by Alfredo B. Saulo
Manuel
Luis Quezon, 22, a frail, malaria-stricken major in the Filipino revolutionary
army, was shown into a room in Malacañang Palace one afternoon in April 1901.
His chief, General Tomas Mascardo, had assigned him to see Aguinaldo for a
special mission-to find out if it was true, ·as reports reaching the Bataan
front claimed, that General Aguinaldo had been captured by the Americans.
Although the American officer to whom Aguinaldo had' surrendered, Lt. Miller,
confirmed the reports, the young Quezon was nevertheless afforded a chance to
personally confirm or deny Aguinaldo's capture.
He was
shoved into a waiting military launch that took him from Mariveles, Bataan, to Manila,
landing right at the palace steps by the Pasig Riyer. He was then led into the
office of the Military Governor-General Arthur MacArthur, to explain his
mission. Acting as interpreter was Fred Fisher, who was later to become an
associate justice of the Philippine Supreme Court.1
1Manuel L. Quezon, The Good Fight (New York, D. Appleton--Century
Company, Inc., 1946).
 |
EMILIO AGUINALDO
He was a prisoner of the Americans in
Malacanang when Quezon delivered a message
from Gen. Mascardo. |
 | |
|
"As I entered the room," recounts Quezon in his autobiography published forty-two years later,I saw General Aguinaldo-the man whom I had considered as the personification. of my beloved country, the man whom I had seen at the height of his glory surrounded by generals and soldiers, statesmen and politicians, the rich and the poor, a prisoner of war .... I felt that the whole world had crumbled and that all my hopes and all my dreams for my country were gone forever!2
Speaking
in Tagalog after a brief silence, Quezon, who had last seen Aguinaldo in
Angeles, Pampanga, two years before in June. 1899, shortly after General
Antonio Luna was assassinated, finally managed to say almost in a whisper,
"Good evening, Mr. President." To which the General replied rather
coldly, “Good evening.”3
"I have been sent
by General Mascardo,” said Quezon, “to find out whether it is true that you
have been captured, and if so to receive your instructions on whether he should
continue fighting or surrender.”
"As you can
see," Aguinaldo replied, "I am now a prisoner. I have taken the oath
of allegiance to the United States and I have no right, directly or indirectly,
to advise you to go on fighting.4 On the other hand, if I were to
send word to General Mascardo to surrender, he might think that I am acting
under duress and he would have the right to disobey me. General Mascardo has to
assume the responsibility ·and decide for himself whether he wants to surrender
or not. If you see him, give him my best regards and tell him what you have
seen-that I am in Malacañang, very well-treated by the Americans but a prisoner
just the same.”
It should be added at
this point that in the mind of Quezon, a bachelor with the idealism of youth and in his third year in
the College of Law of University of Sto. Tomas when the Spanish-American War
broke out in April 1898, Aguinaldo was “the personification of my own beloved
country.” And when Quezon saw him alone in Malacañang, he “felt that the whole
world had crumbled and that all my hopes and all my dreams for my country were
gone forever.”
Tears
in his eyes, Quezon left, saying, "God help you; Mr. President.”
American military rule
in the Philippines under Arthur MacArthur, father of Douglas MacArthur, who in
World War II was to be the "hero of the Battle of the Philippines,”5
ended on March 2, 1901 , following the passage by the United States Congress of
the Spooner Amendment to the U.S. Anny Appropriations Act. Pursuant to this,
the civil government was inaugurated on July 4, with William Howard Taft, head
of the Second Philippine Commission6 and later to be elected President of the
United States, as the first American civil governor of the new American colony.
In addition to its executive functions, the Commission exercised legislative
powers. On September 1, or two months after the civil government was
inaugurated, three Filipinos were appointed by U.S. President McKinley to the
Philippine Commission; namely, Dr. Trinidad H. Pardo de Tavera,
2Ibid., p. 78.
3This conversation is reproduced
from the Quezon autobiography cited in note 1 · above.
4On June 27, 1899, from his
headquarters in Tarlac, Tarlac, Aguinaldo himself had instructed all
revolutionary leaders: “Anyone belonging to the [revolutionary] army who may
fall into the power of the American Army either as a prisoner or by surrender
shall lose his authority in the army of the Revolution from the moment of his
capture or surrender." See Taylor, Philippine Insurrection, vol. 5, Exh. 1071, p. 207.
5Quezon, The Good Fight, p. 77. .
6The members of the Taft
Commission were Luke E. Wright, Henry C. Ide, Bernard Moses, and Dean C.
Worcester, all civilians.
Benito Legarda,
and Jose Luzuriiaga. In seven more years, another Filipino-Rafael – Palma-was
added to the Commission.7
On July 4, 1902, U.S. President
Theodore Roosevelt proclaimed the “existence of complete peace in the
Philippines.” Of course, this was a mere political expedient designed to hasten
the country's return to normalcy. Actually, Filipino resistance to the American
regime continued in many parts of the country. After Aguinaldo was captured in
Palanan, Isabela, on March 23, 1901, and his second-in-command, General Mariano
Trias, surrendered on May 13, General Malvar of Batangas continued the fight
for independence, assuming the supreme political and military authority of the
Philippine Republic as sanctioned by the revolutionary junta in Hong Kong.
Moreover, after Malvar, his forces
greatly reduced by hunger and illness, surrendered on April 16, 1902, Filipino
resistance continued under the leadership of Macario Sakay, a former Tondo
barber who set up the supreme government of the Tagalog archipelago. The Sakay
government had its own constitution, which provided for a Council of Ministers,
a House of Representatives; and a Chamber of Justice. Refuting American claims,
the Sakay government issued a manifesto on May 6, 1902, denying that'the group
were tulisanes (bandits). For four years (1902-1906) Sakay and his followers
waged relentless guerrilla warfare against the American colonial regime. Then;
through the mediation of Dominador Gomez, a Filipino labor leader-politician,
Sakay was induced to surrender in July 1906 with the assurance that he and his
followers would not be punished or molested. Of course, the assurance was
another piece of American deception-just as Aguinaldo had been deceived by
Dewey8 and other American leaders into returning to the Philippines
to fight side-by-side with the Americans against their common enemy, the
Spaniards, with assurances that America would recognize the independent
Philippine government to be set up by the Filipino revolutionists. As it turned
out, the United States government not only did not recognize the Philippine
independence proclaimed by Aguinaldo on June 12, 1898; it also destroyed the
First Philippine Republic by superior military force. Attending a party given
in Cavite in his honor, Sakay and his men were treacherously arrested and tried
for banditry. Then in September 1907, Sakay was hanged, "protesting to the
very end that he was not a brigand but a sincere patriot working for Philippine
independence.”9
In
Cavite an American army officer, Col. Louis J. van Schaick, was appointed
military governor (1905-1907) to check the widespread unrest arising from
continued resistance to the Americans. The infamous reconcentration policy
originated by Spanish - Governor-General Valeriano Weyler (1888-1891) was
revived in the province, causing much suffering to the population. A news story
in El Renacimiento (The Rebirth),
then edited by Fernando Ma. Guerrero,
reported:
Some
600 to 1,000 residents of Bacoor, Cavite [were] arrested and hauled into an
improvised detention cell on suspicion that they were bandits or in cahoots
with the revolutionaries. . . . They were herded together in a compound of only
400 square metres, or less than a square metre for each of them, on the ground
floor of an old convent which used to be a garage and a stable.10
In its
editorials and news reports, Guerrero's El
Renacimiento severely criticized the American administration for the
reimposition of the barbarous reconcentration policy.
7Zaide, History II, p. 244.
8Quezon, The Good Fight, p. 69.
9Agoncillo and
Guerrero, History, p. 286.
10Vicente F. Batranco, “The Rise
and Fall of El Renacimiento,” in
Souvenir Program on the
Fernando Ma. Guerrero
Celebration, May 30, 1973, p. 12.
The equivalent
of the term today is "hamleting." In turn, the American-controlled
Philippine Constabulary filed libel charges against the paper's publisher,
Martin Ocampo, its Spanish editor, Fernando Ma. Guerrero, and its Tagalog
editor, Lope K. Santos. Two young lawyers, Rafael Palma, the first editor of
the paper, and Juan Sumulong, teamed up to handle their defense. The legal
battle took place in the sala of Judge Manuel Araullo. After a protracted
litigation, Ocampo, Guerrero, and Santos were acquitted in February 1906. The
verdict electrified the nation, and El
Renacimiento was hailed as the “guardian of civil liberties and defender of
the oppressed.”11
Theodore Roosevelt's proclamation
announcing· the termination of the Philippine-American War on July 4, 1902, signalled
the organization by Filipino nationalists of political parties to counter the
activities of the pro-American Partido F. ederalista (Federal Party) organized
by leading Filipinos. In October of the same year, Pedro A. Paterno, a former Federalista, organized the Partido Liberal to promote Filipino
nationalism and work for self-government. In December, Paterno changed the name
of the party to Partido Independista,
which openly advocated Philippine independence. Other parties were subsequently
organized but were short-lived. Finally, on March 12, 1907; the Partido Nacionalista was born out of the
fusion of the Partido Independista
Inmediata (Immediate Independence Party) and the Union Nacionalista (Nationalist Union). The leaders of this party
were Sergio Osmef1a, Manuel L. Quezon, Rafael Palma, Macario Adriatico, and
other political standouts. The Partido Nacionalista
was to dominate the Philippine political scene throughout the American regime.
On July 1, 1902, the United States
Congress enacted the Philippine Bill providing, among other things, for the
establishment of an elective Philippine Assembly two years after a nationwide
census was to be taken and published. It also provided that two Filipino
resident commissioners should be sent to Washington, D.C., to represent the
Philippines in the United States Congress but without a vote. Published in 1903
in four volumes in both English and Spanish, the census reported a total
population of 7,635,426 Filipinos, of whom about 7,000,000 were Christians and
the rest Muslims and others. On July 30, 1907, the elections for the First
Philippine Assembly were held.
July 30, 1907, the elections for the
First Philippine Assembly were held. Quezon, a native of Baler, Tayabas (now
Quezon), was one of the eighty delegates elected to the Assembly. Prior to
that, he had been a successful practising lawyer,12 fiscal of
Mindoro and later of Tayabas, and finally governor of his own province. In the
Philippine Assembly he became the majority floor leader and chairman of the
powerful Committee on Appropriations. Quezon left Manila in the summer of 1908
to represent the Philippines in the International Congress of Navigation in
CzaristRussia.13 Shortly after he returned to the Philippines in
1909, he was appointed one of two Philippine resident commissioners to the'
United States, succeeding Pedro Ocampo.
On Christmas Eve in 1909, Quezon,
30, arrived in Washington, a complete stranger to the English language. He
recognized this as the most serious obstacle to the performance of his duties
as a representative of the Filipino people in the United States Congress. He
then set himself a crash program to learn that language. He hired a lady tutor
but soon found his progress too slow. He then gave up his American teacher and
started teaching himself by reading periodicals and books with a
Spanish-English dictionary at his elbow. He also attended social functions
without any interpreter helping
11Ibid.
12Under a law
enacted by the Philippine Commission, anyone who had taken a three-year course
in law was entitled to practise law after passing the bar. Quezon was admitted
to the bar in April 1903
13Quezon
was accompanied on the trip by two secretaries, Teodoro M. Kalaw and F. Theo Rogers.
See Zaide, Great Filipinos, pp. 422-432.
him,
“punctuating his conversation with precise Spanish words whenever he could not
express himself in proper English.”14
By May 1910, five months after his
arrival, this young Philippine resident commissioner to the American capital
had acquired enough proficiency in English to deliver his maiden speech on the
floor of the U.S House of Representatives. He told his American audience that
the Filipinos had received many benefits from the United States, “but despite
it all, we still want independence: ... Ask the bird, Sir, who is inclosed in a
golden cage if he would prefer his cage and the care of the owner to the
freedom of the skies and the allure of the forest.”15
Quezon
concluded his speech as follows:
We
firmly believe and sincerely trust that the day will soon come when this
Congress, composed of the representatives of a God-fearing people, will
generously give us the blessings of that freedom which has made you so happy,
so prosperous and so great, and which is after all the keynote of the happiness
and prosperity of every people.16
The
record shows that Quezon delivered quite a number of significant speeches in an
outside the halls of the United States Congress. His constant theme was the
independence of the Philippines. On July 4, 1911, Quezon said, in a speech at
Tammany Hall, the capitol of New York City: “We Filipinos maintain that the
American occupation of the Islands [the Philippines] is incompatible with the
American Declaration of Independence.”
Then
in a speech on May 1, 1912, he told the Americans that the “Filipino people
would unhesitatingly prefer to be poor but free rather than be rich but
subjects!” Several days later, on May 15, Quezon again rose on the floor of the
U.S. Congress to assert that the “Philippines is for the Filipinos.” Similarly,
on April 22, 1913, he told the Economic Club of Worcester, Massachusetts, that
the “Filipinos have shown that they are capable of governing their country. . .
. I know my people as intimately as it is possible for anybody to know them,
and I say to you, solemnly and sincerely, that only a Filipino government will
suit the Filipinos best”
Evidently Quezon, who had fought as
a young revolutionary officer in the hills of Bataan, was continuing the fight
for the freedom of his own country in the halls of the United States Congress.
Naturally and inevitably, he spoke to the U.S. House of Representatives on
October 2, 1941, on his former commander in chief, General Aguinaldo, who had
liberated the Philippines from more than three centuries of subjection under
Spain:
Mr.
Chairman, I wish to say a few words in behalf of General Aguinaldo. I was at
one time an officer in the Philippine Army. . . . For several months I was on
the staff of General Aguinaldo, then President of the Philippine Republic and
commanding general of the army. . . . I can assert without fear of successful
contradiction that he is a man of high character and patriotism. . . .
During
the Philippine Revolution against Spain, Aguinaldo was the supreme military
chief, with the powers of a dictator . . . . He had the physical power to do
with the treasury of the then-independent Philippine government as he pleased.
When he was captured by General Funston after having exercised his undisputed
14Carlos
Quirino, Quezon: Paladin of Philippine
Freedom (Manila, Filipiniana Book Guild, 1971), vol. 18, p. 90.
15Quezon,
The Good Fight, p. 117.
16Juan
F. Rivera, “Quezon in Action,” a 6-volume compilation of Quezon papers. Ms.,
vol. 1, p. 87. The speeches quoted in subsequent paragraphs here are from this
compilation.
authority
for more than two years, Aguinaldo was as poor as when the Philippine-American
War started.
Adding that he wanted to make
invidious comparisons, Quezon then asked the Lower Chamber of the U.S. Congress
that seemed mesmerized by his oratory:
How
many revolutionary chiefs in other parts of the world who have been in the position
of General Aguinaldo have done what he did? How many have been willing to go
back to their homes as poor as ever after having had in their possession so much
money that they could have appropriated without question? Aguinaldo is not a rich man today. He is a
modest farmer. He has not accepted any position from the American government. .
. . Why?
Quezon
then answered his own question:
He
wanted to show the world that he fought for his country not because of any desire
for personal profit or power but out of patriotism, and that when he could not fight
any longer he could go to his home and lead a peaceful and modest-life, the
life of a good citizen working on his farm. . . . Thus Aguinaldo has
demonstrated that the Filipinos, who [have] known how to fight for their
freedom, know likewise how to work in time of peace. I need not say more.
American
newsmen covering the U.S. Congress at the time reported that Quezon's historic
speech on Aguinaldo was several times interrupted by· applause from both the floor
and from the gallery.
Quezon's
record as a resident commissioner was a continuous rise from one triumph to
another. First he secured the appointment of a colleague, Representative
Francis Burton Harrison, a ranking member of the Ways and Means Committee in
the U.S. House of Representatives, as governor-general of the Philippines,
succeeding William Cameron Forbes. Harrison turned out to be the, best friend
of the Filipino people from among the succession of American governors-general
of the Philippines. Harrison filipinized the government service. During his
administration the number of American personnel in the government shrank from
2,636 in 1913 to 614 in 1921, and that of the Filipinos rose from 6,363 to
13,240. More than any other American executive, it was Harrison who carried out
U.S. President Taft's avowed policy of "the Philippines for the Filipinos.”17
But
doubtless Quezon's greatest triumph in the United States Congress was the approval
of the Jones Law on August 29, 1916. Also known as the Philippine Autonomy Act,
this law, authored by William Atkinson Jones, delineated the government
functions as those of the executive, legislative, and judicial branches. The
executive power was vested in the American governor-general appointed by the President
of the United States, and he was assisted by a cabinet consisting of the
secretaries of the various executive departments. The legislative power resided
in an elective bicameral legislature consisting of a Senate, which replaced the
Philippine Commission, and a House of Representatives. The judicial power was
exercised by the Supreme Court, the courts 9f first instance in the provincial
capitals and cities, and the justice of the peace courts in the municipalities.
After
the Jones law was enacted, Quezon resigned as resident commissioner and returned
to the Philippines like a conquering hero in late 1916. Eventually, Quezon
became the President of the first Philippine Senate created under the Jones Law
and later the leader of the Filipino participation in the American administration
of the colony. He became the highest Filipino official in the government, next
in power only to the
17Zaide,
Philippine History, vol. 2, p. 248.
American
governor-general, but, among the Filipinos, definitely greater in prestige and importance
than anyone else in the country.
During the Harrison administration,
Quezon got practically all he wanted. Under Legislative Act no. 2803, passed in
1919, the governor-general submitted any executive order, proclamation, or regulation
to the proper department secretary for that official’s approval before it was
enforced. This was dearly contrary to article 21 of the Jones Law, but
Harrison, whose appointment had been recommended by Quezon himself, did not veto
it in order to maintain harmony and cooperation during his administration.
Quezon's strategy, under the pretext
of promoting Filipino autonomy under the Jones Law, was “to reduce the governor-general
of the Philippines to a mere figurehead because we want a government of
Filipinos, by Filipinos, and for Filipinos.”18 Because the .Senate
had the authority to pass upon all appointments made by the governor-general,
all department secretaries were under the thumb of Quezon, the Senate
President. Though it was headed by the governor-general himself, the Council of
State, the symbol of executive-legislative harmony, actually looked up to the
leadership of Quezon.
The Filipino-American honeymoon
under Harrison came to an end when the U.S. Republican Party under President
Warren G. Harding returned to power in 1920, and General Leonard Wood, a war
veteran in and former administrator of Cuba, assumed the position of
governor-general of the-Philippines on October 5, 1921. An honest and efficient
administrator who had no tact and diplomacy, Wood promptly set the tone of his administration
by declaring that his policy was to enforce the Jones· Law ta the letter. To the
chagrin of Quezon and other Filipino leaders, Wood exercised his full veto
power, rejecting a total of 16 bills passed by the legislature in one year
against only five bills vetoed by Harrison throughout his term lasting all of
eight years.
The tense executive-legislative
relations under Wood exploded in the “Cabinet Crisis of 1923,” caused .by the
retirement of an American, Ray Conley, suspended detective in the Manila police
department, forcing Secretary of the Interior Jose P. Laurel to resign. At this
point Quezon took up Wood's challenge and the Filipino members of both the Cabinet
and the Council of State resigned en masse on July 17, 1923.
The
Jones Law gave Wood the powers of supervision and control over all the departments,
bureaus, and offices of the executive branch of the government. Quezon, on the
other hand, maintained that Wood had abused his authority for unduly
interfering with the powers of the Secretary of the Interior Laurel and of
Mayor Ramon Fernandez of Manila, both of whom had also resigned in ·protest against
Canley's reinstatement by Wood. The Filipino leaders, as in the Harrison
administration, expected Wood to liberally interpret his own powers in the
interest of promoting harmony and cooperation in the government.
The mass resignation of the Filipino
members of the Cabinet and of the Council of State gave Wood no alternative but
to appoint military advisers, hence the epithet for it-Cavalry Cabinet. Since
he could not depend on the cooperation of the major political parties in the
country, Wood began to woo the Veteranos
de la Revolucion headed by General Aguinaldo.
It was at this point that Aguinaldo,
who for more than twenty years had stayed aloof from participation in public
affairs, broke bread with Wood. As military men, they saw eye to eye vis-a vis
politicians whose meddling obstructed ¢e establishment of an honest and
efficient public administration. Quezon had previously organized the Supreme National
Council, composed of leaders of both the Nacionalista and Democrata parties, for
the purpose of directing Philippine policies related to the campaign for independence,
Philippine-American relations, and the administration of the country in
geheral.19 Fearing
18 Joseph
Ralston Hayden, The Philippines (New
York, 1945), p. 138.
19Teodoro
M. Kalaw, Aide-de-camp to Freedom
(Manila, 1965), pp. 203-204.
that the council was just a tool in the
hands of Quezon the politician, Aguinaldo’s veterans’ association refused to
join it.
“We are branded as unpatriotic,” said
Aguinaldo, “for having merely refused to join them in a controversy with the
governor-general. They themselves were on good terms with the chief executive,
and nobody censured them for having such friendly relations. Will they now seek
our solidarity, and for not having joined them brand us with the stigma of
disloyalty?”20
Quezon
at this time, of course, was no longer the young idealistic though ailing army major
who, on seeing Aguinaldo alone in a room in Malacañang, a prisoner of war, felt
that the whole world had crumbled under his feet and that all hopes and dreams
of a great future for his country had gone forever. Similarly, Quezon was no
longer the starry-eyed resident commissioner in the halls of the United States
Congress, a picture of self-confidence and unmatched eloquence, praising Aguinaldo
to the skies. That had been a long time before, and much water had gone under
the bridge.
Having
brought the bacon home from Washington in the form of the Jones Law and having
been President of the Philippine Senate since October 1916, the new spokesman of
the Filipino people Vice-Speaker Sergio Osmeña of the Philippine Assembly,
Quezon now felt he was ready to tangle with his former commander in chief in
the revolution. Quezon’s great advantage over Old Man Aguinaldo was that during
his six-year stint in Washington he learned a great deal of American politics,
both the good and the seamy sides of it, mastering the techniques of disposing
of one's opponent, sending him reeling on the floor and being counted out,
without knowing how it all came about.
For
instance, there is no way to prove that Quezon was behind it, but it is a fact
that his followers revived the rumors that Aguinaldo had ordered both the
execution of Andres Bonifacio, and the assassination of General Antonio Luna.21
It is difficult to put the blame on Quezon because sometimes sycophants would
take the initiative of besmirching the reputation of Aguinaldo in hopes of
currying favor from the man (Quezon) who buttered their bread with political
patronage.
A
native of Imus, Cavite (b. July 27, 1862), General Pantaleon Garcia was one of
the few revolutionary officers close to Aguinaldo. He was with Aguinaldo in the
seesaw Battle of Pasong Santol, Dasmariñas, Cavite, in March 1897 and was one
of two generals to whom Aguinaldo entrusted the defense of Imus, the capital of
the Magdalo government. Garcia accompanied Aguinaldo in the long march to
Biak-na-Bato after the fall of Maragondon, Cavite, and fought with Aguinaldo in
the Battle of Mount Puray, in Montalban, dealing the Spanish forces a crushing
defeat. He was also appointed one of the five brigade commanders in the assault
on Manila at the start of the Filipino-American War. Before Aguinaldo left
Tarlac, Tarlac, in November 1899 to launch a full-scale guerrilla war against
the Americans and to begin his long retreat to Palanan, Isabela, he promoted
Garcia to commanding general of the Filipino forces in Central Luzon, with the rank
of major general.
General
Garcia was ·captured by the Americans in Jaen, Nueva Ecija, in May 1900, but was
subsequently released. He then served as municipal president of Imus in
1903-1905 and justice of the peace in 1906-1907. Later he was appointed
superintendent of the Colonia Agricola (Farm Colony), in Cavite. In 1933 General
Garcia issued a startling statement to the effect that before the death of General
Luna on June 5, 1899, he (Garcia) had
received
a verbal order from General Emilio Aguinaldo that I [should] lead the projected
assassination of General Luna, which would be done at Cabanatuan, Nueva Ecija.
It so happened that I was unable to perform that order. After some days had
20Quirino,
Quezon: Paladin, p. 181.
21
Ibid.
passed
I received the news that General Luna was murdered at Caoanatuan by the
soldiers from Kawit. 22
Intensive
research, however, has disclosed that when Garcia made the statement in 1933,
he was serving as sergeant-at-arms of the Philippine Senate, of which Quezon
was, the President, and that the Aguinaldo-Quezon political controversy was at
its height with the Commonwealth presidential election barely two years away,
well within the time frame of the polls. Evidently, the Garcia statement had political
undertones tending to besmirch the image of General Aguinaldo. Quezon having
been a man of great foresight, it is quite possible that even then he spared no
effort in trying to eliminate a potential rival for the Presidency of the
Philippine Commonwealth. Quezon was at the height of his political power before
the Commonwealth election, and no man in the opposition except Aguinaldo would
have dared run against him. So Aguinaldo had to be trimmed by all means. This
seamy side of American politics Quezon learned in his six-year stint at the American
capital to insure his own political future.
American capital to insure his own
political future. The same political motivation was behind the reported
“funeral reception” accorded Aguinaldo and his followers when they arrived in Malolos,
Bulacan, on January 23, 1928, to commemorate the twenty-ninth anniversary of the
inauguration of the First Philippine Republic. “Nearly all the houses and
stores of the town closed their doors and windows and displayed black
flags," says a long-time Aguinaldo detractor; “the church bell rang out
the lugubrious plegaria; all business
activities were suspended; and placards were posted in different parts of the
town with the provocative question, Emilio Aguinaldo. . . who shall answer for
the death of the two Filipino patriots, Luna and Bonifacio?”23
Again, it is hard-perhaps impossible-to
prove that Quezon was behind the anti-Aguinaldo reception. But the fact is that
the incident happened within the time frame of the Commonwealth presidential
polls and with the trauma caused by the Wood Cabinet crisis and the ensuing
Aguinaldo-Quezon parting of the ways still fresh and unhealed. The incident, like the Garcia statement,
tended to undermine public faith and confidence in Aguinaldo, a potential
Quezon rival in the presidential election not too far ahead.
It is well to remember that the
continuing accusation against Aguinaldo for the deaths of Bonifacio and Luna
stemmed from Apolinario Mabini’s scurrilous and malicious allegations in his
book La Revolucion Filipina, written
with evident rancor during his exile in Guam. That Mabini, a former assistant
attorney in the office of the patriot Numeriano Adriano and so-called
"Brains of the Revolution,” used hearsay evidence to assassinate the
character of Aguinaldo, Mabini’s former benefactor, is not only the height of
ingratitude but also a disgrace to the legal profession.
Another and more subtle way lo
downgrade Aguinaldo was to extoll Bonifacio to the skies despite the lack of
historical justification for it. It was a Quezon-dominated Philippine Legislature
that passed Act no. 2946 on February 16, 1921, making Bonifacio’s birthday
anniversary, November 30, the legal holiday that it still is.24 It
was also the same legislature that appropriated· the funds which, together with
an amount raised through popular subscription, were used to erect the gigantic
Bonifacio monument at the Balintawak rotunda in Caloocan City.
In a speech delivered at Balintawak
during the ceremony to lay the cornerstone of the Bonifacio monument on
November 30, 1929, the then Senate President Quezon said:
22”Statement
of General Pantaleon Garcia," in Jose P. Santos, Si Heneral Emilio Aguinaldo. Ang Nagpapatay Kay Gen. Antonio Luna?
(1933). See Vivencio R. Jose, The
Rise and Fall of Antonio Luna (Quezon City, University of the Philippines
Press, 1971), p. 403.
23Renato
Constantino, Insight and Foresight.
Selected excerpts annotated by Luis R. Mauricio (Quezon City, Foundation for
Nationalist Studies, 1979), pp. 20-21.
24”Bonifacio
Day Marked Tuesday,” Bulletin Today,
November 27, 1982.
“The
memory of his [Bonifacio’s] life and deeds will keep the flame of inspiration
ever burning in the hearts of generations yet unborn.” Quezon asserted that it
was “Bonifacio, Emilio Jacinto, and a handful of brave men [who] launched our
people into the battlefield for the vindication of their rights to free them
from the yoke of tyranny. It can be truly said, therefore, that Rizal was the
creator of Filipino nationality, and Bonifacio the redeemer of our country's
liberties.”25
The undeniable historical fact,
however~ is that Bonifacio's Katipunan ignited the revolt-not-revolution-that
ended in the Battle of San Juan del Monte, in a place now known as
Pinaglabanan, on August 30, 1896. The Katipunan revolt lasted only a week-August
23-30. It pales into insignificance compared with, for instance, the Dagohoy
revolt on Bohol island, which lasted all of 85 years (1744-1829).
The revolution that broke out on the
day after the latter was crushed on August 31 was organizationally separate
from and independent of the Katipunan revolt. In fact, the Cavite
revolutionists rejected the Katipunan and set up a revolutionary government
under Aguinaldo to carry on the fight against the Spaniards. To say that
Bonifacio was the “Father of the Philippine Revolution” is a historical
distortion that serves the then ongoing American colonial policy of downgrading
Aguinaldo who led the Filipino forces in the Philippine-American War
(1899-1901). Unlike Rizal, Bonifacio, or Mabini, General Aguinaldo was the
symbol of Filipino resistance to American colonization and imperialism. Aguinaldo
became the bete noire of the Americans because in this war, a total of 4,234
American soldiers were killed in 2,811 recorded encounters, and the Washington government
spent all of ₱600 million – a gargantuan
amount in those days-to overcome the Filipino resistance.
Having kept aloof from Philippine
politics since the beginning of the American regime, Aguinaldo at first refused
the candidacy for President of the Commonwealth offered him by his admirers at
a popular banquet in Manila.26 He saw that he had no organized political
machine behind him strong enough to help him to compete with the ruling Partido Nacionalista Consolidado of both
Quezon and Osmeña. Moreover, according to his own biographer, Carlos Quirino,
to the younger generation of Filipinos who constituted the big bulk of the
voting population, Aguinaldo was almost a complete stranger. 27 A
few weeks after the banquet, however, Aguinaldo changed his mind and announced
·his acceptance of the "candidature in obedience to the call of the
people.“28
Incidentally, after Aguinaldo
announced his candidacy, Gregorio Aglipay, a contemporary of his in the
revolution and obispo maximo (supreme
bishop) of the Philippine Independent Church, also announced that he was
running for the presidency of the Commonwealth.
The proclamation of Aguinaldo's
candidacy was made in Cavite amidst thunderous rejoicing by thousands of “frenzied
devotees.” Aguinaldo explained why he had accepted the candidacy, as follows:
Had I refused, I would have ignored
the voice of thousands of my countrymen who are at present in the clutches of
hunger and misery and whose laments [cannot] awaken the pity of those who are
in power. While [the latter] are enjoying the delights of the feast, they
should remember the underdogs to whom not even crumbs are left. If I should
refuse to leave the peace of my home, I would [be closing] my
25Manuel
L. Quezon, “Andres Bonifacio, the Great Plebeian,” Historical Bulletin (Special Bonifacio Number), September 1963. ·
26Isabelo
P. Caballero and M. de Gracia Concepcion, The
Story of a Nation and Its Foremost
Statesman (Manila,
International Publishers, 1935), p. 417.
27Quirino,
Young Aguinaldo, Manila, 1969.
28Caballero
and Concepcion, Story of a Nation, p.
417.
eyes
to the sufferings of our people whose farms are prostrate, whose trades are
unprotected, and whose industries are not given sufficient stimulus for
development.
If I had not acceded to your
petition, I would have turned my back to the complaints of thousands of my poor
countrymen for whose children there is no sufficient room in the schools where
they may learn the most elementary knowledge of a good citizenship; I would
have ignored the protests of many government employees who are victims of injustices
and prejudices and whose merits are superseded by favoritism and sectionalism. .
. .
Where are the patriots, where are
those who have sworn to serve the people's interests? Why are they silent? Why
is it that instead of looking into the coin plaints of the people and telling
the people of what is going on, there is sepulchral silence in our political
world? Is there, within that silence, a plot against the people's welfare? Is
it ~cause, in exchange for all the silence and submission, there will be
rewards in the form of fat-salaried positions?29
Aguinaldo ran under the banner of a
newly organized political party, the National Socialist Party, headed by his
own bilas, Senator Emiliano Tria
Tirona” husband of the sister of his wife, Hilaria del Rosario Aguinaldo. Half
in jest and half in ridicule, the Quezon biographers, Caballero and Concepcion,
called it an “abortive” party. But more appropriately perhaps, the National
Socialist Party can be described as an ad hoc political party-one organized for
that particular election alone.
A man known for his prudence and
level-headedness, it is doubtful if Aguinaldo ever entertained the thought of
victory over his, opponent, the master politician – Quezon. But it is certain that
he was a greater lover of democracy as evidenced by the fact that as a “dictator”
for one month in Philippine history – May 24 to June 23, 1898 – in a role he reluctantly
played at the advice of the Hong Kong Junta-Aguinaldo never used his
dictatorial powers and at the first opportunity willingly changed his
dictatorial government to a democratic revolutionary govemment.30
The result of the Commonwealth presidential
election of September 17, 1935, was a foregone conclusion. Manuel L. Quezon,
the man of the hour, garnered 695,332 votes; Emilio Aguinaldo, his former
commander in chief of the Philippine Revolution, 179,349; and Gregorio Aglipay,
the man-of-the-cloth-turned-politician, 148,010.31 The combined
votes of Aguinaldo and Aglipay were less than half of Quezon's-a telling lesson
for the two oldsters of the Philippine Revolution.
It will be recalled that when
Aguinaldo announced his candidacy, Quezon, the politician who had never known
defeat, appeared to be running unopposed. The concensus is that to oppose
Quezon at that height of his popularity was an exercise in futility. Several times
in the past, Quezon had run for senator unopposed in the fifth senatorial
district. That certainly was not good for democracy. A multi-party or, at best,
a two-party system is necessary for a healthy democracy.
Thinking that Quezon, the
presidential candidate, would again .run unopposed, Aguinaldo decided to throw
his hat into the ring. For Aguinaldo, a gentleman farmer, it was a most
expensive decision. It cost him about ₱200,000 in campaign funds which he borrowed
from his relatives. It was a fabulous amount in those days. Political wiseacres
laughed at him; he did not have a ghost of a chance to win. But Aguinaldo, who
never completely lost his idealism, was dead right: he ran against Quezon, the
sure winner, to keep the fire of democracy burning in the Philippines. A Don
Quixote, indeed, but a man of high principles.
29Ibid.,
419.
30Taylor,
Philippine Insurrection, vol. 3, Exh.
43, pp. 134-141.
31Quirino,
Quezon: Paladin; p. 280.
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6 years after the Commonwealth Election. Daniel Maramba paved the way for the reconciliation of the statesmen Manuel Quezon and Emilio Aguinaldo but the black propaganda will continue to take its toll on the image of Aguinaldo. Photo courtesy of Alma Kern, granddaughter of Daniel Maramba.
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BRIG. GEN.
FREDERICK FUNSTON
Said Aguinaldo was a man of “many
excellence qualities.”
|
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MAJ. GEN. ELWELL
S. OTIS
Commander of U.S. Eighth Army Corps.
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\
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ADMIRAL GEORGE
DEWEY
He sank the Spanish fleet but lacked a
land force to defeat the enemy, hence his invitation to Aguinaldo to come home
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