The Battle of Catubig

Adlaw nga Miyerkules, Ika- 03 han Noviembre 2010 | 11:40 a.m. From the Chief Editor Articles News Discussion Board Announcement Chat Room Home Other Articles: Rich, socialite Filipina senator meets with Maoist and “Communist” revolutionaries in the Netherlands -by Cesar Torres Dr. Jose V. Abueva & the Philippine Constitution in California -by Cesar Torres A fervent prayer for peace -by Cesar Torres Peru and the Philippines, some similarities and differences -by Adelbert Batica Dark clouds on azure Philippine skies -by Cesar Torres Cabinet Secretary Ricardo Saludo at the San Francisco Consulate Town Hall meeting -by Cesar Torres Preventing the San Jose Timber Corporation from operating again -by Shiela Tagaban Zangl The senate hearing on Samar rainforest and a request to outstanding U.P. Alumni: Enrile and Defensor -by Cesar Torres and Charo Cabardo Friends in Diaspora ~ Hearts and minds always focused on Pilipinas -by Armando Ridao Pátria o Muerte - ¡Venceremos! -by Adelbert S. 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AvelinoIII Revisiting a Samarnon's Pride in the Highlands of Peru -by Addi Batica Pride, sadness, and hopes of a Samarnon in California -by Cesar Torres THE BATTLE OF CATUBIG By QUINTIN L. DOROQUEZ* August 26, 2006 Fought at the turn of the 20th century—between the local militia of Catubig and a contingent of General Vicente Lukban’s incipient Army of the Philippine-American war in Samar and Leyte on the one hand and the U.S. Regular Army on the other—the battle of Catubig(1) brought into focus two aspects of the combatants: raw courage and humanism on the part of the Samarnons, and the penchant of a vanquished, proud U. S. Army to hide the truth from the Filipinos. Catubig used to be a small town some eighteen kilometers from the mouth of the deep, navigable Catubig River that empties into Lake Lao-ang in the northern section of what used to be the one-province island of Samar. Today, further inland, in the upper source of the river is another town, Las Navas, which regained or was granted its own municipal charter in 1948. Before the last two decades of the Spanish rule in the Philippines, Las Navas was in fact the set of municipal government in the Catubig Valley. However, toward the close of the 19th century, Kagninipa (now Catubig) started to out-grow Las Navas. This is understandable inasmuch as Kagninipa is located right at the stretches of wide agricultural lands in the vortex of the rich rice-growing Catubig Valley, reputedly the rice granary of Samar. So, ecclesiastical authorities or the Roman Catholic Church built a strong stone church in Kagninipa in 1886. This edifice is stronger in construction and larger in size than the Church in Las Navas even to this day. The two settlements themselves had a romanticized rivalry, especially when it became apparent that ecclesiastical authorities had its bent on Kagninipa. To avoid a violent confrontation to settle the issue as to where the permanent seat of government was to be located, the two rival chieftains, orcapitanes at the time decided it will be a waste of human lives and ugly to fight employing armed men. Capitan Saro of Las Navas and Capitan Mecias of Kagninipa agreed to settle the conflict by staging a carabao bullfight one Sunday. Should the Las Navas bull win, Las Navas will keep the seat of government; should the Kagninipa bull win, the seat of government will, accordingly, be transferred to Kagninipa. After exhaustive search for the best bulls, the two chieftains were ready to settle the issue. To cut a long story short, it was the bull from Kagninipa that decisively won, in fact chasing the Las Navas bull until it jumped into the Catubig River in fright and pain where it drowned from the wounds gorged in wildly by the strong horns of the more powerful Kagninipa bull. Thus the seat of municipal government permanently moved to Kagninipa. This took place, however, not without any further enmity. Then early in February 1900 some Americans started coming in trickle posing as private surveyors. The local church authorities were perceptively more friendly with the visitors than they were with the natives. But the “visitors” were also trying their best to be friendly with the natives. At one point, on a pleasant sunny morning, as two “surveyors” were strolling along Kagninipa Brook, one saw a cat sunbathing by rolling along the grassy edge of the brook. The Americans approached a young lady who was doing her laundry and asked, “What is that, cat?” The lass, hardly seeing the cat which was in higher elevation, and not knowing what the foreigners were asking about, responded, “Tubig,” meaning the water of the brook. In a short while bystanders gathered around. And they started saying, at the bidding of the Americans, “Catubig!” The Americans thought that “tubig” means cat, and the Filipinos, yes, the Catubignons, thought on the other hand that “cat” means tubig. When this news reached Domingo Rebadulla, the most respected and admired citizen of Kagninipa at the time, he suggested that this “word-compact” or word of friendship be used henceforth as the new name of the town of Kagninipa to signify the friendliness of the Americans and the native populace. Hence, the name “Catubig” today. In a matter of weeks the “surveyors”, apparently having understood and learned the psyche of the local populace, were already wearing military uniforms, and more men were pouring in, ferried by a gunboat. The priest had left, if temporarily, apparently at the bidding of the Americans, for his safety as well as to make room for the Americans to establish a garrison in the rectory or convent and in the adjacent stone church of Saint Joseph the Worker Parish. The soldiers, as the surveyors finally turned out to be, were of Company H, 43rd Volunteer Infantry Regiment of the U.S. Army. Their real mission was two-fold. First, on the short term, to deny General Lukban access that year (1900) to the bounty rice harvest of the Catubig Valley. This harvest takes place, until now, during the month of April. Second, to deny the General, on the long-term, from making the lush and rice-rich Catubig Valley as the alternate if not permanent headquarters of the Army he was raising in Samar and Leyte for the Philippine Revolution, which had already metamorphosed into the Philippine-American War. The people of Catubig naturally resented the deceptive presence of the Americans upon discovering the Americans’ real intentions. The local leaders, hospitable as they customarily were to visitors, started a series of hurriedly-convened secret meetings. Francisco Fincalero, the local real-estate and rice magnate and adoringly called Taga-ta by his associates, sent out instructions to his tenants that if the Americans commandeered his harvest, his tenants were to resist. Homobono Joli-Joli, a young man from Las Navas, forgot the past rivalry of Las Navas and Kagninipa and volunteered with 25 men, with himself at the head, to join the militia. Domingo Rebadulla, the acknowledged leader of Catubig during the Filipino American War and first mayor thereafter, was the over-all overseer in forming the local militia. Domingo, charismatic by personality, easily counted the assistance of Juan Alaras and Probo Plagata, men who later also became municipal mayors of Catubig. The people responded quickly and favorably. A 300-man strong, fighting force was easily raised. Knowing that the men were ill-trained and ill-equipped, well-off families—the Orsolinos, the Tafallas, the Mercaders, the Tentativas, the Turbanadas, etc.—donated their mousers and revolvers. Local blacksmiths worked overnights to make palteks (locally manufactured guns) and baids (the Samarnon’s counterpart of the Samurai blade). Doubting the military know-how of the militiamen, Domingo Rebadulla dispatched a three-man courier party, overseen by his fourteen-year old son, Pedro, to make contact with General Lukban. The General responded by dispatching for a few days one of his deputies, Col. Enrique Villareal Dagujob, a college-educated native of Bicol. The colonel was to check the terrain of the possible battleground and to give secret military instructions to the militia. General Lukban likewise assigned one of his chemists to the fighting men of Catubig to ensure that they had adequate and steady supply of gun powder to recycle used cartridges. Above all, the General assured the “boys” liaison that should hostilities break out, he will immediately reinforce the Catubig militia with at least 500 men. The success of the “boys’ mission” was quickly apparent. Col. Villareal-Dagujob showed up in a few days incognito. The colonel found the morale of the town’s leadership and the fighting men unusually high. Leaving specific instructions as to what to do upon the start of hostilities, Col. Villareal-Dagujob returned to Blanca Aurora, in the highlands of the Gandara Valley, the headquarters of General Lukban. Sensing immediate hostilities, the General deputized back Col. Villareal-Dagujob to head a 600-man raiding force. Just a day away of mostly jungle marching to Catubig, the raiding party learned that the battle of Catubig had begun. The local leaders took advantage of the fact that the steamer Tonyik which had been ferrying supplies and men to Catubig was nowhere to be found in Lao-ang, the closest port. Informers reported it was in Calbayog, in the westside of the island of Samar. In the estimation of the leaders in Catubig, this means at least about three days before the garrison in Catubig could be reinforced or rescued in the event of hostilities. It was a sunny April Sunday morning, typical of April, the rice harvest month in Catubig. The mayas were chirping their songs of joy in the abundance of rice grains, their favorite food, just in the outlying fields. The date: April 15, 1900. The longshoremen were piling abaca bales after bales in the street ready, as they appeared to be, for loading to a double-mast parao moored at the pier closeby where the American steamer had also been mooring. The giant out-triggered vessel was unloading earthen wares (pots, jars, etc.), but mostly 20-liter kerosene cans. The kerosene cans were, in the normal course of trade, being readied for delivery to consignees in town. The belfry boys got their instructions before the fall of night, April 14. They usually were to ring one bell for the customary ringing at 6:00 A.M. on a Sunday of ordinary time. But for the following day they were to stay put and wait for a small-arm gunfire at which instance they were to ring in full blast all three bells, including the giant de ruida. This de ruida bell is rung only on solemn occasions, such as the arrivals of dignitaries, or at the inception and completion of a High Mass during town fiestas or special occasions, or in cases of calamities such as fires beyond control. But Domingo Rebadulla objected to the small-arm gunfire, for it could in fact mean hostilities. He ordered instead dropping on the concrete street, with the appearance of casual fall from the head of a longshoreman, an empty kerosene can to produce the loud, sharp decibels that were to signal the American garrison did not accept the town leaders’ demand to surrender with their guns and military wares and to vacate the convent and the church vicinities. At about 7:00 A.M., just before the Americans started their daily morning drills in small numbers, a courier was dispatched by the town capitanto hand in an envelope to the doorman at the rectory containing the demand. As anticipated the garrison turned the demand down. A thumb-down signal from the courier as he emerged from the rectory caused the fall of an empty kerosene can from a husky longshoreman while he was stacking kerosene cans not far from the town square. That sudden fall was the signal that the belfry boys were awaiting. A few bell rings sent the token force of militiamen at the rear of the convent firing to decoy the Americans in that direction. At 7:30 A.M. all hell broke loose. The bells of Catubig, especially the giant de ruida that day kept spinning in crescendo, the other two bells were tolling unusually fast. All able-bodied men ran toward the convent even without orders and volunteered to fight. But unarmed they instead ended up rolling the hemp bales around the convent to serve as shields to the militiamen. At the indication that the Americans were forcing themselves out into their two small motorized boats, the militia, assisted by civilians, poured kerosene on the abaca bales and set them afire. Americans who dared to leave the convent were thus forced to negotiate their way through the towering inferno of abaca bales, then through the baids and guns of the militia. Fifteen of the 36 Americans perceived to be in the garrison tried to flee to safety, and fifteen burnt alive or were cut down by Catubignon fires or bolos to their bloody deaths. But the Americans were shooting too and in higher volume of fires. After all they had better guns. Their bullets were proportionately taking higher tolls than those of the Samarnons’. Badly outnumbered, however, the American ceased firing. Yet their will to fight echoed in the halls of the U.S. Congress in Washington, D.C., later when one soldier, Cpl. Anthony J. Carson, of Boston, Massachusetts, was given the U.S. highest military award, the Congressional Medal of Honor, for his, according to the citation: “Assuming command of a detachment of the company which had survived an overwhelming attack of the enemy, and by his bravery and untiring effort and the exercise of good judgment in the handling of his men successfully withstood for 2 days the attacks of a large force of the enemy, thereby saving the lives of the survivors and protecting the wounded until relief came.” 1st Lt. J. T. Sweeney, one of the few survivors of the four-day confrontation, later recounted that they had superior arms than the Samarnons, but when they smelled kerosene from the bales of hemp piled around the rectory and, had the rectory caught fire itself from the burning bales of hemp, they (Americans) could have been roasted and charred alive inside the rectory. The Americans, however, did not easily surrender. It was discovered later that they were buying time for reinforcement or rescue to arrive. And they had dug trenches at the back of the convent(2). Then early on the third day of the siege, the 600 men of General Lukban arrived. Intelligence report from General Lukban’s men revealed that American reinforcement or rescuers were steaming up the Catubig River from Lao-ang. The rescuers arrived in the town early on the fourth day, i.e., Wednesday, April 19, 1900. A great battle immediately erupted after a lull of almost two days when only sporadic fires where heard. The bells of Saint Joseph Church did not stop ringing the entire morning of the final day of the battle of Catubig. The Americans tried to take the bells by scaling the belfry. But they never succeeded for two reasons. First, they were getting killed in their attempt; second, the belfry of Saint Joseph Church was difficult to scale. It is mounted on the highest point of the church frame over the main facade, unlike other churches in Samar, as the one in Balangiga, where belfries are built detached from the church and lower in height. Sensing disaster because it was trapped from two open sides of the Catubig River by militiamen in their dugouts—as people do now in peacetime during fluvial parades in celebration of Santo Niño—the steamer Tonyik, which ferried in the reinforcement from Lao-ang, suddenly pulled out. But it was chased by the militiamen and by some of General Lukban’s men who captured two motorized smaller American boats. Some two kilometers down the river, downstream toward Lao-ang, the steamer ran out of control due to heavy fires by some Lukban men who set a sentry at the Irawahan tributary river to the left of the main river. Those manning the steamer were so scared to death because they were also being chased by Catubignon militia and the Lukban men in the main river. The ill-fated Tonyik hit the sharply curving, rocky edge of the Catubig River at a hillside called Kalirukan (a local term for maelstrom because the water in that segment of the river is violent during high floods) and suddenly capsized and went down the deep water, lying on its left side and bringing seven soldiers to their watery graves. The real estate immediately to the right side of this segment of the river, on the downstream direction toward Lao-ang, was then owned by—and still belongs today to the descendants of—Domingo Mercader(3). In fact the settlement that later sprang from the adjoining real estate is now called Bgy.Domingo Mercader. After a week the American corps of engineers salvaged the sunken boat, but not without leaving some heavy items like some steel ballasts and anchors to the Mercader household as gratuity of battle and for having given humanitarian aid to the scared and distressed American survivors—with the consent of the Catubig militia and the Lukban men of course. Cpl. Anthony J. Carson of Company H, 43rd Infantry Regiment (later awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor, as aforementioned), one of the survivors, openly admitted that the Battle of Catubig was a total defeat for the American forces. On board another steamer that picked up the survivors of the capsized Tonyik, Lt. Sweeney, one of the survivors, was so thankful to his Maker for having survived. The U.S. War Department recorded the event as “…the heaviest bloody encounter yet for the American troops” against the Filipino freedom fighters. This account is so intriguing. This seems to include those in Luzon! The New York Times called the Battle of Catubig, “horrifying”. The Americans recorded their casualties at 22, 19 dead and three wounded. But the Lukban forces believed there was a cover up by the Americans of their actual casualties. Other published accounts recorded 31 American deaths(4), which obviously included the fatalities when the Tonyik capsized, as well as those who jumped ship as it was speeding away from the thick of battle almost uncontrolled from the town of Catubig. For example, Maria Mercader Lambino(5), then a 13-year old daughter of Domingo Mercader and an eyewitness to the battle, used to tell her grandchildren that one American soldier who jumped into the water, as the Tonyik was attempting to pull out, shouted, “Dinamat!” The American while swimming and cursing was hacked to death by a militia boloman who was in a dugout. A Lukban soldier could have shot the American point blank, but to conserve ammo he let a militiaman do the kill with his baid. Maria’s grandchildren later interpreted dinamat as “god damn it”. The Filipinos accounted 150 deaths of their own due in large measure to their exposed position when attacking the rectory. Antonio Hipe (now deceased)(6), who was a clam diver, together with other clam divers, had recovered quite a heap more of steel ballasts that the corps of engineers, in salvaging the Tonyik, had left at the bottom of the waters in Kalirukan. However, local blacksmiths had made most of them into farm implements(7). Conclusion. The battle of Catubig is an overlooked glory of Filipinos in the Philippine-American war, some say. By the same token, this is attributed to the penchant of the U.S. military at that time for spiriting away immediately to Washington, D.C., any records of combat that gave the American side the appearance of ignominy and total defeat. Hence, Filipino historians doing research in the Philippines—and writing history books with what they had—were left without complete information. The battle of Catubig had not appeared even in footnotes of Philippine history books. + + + + + + + + + + End notes: (1)The narratives in this article are in many cases drawn from the author’s own recollections of stories he avidly listened to—from eyewitnesses to the confrontation and who had no axe to grind—when he was growing up in his hometown of Catubig. The battle should thus be a subject for further research and study by serious students of history and public affairs. The author wishes to acknowledge the suggestions of Dr. Romeo V. Cruz, UP professor of history (ret.), on how to proceed with the narratives that involve oral accounts of individuals who are eyewitnesses to historic events. Likewise, the author wishes to convey his gratitude to Prof. Cesar Torres, formerly of UP, for soliciting this article and for encouraging its completion. (2) While growing up, the author used to play with other boys of his age inside the trenches. (3) Domingo Mercader was the maternal great, great grandfather of the author. (4) Editorial, Leyte Samar Daily Express, May 14, 2000. (5) The author is one of Maria Mercader Lambino’s grandchildren. (6) Antonio Hipe was the husband of the author’s aunt Lucia Mercader Lambino Hipe. (7) This was as of April 1957 when the author left for Manila to pursue his college education. Other Sources—see also end note (1), above: (1) U.S. War Department records on the Philippine insurrection, National Archives, Washington, D.C. (2) Leyte Samar Daily Express, May 14, 2000. (3) Elinando B. Cinco’s cyber article, April 2003. Copyright ©2004 Quintin Lambino Doroquez All Rights Reserved [*Editor’s note: The author is a native of the towns of Catubig and Las Navas in the Catubig Valley, Northern Samar, where he grew up. He graduated valedictorian from high school and went to college with scholarships, while working at the same time. Immediately after college he left for the U.S. to attend graduate school and earned an MBA in accounting and finance. In college, he was editor-in-chief of his school newspaper and became a member of the foremost student association of the Philippines, the College Editors' Guild of the Philippines. He worked for and retired from the University of California (UC) System. Thus far he is the only Filipino to attain a management level position in the Office of the President of the University, where his primary responsibilities were editing the four-volume University of California System Accounting Manual and the formulation and development of policies pertaining to the business and financial affairs of the University. He taught college for two years, but abandoned this pursuit—even after being encouraged by the chairman of his department to pursue tenure—in order to focus in earnest on his management career. While working at the UC, he was selected to attend a four-summer management program at full University’s expense, for which he obtained an advanced certificate in college and university financial administration. He won three outstanding performance awards at different times—including the coveted Management Incentive Award in the Office of the President of the University. In view of the heavy writing requirement of his work, this award qualified him for admission to the English department of Oxford University in England where he earned a certificate in creating writing. Mr. Doroquez is enjoying presently his retirement by writing short stories, articles, essays, poetry, humor, etc. He has put on hold a novel he was working on entitled, Widowed Young, in order to pursue other pressing writing projects.] post comment | 4 comments Web design by Samar News.com Last updated: 02/11/2008

JULY 15, 2010 UPDATE REPORT ON THE FILIPINO DEATH INSIDE A US FACILITY

Gregan Cardeño - Bulatlat


The story could have come right out of an American-made suspense thriller with the mysterious death of a nondescript fellow followed by a suspicious cover-up by government officials and the murder of a likely whistleblower. It has the makings of a classic whodunit except that this time [...]

To the Children of the Prisoners of War & the Hunted Under the GMA Assumed Government

YOUR HEROES ARE OUR HEROES TOO

Your heroes are not mutineers—a deception concocted by an intruding government. Who is the lawful authority they rebelled against? Is it the one whose only claim to legitimacy is the prevention of presentation of evidences of the GMA involvement in the tampering of the 2004 presidential election results in an investigation?

Your heroes are not coup plotters—a deception concocted by an intruding government. What has a coup got to do with our being continuously occupied by the Americans today since 1899 when they begun to invade us? The Americans have poured their toxic wastes in the Subic, Zambales area which resulted to rare diseases to our children there. They raped our Filipinas freely. They continue to conduct military exercises in our terrain to familiarize in an area strategically valuable to them. This makes us Filipinos, even more militarily vulnerable to the Americans. What has a coup got to do with the continued subtle invasion of the Chinese of our economic areas from the 1900s till now also as a result of that American invasion of 1899. There are Americans like Capt David Fagen, Mark Twain, Andrew Carnegie and many others who defected on our side or have fought for the rights of nations which their own nation have abused. There are Chinese or Chinese meztizos in the Philippines such as Herman Tiu Laurel, Alejandro Lichauco and Gen Danilo Lim in the Philippines who: came here with legitimate purpose; fought for the cause of our liberation as a Filipino nation-- they are more Filipinos than the collaborator GMA, the congressmen for sale or Filipino mercenaries in the Armed Forces. They are either assets or added treasures of our nation. In the past, the Spanish blood in the veins of our heroes like Andrés Bonifacio and Fr. José Burgos did not deter them from confronting the Spaniards by having organized an independence movement for us and upheld our status and rights. For details and references of this information, see my post at http://jmgpatria.blogspot.com/2009/06/developmental-basis.html and http://jmgpatria.blogspot.com/2009/06/chinese-invasion-continues.html.

Thru all these invasion, GMA has been collaborating. Is this not treason? What has a coup got to do with arresting the perpetration of the acts of treason? Is this not the duty of every soldier of a nation? Is defending the nation against foreign invasion not the essence of the profession of a soldier?

In more healthy and civilized nations like France, Israel, Japan and Vietnam, their soldiers professional as they are, would have spontaneously mounted a fierce resistance against foreign invaders and their collaborators. Gen Charles de Gaulle of France is one example of having led the resistance against the German invasion and the French puppet government of the Germans, Petain. A few years after that, he had the US base in France removed.

But we Filipinos also have a tradition of warriors who resisted the American invaders of 1899. To name a few, Gen Ricarte, Gen Antonio Luna, Gen Alejandrino, Gen Tino, Gen Lukban, Gen Malvar, Gen Sakay, and Maj Torres Bugallon. They offered their lives to leave as a nation born in 1898 and one we can come home to as our own. This is the fine tradition inherited by professional filipino soldiers among us today. They are, as all of us filipinos should be, continuing that unfinished fight to recover our inherited nation.

Your heroes are continuing that fight, so that we can all soon come, to our own home.

Your heroes are our heroes too! Please tell your classmates.

José Miguel García

WE INSIST ON THE LABEL "FILIPINO-AMERICAN WAR", YET WE CALL IT A REVOLUTION

WHICH IS WHICH?

Was the revolution started by Andrés Bonifacio for filipinas to become independent from Spain which paved the way for the birth of our nation- Filipinas not finished? From a colonial status to national status, was that revolution not finished? Did this not pave the way for our constitution, our academia militar and a new identity- a nation?

This was the basis why our republican army, our newly developed defense system lead by Gen Ricarte, Gen Luna, and other filipino generals defended Filipinas with their blood- our blood. It was a nation defending an invading foreigner. It was a defender versus an aggressor. It was that clear and simple. For those among us who have a clear concept of nationhood, no foreign aggression is ever justified.

When the north americans came, in 1898, they pretended to be part of that revolution by projecting an image of a midwife helping us to be separated from Spain until we were born as an independent nation. They further pretended to have been protecting us, and nurturing us towards maturation.

This north american deception was what led Aguinaldo to a confusion. And lacking in proper education, he did not have any concept of nation. He could not distinguish our former status- a colony before 1898, from that of the new one- a nation after 1898, he could not see the north americans stepping into our territory as already that of foreigners trespassing. He thought that the north americans were just another colonizer taking over the status of the former colonizer which was Spain. And to him, the issue was, whether the north americans whom in his perception is the new colonizer, is a good or bad colonizer merely colonizing separate tribes and petty kingdoms just like the inhabitants of what is now the present Philippine Archipelago in the 16th century.

This accounts for the situation handling conflict between Aguinaldo, of mediocre education and intelligence and Luna of excellent educational background and high intelligence.

Our status after 1898 was already that of a nation. The north americans or any foreigner stepping into our shores without our properly allowing them automatically assume the invader or aggressor status. When we fought them, our status already became that of the defender. We did not remain revolutionaries or insurgents as if the invaders we were fighting were not foreigners but established authority, and our conflict have been merely internal.

We have to breach this strong wall our invaders until today have been building around us which for decades have castrated our soldiers into never developing beyond counterinsurgency capable who have been merely auxilliaries of United States Armed Forces. We have to breach this strong wall separating us from our inherited nation and being disintegrated to behave individually for the benefit of our foreign invaders. After we have started the breach, we can start behaving as a nation with our own problems to settle among ourselves, organic needs we need to address, and a destiny to pursue.

José Miguel García

LICERIO I. GERONIMO (1855-1924) Freedom Fighter *

One of the bravest generals in the Filipino-American War was Licerio Geronimo. He was born in Sampaloc, Manila on 27 August 1855 to Graciano Geronimo and Flaviana Imaya of Gapan, Nueva Ecija. Having no formal education, Geronimo learned to read from his friends and practiced by reading awits and corridos, which earned him qualifications to join the poetical joust called duplo.

He spent his childhood helping in the farm – cutting grass, gathering woods or herding the carabao. At the age of nine, he lived with his grandfather in a farm in San Miguel, Bulacan. He was already 14 years old when he joined his father in Montalban where he practically did all farm chores.

Geronimo married twice. When his first wife Modesta de la Cruz died, he married Cayetana Linco of San Mateo with whom he had five children. To support his family, he worked in the farm and as boatman, transporting passengers and laundresses along the Marikina and Pasig Rivers.

Geronimo joined the Katipunan when Bonifacio established a chapter in Montalban. When revolution broke out in 1896, Geronimo went to Balintawak on request of Bonifacio. On August 30 that same year, he was with the group that attacked San Juan del Monte. In Montalban, he organized his own force with men from San Mateo and Marikina, using Mt. Puray as their base of operations. His troops served under General Francisco Makabulos that operated in San Rafael, Bulacan and under General Mariano Llanera. The latter operated in the towns of San Miguel, Bulacan and Cabanatuan, Nueva Ecija. “General Cerio” as he was fondly called became popular among the revolutionists because of his skills in combat. He triumphantly defended his post from the Spaniards and augmented ammunitions and supplies of the revolutionists by ambushing Spanish carts.

When the pact of Biyak-na-Bato was signed, he retired to his farm. In May 1898, Guillermo served the Spanish Militia Territorial which Spain formed after its fleet was destroyed at Manila Bay.

Upon Aguinaldo’s return and the fight against Spain continued, Geronimo left the Militia and joined General Pio del Pilar on 13 August 1898. In November of the same year, Aguinaldo appointed him division general for San Mateo, Rizal. When the Philippine-American War broke out, Geronimo defended Marikina. He helped build trenches and reorganized the Filipino troops in San Juan and Mandaluyong. Antonio Luna appointed him commanding general of the third military zone with operations in Manila and Rizal.

In December 19, 1899 a battle in San Juan ensued, wherein General Cerio and his guerilla force, Tiradores de la Muerte, inflicted severe blow to the enemies by killing General Henry W. Lawton and 13 American soldiers.

Geronimo was a great disturbance to the Americans for his damaging guerrilla tactics against them. In July 1900, General Trias named him jefe superior of the joint forces of the second and third zones of Manila. In August, he took command of the district of Morong.

With most of the areas in the country placed under control of the Americans and with the successive surrenders or captures of revolutionary leaders, Geronimo was convinced to give up. Thus, on 29 March 1901, through the efforts of the Federal Party, Geronimo surrendered his forces to Captain Henderson of the 42nd Infantry.

On 1 June 1902, he worked with the Philippine Constabulary as a fourth class inspector. He rose from the rank to third lieutenant and as inspector in December of the same year. As a Constabulary officer, he run after the ladrones operating in the towns of San Mateo, Marikina, Malabon, and Novaliches.

On May 16, 1904 Geronimo was dismissed from the service despite his valuable services in the Constabulary on the grounds of engaging in gambling. After his dismissal, he returned to farming in Montalban. He died on January 16, 1924.


* Extracted from these sources:

Fabella, G. F. “The Battle of San Mateo,” Philippine Free Press. December 18, 1954. (With photo)
Manuel, E. Arsenio. Dictionary of Philippine Biography Volume 1. Quezon City: Filipiniana Publishing, 1955.
Quirino, Carlos. Who’s Who in Philippine History. Manila: Tahanan Books, 1995.

"PERFECT JUSTICE" from an Excerpt from Arnaldo Dumindin: THE WAR RAGES, 1899

Excerpt from DUNINDIN, Arnaldo: Website: Philippine-American War, 1899-1902: The War Rages, 1899 (1)

Father and son killed by Americans. Photo taken in 1899, location not specified. A U.S. Red Cross worker reported seeing “horribly mutilated Filipino bodies,” and said, “American soldiers are determined to kill every Filipino in sight.” A soldier from Washington wrote of bloodthirsty “sights you could hardly believe,” and concluded, “A white man seems to forget that he is human.”

U.S. military forays descended into a series of atrocities that included the massacre of prisoners, civilian and military, and entire villages. General William Shafter told a journalist it might be necessary to kill half the native population to bring “perfect justice” to the other half.

Source:

1. http://philippineamericanwar.webs.com/the warrages1899.htm#

THE COST OF SPEAKING ENGLISH TO US, FILIPINOS

This is the cause of why we today, although filipinos, speak English, a very foreign language. We were made to pay with at least 500,000 to 900,000 of our lives in the form of food deprivation, water deprivation, torture, terrorism, hostage taking, execution and mass murder, just so that they, the americans, will be able to transmit the developmental virus Heredity Injuring Virus into our system.

This resulted to the corruption of our: national identity; history; perception of the world; creativity; moral ethics; values; intellectual process; culture; defense system; political system; functioning relationship with each other and that of other nationals; and all of our systems.

This corrupted the way our nation has been formed and developed. This corrupted the development of our relationship with each other including our brother muslims. This corrupted our present behavior as individuals and as a people. Our national developmental code has been corrupted.

We have become worshipping dependents of our american invaders. We have likewise become selfish individuals with only apathy and contempt for the rest of our brothers.

Because of the american invasion, the definition of our relationship with our brother muslims have been corrupted. Instead of us developing this definition of our relationship among ourselves upon the proper organic historical basis, the Heredity Injuring Virus which the americans transmitted infected that development which mutated to facilitate the needs of the foreign americans which was in conflict with that of our own organic needs.

Let us be grateful to the English language and the continuing american invasion. We fiercely resisted in 1899 and have yet to fully accomplish them today.


José Miguel García

Philippine-American War, 1899-1902 by Arnaldo Dumindin

An excerpt from the work of Arnaldo Dumindin.




Two mortally terrified Filipino women are being brought in for interrogation. Photo was taken in 1899, location unspecified. The Manila correspondent of the Philadelphia Ledger reported, “Our men have been relentless, have killed to exterminate men, women, children, prisoners and captives, active insurgents and suspected people from lads up to 10, the idea prevailing that the Filipino was not much better than a dog . . .” (In Cabugao, Ilocos Sur, on June 21, 1900, five US soldiers ---John Wagner, Edward Walpole, Harry Dennis and John Allance and a Private Meeks---who were sickened by the atrocities perpetrated by their fellow Americans, deserted to the Filipino side; on Nov. 25, 1900, in the same town, another American, Private William Hyer, joined the Filipinos).

GeoCities: José Torres Bugallón*

JOSÉ TORRES BUGALLÓN

(1873-1899)


 

Jose Torres Bugallon, great military strategist in the Filipino-American War, was born on August 28, 1873 in Salasa (now Bugallon), Pangasinan to Jose Asas Bugallon. His father came from Baliwag, Bulakan; his mother was of the well-known Gonzales family of Pangasinan.

After elementary schooling in Salasa, he went to San Isidro.

Nueva Ecija where he completed in 1882 the first and second years of the secondary course under Don Rufino Villaruz. In 1886, he enrolled at the Colegio de San Juan de Letran, completed the secondary course and earned the Bachelor of Arts degree in 1889, with high scholastic ratings.

After his graduation he entered the Seminary of San Carlos with the intention of becoming a priest although his real love was the military. Having passed the validation examination given by the Spanish government in 1892, he went abroad as a pensionado of the government to the world-famed Military Academy at Toledo, Spain where he spent three years of concentrated study in the science of military organization and warfare.

In 1896, he graduated as 2nd Lieutenant. Upon his return to the Philippines that same year, he joined and served with the 70th Infantry Regiment of the Spanish Army. He fought several battles and after the battle of Talisay on May 30, 1897, he was promoted to Captain. He was also awarded the coveted Cross of Maria Cristina and the Red Cross for Military Honor (Cruz Roja del Merito Militar).  After the Treaty of Paris on December 10, 1898, and the cessation of hostilities, he obtained his clearance papers.

At that time, General Antonio Luna urgently needed instructors for the training of officers in the European art of warfare at Malolos, Bulacan. Jose joined General Luna's staff as aide-de-camp and recruitment officer for Spanish war veterans. A well-trained military officer, he was very instrumental in the reorganization and discipline of the Filipino Army. This made him an invaluable officer to General Luna.

On February 5, 1899, Bugallon was in command of the heavily defended frontline at La Loma. The American troops under General Arthur MacArthur attacked this defense sector. In the thick of battle, the Filipino forces were outflanked, exposing Torres Bugallon to the superior firepower of the enemy. He was hit by a bullet in the thighs.

Upon learning from Lt. Colonel Queri, that Bugallon was wounded, General Luna ordered: "Bugallon wounded. Order forward. He must be saved at all costs. Bugallon is worth 500 Filipino soldiers. He is one of my hopes for future victory."

General Luna found him severely wounded and prostrate in a ditch at the side of the road. All that he could utter was "My ... don't expose yourself so much. Don't advance any farther."

For galiantry in action he was honored with the regalia befitting his heroism, promoted to Lieutenant Colonel, and pinned with a medal worth his military valor.  Lt. Colonel Bugallon was withdrawn from the frontlines by Commander Hernando, and General Luna himself, who took him to the Kalookan medical station where he was given first aid by Dr. Jose Luna and Santiago Barcelona. By train, he was rushed by General

Luna to Malolos for hospitalization. Somewhere after Lolomboy and nearing the approach to Bocaue, Lt. Colonel Bugallon asked: "Have the reinforcement arrived?" Too weak to keep his strength any longer due to profuse bleeding, he died on the breast of General Antonio Luna, a few hours after he was withdrawn from the battlefield.

Commander Torres Bugallon's death was a great loss to General Antonio Luna who wept unashamedly before the lifeless body of his comrade-at-arms.

Arrangements were made to bury his remains in Bigaa but it was decided later to inter the corpse at the Malolos cemetery. There  a tomb with a modest stone slab marked his final resting place.

Though felled in battle, Bugallon with his gallantry under the very superior enemy firepower, surpassed whatever shortcomings he had in Iris military career. He owed a great debt of gratitude to Spain for his training and education. But his decision to renounce his military allegiance and to join the Filipino Army not only for martial laurels but for the bright future of the land of his birth for which he sacrificed his life, made him a hero, a true Filipino.

To perpetuate his memory, a law sponsored in 1921 by Congressman Mauro Navarro of Pangasinan changed the name of Salasa, the hero's birthplace, to Bugallon.

His remains now lie buried in the Sampalok Church in Manila.

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* http://www.geocities.com/sinupan/BugallonT.htm