The Katipunan Part 5

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

affair, to live in the house of the said doctor (see foot-note p. 48), taking with him his paramour, the doctor paying the greater part of the expenses thus incurred.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Being by nature credulous, ignorant and superst.i.tious, the indian fell an easy victim to the mysteries of freemasonry, which served him as are introduction to the semi-savage methods of the "Liga Filipina"

and the barbarous practices of the Katipunan, the pacto-de-sangre of which, carried him back to the savage times of his remote ancestors who were drawn from their mountain and forest lairs and domesticated by the Religious Orders.

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

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

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

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

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

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