characteristics of the Chinee than of the Malay on account of the
potency of the Chinee blood over the Malay.

Going back to ancient times the probability is that the original
Malay first became modified by its crossing with the inhabitants
proper of the archipelago--the Negritos--marks of which mixture are
still discernible in many of the Tagalogs.

A second modification came through the mixture between the
Malay-Negrito and the Indonesian, traces of which are seen in
the light color of the skin in a portion, although small, of the
Tagalogs. Another modification, the most marked, originated from the
crossing of the Malay-Negrito-Indonesian with the Chinee, the Chinee
being marked by the increase in stature, the elevation of the skull
and other minor marks.

During the last three centuries this hybrid Tagalog has undergone
another small and gradual change by reason of a limited crossing with
Spanish blood. This latter mixture however is insignificant in extent
but always produces a superior type. As a people the Tagalogs number
about one and a half millions, and inhabit the regions around about
Manila. The traits of character of the four principal trunks from
which the Tagalog of to-day is derived are, although still present in
a greater or lesser degree, considerably modified by climatological
and historical circumstances.

At the coming of the Spaniards the Tagalogs, like the remaining native
peoples of the archipelago, were met with in the depths of the savage
ages, and were to a certain extent, of cannibalistic tendencies.

The average Tagalog is not wanting in courage, a fact he has often
displayed, but this courage is never seen to advantage except when the
indian is under the leadership of a person of exceptional valor or a
strict disciplinarian. Like most peoples derived from the Malay stock,
the Tagalog indian is subject to strange fits of mental aberration,
the fits taking different forms, generally innocent ones, the worst
being a homicide under the influence of a "hot head". At least that
is what might have been said of him 8 or 10 years ago, previous to
the time in which he became fanaticised by freemasonry. He is not
even yet apt to run amok as is usual among the Malays and this is
undoubtedly due to the civilizing religious influence which has been
brought to bear upon him during the three centuries of Spanish rule
in the Archipelago. It is a noteworthy fact that in the same degree
as the influence of religion, of the Religious Orders if you will,
became lesser, in exactly equal degree did crime increase. Explain
this as you will the fact remains that during the four years or
so that the indian has been under the care and protection of a
government indifferent to all religion, crime has increased a hundred
fold, perhaps arithmetically so also, and crimes unheard of in days
gone by, have become so common as scarcely to merit mention in the
columns of Manila's yellow journalism. What the Tagalog indian is
equal to when free from the restraint of the Catholic religion,
has been seen from the fearful crimes and barbarities committed
against Spaniards and against Americans during the insurrection. The
brutalities committed upon the unfortunate prisoners who fell into
their hands were unheard of even among the savage Arab hordes of the
Soudan, nor have the records of the ferocity of the Chinese boxers
yet told us of things equal to the fearful events which took place in
the province of Cavite and elsewhere. And for all this the Tagalog
indian is responsible: the Tagalog for whom Pedro Paterno claims a
pre-Spanish civilization on the plan of the Aztec and ancient Peruvian
indians. Like all oriental peoples the Tagalog is superstitious and
loves demonstration, symbolism and things grotesque. About the only
thing left to him of his ancient civilization as Paterno calls it,
barbarism we generally say, is his mythology. In it everything is
more or less connected with spirits. Their faith in what they call
their anting anting [30] is unbreakable. Rizal was supposed to be
under the protection of the anting-anting but the leaden missiles
which took away his life carried away the anting-anting also: and yet
there are thousands upon thousands of indians, some of them men of
enlightenment, who still cling to the belief that Rizal still lives,
thanks to the influence of his protecting amulet. Nor did anting anting
avail Aguinaldo who now probably believes far more in the protection of
his American prison than in that offered by his anting anting charms.

Their mythology has, like their ancient character, been greatly
modified in the vast majority, by the influence of the civilization
implanted by Spain. This is one point in which Spain has differed from
most nations in methods of civilization and colonization. However
we may judge her in respect to her colonial administration in the
Philippines, we cannot deny that she has been distinguished from other
nations by her aim of preserving the native races of the archipelago,
the destruction consequent upon the radical change undergone in
everything, being limited to the savage customs and immoralities in
which the native peoples were found submerged.

The masonic lodges spoken of in the text which were asked of Morayta,
were established, although they were not exclusively Tagalog in
their membership. As a result of the petition of the Filipino colony
mentioned in the same text, the theories and practices of Masonry
were carried to the Tagalogs but instead of the needy brethren being
aided by the wealthy ones, they were subjected to a contribution
in exchange for which they received a gaudy regalia; in other words
they were bought over with strings of beads and with tinsel truck as
were the indians discovered by Capt. Cook in the South Sea Islands,
with the exception that Capt. Cook and those who followed him carried
civilization to the natives, whilst the founders of the Katipunan
carried to the Tagalogs and the other indians of the archipelago
misery and demoralization.

Note 15. Faustino Villaruel Gomara was a Spanish half-caste, a native
of Pandaran, living in Binondo. He was the founder of the lodge "La
Patria" of which he was also the Ven. Gr. Master with grade 18. He
also founded a lodge of female freemasons, for the foundation of
which he committed the nefarious crime of prostituting his daughter,
handing her over, in the period of her innocence and candor, to the
ridiculous workings and practices of freemasonry. Rosario Villaruel
(Minerva), thus sacrificed by her father, was initiated in Hong-Kong
and made venerable of the first lodge of female masons in Manila,
drawing in after her a large number of her half-caste friends, young
folk of bare instruction. This lodge was known as "La Semilla". Its
composition was: Sisters: Carlota Zamora, of Calle Crespo; Maria
Teresa Bordas, of Tabaco, province of Albay; Fabiana Robledo,
wife of Sixto Celis; Lorenza Nepomuceno, of Calle San Jose, Trozo;
Angelica Lopez, Calle Jolo; Narcisa Rizal; Maria Dizon, Calle Trozo,
and other fanatic females.

Villaruel was the Gr. Oriente of filipino masonry, a deluded fanatic,
a man of but scarce intellectual endowments, an instrument of those
who knew more and were shrewder than he. By laying hands upon him
the Spanish Authorities laid hands also upon a large number of
incriminating documents which were the means of connecting many
prominent business men of Manila with the bloody programme of the
Katipunan. Among these was Francisco L. Roxas.

Besides these documents were a large number of loose papers written
in Tagalog, in which were discovered many threatening phrases and the
expression of hopes in the success of an event to take place in the
near future. Masks and other masonic implements, including a heavily
made and sharply pointed dagger were also discovered.

Previous to suffering the penalty of his treason he made and signed
a public abjuration, for the copy of which see Appendix E.

Note 16. Andres Bonifacio was the soul of the Katipunan movement;
he was the President of the "Council of Ministers of the Supreme
Popular Council." His social condition was of a low grade, that grade
from which many of the most fanatical pseudo-reformers have come;
he was a warehouseman, a porter. In this capacity he was employed
in the establishment of Messrs Fressel and Co., and was one of the
humblest of the employees.

Bonifacio was, however, very vain and quixotic. He was, too, a man
of sanguinary character, and held the people over whom he attained
ascendancy, in awe. His ambition was the cause of his ignominious
downfall and brutal murder at the hands of another self-asserted
dictator of the filipino Commune. Like most of his kind, he was
a great reader, and by those who knew him best he was likened to
Don Quixote, for like that worthy he passed many a night burning
away oil and candles, and sacrificing needed sleep in reading,
until his brain was turned and his whole mind given up to ideas of
revolutions. His favorite study was the French Revolution, from the
which he learned many lessons which he utilized in his projects, the
principal of which was the formation of a government after the style
of the French Commune. He was astute and comparatively intelligent,
and spoke the Tagalog dialect well. For the carrying out of his plans
he had agents in every nook and corner. No place where information
might be gathered or the work of propaganda done, was over-looked. The
offices of the Civil Government had their quota of his spies, as also
did the Intendencia, the Maestraza de Artilleria and the other large
centers. Nor were the Convents and Colleges overlooked, nor even the
big business Corporations.

Bonifacio enjoyed an envied ascendancy over the lower classes and
the ignorant. Like others of similar tendencies, Bonifacio knew how
to exploit the "membership". He was at one time treasurer of the
Katipunan, and upon one occasion after the examination of the books
by the president of the society Andres was denounced as an exploiter,
the accounts being found in a very bad condition. A series of mutual
squabbles and insults passed between the president Roman Basa, and
Bonifacio, the whole affair ending up in a re-election of officers,
Bonifacio being chosen as president. This occurred towards the end
of the year 1893.

The vanity of Bonifacio was comparable only to that of Aguinaldo. Among
the number of chief workers of the Katipunan was a certain Valenzuela,
a doctor who had, according to his own confession, been forced into
the membership by Bonifacio, on the strength of a "love" affair; he
was given the choice of membership or death. He chose the former but
later on resigned. Whilst a member he enjoyed a salary of 30 pesos a
month as medical officer, but only with difficulty could he collect
his pay. He claimed to have been exploited by Bonifacio who, whilst
merely a porter, could thus have at his command the free services of
a real doctor, spurning the services of the petty physicians which
abound in Manila. Nor was this all. His own (Bonifacio's) house
having been burned down, he went, on the strength of this same "love"
affair, to live in the house of the said doctor (see foot-note p. 48),
taking with him his paramour, the doctor paying the greater part of
the expenses thus incurred.

At the time of the organization of the popular Supreme Councils,
Bonifacio was chosen president of the Council of Trozo; but in
consequence of internal troubles occasioned by his rebelliousness,
the Supreme Council decided to dissolve the local Council. Bonifacio,
true to his colors, disregarded this order and continued working on his
own account, taking upon himself the faculties of the Supreme Council.

He preserved in a case which was found in the warehouse of Messrs
Fressel and Co., the organization of the "Filipino Republic" which
was to be, as well as a number of regulations, codes, decrees of
nominations, etc., all drawn up in Tagalog (see foot-note p. 49.)

Upon the discovery, on the 19th of August 1896, by the Augustinian
Padre fray Mariano Gil, parish priest of Tondo, of the plot of the
Katipuneros, Bonifacio and his immediate assistants fled from Manila to
Caloocan. From that point he sent orders to the provinces of Manila,
Cavite and Nueva Ecija that a general rising should take place on the
30th of that month. These orders were given out of revenge for the
failure of the blood-thirsty plot whereby every Spaniard, man, woman
or child should share in the sufferings which his diseased brain had
concocted for those who should fall into his hands. Bonifacio issued
special orders concerning the Governor General, his plan being that he
and the other Spanish authorities of any importance should be taken
prisoners, but not killed, it being intended to hold their persons
as security for the granting of their demands. He called together
the members of the Junta Superior and nominated a general-in-chief,
a general of division and other officials. These however refused to
step into the places he had prepared for them and Bonifacio angered
thereat threatened to have the head removed from the shoulders of
anyone who dared to disobey him. The general-in-chief Teodoro Plata,
a cousin of Bonifacio, fled during the night following his nomination,
whereupon Bonifacio issued orders for his capture, commanding his
death wherever he should be found.

Sometime previous to this, about the month of May, Bonifacio sent
Pio Valenzuela to Dapitan to hold a conference with Rizal concerning
the convenience of immediate rebellion against Spain. Rizal would not
consent to the projected revolt but opposed the idea most strenuously,
being thrown into such a bad humor by the information he received
of Bonifacio, that Valenzuela, who had gone to Dapitan intending to
spend a month there, determined to return on the following day. On
his return to Manila he recounted to Bonifacio the result of his
mission. Bonifacio who knew Rizal's influence over the people to
be greater than his own, had been living in hopes of receiving
Rizal's consent which would be the surrendering to him of the whole
responsibility and glory of the bloody enterprise. Bonifacio aspired to
the absolute, like all the so-called leaders of the revolt; so when he
realized the stand taken by Rizal, who was willing to wait patiently
till the poison with which he had inoculated the people should work
of itself, he flew into a rage like a spoilt child, declaring Rizal
to be a coward and imposing upon Valenzuela, his messenger, implicit
silence on this subject, prohibiting him from manifesting to anyone
what he considered to be the bad exit of the consultation.

No methods were too underhand for Bonifacio; to gain his end he lied to
the people over whom he held sway as only a Filipino can lie. On one
occasion he affirmed that in Coregidor was a vessel loaded with arms
and ammunition for the rebels, and by this means he animated them,
a very necessary thing at that time, as they were but scantily armed
with bolos and were no match against those they intended to assail.

Taking him all in all, Bonifacio was a first class organizer for
such an enterprise as that aimed at by the Katipunan, and upon his
shoulders lies the weight of the greater part of the iniquities of
the diabolical society. He ordered the outbreak and in a skillful
manner pulled the strings which worked the figures which formed the
performers in the marionette revolution. He had rivals in the field
however, the most powerful being Aguinaldo, the would be president
of the mushroom republic. After the encounter at San Juan del Monte
in which the insurgents suffered the loss of 95 killed and 42 taken
prisoners in the first instance, and shortly afterwards of 200 more,
Bonifacio escaped, carrying with him the funds of the Katipunan,
some 20,000 pfs. [31] He was supposed to be in hiding in the most
inaccessible parts of the mountains of San Mateo, in as much as he had
told Pio Valenzuela that in case the movement were unsuccessful he had
determined to retire to that point to devote himself to highway robbery
[32], to foot-padding, an idea gotten from some modern French novel
probably. He worked his way eventually into Cavite, and, according to
information gotten from Pedro Gonzalez, he fell into the disfavor of
Aguinaldo who saw his own superiority in danger of being supplanted;
the generalisimo therefore put a price upon his head [33]. A party was
sent in search for the runaway and upon his capture he was subjected
to most brutal treatment, and at last fell a victim to the unprincipled
ambition of the Dictator.

Had Bonifacio lived he would have made a splendid acquisition to
the Partido Federal, he being a man who could, like many of the
self-asserted leaders of to-day, plan and follow out any double-faced
policy that might be needed under the circumstances.

Note 17. This note not being ready at the time of the printing of the
pages of this section, it has been reserved for note 101, which see.

Note 18. Domingo Franco y Tuason was a native of Mambusao, Province
of Capiz. He was the president of the first junta called by Rizal in
1892 for the formation of the "Liga Filipina". Till that time he was
like many others of the same class almost unknown.

Note 19. The character of the native: this is a subject upon which
one might write many volumes without conveying to the minds of his
readers more than a faint idea of what that strange character is.

More mysterious than the most profound mystery of Religion,
his most striking trait of character being a decided tendency to
retrogression, the Malay stands out among the numerous divisions of
the human family as a man with a marked propensity to the mysterious,
to the prodigious. He is accustomed to give a blind obedience to
his superiors and more so to his own caciques, he is docile as a
general rule, and shows but little resentment to abusive language,
although he will sometimes carefully guard the remembrance of some
insignificant insult or blow, and take a cruel revenge, a thousand
times greater than the injury he received, after a period, at times,
of years. Other peculiarities of the native are his delight in gambling
and cockfighting, his aversion to manual labor, his infantile but
excessive vanity, his lack of the power of thought in matters of
moment, his well developed imagination, his instability from all points
of view and his liability to complete and radical changes. The average
indian is to-day virtuous, honest and grateful for favors received,
tomorrow he is vicious, thieving and shows an ingratitude not to be
found even in the brute creation. This very marked trait of character
may be found in many of the Filipinos who have held and still hold
some of the highest official positions in the islands.

To sum up the Filipino indian in a few words: he is inexplicable. There
have been those who have spent their lives in the study of the indian,
but in spite of all that man can do to study man, the problem remains
unsolved. Only those "globe trotters" who have studied the native
from the muchacho who waited upon them at the hotel at which they
stayed during their few days visit, and the cochero who had the honor
of conducting such savants to and from the Luneta, have so far been
able to demonstrate what is this character which has puzzled men of
common sense and lifelong experience, for centuries.

Being by nature credulous, ignorant and superstitious, the indian fell
an easy victim to the mysteries of freemasonry, which served him as
are introduction to the semi-savage methods of the "Liga Filipina"
and the barbarous practices of the Katipunan, the pacto-de-sangre of
which, carried him back to the savage times of his remote ancestors
who were drawn from their mountain and forest lairs and domesticated
by the Religious Orders.

Notes 20, 21, 22. The initiations, proofs, oaths etc., of Universal
freemasonry were utilized by the Filipino lodges to serve as a
ceremonial, a very essential thing to the success of any association
among orientals. Nothing suited the taste of the Filipino better than
the awe inspiring solemnity of his initiation. These ceremonies however
fell into abuse, and by the time they became utilized by the Katipunan
they had reached the verge of the grossest superstition and absurdity.

Note 23. The G. Cons. Reg. was installed in 1893. A masonic document
bearing a seal "Gr. Consejo Regional de Filipinas. G. Secretaria",
and purporting to be a copy of two paragraphs from a letter of the
illustrious bro. Kupang (Marcelo H. del Pilar) dated from Madrid on
the 17th December 1894, says: "D. Miguel (Morayta) has a very poor
opinion of the Reg. (Regional Council).... He says that this Council
continues working well for some few months, at the end of which all
the enthusiasm of the founders vanishes and.... Oh, if we could only
by our acts give the lie to this pessimism. Morayta was the founder
of the Council.

Note 24. La Solidaridad was the official organ of Filipino freemasonry
in all its branches. Although it was published in the peninsula
its circulation was intended for the Philippines. Its editors were
the leaders of the disaffection against the metropolis and stout
advocates, indirectly, of an impossible independence. The chief
aim of the paper was to mortify everything Spanish, and to this
end its columns were continually full of seditious articles aimed,
not merely at individuals but at the State. Its diatribes against
the Government of the Metropolis were of the bitterest nature, and
therefore but little publicity was given to the sheet in Madrid,
where it was printed. It enjoyed no exchange with the periodicals of
importance of the city, had no street sales, nor was it exposed for
sale publicly. The libraries did not carry it on their tables and it
never reached the hands of the public authorities. In fact the people
of the official element know nothing of its existence.

In the office of this bi-monthly paper was established a freemason
lodge bearing the same name as the paper; all the members of the
Association Hispano-Filipina became members of the lodge. Being the
organ of masonry as well as of separatism it was introduced into
the Archipelago and secured a free circulation in all parts of the
principal islands where its calumnies against the Religious Orders
had the effect of producing a decided effect upon the maintenance of
public order.

The statement that the bi-monthly was founded by Pilar is erroneous;
it was first published by Lopez Jaena in Barcelona where it enjoyed
its enforced life till it reached its number 18, of October 1889,
when it suddenly ceased publication on account of the seizure by the
authorities of a number of incriminating documents and pamphlets. It
recommenced publication in Madrid on the 15th of November of the
same year. It was later on acquired by Pilar and Morayta. It was in
reality a vent for the spleen of its writers against Spain and things
Spanish; it was a precursor of the Independencia [34] the official
organ of the Revolution against the U. S., and of the La Democracia
its daughter, the official organ of the Federal Party, the dregs of
the old revolutionary government of Malolos. [35]

Note 25. One of the first propagators of Filipino masonry was
Sr. Centeno, Civil Governor of Manila, a man of anything but happy
memory for this country [36]. Centeno and Quiroga Ballesteros worked
hard to undermine the beneficial influence of the Clergy, an influence
which was the safe-guard of law and order. Their most famous piece of
work was the manifestation of '88 against Archbishop Payo (See note
2). In that manifestation was conceived the cry of sedition which
was later on to ring throughout the archipelago and tear down the
banner of the fatherland to replace it with the red flag of anarchy;
a flag which well nigh brought the people of a would be independent
country to the verge of political and moral destruction.

Note 26. No sooner had Almighty God consummated the grand work of
the creation, the culmination of which was the breathing into man
of an immortal soul, than the devil, the father of evil, jealous of
the attributes given by God to man, made his bold attempt to destroy
God's immortal work. From that moment to this present the spirits
of evil have carried on an unceasing warfare against what has been
for the glory of God. The Monastic Orders ever since the days of
their birth have had to contend against these powers of evil; and
there is therefore little necessity for surprise that those who were
employed in such work as were the unscrupulous persons who came to the
archipelago to sow ruin in the consciences of the people and scandal
in society, should carry on a bitter campaign against the Religious
Orders to whom was owing every jot and tittle of the civilization and
culture enjoyed by the Filipinos. The Monastic Orders have ever been
the bulwark of Christianity, and as such have had to bear the brunt
of the battle. Europe owes the solid foundation of its political,
social and religious life to the Religious Orders, which, during
the ages in which the Huns, Goths and other barbarians overran and
devastated those lands, hoarded up in the nooks and corners of their
monastic dwellings the seed which, when afterwards sown, was to become
the stout tree of civilization which should spread its sheltering
branches to the four corners of the earth. One of these branches
drawing its fullness of life and vigor directly from the trunk,
extended to these far off islands and, casting its shade over the
embruted mankind here existing at that time, wrought a change over
it no less marked than that wrought over the European peoples. From
the day in which Father Urdaneta, that intrepid Augustinian, set
foot upon Philippine soil, till the day upon which the hydra-headed
Katipunan appeared in the land, the Monastic Orders have been the
one great source of all that was really useful and beneficial to the
inhabitants of the archipelago, although at times the moral interests
of the people were not the commercial interests of the country.

The "friar" so much slandered by those who wish to overthrow his
beneficent influence, ever carried the banner of his country enlaced
with the Cross of the Redeemer. He came to the Archipelago as a
messenger of peace and order, and was the strongest supporter of the
sovereignty of his nation. The "friar" was hated because he was the
one who best knew and understood the indian, and from his intimate
knowledge of his parishioners, could the more easily detect anything
on their part which tended to the detriment of the integrity of the
Spanish sovereignty.

The campaign against the Religious Orders was the attack of the
battering-rams against the city to be captured. By piercing the
wall the entry into the city could be the easier made; and this the
separatist element well knew, hence all their efforts were directed
against the stout wall which defended from its assaults the treasure
of the metropolis.

For three hundred years the Philippines remained submitted to Spain
exclusively by reason of the moral influence of the Clergy. Whilst
the banner of Spain, floated over the Archipelago, the Religious
formed the strongest guard for its protection; when it fell, strung
by the ingratitude and treachery of those who had sworn to defend
it to the last drop of their blood, and lay dishonored in the dust,
it was the Religious who bowed his head in the deepest grief and who
shed the bitterest tears. When the flag of the conquerer was hauled up
to the height from which once gloriously floated the symbol of Spanish
authority, the Religious, obedient to the commands of his superiors,
withdrew to the solicitude of his convent, to await in patience,
the passing of the storm. He looks out upon the clouded political
horizon, as Noah looked out from the window of the ark upon the vast
sea of waters which hid from his view the fearful destruction which
had overcome the world, patiently awaiting the time when he should,
at God's will, go forth to commence again the work of reconstruction.

Often have I heard the opinion expressed that the Government's worst
enemy is the "friar", that it is the "friar" who keeps alive the
spirit of rebellion. Let those who think thus, ponder over one small
thought: what has the friar to gain in sustaining a rebellion which
has caused him more moral and material damage, than has been caused
to any other entity in the Philippines? To those who are able and
willing to utilize the power of thought with which God has endowed
them, it is sufficiently clear that the Religious has nothing to gain
by such tactics, but, on the contrary, all to lose.

In Spanish times the native enemies of the Religious Orders were the
enemies of Spain and in these days, the enemy of the friar is by no
means a real friend, whatever he may claim to be, of the Government of
of the U. S. The Spanish masons and the Filipino separatists found the
friar to be the greatest obstacle to be encountered. "The friar," wrote
Governor D. Francisco Borrero, to Sr. Canovas, in a memoir concerning
the Archipelago, "knowing the language, spirit, and tendencies of the
natives, is considered as the principal obstacle for the realization
of the filibuster idea, and hence arises their aspiration (that of
the enemies of Spain) that the Religious Orders should be eliminated,
because such a step being taken, they believe they will have travelled
half the journey...."

The propaganda of Universal freemasonry, of Filipino freemasonry,
of the Liga Filipina, of the Compromisarios, was aimed principally at
the Religious Orders, but the results attained were but introductory
to the real work of the Katipunan, which, finding itself cornered by
the discovery of the plot it had concocted against the Government,
showed its hand. Its aim was anti-Spanish and not merely anti-friar,
as is sufficiently clear from the fact that in all the documents of
the diabolical association it is death to all the Spaniards, and not
to this or that class. Moreover in many cases the same Katipuneros
saved their parish priests from a sure death whilst they dealt out
anything but kind treatment to those of the Civil Guard (Filipinos)
and the Spanish troops who fell into their hands. The friars who were
murdered by the rebels were not murdered for being friars but because
they were Spaniards. The documents captured, the result of the trials
held in judgement of persons guilty of treason, show clearly that the
revolution was for the purpose of gaining the independence of the
country from Spain, and not merely to bring about the expulsion of
the Religious Orders. Aguinaldo, the leader of the Katipunan hordes,
desired to send the friars who fell prisoners into his hands, over
to Hong-Kong, where they would be at liberty to return to their own
country; but this merciful desire of his was overruled by his advisers,
among whom were numbered Mabini his right hand man, Pardo de Tavera,
Legarda and Buencamino, all three of them traitors to the cause of
independence. To-day they stand in positions of honor, honor which
they have done nothing to deserve, whilst Aguinaldo who was the tool
of political schemers, their play-thing, is cast into disgrace and
kept in the background, a scape-goat for the sins and shortcomings
of men whose names disgrace the darkest pages of Philippine history.

Note 27. Vast numbers of these documents were later on destroyed in
the hope that certain affairs of an anti-patriotic nature might be
hushed up, and many persons of a high official standing saved from
scandal. Padre Mariano Gil, O. S. A., who made known to the public
authorities the fearful plot of the Katipunan in time to prevent the
brutal murder of hundreds of Spaniards, was granted certified copies
of a large number (all the principal ones) of the documents and these
have been since preserved with the greatest care, and remain to-day
as a standing proof of the duplicity of many persons who live in
ignorance of the fact of the existence of the said certified copies.

Note 28. The element here spoken of was the Filipino colony (all of
them separatists) and Morayta the "papa" of the said Filipinos of
separatist tendencies.

Note 29. This committee, although not exclusively masonic, was
essentially revolutionary, and had for its duty the distribution of
works of propaganda. Its delegate in Europe was Marcelo H. del Pilar.

Note 30. See note 26. The campaign at this present carried on by some
of the filipino and Spanish papers, and, in contradiction to the
fundamental principles of Americanism, by the local American press
also, is but a sequel to the work of this committee of propaganda. The
calumnies which are literally crammed into the columns of Manila's
English speaking daily and weekly press are but a poor reproduction of
the vicious publications distributed throughout the archipelago since
the year 1888. For fourteen years have these calumnies been published,
but in spite of countless challenges, never have the statements
brought forward been backed up with even the shadow of proof. When
almighty God completed his creation by the making of man and woman,
he led them to Eden, placing them under his law. Then it was that the
devil beguiled them with lying words: "For God doth know that in that
day that you shall eat thereof (of the forbidden fruit) your eyes shall
be opened, and you shall be as Gods knowing good and evil." From that
day to this, this same argument that the devil used to try to prove
that God was withholding from the people what was to their benefit,
is being to-day used by certain of the offspring of that evil spirit
against the element of good, against the Religious Orders, the servants
of God, claiming that they held from the people of this Archipelago
that which was for their good and advancement. Adam and Eve found
to their bitter cost that the devil lied: those who are to-day being
misled by anti-friar calumny will make the same discovery in due time.

Note 31. This statement is erroneous. The opinion of the author was
formed from statements made by those charged with treason. Many of
those under this charge gave false testimony, as was later on proved,
and in that testimony implicated honorable Filipinos who had never
harbored such ideas in their hearts as those they were accused of. Many
of the wealthy element of Luzon and other islands of the group, were
forced by threats and compromises into position they had no desire to
occupy. Of these the great majority were either insular Spaniards, that
is sons of Spanish parents, but born in the Philippines, or they were
Spanish mestizos or indians. Some 90% of the wealthy revolutionists
were Chinese half-castes.

Note 32. And at what a cost! Think of the thousands of hard earned
dollars which went to swell the funds gathered to feed and clothe and
to satisfy the fads and fancies of those exploiters. And what has
the poor indian who provided the money gained in the deal? Four or
five years of bloodshed and disaster he has surely gained; but what
is of more importance to him is that he barely escaped falling into
the hands of his own countrymen! He fell out of the frying-pan and
almost fell into the fire!

Note 33. The aspirations of the association were, to say the least,
anti-patriotic; they were always underhand; they were the aspirations
of the "Liga", of the "Compromisarios" and of the Katipunan.

Note 34. "In the following year, Pedro Serrano arrived from Spain and
then was masonry introduced into the Philippines, the first lodge
instituted being the "Nilad" [37] its first Venerable being Jose
Ramos." Testimony of Moises Salvador y Francisco (fol. 1,138 to 1,143).

According to the testimony of Antonio Salazar (fol. 1,118 to 1,129)
"In 1892 Pedro Serrano came from Spain and in union with Jose Ramos
joined a lodge of peninsular Spaniards, and commenced the propaganda
of masonry exclusively among Filipinos, in a short time establishing
the mother lodge known as the Nilad ... the number of members becoming
excessive, other lodges were established in the suburbs...."

Into this lodge Nilad or the lodges formed therefrom, passed all the
members of the committee of propaganda and of the local delegations,
the work of the propaganda of masonry and that of separatism being
carried on in the same lodge room. The plea that masonry had no
connection with the Katipunan fails to stand good in face of this
testimony, added to which may be mentioned letters of M. del Pilar
to La Modestia concerning the organization and labors of separatism;
as well as other letters, rich in masonic jargon, to the lodges and
to individuals connected with the double work of propagating masonry
and spreading among the people ideas of the basest of ingratitude.

To the lodge Nilad, the Gr. Sec. of the Gr. Or. Esp. wrote from Madrid,
June 8th 1892:

AL. G. D. G. A. D. U.
Liberty.--Equality.--Fraternity.
Universal Freemasonry. Spanish Family.

The Resp. Log. Nilad, No. 144 of A. L. and A. masons of the
Philippines regularly constituted in the Federation of the
Gr. Or. Espanol (seat in Madrid).

The letter goes on to speak of the new foundation and the number
of initiations.

"It pleases us much," says the Gr. Sec. "to see the activity and zeal
which you employ in the labors, and for it we greet you. Nevertheless,
we must remind you always of the greatest care in the election of the
laborers. Not all men, although they profess our ideas and doctrines,
serve for good masons,..."

Morayta, writing on the 12th of June 1892 to bro. Panday Pira, says:
"... But do not forget an advice which I believe Ruiz gave you also:
be very careful; do not open your arms to any except they be of full
confidence.... Remember that, even though things have changed there (in
the Philippines) you run all the danger consequent upon the domination
(sic) of the friar and of the General." The general was Despujols,
an upright, honest and sincere man who was too apt to measure other
people's corn by his own bushel. The filibusters took advantage of
the fact, and by their lying protests of love for Spain, captivated
him and fooled him out and out for a time.

Note 35. At that time liberty of association was not allowed by law in
the Archipelago. To attain their ends this was the thing most necessary
for the separatists. Without the shelter of the law of association
nothing could be done except by stealth. It was for want of this
privilege that the shelter of the masonic lodge room was sought.

Note 36. Blumentritt, Fernando; of German race, Austrian by
nationality, resident in Bohemia and therefore spoken of by
various writers sometimes as a German, at others as a Bohemian or
an Austrian. Like Foreman [38], Blumentritt claimed to be a fervent
Catholic and yet was an open enemy of the Church. He claimed moreover
to be a great friend of Spain and yet openly sided with her enemies. He
was one of the collaborators of the La Solidaridad.

Isabelo de los Reyes writes of him: "The savant (sic) Blumentritt the
brother of the Filipinos, has always served us with disinterest (except
in what concerned his pocket) and opportuneness. He was the first who
did us justice by publishing many valuable articles to demonstrate,
under all points of view, the superiority of the Filipino (Isabelo
does not say over what) and defending our cause against the ambition
of the imperialists (that is the Spaniards)."

Blumentritt was a member of the society known as the "Amigos del Pais"
[39], and remained so till his actions and writings caused well
thinking Spaniards and Philippinos [40] to call for his dismissal
from its membership. The patriotic outcry against him caused him to
resign on the 14th of November 1889; the Solidaridad of the 31st of
December of the same year published his resignation. The press of
Manila was exceptionally bitter against him and only such Filipinos
as those who continue up to the present time forming part of the
juntas in Hong-Kong, Madrid, Paris, London and other places looked
up to him for the assistance they could not find at home.

Note 37. It was naturally in the Peninsula where the chief work of
the propaganda had to be carried on, and it was there also that the
propaganda had the least effect. The principal instrument for the
dissemination of the seed of separatist aspirations was the Solidaridad
(See note 24). The Filipinos here, who gave their subscriptions and
other sums of money for the support of the bi-monthly, were kept
under the impression that the official organ was making a great
noise in Madrid; but as it never reached the official world it was
supposed to influence, its publication was practically useless. In
the Philippines it served the same purpose as the La Independencia:
that is, it served to keep alive the spirit of unrest, and by the
lies it published, made the people believe that their leaders were
going to lead them to a promised land which "flowed with milk and
honey." They eventually got into the promised land, only to find that
the milk was very much "condensed", and that the honey was only to be
got after those who secured it had been exposed to the very unpleasant
operation of being stung by the bees which produced it.

Instead of serving to keep together the subjects and their rulers
in a bond of peace and tranquility, and helping them to come to a
mutual understanding, in which state the progress and advancement
of the islands and their inhabitants could be the easier and the
better accomplished, the separatist element, by their propaganda,
caused more and more strife by attacking national institutions
and by casting slurs upon national honor. The discontent stirred
up against the Spanish authorities was identical to that which,
until the passing of the law of sedition and even since that time,
was stirred up against the American sovereignty. In its propaganda
against the Religious Orders, inciting the native clergy against the
lawful authority of their Bishops, it was the precursor of modern
Manila's American press. History tells us what was the result of the
lessening of the moral influence of the Religious Orders in the days
of Spanish rule, and to-day History repeats itself. The inciting of
the native clergy against their Bishops is encouraging the natives,
as a whole, to resist lawful authority. The cry to-day is "down with
the friar," tomorrow it will be "down with the American." In 1888 it
was down with the Religious Orders, in 1896 it had become "death to
all Spaniards". In 1898 the American was blessed as a deliverer from
oppression, in 1899 cursed as an intruder. To-day...? Who knows the
opinion of the people? Who but a few ignorantes trust the great men
of the late revolution?

In Spain the work of the separatists produced no effect upon the
people; a few here and there of the least patriotic of the scum of
Barcelona and Madrid aided them but apart from these and the Bible
Societies, no one interested themselves in their cause.

Note 39. From the earliest to the latest days of the period of the
revolt, that is from '88 to '98, this was one of the greatest obstacles
to be overcome. Money was collected for propaganda in Spain and in
Japan; what became of it all? Money was collected for the purpose
of releasing or stealing away Rizal; what became of it? Funds were
collected for the purchase of rifles and ammunition for the Katipunan,
and, at the last moment, Andres Bonifacio fled with some 20,000
pesos. This continual squabble over the administration of the funds
is a proof clear enough, of the existence of organized exploiters
whose pockets were of more concern to them than were the interests
of their country.

Note 40. It is almost needless to say that this latter was in the
minority; later on Pilar suffered a marked change of temperament
and became more decidedly separatist than Rizal. Rizal was willing
to give the goose a chance to lay her golden eggs; Pilar becoming
impatient killed the goose with the scheme of the Katipunan.

Note 41. "Previous to his return to Manila Rizal lived some time in
Hong-Kong. From there he forwarded to Moises Salvador Francisco the
statutes and instructions for the "Liga Filipina"."--Testimony of
the said Francisco. (fols. 1,138-1,143.)

Note 42. "It resulting that after some years of voluntary expatriation
... a Spanish citizen (Rizal) born in the Philippines, directed a
first letter, dated some months back in Hong-Kong, to the superior
Authorities, offering his aid and assistance for the better government
and progress of the Philippines, at the same time in which his latest
book commenced circulation, for which reason no reply was given; and in
a second letter dated in the month of May, in which, recognizing the
policy of generous attraction, of morality and justice here implanted
... announced his intention of returning to his native soil to dispose,
together with his friends, of the property they possessed, and to
go with their families to found, in Borneo, a filipino agricultural
colony under English protection...."

"A few days afterwards, the Spanish citizen ... disembarked with his
sister in Manila...." (See also note 8.) Extracts from the Decree of
Deportation issued against Rizal by Governor Despujols, 7th July 1892.

Note 43. "In the year 1892, Rizal being in Manila, recently arrived
from Europe, several people of the country were gathered together,
among them Andres Bonifacio, Numeriano Adriano, Timoteo Paez and
Estanislao Legaspi, in a wooden house in calle Dulumbayan, were
a society known as the "Liga Filipina" was founded." Testimony of
Valentin Diaz, native of Panay, Ilocos Norte.

"In May or June 1892 Jose Rizal reached Manila; and encharged by
him, Paez and Serrano invited a large number of persons to gather
on a certain day ... in the house of Doroteo Ongjungco where Rizal
manifested to those present, among whom was the witness, that it was
necessary to form an association which should be called the "Liga
Filipina", the object and of which should be the attainment of the
separation of these islands from Spain." Moises Salvador y Francisco
(fols. 1,296-1,299).

"The reunion was called by Rizal, and the witness was invited
by Timoteo Paez, who conducted him to the house of Doroteo
Ongjungco.... That Jose Rizal addressed those present, manifesting
the convenience of establishing an association under the name of the
"Liga Filipina" with the object of collecting funds by different
means, to the end of securing opportunely the independence of these
islands".... Testimony of Domingo Franco y Tuason (fols. 1299-1303).

Note 44. It was not the aim which Rizal had in his mind, of delivering
his country from disabilities but the manner in which he set to work to
accomplish that end, to which objection must be raised. When a people
suffer under the oppression of its rulers, all the world admires the
man who rises to throw off the hateful yoke. But when the oppression is
imaginary and when the so-called hero is but a marionette in the hands
of political schemers who seek their own advantage under the shelter
of a pretence to throw off a yoke which does not exist, one cannot
admire the part played by the deluded "tool". The emancipation from
the mother-country was the key-note of the revolt. It was the aim of
the Filipino freemasons, of the Liga Filipina, of the Compromisarios
and of the Katipunan.

Note 45. Rizal was deported to Dapitan, in the island of Mindanao,
by decree of Governor Despujols, part of which has been quoted in
note 42. The decree goes on to say that, by reason of the fact that
"the veil under which, up this present, he has succeeded in hiding his
true intentions has been torn asunder," ... "that he adduces no other
defence but useless denials, having recourse to throwing the blame
of the discovery of the leaflets upon his own sister (see page 99)...."

"In fulfillment of the high duties which devolve upon me as your
General and Vice Royal Patron ... I decree the following:..."

"1st: that Jose Rizal shall be deported to one of the islands of
the south...."

"The responsibility of these vigorous measures which a painful duty
imposes upon me, falls entirely upon those who by their imprudent
aims and ungrateful proceedings come to disturb the paternal cares
of this general government making the ordinate march of Philippine
progress the more difficult." [41]

"Manila, 7th July 1892.--Despujols.

Note 46. "In the month of April 1893, upon the initiative and
invitation Juan Zulueta, now dead, and of Deodato Arellano, cousin
of Marcelo del Pilar, a new gathering was called in the house of
Deodato Arellano, with the object of establishing anew the Liga
Filipina under the same bases and for the same ends...."

Note 47. The determinate ends of the separatists have already been
spoken of in note 3, which see.

Note 48. See note 102.

Note 49. "The object of the society (the Liga) is the establishment
of shops, workshops, businesses, industries and even a bank if
possible, with the end in view of collecting funds for an armed
rising."--Testimony of Juan Dizon Matanza, (fols. 1,132-1,138.)

Note 50. The ceremonies practiced by the Liga differed but little from
those practiced by the Katipunan. The chief difference lay in the fact
that the ceremonial of the Katipunan partook more of the grotesque,
of the absurd, of paganism.

Pio Valenzuela in recounting the forms and ceremonies practiced upon
his initiation, said:

"Once in the house [42], they spoke of many things, en resume,
that the aim of the association was to obtain the independence of
the Philippines, oppressed and enslaved by the Spaniards. Placing,
later on, a dagger at his breast, they obliged him to throw himself
upon it, a thing which the witness could not pluck up courage enough
to do; whereupon they placed it in his hand, leading him to a man
whom he recognized to be seated, and ordered him (the witness) to
strike him with the dagger, a thing which he dare not do either. He
was then conducted into a room and addressed by a person he knew
to be Bonifacio by the voice, who informed him that he could not
retrace his steps because he knew of the existence of the society,
but he could not assist at the juntas nor could they teach him the
signs of recognition till he had been re-initiated; they moreover
made him sign two sheets of blank paper, causing him to swear never
to reveal the existence of the society to anyone, under the pain of
assassination. They then removed the bandage which he was blindfolded
and he saw around him eight or nine individuals dressed in cloaks and
hoods; he signed the two sheets of paper and was again blindfolded
and conducted to a considerable distance from the house where the
bandage was again removed.

Another member of the Katipunan in his declaration made on the 22nd
of September 1896, stated that during the month of February 1893, one
Sunday morning, a certain Estanislao Legaspi entered his store, telling
him to accompany him in a calesa. He listened to tirades against
the Spanish Government till their arrival at the house of a certain
Tranquilino Torres, in calle Elcano. Here "his eyes were bandaged by
Legaspi and he was handed over to the care of another individual who
conducted him to the upper story of the house and made him sit down;
he then heard a person whom he knew to be Legaspi by his voice speak,
saying several things against the Spanish Government, demanding of him
an oath of blind obedience, and a defense of the Philippines till the
shedding of the last drop of his blood, threatening him with fearful
punishments if he should turn traitor. This ceremony being terminated,
his eyes were unbound and he saw, on a table, a skull which they
made him kiss, and Legaspi handed him a lance commanding him to wound
himself in the arm; but he felt a feeling of faintheartedness come over
him, and manifested to those present that he had not courage enough
to wound himself and wished that the oath he had taken be enough;
he was dispensed from the operation. When the bandage was removed the
eight individuals composing the junta were masked with black hoods, but
after he kissed the skull and attempted to wound himself they removed
the hoods and he then recognized Estanislao Legaspi who presided,
Mariano de Vera, Teodoro Plata and Juan de la Cruz who was a clerk
of the Tabacalera, and who had led him upstairs; he did not know the
other three. The witness paid two pesos as entrance fee promising
to pay 50 cents monthly. He asked Legaspi what association it was,
and he replied that it was the Liga Filipina."

In the daily report of the secret police department made to General
Blanco on the 30th of June 1896, is the following notice:

"Herewith is given translated most faithfully from Tagalog, the
result of an interview held with a well-to-do indian who belonged to
the most popular of the masonic lodges, who tried to draw into it a
friend. Questioned upon certain affairs, he said: "In the masonic
lodges of San Juan del Monte and of Pandacan, the whole pueblo,
rich and poor, is inscribed."

"In the reunions the brethren attend blind-folded, and the chiefs
with the face covered."

"The person who desires to enter the lodge is obliged to have his
face covered and his eyes bandaged in sign of blind obedience; the
proofs are carried out and signature made as follows. The person
receiving the initiated takes a dagger and gives it to him saying to
him: do you swear to be steel like that which you hold in your hand
and not to bend in the exigencies which oppress and vex us, and to
labor in pro of the independence of your enslaved country? I swear
answers the person to be initiated. Do you swear not to have father,
mother, wife, child nor any relative but the revenging arm which shall
sleep and live with you? I swear. They then surround him with arms
of all classes and say to him: here is thy family, thy only work,
and may it give thee thy life and open thy eyes for thy good of the
country. They then make a small incision in the form of a cross in
the right arm near the shoulder."

"At present our meetings are held at night and in the most lonely
fields, with the object of not being surprised."
...................................................................

"It is well known among us masons that Rizal is attributed with the
faculty of being able to translate his person instantaneously from
one point to another."
...................................................................

Note 51. Juan Castaneda testified on the 21st of September 1896 before
the Chief Inspector of the Corps of Vigilance that "he was recommended
to make the greatest amount of propaganda possible, of Japanese ideas
in the pueblo of Imus." The Japanese ideas here spoken of were those
of the foundation of the Japanese protectorate.

Note 52. Money! money!! money!!! was the great cry in the majority of
the masonic correspondence between the workers in Spain and those who
had to supply the funds here. On the 8th of June 1892 Morayta wrote
to bro. Panday-Pira informing him (a favorite custom of Morayta's)
that what was wanted was "money to invite journalists (to dine or
take a drink) and to pay articles in the papers." Morayta, probably
with tears in his eyes, in ending his letter, heaves a sigh, whilst
his fingers itching for the touch of gold, nervously clutch the pen
which scrawls these words: "if we only had here a good administrator
with funds then you would see how we should advance!"

On the 22nd of June 1892 the secretary of the Gr. Or. Esp. wrote to
the same explaining how "in a few meetings, a couple of banquets and
a few presents made at the right time" much could be accomplished.

Note 53. Rizal had money troubles previously with Pilar in Madrid
(see note 39). The excessive earnest and zeal displayed at the
time of the foundation of the Liga by Rizal died away on his
deportation. This zeal was owing to the captivating manner in which
the founder demonstrated to his audience the brilliant future to be
attained by such an undertaking. Rizal had the advantage of a ready
oratory and like Bonifacio, drew his hearers to his cause in spite of
themselves. And then again, the same as in masonry, the association
was secret, and its true end and aim were but whispered; and whilst
many of the associated were laboring to assist, as they thought, in
the fomentation of the culture and advancement of the country, they
were in reality playing with the toy allotted to them by the society,
whilst the chief members, those members best suited to be masons,
as says the Gr. Sec. of the Gr. Or. Esp. [43], carried on the true
work of the Liga. As in the lower degrees of any secret society,
and of masonry in particular, the members are unaware of what is
aimed at in the degrees to which they have not attained, to which
all cannot attain, and the secrets of which are zealously guarded,
so it was in the Liga.

Upon its re-establishment the Liga counted among its members several
who aimed at the leadership. The absence of Rizal, deported to Dapitan,
left open the door for unbridled ambition. Everyone wanted to be the
head. This together with money troubles brought about considerable ill
feeling between the absent founder and those continuing the work of the
association. Rizal had so far kept up a continual secret communication
with the Liga, thanks to the liberty allowed him by his keepers in
Mindanao, who guarded him with scandalous carelessness; and thanks also
to the emissaries sent to him from Manila in search of instructions
and advice. The result of the ill-feeling thus brought about was the
rupture in official relations between the Liga and its founder.

Note 54. See note 39.

Note 55. One of the facts clearly developed in the trials of
those suspected of treason, was that the guilty ones had taken the
utmost care not to leave behind them traces of their work. This was
principally the case with Rizal and the other chief workers of the
revolt, and of those who formed the association of Compromisarios.

Note 56. Both Pedro and Francisco Roxas were honorary councillors of
the Administration. On the 19th of September 1896 Blanco published
the following decrees:

"In as much as Sr. D. Francisco Roxas, honorary councillor of the
Administration is found under process in the courts of law: in the
use of the faculties in me invested, I decree that he cease from the
exercise of his functions etc., etc."

And on the 30th of September the following:

"In as much as the Excellent Sr. D. Pedro P. Roxas, honorary councillor
of the Administration has been found under process in the courts of
law, for rebellion; in the use of my faculties, etc., etc."

Moises Salvador y Francisco testified (fols. 1138-1143) that "among
the persons who sympathised with the cause and who aided it with
their means for its realization, he remembered D. Pedro Roxas and
D. Francisco Roxas ... (and others); and there existed in the provinces
others whose names he could not remember."

Domingo Franco y Tuason testified on the 30th of September 1896
(fols. 1332-1337) that "in another of the several interviews he
had with Francisco L. Roxas, he asked him if in the circle of his
relations (with the association) he counted with persons who had
offered to aid the objects and ends of the Liga. Sr. Roxas replied:
Yes. And in proof thereof he drew from a drawer in his desk a record
which he read, and among the names he read the witness remembered
those of don P. Roxas and others."

When Francisco Roxas found himself in danger of arrest, he attempted
to flee to Hong-Kong, but was captured on board the ship which was to
carry him there. From the ship he was conducted under arrest to the
Comendancia of the Veterana where he remained several days, at the
end of which he was transferred to the Fort of Santiago.

Francisco was a millionaire who had received from Spain a name and
reputation superior to his personal merits, and yet in spite of
all that the mother-country had done for him in raising him up to a
position to which he could never have attained without her aid, he was
found to have placed himself in the vanguard of the bitterest enemies
of his country. He was the director of the workings of separatism
and was the chief provider of arms for the revolt, as was testified
by innumerable witnesses. [44]

On the eve of his execution for treason Francisco penned the following
abjuration:

"I, Francisco L. Roxas, on the eve of my death, in reparation for what
in my words and actions may have offended my neighbor; for warning
of others of my person and in order to satisfy my conscience, to the
end that no one, and especially my children, fall into the net of
freemasonry, or of any other secret society, all of which I detest
and curse, and be not in a day to come ungrateful sons of our Mother
Spain, beg pardon for all my faults and bad example."

"I die in the Holy Roman Catholic Apostolic faith in which I was born
and educated in a christian manner. I admit all that she admits and
condemn all that she condemns."

"This I sign with my own hand with entire liberty."

Jany. 10th 1897 in Manila, Royal Fort of
Santiago.--F. L. Roxas:--Witnesses: Antonio Pardo and Felix Garcia.

On January 11th Gov. Gen. Polavieja telegraphed to Madrid as follows:

"Sentenced by council of War, to-day there have been executed (shot)
twelve persons guilty of treason ... among them Francisco Roxas,
Councillor of Administration; Nijaga, Lieut. of native infantry;
Villaroel, Villareal, Moises Salvador and others."

Pedro Roxas was also a millionaire who inherited a good fortune, which,
under the shelter of official protection multiplied considerably. Spain
honored him with the grand cross of Isabela la Catolica. Like Francisco
he was a Councillor of Administration. He possessed a large estate
in Nasugbu which, when the revolt broke out, became an insurgent
hornet's nest. There the rebels had a cannon, three falconettes and
a large number of arms.

After having been deprived of his office by decree previously
mentioned, Pedro Roxas secured in some way or other from Blanco,
permission to go to Spain. On arrival at Singapore he landed and
remained there. Later on he was defended in the Spanish Cortes by
Sr. Romero Robledo [45]. In Manila, to those who could judge of
the facts on the spot, this defence came as a thunderbolt. However,
the Spanish paper El Correo in the issue of August 15th said:

"The conduct of Sr. Roxas results satisfactorily cleared, so that
no doubt remains in respect to his complete disconnection with the
revolt."

Among the separatist element Pedro Roxas was known as the Emperor
Pedro I.

Note 57. Maximo M. A. Paterno was the father of the well known Pedro
Paterno. Maximo was in his latter days the leading spirit of the
celebrations held in honor of the amnesty proclaimed in 1900, by the
late President McKinley. He died at the age of 76, just before the
celebrations took place.

This amnesty celebration, like most things attempted by Filipinos
alone, turned but a fiasco, the speeches which were to be delivered
on the occasion not being in any way in keeping with the oath
of allegiance taken by the speakers. The speeches contemplated
were in advocation of practically the same thing as that for which
the rebels had been keeping up an armed struggle, and so, when the
U. S. Commission was invited by Pedro Paterno to be present thereat,
it naturally was unable to accept the invitation.

The whole celebration was an abortive attempt on the part of its
organizers to antagonize the Military and Civil authorities. Mr. Taft,
as president of the Commission, at first accepted the invitation
extended, supposing the speeches to be given, had been censored by
the proper authorities, at that time the military; but on finding that
this was not so, he declined in the name of the other members of the
Commission, and thus avoided the unpleasantness of being present at
a banquet at which both the Military and the Civil authorities would
be insulted and the Government of the U. S. defied.

On the 28th of July 1900, the day of the banquet, Mr. Taft on behalf
of his fellow Commissioners, addressed a letter to Pedro Paterno on
the subject. See Appendix J.

Pedro Paterno was one of those who for a considerable time refused
to take the oath of allegiance; with him were others, Mabini in
particular.

Maximo Paterno had received from Spain the Cross of Knight of the
Royal and American Order of Isabela La Catolica.

Note 58. And others: Among the names mentioned in many of the documents
I have consulted on the subject of the trials of those guilty of
treason, I have frequently come across those of Linjap (Mariano),
Chidian (Telesforo), Yangco (Luis R.), and others. Of this latter
Domingo Franco was asked during his trial, if Luis R. Yangco had
assisted at any reunion of the compromisarios, to which he replied
that he (Yangco) had not assisted at any session (fols. 1381-1382).

As I have already remarked in another note, many of those charged
with complicity in the affairs of the revolt were latter on proved
to be innocent. That considerable number of the wealthy natives
and half-castes sympathised more or less with the idea of greater
liberality in government, is undoubtedly true, but that they extended
their sympathies to the aims of the hordes of cut-throats led by
Bonifacio is absurd.

The leading Filipinos and many insular Spaniards sighed for privileges
which the Government of Madrid did not deem well to concede. To bring
pressure upon the Government some of these combined to support in
the metropolis, some of their number who should keep up the work of
agitation. This agitation however took a form displeasing to many,
who thereupon ceased to lend it their aid and consent. But few of the
leaders of the people, especially of the wealthy ones, desired to
cut themselves adrift from Spain, and not till a few insignificant
beings such as Aguinaldo, Bonifacio, Mabini, and Pilar (Pio del)
and Buencamino came upon the scene did the idea of independence
of the island really take form. A faint idea of such a thing as
independence did exist formerly, but the enlightened Filipinos saw,
only too clearly, the probable result.

The wealthy proprietors here cited, no doubt sympathised more or
less with the Liga Filipina in its beginning, whilst it was under
the complete control of its founder Rizal; but as the Liga lost the
character given to it by Rizal, and underwent the change it did,
it is only natural to suppose that many of its former supporters
left it as they would a sinking ship. However the fact that they
were identified with the original Liga seems to have been taken as
a proof of their connection with the revolt. This is certainly the
opinion expressed by Sr. Diaz.

Note 59. Mactan is the name of the island upon which Magallanes, the
famous explorer, met his death at the hands of the savage hordes who
at that time peopled the land. Names of places and persons associated
with the disasters suffered by Spain, were greatly admired among the
separatists. Surely Mactan, an island peopled by savages at the time
of its chief notoriety, and Mayon, the site of a destructive volcano,
are very suitable names to give to such centers as were the popular
councils of Trozo and Sta. Cruz.

Note 60. On the 30th of August 1895, the Civil Governor of Batangas
asked of the commander of the Guardia Civil of Lemery, information
concerning "persons in the pueblo of Taal who were distinguished
for their separatists opinions". The said commander replied that a
report on all such persons would be unending, and proceeded to cite
the case of Felipe Agoncillo to personify the said separatist element,
as follows:

"Among the group of the chief ones and as chief of them, stands
Felipe Agoncillo, proprietor and lawyer." He then goes on to explain
how Agoncillo imposed his will upon every one in the pueblo, even
upon the Municipality, no law or regulation sent even by the highest
authorities going into force until it had been passed upon by him. "It
would be difficult," says he, "for me to collect any perfect proof of
his anti-Spanish tendencies which are, however, self-evident to the
Spanish element of this province." This report, which was a sufficient
warning of danger, was sent to the Gov. of Batangas on the 18th of
September 1895. He immediately forwarded it to Gen. Blanco. About
three months afterwards Blanco looked into the matter, circumstances
demanding that some steps should be taken to preserve national honor;
and he decided to deport six of the separatists as an example to
the remainder. Of these six one was Agoncillo. This industrious
filibuster had influential and watchful friends in Manila, who,
upon seeing the turn things were taking, telegraphed him "Cafe en
baja; fuera existencias." This was warning sufficient and Agoncillo
accompanied by Ramon Atienza succeeded in escaping.

On the 14th of April the Japanese Mail Steamer Hiorine left Manila. On
this steamer Agoncillo fled, hidden it is said, in a coal bunk. The
Heraldo de Madrid of the 16th of September 1896, in speaking of the
affair says: "Agoncillo gave the captain of the ship the sum of 350
pesos as gratification and on this account had placed at his disposal
upon arrival at Kobe, a ship's boat, whilst the remaining passengers
had to hire their transportation."

On the 2nd of May 1896, the secret police of Manila reported to
Gen. Blanco, as follows:

"Notice is hereby given of the sailing for Japan of Felipe Agoncillo,
property-owner of the province of Batangas, who goes to put himself
at the disposition of the junta magna (in Japan), carrying with him
some 80,000 pesos collected in Lipa, Taal and other pueblos, for the
sustainment of anti-Spanish propaganda."

Like most of the leaders of the separatist campaign, Agoncillo was
astute. He partook of that peculiar trait of the native character: a
sharpness of perception, a cuteness which one not acquainted with the
indian would take for intelligence. An Indian will often do something
remarkable, but in spite of its appearance of being an extraordinary
action, a result of a well thought out plan, it proceeds in ninety-nine
cases out of a hundred, from instinct rather from intelligence. Native
peoples are more accustomed to use their common-sense than most of us
and hence arises the fact, that frequently the Filipino has outwitted
both the military and the civil authorities. England learned this
lesson in dealing with the Oriental in India, Spain learned it here,
and America has yet to discover the same truth.

Mr. Wildman [46], the late U. S. Consul at Hong-Kong, once affirmed of
Agoncillo, "Sr. Agoncillo is a very intelligent and daring diplomat
(the Government later on found him to be far more daring than
intelligent), and could fill the position of chief of any department
of State in any civilized country." But then, it was nothing strange
for Wildman to make such breaks!

Note 61. Among these honorable exceptions which Sr. Diaz says he has
great pleasure in recognizing, might be mentioned several who were
falsely accused and whose names have gone down to the reading public
in the works of various writers who wrote in good faith, branded with
the mark of ingratitude which characterized and still characterizes
so many natives and half-castes.

It gives a careful student of the subject more than passing pleasure to
be able to give the lie to those who in their testimony classified as
members of the infernal plot to "cut the throats of every Spaniard,
without regard even to parentage", the names of some of the most
prominent Filipinos of to-day, men who although they have not grovelled
in the dust before the conqueror and accepted positions under the new
Government, are more truly prominent than those who assert themselves
as the "leaders" of the people.

Among these honorable exceptions there were many who although they came
to form part of the so-called Revolutionary Government, did so only
when Spanish rule had ceased to exist, and when the accepted opinion
was that a government elected by the people would be recognized by
the U. S. These, however, were never traitors to the mother country;
they were men who treated Spain as every honorable man should treat his
country. These were not men who changed their religion as they changed
their clothes: to suit the occasion. They were not men who concealed
their titles to freemason degrees, at the bottom of their trunks,
and exposed them with pride upon the change of sovereignty. These men
were never perjurers, never traitors. Born and raised in the bosom of
the Catholic faith they remained faithful to it, and faithful to the
traditions of the country which gave them their political being; and
it is with great pleasure that, with Sr. Diaz, I also can say, that
I have great pleasure in recognizing these honorable exceptions, and
in proof thereof have I dedicated this small historical sketch to them.

Note 62. Day by day the morality in the administration of the funds
became worse, and so intense did the ill-feeling engendered by pride
become, that the members forgot all about the fomentation of the
culture and advancement of the country. Like a nursery full of willful
children, they all wanted their own way, and when they could not have
it, some cried: "now I shan't play," "now I'll go and tell ma;" this
perhaps was the chief cause of the dissolution of the association,
for some did go and tell "ma;" and the wealthy members, and those who
had anything to lose, were immediately overcome with abject fear lest
"ma" should punish them with a good spanking.

"In the month of October 1893, the Superior Council becoming
aware that some documents pertaining, to the Liga had been handed
over to the offices of the General Government, the dissolution
of the society was determined."--Testimony of Domingo Franco y
Tuason. (fols. 1,299-1,303).

On the 25th of May 1896, notice was given by the secret police to
Governor General Blanco, as follows:

"Notice is herewith given of the existence in Manila, of a Society
named La Liga Filipina, to which are affiliated a large number of
individuals...."

Note 63. The testimony given by many of the political prisoners as
to the foundation, aims and work of the Compromisarios is somewhat
conflicting. For instance: Antonio Salazar, (fols. 1,008-1,013)
testified that on account of the mal-administration of the funds,
"the subscription on behalf of La Propaganda ceased, and under
the name of Compromisarios was founded an association composed of
... (here follow names of members), and seeing that they could not
gather sufficient funds, they agreed to increase the subscription
and seek persons to associate with them."

On another occasion the same witness testified (fols. 1,014-1,018) that
certain persons whom he named were the "Compromisarios, who were in
communion with Marcelo (del Pilar), and who remitted money to him." He
also stated that "on account of the bad conduct observed in Madrid by
Pilar, ... some of the Compromisarios refused to send him resources."

In reply to a question as to the relationship between the
Compromisarios and the Katipunan, he gave as his opinion, that "there
could be no doubt that both societies aimed at the same end." At
fols. 1118-1129 the same witness affirmed that "as the partisans
of Rizal and Pilar ... saw that neither masonry nor the Liga could
hope for funds [47], they formed the society of Compromisarios among
wealthy persons of Manila and the Provinces."

Domingo Franco affirmed that the outbreak of the revolt came as a
great surprise to the Compromisarios.

As to the aims of the society, Moises Salvador y Francisco is authority
for the statement that: "in one of the juntas they treated of the
provision of arms and other material of war; and it was agreed,
moreover, to gather funds for the said expenses, and as the junta
replied that it was impossible at that time, a committee was appointed,
composed of Jose Ramos, Doroteo Cortes and Ambrosio Rianzares Bautista,
to draw up a petition for the aid of Japan."

Moises also affirmed (fols. 1,296-1,299) that the Supreme Council of
the Compromisarios was formed as follows:

President Domingo Franco.
Secretary Apolinario Mabini.
Treasurer Bonifacio Arevalo.
/ Numeriano Adriano.
Vocales + Ambrosio Bautista.
\ Moises Salvador.

Domingo Franco (fol. 1,299-1,303) testified that upon the dissolution
of the Liga, and in the month of October 1894, there gathered together
in a house of the witness, Numeriano Adriano, Apolinario Mabini,
Isidoro Francisco, Deodato Arellano and the witness, and it was
decided to constitute the association known as the Compromisarios,
endeavouring to gather as many as forty members, each paying a monthly
subscription of 5 pesos, for the sustainment of the La Solidaridad.

The same witness also testified (fols. 1,332-1,337) that "The Liga
and the Katipunan were constituted in three groups, viz.: the Supreme
Council or the aristocracy, under the presidency of Francisco L. Roxas;
the Compromisarios or middle classes, divided into juntas or local
councils.... The third aggregation was the Katipunan under the
presidency of Andres Bonifacio, and was composed of the lower classes.

From all this we gather that the association of Compromisarios
was founded with the idea of collecting funds to continue the work
commenced by masonry and the Liga. The association was, practically,
a committee formed to take up the work of the Liga, but formed in
such a manner as to avoid suspicion, and all compromise with the late
Liga. In its formation, its duties and its methods, it differed from
both the Liga and from the Katipunan, but whilst differing from them
it formed a tie between them, carrying on a work which the Katipunan
could not carry on of itself. The Liga died; and its mantle fell upon
the Compromisarios. This society inspired, watched over and protected
the labor of its successor, the Katipunan, the fighting machine of
the separatist or filibuster element.

Note 64. The idea which appeared to pervade the minds of the so-called
progressive Filipinos was that with a code of laws a la Europea,
the adoption of some or other new fangled idea imported from France,
Germany or anywhere but the Peninsular, the Filipino would immediately
attain the advancement and culture enjoyed among the Japanese. To
anyone not acquainted with either the Filipino or the Japanese, such
an idea might be acceptable; but no student of Oriental races, nor even
the mere casual observer of these two peoples, would venture to predict
than even with all the advantages of modernism the Filipino now enjoys,
will he, as a people, attain to such a state of culture as that enjoyed
by the sons of the Empire of the Rising Sun even in a hundred years.

Among the European peoples the progress of civilization and
regeneration was slow but it was none the less decisive. Among
Orientals it is, as a rule, quick but not lasting. Among almost all
Oriental peoples the rising generation is bright and gives signs of
great possibilities; but these youths after having passed with honors
through college and university, too often end their lives as they began
them--as children. What the Oriental lacks is stability. Nothing is
more common in the Philippines than to find that your cook or coachman
has completed four-fifths of his studies as lawyer, doctor or something
else. The Filipino who has reached the age of thirty and has not,
in these days, been bata [48] in a convent or with a private family,
been cochero, cook, collector of accounts for some business house,
letter-carrier, postman, policeman, musician in a church choir,
fireman, and connected with a few other employments of more or less
importance, is by no means a rara avis, to say nothing of the many
who have also been majors and generals in the insurgent "army", and
without stopping to consider a pair of very prominent natives who
from batas in the University of Sto. Tomas have, after a series of
political intrigues, risen to positions of law-tinkers over a people,
the vast majority of whom hate and despise them.

As a matter of fact the very best of the filipino politicians and
other local men of fame, bright, learned and progressive though they
be, would count but little side by side with the foremost sons of the
Flowery Kingdom. To find in Yokohama, or even in Nagasaki or Kobe, or
any other city of Japan, a hundred Rizals, a hundred Pilars (Marcelos,
Pios or Gregorios), a hundred Apacibles, or Mabinis, or Aguinaldos,
or Buencaminos or Taveras would be an easy task. But to find in the
Philippines a Marquis Ito, a Mutsu, a Yamata or a Matsugata,--that
is the question.

And why? Because at the time when Spain discovered these islands,
finding the people in a state of social and moral degradation,
without formal government or any social organization beyond the
tribal system (and that but limited) common to almost all savage
peoples, the Japanese had already counted with more than 1000 years
of more or less stable government, always organized, and with a
social organization and a firm national unity. The people of Japan,
at that time, cultivated the arts and sciences, enjoyed the fruits of
prosperous industries and of external commerce. They had a religion and
a language which could be written and understood when written. Three
hundred years ago, when the Filipinos were just commencing to learn
the difference between man and beast, the Japanese was enjoying a
relative civilization not yet attained by the Chinese, much less by
the partisans of the separatist leaders of Luzon and the Visayas.

No country has ever done for her colonial children what Spain did
for the Filipinos during the three centuries she held control over
the Archipelago; and yet how far are the people from the state of
culture of the Japanese! Well might the leaders of the people look
to Japan as a model!

Note 65. Domingo Franco (fols. 1,332-1,337) t

Showing first 200,000 characters. Full text: gutenberg.org/ebooks/37587