How Visayan patriots won our freedom

“The Party is in control of all information and revises history, even yesterday's history, to reflect their current version of events. Winston is very much aware of this because it is his job in the paradoxically named Ministry of Truth to change the records of history. He cannot ignore what he remembers: Oceania was at war with Eurasia and allied with Eastasia yesterday, and not vice versa. If anyone else remembers differently, they certainly will not say so.” (Encyclopedia Encarta review of George Orwell’s classic novel ‘1984’)

By Alex P. Vidal

OUR former columnist in the Sun Star Iloilo, Dr. Jed Pensar, once exhorted his fellow Ilonggos to “forget not how Visayan patriots won our freedom.”

Pensar reminded us: “What is to be told is a true history of bravery, heroism, and patriotism.”

He narrated a story that in the latter part of 1896, Visayan revolutionists led by Francisco del Castillo, Candido Iban, Gabriel Alba, Ruperto Arce secretly started to organize a mass uprising against the Spaniards in the province of Capiz (which at that time consisted present-day Aklan and Capiz provinces).

On 17 March 1897, General del Castillo with about a hundred armed men entered Kalibo poblacion in order to ask for an audience with Municipal Captain Juan Ascarraga. The Spanish opened fire at them. 
The first battle to liberate the Visayas from Spain had begun. General del Castillo bravely led the way riding a white horse in front of his troops, and was shot dead by a sniper. Colonel Candido Iban, his second in command, was captured on his way to Kalibo.

On 19 March 1897, Colonel Ricardo Monet, commanding officer of the Spanish in the Visayas arrived in Kalibo in order to reinforce the Spanish garrison. 
He proclaimed an amnesty to all armed revolutionaries. Fifty men gave themselves up in good faith. Instead Colonel Monet had 19 of them shot on 23 March 1897, and then had their bodies paraded in Kalibo plaza as an example to what would happen to rebels. 
The 19 Visayan martyred patriots were Colonel Candido Iban, Benito Iban, Angel Fernandez, Canuto Segovia, Catalino Mangat, Claro Delgado, Domingo de la Cruz, Francisco Villarente, Gabino Sucgang, Gabino Yonsal, Isidro Jimenez, Lamberto Mangat, Maximo Mationg, Roman Aguirre, Simon Inocencio, Simplicio Reyes, Tomas Briones, Valeriano Dalida, and Valeriano Masinas.

ORGANIZE

Other patriots in Capiz continued organizing for the cause of independence. On 4 May 1898, General Esteban Contreras, Colonel Pascual Barza, Captain Alejandro Balgos, Captain Ramon Contreras and their troops attacked and drove out the Spanish forces in Pan-ay Capiz. 
The Spanish however counter attacked and after a battle lasting 4 days defeated the revolutionaries who retreated to the swamps of Pilar. Pan-ay town was then burned down by the vengeful Spanish and 12 of its citizens were executed.

In December 1898, the Spanish finally evacuated Capiz province after they lost a fierce battle with a battalion of troops under the leadership of General Esteban Contreras and Colonel Pascual Barza, and under the field command of Colonel Juan Arce in Pilar town.

Meanwhile on 21 September 1898, another band of patriots led by General Leandro Fullon, Pedro Ledesma, Silvestre Salvio, Ruperto Abellon, Angel Salazar, and Don Esteban de la Rama launched a freedom movement in Inayawan, Pandan, Antique. They soon raided and captured the town of Pandan, and then occupied Culasi the next day. 
The Spanish forces in Culasi were led by Lt. Agustin Alcayre and Sgt. Juan Espino, but their Visayan guardia civil subalterns rebelled on their way to Tibiao, killing Sgt. Espino and wounding Lt. Alcayre. They then presented themselves to General Fullon in Culasi, who reorganized and trained them.

On 29 September 1898, a skirmish between the Spaniards and Fullon’s men in Bugasong resulted in the death of a Spanish officer, Lt. Game. 
Afterwards, the patriots had to retreat back to Culasi because of superior Spanish firepower. The Spaniards under the command of General Brandies soon retook Culasi. 
However, on 20 October 1898, the Visayan guardia civiles under Pfc. Marcelino Eping mutinied and killed their Spanish officers in Culasi, and General Brandies was forced to retreat to Bugasong. Next day, Pfc. Eping presented himself to General Fullon along with 190 of his men.

General Fullon finally attacked San Jose on 23 November 1898. The Visayan patriots proved victorious and next morning formally occupied San Jose.

Elsewhere in Panay Island, on May 1898, the last Governor General of Spain in the Philippine Islands, Governor General Diego de los Rios (who was also a military General before his appointment as Governor General) arrived in Iloilo. In an effort to stem the Visayan advance, he offered to expel abusive Spanish friars, disperse the guardia civil, and even dangled the possibility of Independence. 
In order to show his sincerity, he created a Council of Reforms. However, most of the Visayans by then no longer desired merely reforms, but outright liberty. The Visayans in Panay had already made plans for a general revolt with General Martin Delgado as Commander in Chief.

TEMPORARY

A temporary government supposed to represent the whole Visayas was assembled in Santa Barbara Iloilo on August 1898. The following officers were elected:  Roque Lopez (President of the Assembly), Vicente Franco (Vice President), Venancio Concepcion (Secretary of Finance), Ramon Avancena (Secretary of State), Jovito Yunsay (Secretary of Justice), Julio Hernandez (Secretary of War), Fernando Salas (General Secretary). 
A military Department was also organized with the following officers: General Martin Delgado (Commander in Chief), Perfecto Poblador (General of the Army for Concepcion and the adjacent towns), Pascual Magbanua (Administrative Officer of the Military); Angel Corteza (Commander of the Southern zone); Adriano Hernandez (Commander of the Northern zone); Fermin Rivas (Commander of the central zone).

Before then, Martin Delgado had been appointed by Governor General de los Rios as a captain in the Sta Barbara volunteer militia, which was organized by the previous Spanish Governor General (Basilio Agustin) in order to contain the Visayan military gains. 
The patriotic Delgado however secretly worked for the Visayan instead of the Spanish cause, organizing for an armed rebellion against the Spanish. 
Several Visayan Generals conferred (among them Raymundo Melliza, Pablo Araneta, Adriano Hernandez, Pascual Magbanua, and Angel Corteza), and chose Delgado as “General en Jefe de los Tropas del Ejercito Libertador de Visayas y Governador Politico-Militar”.

Notice that General Delgado’s title clearly indicates that he was head of troops in the Visayas. Nothing is mentioned of Aguinaldo or any subservience to the Tagalogs who were then waging their own revolution against Spain, a war that the Tagalogs never won. 
In accordance with the pact of Biac-na-bató, of 14 December 1897 between then Governor General Primo de Rivera and Aguinaldo, Aguinaldo and his staff went into voluntary exile in Hong Kong for amnesty and money, while the Spanish authorities promised reforms within three years. I will say the obvious thing, that Aguinaldo and the other Tagalog leaders accepted grease money from the Spanish, bailing out in a war they could not win. 
Tagalista historians tend to say Aguinaldo was nobly planning to turn traitor to the Spanish by buying arms with this grease money, but in my opinion, personal benefit was really what was foremost in his mind at that time.

JOYFUL

On 17 November 1898, before 3000 joyful residents of Sta Barbara Iloilo, the Visayan Leaders and Generals proclaimed Independence. However, by itself, it would not have amounted to much. 
After all, any interested group of Visayan patriots could today go to Sta Barbara plaza and proclaim Independence from Manila, and even if they had an audience of 3000, it would be more of a symbolic rather than a politically concrete act.

Let us point out that Aguinaldo and the Tagalog revolutionaries did what was fundamentally the same action in Malolos. General Emilio Aguinaldo was proclaimed President of the first Philippine Republic during the ratification of the Malolos Republic Constitution and its inauguration in Malolos, Bulacan on 23 January 1899. 
No doubt it was a symbolic act of great significance to the Tagalogs fighting against Spain, but fact number one is that no country in the world recognized this proclamation. Fact number two is that the Tagalog revolutionaries (although with a cause as just as ours in the Visayas) never won their war against Spain. 
On the other hand, we Visayans won!

After a series of battles (wherein General Roque Lopez and Colonel Quintin Salas figured prominently), by 15 December 1898, a Visayan military regiment (under the field command of Lt. Agustin Solis) had cleared Jaro of Spanish forces. General Delgado then transferred his headquarters to Jaro, Iloilo.

On December 23, 1898 Diego de los Rios, the last Spanish Governor General of the Philippine Islands formally surrendered to the Federal Republic of The Visayas (supposed to represent the Visayas-Mindanao area), symbolically relinquishing his sword to the Visayan forces. On December 25, the Visayans held a triumphal march to Plaza Libertad and proclaimed Independence.

(Note that our patriotic forebears completely understood the implications of Federalism and openly advocated it in the society that they were planning to build. 
The use of the word ‘canton’ indicated that they at least partially desired a Swiss-type of Federalism, which is technically probably more of a more devolved Confederation.)

After much blood, sweat, and tears, Visayans finally won the war for Independence.

Earlier, on 5 November 1898, the victorious Negros Visayans, after a series of military victories in both Negros Occidental and Negros Oriental provinces, proclaimed Independence in Bago Plaza. 
Next day, on 6 November 1898, Don Diego de los Rios, the last Governor-General of Spain in the Philippines formally signed a document of surrender to the Independent Republic of Negros revolutionary leaders (General Aniceto Lacson - President, and General Juan Araneta - Secretary of War) in Bacolod.

Negros historians honor this event as ‘Sinco de Noviembre.”

(Why were the Visayans successful in their struggle against colonial Spain compared to the Tagalogs?  In my opinion, there were probably two main factors. One, the Visayans did not allow the kind of murderous internal factionalism that plagued the failed Tagalog revolution, which among others resulted in the deaths of Bonifacio and Luna, to dominate their movement. 
When it was apparent for example that Captain Delgado was the most qualified in leading the Visayan army, the other Visayan leaders simply cooperated in appointing him as the commanding General of the troops. 
Second, the accounts of Spanish-led troops regularly defecting to the Visayan side (Captain Delgado himself could be regarded as a defector) indicate that the Visayan army in short order had evolved into a body of trained professional soldiers. 
When the Spanish concentrated most of their remaining troops in Panay, what they faced was not a rabble of untrained recruits, but professional Visayan soldiers who had defected from Spanish garrisons and the guardia civil driven by dreams of independence. 
On the other hand, it is possible that the Tagalog army was mostly made of hastily recruited troops from the peasantry, who lacked training in soldiering. 
In brief, the Tagalogs who worked for the Spanish as soldiers and guardia civil remained mostly loyal to Spain; while the Visayans defected en masse to the Visayan cause. There is the implication that most of the Visayans in general were more patriotic than their Tagalog counterparts.)

SURRENDERS

Until today, these formal surrenders by Governor General de los Rios to these two cantonal governments have never been repudiated. 
This leads to a fascinating view of the treaty of Paris, wherein Spain ceded the whole Philippine Islands to the USA for $20-million. 
The treaty of Paris was officially consummated and became legally binding on 11 April 1899, after the surrender of the Spanish to our two Visayan Governments. 
Since you cannot sell what is not yours, and the Visayas-Mindanao area had already been passed by Spain to the jurisdiction of these Governments, then it would follow that only Luzon had been ceded to the USA by Spain.

This Treaty was the legal basis upon which the Americans formed their own colonial Government in the Philippines. Eventually this Government, through continuous legal processes, gave way to the present Manila-based Unitarian Government of the Philippines. 
From this point of view, the present Unitarian Government of the Philippines is derived via continuous legal processes from the Treaty of Paris.

The treaty of Paris is therefore invalid with respect to these Governments. One could therefore take the view that these governments are still legally legitimate. 
This could imply that the Manila-based Tagalista-oriented Unitarian central government of the Philippines in Visayas-Mindanao is an Occupational Government, which ultimately originated from an invalid Treaty of Paris.

Mga Kasimanwa, this is the way we should be telling our story to the Visayan youth! Yet what does the educational curriculum from Manila enforced in all Philippine schools mention of our efforts to achieve our freedom? Nothing! History as taught in our schools is the history of the Tagalog Revolution against Spain. 
It is not even as good a story as ours, as the Tagalogs never won, and is severely tainted by ruthless infighting, dictatorship, the acceptance of Spanish grease money and bail-out to Hong Kong, and the murders of Katipunan Founder Andres Bonifacio and General Luna by Aguinaldo. 
While Aguinaldo was advocating a formal dictatorship on his part, the Visayans were advocating Federalism. From a certain point of view, there is nothing to be proud of in the story of the failed Tagalog revolution.

INDEPENDENT

To recap, we Visayans had established two Independent cantonal states by 1898 against the might of a European colonial power, a first in the history of archipelagic Asia. We should be standing proud! Instead our general populace at present knows nothing of these. 
It is not our people’s fault because our educational curriculum is totally controlled by Manila-based institutions, which enforce their own version of history. Our fault is that we take the Unitarian system imposing such slanted history on us standing down.

We could still change this erasure of our own history. In Federalism, which the Visayan patriots mentioned above envisioned and openly advocated, the local state controls its educational curriculum. 
Under the present Unitarian system, Manila has total control over what is being taught to our children. Our patriotic forebears fought for Federalism and sacrificed their blood for it. Let us not fail them! (Main source: History of Panay Copyright 1973 by Felix Regalado and Quintin Franco)