Cry of Balintawak

According to Emillio Aguinaldo’s Memoirs: Gunita ng Himag sikan there were two letters that were sent
by Andres Bonifacio dated at August 22 and 24. On 22 August 1896, the Magdalo Council received a secret
letter from Supremo Andres Bonifacio, in Balintawak, which stated that the Katipunan will hold an
important meeting on the 24th of the said month, and that it was extremely necessary to send two
representatives or delegates in the name of the said Council. The meeting would be timed to coincide
with the feast day of Saint Bartolomew in Malabon, Tambobong. Upon receiving the said invitation, our
President, Mr. Baldomero Aguinaldo, called a meeting at Tribunal of Cavite el Viejo…We were
apprehensive about sending representatives because the areas they would have pass through were
dangerous and was a fact that the Civil Guard and Veterans were arresting travelers, especially those
suspected of being freemasons and members of Katipunan. Nevertheless, we agreed and nominated to
send a single representative in the person of our brave brother, Mr. Domingo Orcullo… Our representative
arrived safely at his destination and also returned unharmed, bearing a letter from the Supremo dated 24
August. It contained no orders but the shocking announcement that the Katipunan would attack Manila
at night on Saturday, 29 August, the signal for which would be the putting out of the lamps in Luneta. He
added that many of his comrade had been captured and killed by the Civil Guard and Veterans in Gulod.
According to General Santiago Alvarez’s memoirs of a Filipino general that there were 500 men at
Kangkong a village at Caloocan on August 23 and at the very next day they were now a thousand. Andres
bonifacio held a meeting at ten o clock, present at the meeting were Dr. Pio Valenzuela, Emilio Jacinto,
Briccio Pantas, Enrique Pacheco, Ramon bernando, Panteleon Torres, Francisico Tarreon, Vicente
Fernandez, Teodora Plata, and others. At the meeting they approved an uprising to defend the people’s
freedom at midnight Saturday , 29 August 1896