by Tommy Matic IV
Insofar as it is the death anniversary of THAT controversial leader of the Philippine Revolution who Pinoys love to blame for the death of THAT OTHER controversial leader of the Philippine Revolution who Pinoys love to fantasize would have won freedom for the Filipinos - or at least the Tagalog masses (who knows), and in the light of a recent controversial poll conducted here, it might be worthwhile to repeat an important but often little-understood and overlooked bit of real-talk that, while inconsequential to modern Pinoys, was literal life-and-death to the Katipunero revolutionaries that followed Bonifacio and Aguinaldo.
A frequent claim that is made when making excuses for Bonifacio is that Bonifacio faced the bulk of the Spanish colonial army in the Manila area while Aguinaldo faced only a tiny local garrison. This claim is almost invariably offered without any actual data or order of battle or even numbers to back it up yet it is one of the most ubiquitous defensive arguments that a Bonifacio-fan will quote.
It is a matter of historical record that upon the outbreak of revolution, Spanish Governor General Ramon Blanco's first instinct was to pull his defenses in and protect the capital. The ongoing and unending campaign in the large southern island of Mindanao would have to be slowed down and provincial detachments of Guardia Civil would be withdrawn to protect Manila and other key urban centers. Even Aguinaldo's own account attests to this as his request for a detachment of Guardia Civil, ostensibly to fight marauding bandits in the Kawit area, was denied by the Spanish provincial governor - these paramilitaries were being redeployed to protect Manila from the recent outbreak of rebellion that had manifested itself first at Pasong Tamo (Banlat) and then erupted in pitched battle at the arms depot (polvorin) of San Juan del Monte and at the rope factory of Sr.Sancho Valenzuela at Santa Mesa.
His plan to ambush and disarm the Guardia Civil troopers thwarted before it could even begin, Aguinaldo remained undeterred - this refusal meant that the Spaniards were unwilling to send reinforcements to defend northern Cavite and he immediately set about besieging the Spanish clerics and Guardia Civil defending their friar estate at Imus. After a short siege, the friar estate was captured and Aguinaldo 'liberated' a Winchester Repeating rifle, a deadly quick-loading weapon which, according to him, could penetrate multiple targets as long as the ammunition supplied by the factory was used.
This little detail highlights one of the forgotten key elements of the Philippine Revolution, indeed of the entire imperialist/colonialist era that was the 19th century - the technological advantage that the evolution of firearms and ammunition provided to the Western colonial powers as they subjugated native tribes, nations and continents.
While the Chinese developed gunpowder early on and used it for both celebration and warfare, western military technology not only evolved the weapon but developed highly specialized tactics to maximize the effectiveness of the gun and minimize its rather significant disadvantages. While firearms were undeniably lethal, their greatest strength lay in the sheer terror that they inspired - a soldier firing a pistol might as well be carrying a small portable DRAGON in his hand (and indeed the pistol and the mounted soldier that carried it would come to be called Dragons or Dragoons) and the age of armored knights and bowmen would soon give way to the age of massive infantry formations armed with long spears or pikes and hordes of musketeers. Spain led the military revolution with its 'tercio' an offensive pike-square that crushed enemies before it until Holland and France developed their own, more mobile firepower-based formations - the battalion and regiment - which could avoid the Spanish pikes while pouring withering fire into the densely packed tercios. As the musket gained ascendancy, the great captains developed formations and tactics that allowed them to maximize and concentrate firepower on the enemy until morale gave way and the enemy formation broke.
Thus for hundreds of years, thousands even tens of thousands of men in bright colored uniforms lined up opposite each other less than 50 yards apart and blazed away at each other on command till one side or the other broke and ran. This was the way of war until the smoothbore musket evolved into the rifled musket.
Rifling - mechanically cutting grooves into the barrel of the firearm to provide a projectile with a stabilizing spin that vastly improved accuracy - was not a new development by the middle of the 18th century. Hunters, game wardens and some soldiers had been using 'fowling pieces' or rifled 'carabines' for many years but since battles were fought at close range and reloading speed resulting in greater volume of fire was what was important it was not until conflicts in the vast wooded expanses of North America demonstrated the value of accuracy that the military rifle began to come into its own. American colonists facing native American attacks or hunting wild game from long distance came to see the value of aimed, accurate long range fire and soon the European military machine was taking notice as well. "Ranger" tactics and light infantry formations began to spread across Europe with greater emphasis placed on individual initiative, marksmanship accuracy and skirmishing in spread out formations rather than the old close-order/shoulder-to-shoulder blocks which allowed for greater control by commanders on the battlefield but also made unmissable targets for enemy fire. As European armies began to carve out empires in north America, Asia and Africa, the farther hordes of screaming tribespeople could be effectively engaged and broken, the quicker the European colonial empires could be built. For their part, most native people had nothing to counter European firepower and the threat of being cut down by the blazing fire-sticks of the white man before one could get close enough to club or stab them was enough to keep native freedom fighters in check - at least until they acquired fire-sticks of their own.
This technological disparity was foremost on the minds of the ilustrado patriots of the Philippines as they prepared to challenge the might of the Spanish empire in the waning years of the 19th century.
Rizal, M.H. del Pilar, the Luna brothers and other ilustrados that had gone to Europe to study were painfully aware that the native Filipinos lacked both weapons technology and training to challenge even the waning might of Spain. The Spanish colonial army might be far from the professional military juggernaut that their British, French, German and Russian contemporaries were but they were still a fully-equipped, trained and disciplined military force under the command of professional military officers. The natives had nothing with which to challenge that. While the Spaniards relied heavily on native soldiers to garrison the islands, these were always under the strict command of Spanish officers and non-commissioned officers, while native mayors and administrative functionaries were closely watched by both the secular administration (itself largely run by the colonial military) and the Spanish religious orders. Furthermore, tribal differences and a long established loyalty of the long-suffering natives toward Spain made rebellions local, sporadic and singularly unsuccessful.
The Propaganda Movement and the efforts of native patriots to campaign for native rights and expose abuses particularly by members of the Spanish clergy undermined this long established loyalty while works like Rizal's Noli Mi Tangere and El Filibusterismo began to build a sense of native nationalism out of the perception of shared suffering and injustice. Yet this did not solve the problem of technological weapons disparity.
The arrest and deportation of Rizal and the collapse of La Liga Filipina into the moderate Compromisarios and radical Katipunan opened up the final climactic chapter in the struggle for freedom from Spain. The galvanizing leadership of Andres Bonifacio and his targeting of local elites, particularly town mayors like Emilio Aguinaldo, Santiago Alvarez and Mariano Llanera for recruitment allowed the Katipunan to grow by leaps and bounds. Efforts were made to secure funding from the wealthy ilustrados and to gain the support of the Japanese. Unfortunately for Bonifacio, these efforts often came to nothing - the wealthy ilustrados, shocked by the suggestion of rebellion and high treason, threatened to report Bonifacio to the Spanish authorities, while the Japanese captain of the cruiser KONGO refused to implicate his emperor and nation in what looked like a hopeless and risky local rebellion. Even Bonifacio's inspiration and idol, Rizal, rejected the call to revolt especially since it was clear that the Katipunan had far from sufficient firearms of any sort with which to challenge Spanish military supremacy.
Antonio Luna, younger brother to the volatile and talented Juan and a military hobbyist of the first order was more blunt when Bonifacio invited him to join the rebellion. "And what shall we fight them with - these?" (baring his teeth).
For better or for worse, Bonifacio ultimately ignored the naysayers and went ahead with the revolt, famously having the Katipuneros rip up the cedula which functioned as a tax form and personal identification. Alea iacta est - the die is cast, there would be no going back.
Bonifacio's big assault on Manila was to have comprised four columns converging on the city, the entrance itself to be effected by disaffected native soldiers of the Manila garrison. Bonifacio was perhaps inspired by another Andres nearly a century previous, Andres Novales, who had nearly succeeded in taking Intramuros before his uprising was crushed. The American and French Revolutions, the storming of the Bastile and the victory of the American colonials over the British empire were more definite inspirations. Bonifacio was confident that the natives would rise and join the Katipunan uprising, that he would be the Basilio to light the explosive lamp just like in Rizal's book. Weapons or no weapons, the people would rise - wouldn't they?
As it happened, the native mass-uprising never occurred nor did the native soldiers mutiny. Poor coordination and communications with other Katipunan columns meant that several hundred rebels including the Cavitenos waited all night for instructions that never came, then went home.
That left Bonifacio with some 2,500 Katipuneros under his personal command. A further 1,000 were under Katipunan General Ramon Bernardo assembling near Sancho Valenzuela's rope factory at Santa Mesa. Bonifacio, waiting for more Katipunero reinforcements to join, marched and counter marched throughout the evening before belatedly deciding to attempt to capture the Spanish military arms depot (polvorin) at San Juan del Monte. This would greatly alleviate the Katipunan weapon disadvantage - if Bonifacio could take it.
The polvorin and its adjacent structure, the Manila water works building El Deposito were guarded by about 65 colonial troops. Contrary to the assertion by Bonifacio fanatics, Spain did not confront Bonifacio with massive military forces - it did not need to. What Spain had was a massive military advantage in technology.
It is very clear from the primary sources we have - Sastron, Foreman, Ronquillo, Aguinaldo and Alvarez - as well as modern Spanish military sources and Katipunan researcher/Bonifacio biographer Jim Richardson, that Bonifacio had vast LOCAL numerical superiority and yet failed to properly coordinate and communicate with the Katipuneros, mainly because he entrusted the communications and organization to a lawyer from Laguna named Vicente Fernandez - who utterly botched it. Bonifacio tasked the totally inadequate Fernandez with this critical duty and the Supremo even made Fernandez a 'lieutenant general'. Later on, Bonifacio spotted Fernandez in Cavite and demanded that Fernandez be tried and executed for his responsibility in the failure of the Pinaglabanan campaign. The Cavitenos refused, taking the exasperated Bonifacio's demands as a joke.
While Bonifacio attempted to assign blame for the failure of his Pinaglabanan campaign on the hapless Fernandez, it is pretty clear that even without the Cavite, Laguna and Macati contingents, Bonifacio still had a significantly large force at his disposal. According to Richardson, Bonifacio had more than 2,500 Katipuneros under his personal command at San Juan del Monte and when forced by the Spaniards to retreat, still had about 2,000. It should be noted also that this would probably be the largest force that Bonifacio ever commanded and that the Supremo's personal popularity and repute among his contemporaries would never be as high as before the opening Spanish volley at San Juan del Monte.
We know that Bonifacio's assault on the polvorin faced about 70 enemies TOPS. There were 30 native infantrymen of the 70th Regimento de Infanteria (Indigenas) - 70th Native Infantry Regiment - "Magallanes", the permanent garrison regiment of the capital city of Manila, armed with Remington rolling block rifles plus at least one Spanish officer commanding the company, and 35 peninsular Spaniards of the Regimento Artilleria de Plaza armed with both Mauser rifles and at least one artillery piece, plus at least one teniente and the force commander, Capitan de Artilleria Camillo de Rambaud y Hernaez. So at least 65 rank-and-file plus officers.
This force of 65 soldiers was enough to block Bonifacio's more than 2,500 Katipuneros till the relief column under Segundo Cabo General Bernard Echaluce y Jauregui - another company of the 70th Magallanes (again about 30 soldados 'indigenas'), a company of 'Veteranas' - Guardia Civil Veteranas, an elite corps of veteran paramilitaries drawn from the three tercios of regular Guardia Civil, and a troop of the Regimento de Caballeria, for a total of 100 rank-and-file - not only arrive at San Juan del Monte to drive away Bonifacio but also previously defeat Katipunan General Ramon Bernardo's 1,000 Katipuneros having breakfast at Sancho Valenzuela's rope factory at Santa Mesa. It is very clear that Bonifacio had the numbers advantage throughout the 29th to 31st of August 1896 but was utterly unable to make those numbers count. It is also very clear that even with minimal commitment of troops, the Spaniards were able to best Bonifacio in battle.
How did 65 colonial troops beat 2,500 Katipuneros? It was all in the weapons tech advantage.
The quick-loading rifle, which came into use from the middle of the 19th Century onwards was the technological game-changer for imperialism/colonialism. While previous firearms were terrifying enough, they were also HILARIOUSLY inaccurate and slow-loading, not to mention moderately dangerous for the user (chance of mis-fires, over-loading charges, explosion in the breech) and painful to use (producing Chinese-New Year levels of gunpowder smoke, powerful and painful recoil), developments in firearms technology made Western rifles more accurate, quicker to load, longer ranged and more powerful, particularly when the shift from black powder (gunpowder) to guncotton/smokeless powder occurred. From then on, small groups of western infantrymen with rifles would, time and time again, be able to slaughter hundreds of charging natives whose only chance of getting close enough for mano-a-mano combat was if the white soldiers ran out of ammunition.
Of course, once the natives got hold of rifles themselves, things could go very badly for the white soldiers as demonstrated by Custer at Little Bighorn, the British at Isandhlwana and, as we will see, for the Spaniards at Imus and Binacayan.
The 30 native infantrymen of the 70th Regimento de Infanteria (Indigenas) "Magallanes" were, like other native infantry in the Spanish colonial army, armed with the Remington rolling-block breechloading rifle M1871/89 a single-shot .43caliber breechloader, contemporaneous with the British Martini-Henry of Zulu War fame and the American Springfield Trapdoor of Indian Wars infamy. The Remington was the AK-47 of its time - quick-loading, idiot-proof, simple yet tough in design, firing a large heavy slug that would put any charging Moro or Insurrecto on his back without any problems. There is little wonder why a volley of Remingtons would terrify the crap out of rebels against the Spanish crown - using the same old gunpowder formula to spit its large caliber slug out in an acrid cloud of powder smoke, any enemy hit by the volley would suffer a debilitating injury and possibly be knocked to the ground.
The Remington fired a single shot with every reload and take about 10-15 seconds to load and fire. That's about FOUR to SIX .43 caliber bullets every single minute PER SOLDADO. So that single company of the 70th Magallanes could fire between 120 and 180 .43 caliber bullets a minute, every minute till ammunition ran out.
To put it in perspective, if a thousand Katipuneros attacked a single infantry company armed with Remingtons and every single shot hit a single Katipunero, it would take about 8-9 minutes for the native infantry to KILL EVERY SINGLE KATIPUNERO.
(of course the Spanish colonial army was hilariously far from that level of accuracy but this should give you an idea of how much LEAD was flying when the Spanish teniente commanded, 'Fuego')
The thirty five Spanish Peninsular artillerymen under Rambaud's command were armed with the newer, more accurate and more powerful Mauser M1893, most likely the shorter carbine version. This was a single-shot bolt-action magazine rifle which had five-rounds in its magazine fed by a stripper clip. A Spanish cazador or artillero could fire as quickly as he squeezed the trigger and worked the bolt, greatly increasing the rate of fire over the older Remington. If we use the rate of fire of 5 rounds every 20 seconds (including firing, working the bolt-action and reloading the rifle) that comes to FIFTEEN 7x57mm bullets every minute PER SOLDADO (compared to about 4-6 for the Remington).
While the Mauser - and Aguinaldo's "liberated" Winchester repeater were incredible and highly advanced weapons, in one aspect they were 'outweighed' - or, it might be said, "more humane" than the older Remington. The more modern rifles fired a smaller, lighter but vastly more powerful bullet than the older weapons. This is why Aguinaldo's Winchester could penetrate multiple enemy targets "as long as factory supplied ammunition was available". The powerful smokeless powder/guncotton propellant gave the bullets greater accuracy, range and penetrating power but also made the wounds 'cleaner' and unless they struck a vital organ, less debilitating.
Debilitating or not, the Mauser ensured that Rambaud's 35 man Artillery company would be able to lay down 525 Mauser rounds within a single minute at Pinaglabanan if they were so ordered. This also means that Bonifacio faced a maximum of about 705 Spanish bullets within the space of a single minute at Pinaglabanan.
Bonifacio had upwards of 2,500 Katipuneros. If every single one of those 705 Spanish bullets hit a single Katipunero, Bonifacio's command would be exterminated within 3.5 minutes.
Taking into account the night-time environment and fairly poor Spanish accuracy and the tendency of the Spaniards to blaze away with their rifles to little actual effect (which the Filipinos learned from the Spaniards to their detriment), let's say only 1% of Spanish bullets actually hit a Katipunero. So out of 705 maximum bullets per minute for 65 Spanish defenders, only 7.05 bullets hit a Katipunero. That still means that after an hour of firing, 423 Katipuneros would be dead or injured. And if the Spanish aim is poor, let us remember that Bonifacio's Katipuneros were UNTRAINED INEXPERIENCED VOLUNTEERS that had NEVER been under sustained fire of any sort. The experience of seeing your friend's head or shoulder explode in a welter of blood, showering you with skin and blood as a .43 caliber Remington slug impacted him would probably leave you with post-traumatic stress disorder and even if only 7 Katipuneros are cut down by 705 Spanish bullets, the DEMORALIZING EFFECT of those bullet strikes would be devastating. Bonifacio, by choosing to attack the Spaniards who were defending a walled/fortified position made his assault column into a fat juicy target no less than Prince Dabulamanzi at Rorke's Drift or any number of African or Asian hordes trying to charge western infantry with repeating rifles. The result was a bloody and fairly hopeless massacre resulting in Bonifacio's abject defeat.
Interestingly enough, defeat is something that stung BOTH Bonifacio and Aguinaldo at the opening of the revolution.
Aguinaldo had barely subdued the friar hacienda at Imus when he received word that the Spanish relief force was advancing from Manila. About a hundred colonial troops under General Ernesto de Aguirre y Bengoa were marching toward him. Aguinaldo moved to meet Aguirre - and ran straight into an AMBUSH that the veteran Spanish general had laid.
The fate of the revolution might have been vastly different had one of the Spanish bullets struck or even killed the young Aguinaldo. As the rebels tumbled like dice, Aguirre did not then realize how close he came to crushing the native rebellion. Aguinaldo, caked with blood, lay still among the bodies of his dead rebels but Aguirre, probably just as surprised to have met Aguinaldo's forces as Aguinaldo was to have met his, retreated to Manila to gather more forces - and allowing the shaken Aguinaldo to escape.
The ambush by Aguirre had, it seems, a profound effect on Aguinaldo and the evolution of the young jefe abanderado's battle tactics. Instead of attacking, Aguinaldo would switch to defensive battles and his reasoning was simple, yet brilliant.
The Spaniards knew that they held numerous military advantages - weapon's tech advantage, training and discipline advantages, professional officer corps and a unified chain of command. This had allowed them to dominate the Philippines for three hundred years. This made them confident - perhaps, mused Aguinaldo, a bit TOO confident.
Aguinaldo knew that Aguirre would return and have more troops with him. It would not take more than a few hours to reach Zapote, the border between Manila and Cavite, and not more than a day to reach Imus. No matter how tiny the Spanish garrison in Cavite, they could be relieved and reinforced from Manila without any significant delay. Aguirre would have his previous day's victory to convince him that the rebels were defeated and that all he need do was mop up the remaining insurrectos.
What if, instead of marching to victory, Aguirre marched into a trap?
Organizing the townspeople into building fortifications, Aguinaldo planned to let the Spaniards march across the Isabel II bridge over the Imus river, breaking the span at the far end which would trap the vanguard of Aguirre's column right where Aguinaldo wanted them - in a cross-fire at point-blank range. At that range, the obsolete firearms, long outdated falconete cannon, bows and arrows and 'liberated' Winchester repeater and an Remington rolling block rifles of the rebels could not miss.
The next day, Aguirre walked into Aguinaldo's trap. His victory at Imus netted him not only an impressive cache of captured weapons but a vastly enhanced reputation as a victorious military leader that would lead to his establishing the first Filipino Republic with himself as its president.
Both Bonifacio and Aguinaldo started with a significant technological disadvantage but after Bonifacio lost at Pinaglabanan he was not able to learn from his mistakes nor develop new tactics that would enable him to win. By constrast Aguinaldo recovered quickly from his initial mistakes, adapted quickly to the military situation, turned Spanish overconfidence against them and began a march to victory that would culminate on June 12, 1898.
