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Biography of Antonio Luna, Hero of the Philippine-American War

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Antonio Luna

Wikimedia Commons / Public Domain

by

Kallie Szczepanski

Updated August 19, 2019

Antonio Luna (October 29, 1866–June 5, 1899) was a soldier, chemist, musician, war strategist, journalist,
pharmacist, and hot-headed general, a complex man who was, unfortunately, perceived as a threat by
the Philippines' ruthless first president Emilio Aguinaldo. As a result, Luna died not on the battlefields of
the Philippine-American War, but he was assassinated on the streets of Cabanatuan.

Fast Facts: Antonio Luna

Known For: Filipino Journalist, musician, pharmacist, chemist, and general in the fight for Philippine
independence from the U.S.

Born: October 29, 1866 in the Binondo district of Manila, Philippines

Parents: Laureana Novicio-Ancheta and Joaquin Luna de San Pedro

Died: June 5, 1899 in Cabanatuan, Nueva Ecija, Philippines

Education: Bachelor of Arts from the Ateneo Municipal de Manila in 1881; studied chemistry, music, and
literature at the University of Santo Tomas; licentiate in pharmacy at the Universidad de Barcelona; a
doctorate from the Universidad Central de Madrid, studied bacteriology and histology at the Pasteur
Institute in Paris

Published Works: Impresiones (as Taga-Ilog), On Malarial Pathology (El Hematozorio del Paludismo)"

Spouse(s): None

Children: None

Early Life

Antonio Luna de San Pedro y Novicio-Ancheta was born on October 29, 1866, in the Binondo district of
Manila, the youngest child of seven of Laureana Novicio-Ancheta, a Spanish mestiza, and Joaquin Luna
de San Pedro, a traveling salesman.

Antonio was a gifted student who studied with a teacher called Maestro Intong from the age of 6 and
received a Bachelor of Arts from the Ateneo Municipal de Manila in 1881 before continuing his studies in
chemistry, music, and literature at the University of Santo Tomas.

In 1890, Antonio traveled to Spain to join his brother Juan, who was studying painting in Madrid. There,
Antonio earned a licentiate in pharmacy at the Universidad de Barcelona, followed by a doctorate from
the Universidad Central de Madrid. In Madrid, he fell obsessively in love with local beauty Nelly
Boustead, who was also admired by his friend Jose Rizal. But it came to nothing, and Luna never
married.

He went on to study bacteriology and histology at the Pasteur Institute in Paris and continued on to
Belgium to further those pursuits. While in Spain, Luna had published a well-received paper on malaria,
so in 1894 the Spanish government appointed him to a post as a specialist in communicable and tropical
diseases.

Swept Into the Revolution

Later that same year, Antonio Luna returned to the Philippines where he became the chief chemist of
the Municipal Laboratory in Manila. He and his brother Juan established a fencing society called the Sala
de Armas in the capital.

While there, the brothers were approached about joining the Katipunan, a revolutionary organization
founded by Andres Bonifacio in response to the 1892 banishment of Jose Rizal, but both Luna brothers
refused to participate—at that stage, they believed in a gradual reform of the system rather than a
violent revolution against Spanish colonial rule.

Although they were not members of the Katipunan, Antonio, Juan, and their brother Jose were all
arrested and imprisoned in August 1896 when the Spanish learned that the organization existed. His
brothers were interrogated and released, but Antonio was sentenced to exile in Spain and imprisoned in
the Carcel Modelo de Madrid. Juan, by this time a famed painter, used his connections with the Spanish
royal family to secure Antonio's release in 1897.

After his exile and imprisonment, understandably, Antonio Luna's attitude toward Spanish colonial rule
had shifted. Due to the arbitrary treatment of himself and his brothers and the execution of his friend
Jose Rizal the previous December, Luna was ready to take up arms against Spain.

In his typically academic fashion, Luna decided to study guerrilla warfare tactics, military organization,
and field fortification under the famous Belgian military educator Gerard Leman before he sailed to Hong
Kong. There, he met with the revolutionary leader-in-exile, Emilio Aguinaldo, and in July 1898 he
returned to the Philippines to take up the fight once more.

General Antonio Luna

As the Spanish/American War came to a close and the defeated Spanish prepared to withdraw from the
Philippines, Filipino revolutionary troops surrounded the capital city of Manila. The newly-arrived officer
Antonio Luna urged the other commanders to send troops into the city to ensure a joint occupation
when the Americans arrived, but Emilio Aguinaldo refused, believing U.S. naval officers stationed in
Manila Bay would hand over power to the Filipinos in due course.
Luna complained bitterly about this strategic blunder, as well as the disorderly conduct of American
troops once they landed in Manila in mid-August 1898. To placate Luna, Aguinaldo promoted him to the
rank of Brigadier General on September 26, 1898, and named him chief of war operations.

General Luna continued to campaign for better military discipline, organization, and approach to
Americans, who were now setting themselves up as the new colonial rulers. Along with Apolinario
Mabini, Antonio Luna warned Aguinaldo that the Americans did not seem inclined to free the
Philippines.

General Luna felt the need for a military academy to properly train the Filipino troops, who were eager
and in many cases experienced in guerrilla warfare but had little formal military training. In October
1898, Luna founded what is now the Philippine Military Academy, which operated for less than half a
year before the Philippine-American War broke out in February of 1899 and classes were suspended so
that staff and students could join the war effort.

The Philippine-American War

General Luna led three companies of soldiers to attack the Americans at La Loma, where he was met
with a ground force and naval artillery fire from the fleet in Manila Bay. The Filipinos suffered heavy
casualties.

A Filipino counterattack on February 23 gained some ground but collapsed when troops from Cavite
refused to take orders from General Luna, stating that they would obey only Aguinaldo himself. Furious,
Luna disarmed the recalcitrant soldiers but was forced to fall back.

After several additional bad experiences with the undisciplined and clannish Filipino forces, and after
Aguinaldo had rearmed the disobedient Cavite troops as his personal Presidential Guard, a thoroughly
frustrated General Luna submitted his resignation to Aguinaldo, which Aguinaldo reluctantly accepted.
With the war going very badly for the Philippines over the next three weeks, however, Aguinaldo
persuaded Luna to return and made him commander-in-chief.

Luna developed and implemented a plan to contain the Americans long enough to construct a guerrilla
base in the mountains. The plan consisted of a network of bamboo trenches, complete with spiked man-
traps and pits full of poisonous snakes, which spanned the jungle from village to village. Filipino troops
could fire on the Americans from this Luna Defense Line, and then melt away into the jungle without
exposing themselves to American fire.

Conspiracy Among the Ranks

However, late in May Antonio Luna's brother Joaquin—a colonel in the revolutionary army—warned him
that a number of the other officers were conspiring to kill him. General Luna ordered that many of these
officers be disciplined, arrested, or disarmed and they bitterly resented his rigid, authoritarian style, but
Antonio made light of his brother's warning and reassured him that President Aguinaldo would not allow
anyone to assassinate the army's commander-in-chief.

To the contrary, General Luna received two telegrams on June 2, 1899. The first asked him to join a
counterattack against the Americans at San Fernando, Pampanga and the second was from Aguinaldo,
ordering Luna to the new capital, Cabanatuan, Nueva Ecija, about 120 kilometers due north of Manila,
where the Philippines' revolutionary government was forming a new cabinet.

Ever ambitious, and hopeful of being named Prime Minister, Luna decided to go to Nueva Ecija with a
cavalry escort of 25 men. However, due to transportation difficulties, Luna arrived in Nueva Ecija
accompanied only by two other officers, Colonel Roman and Captain Rusca, with the troops having been
left behind.

Death

On June 5, 1899, Luna went alone to the government headquarters to speak with President Aguinaldo
but was met by one of his old enemies there instead—a man he had once disarmed for cowardice, who
informed him that the meeting was canceled and Aguinaldo was out of town. Furious, Luna had started
to walk back down the stairs when a rifle shot went off outside.

Luna ran down the stairs, where he met one of the Cavite officers he had dismissed for insubordination.
The officer struck Luna on the head with his bolo and soon Cavite troops swarmed the injured general,
stabbing him. Luna drew his revolver and fired, but he missed his attackers.

Still, he fought his way out to the plaza, where Roman and Rusca ran to help him, but Roman was shot to
death and Rusca was severely injured. Abandoned and alone, Luna sank bleeding to the cobblestones of
the plaza where he uttered his last words: "Cowards! Assassins!" He died at 32 years old.
Legacy

As Aguinaldo's guards assassinated his most able general, the president himself was laying siege to the
headquarters of General Venacio Concepcion, an ally of the murdered general. Aguinaldo then dismissed
Luna's officers and men from the Filipino Army.

For the Americans, this internecine fighting was a gift. General James F. Bell noted that Luna "was the
only general the Filipino army had" and Aguinaldo's forces suffered disastrous defeat after disastrous
defeat in the wake of Antonio Luna's murder. Aguinaldo spent most of the next 18 months in retreat,
before being captured by the Americans on March 23, 1901.

Sources

Jose, Vivencio R. "The Rise and Fall of Antonio Luna." Solar Publishing Corporation, 1991.

Reyes, Raquel A. G. "Antonio Luna's Impressions." Love, Passion and Patriotism: Sexuality and the
Philippine Propaganda Movement, 1882–1892. Singapore and Seattle : NUS Press and University of
Washington Press, 2008. 84–114.

Santiago, Luciano P.R. “The First Filipino Doctors of Pharmacy (1890–93).” Philippine Quarterly of Culture
and Society 22.2, 1994. 90–102.