CAVITE MUTINY: THE BEGINNING OF FILIPINO NATIONALISM

The Philippine History is of great value to the Filipinos, boosting the pride and
honor for what our country had gone through decades of years to attain its liberality. It is
indeed great to look back from where we all started brave and how we acquired our
country’s independence.

On February 17, 1872 an event known as the Cavite Mutiny happened and
historians believed that this was the beginning of the Filipino nationalism that lead to the
Philippine Revolution and eventually to our country’s total independence. Hence, The
Cavite Province, located on the southern shores of Manila Bay in CALABARZON is
known as the Historical Capital of the Philippines, the Cradle of Revolution and the
birthplace of Philippine Independence.

The Cavite Mutiny was not as that remarkable historical event as Jose Rizal. At
this event, during the Spanish Invasion, Spanish soldiers, Guardia Civil, office holders
and letrados, round friars with their sacristans and principalia all gathered in a festive
mood, to witness a public execution. And on the said date on 1872, the highlight was
the execution of the three secular native parish priests GOMBURZA through “Garrote”,
the ascending of gallows. The trio GOMBURZA are Father Mariano Gomez, an indio of
Chinese or Japanese descent, who had been a popular parish priest of Bacoor; Father
Jose Burgos, a handsome Creole, born in Vigan of Spanish parents and who was
recognized as the leader of “secularization”; and, Father Jacinto Zamora, a Spanish
mestizo Manileno, classmate of Fr. Burgos at Letran and Santo Tomas and the parish
priest of Pandacan. The three priests were sentenced to death for Sedition against the
Spanish Crown. They were the priests that did not belong to any of the religious orders
like the Dominicans, Franciscans and the like, but they served in the Dioceses directly
under the Pope in Rome. Thus, they represented the bitter, divisive cause of natives
claiming parishes for themselves for “secularization”, the activity of changing something
(art or education or society or morality etc.) so it is no longer under the control or
influence of religion, as opposed by the all-powerful friar orders who dictated and
maintained that natives or the Filipinos were capable only of being boatmen or peons.
However, the Filipinos then were able to mumble Latin prayers and with that ability gave
threat and fear to the Spaniards for Filipinos could aspire to run the parishes.

The known leader of secularization, Fr. Burgos persuaded the natives through
his written vehement and eloquent manifestos where faction was made between the
natives, born on the Philippine soil and the peninsulares born on the Spanish peninsula.
Burgos had called his faction “Hijos del Pais”, the original concept which decades later,
became Bonifacio’s “Anak ng Bayan.” Upon the Garote Execution of the three priests,
where Fr. Burgos was the last to ascend the gallows, the usual traditional cheers from
the Spanish soldiers and dignitaries erupted as Fr. Burgos expired “Viva Espana” “Viva
Espana en Filipinas!” Then, an ominous wailing and chanting rose from the silent crowd,
who had fallen on their knees and were reciting in thunderous tone “Misere nobis, “Lord
have mercy. Let our cry come to You!” the Holy Litany of the Dying, taught to them by
their parish priests.

At that moment, some realized and wrote like Nick Joaquin, in his
history of Manila that “Filipinos were no longer a mob, but they were already a nation”.
Also, O.D Corpus wrote “the sorrow had wrought a miracle. It was the suddenly altered
consciousness of the Filipinos.” The Spaniards then became terror on their reign
through frantic arrests, executions and banishments to literates and elites and to
anyone who could be suspected of leading the emerging uprising after the GOMBURZA
Execution in 1872 up to 1896. Revolts, liberty ideas and equality has been the cry of the
natives and they were furious and restless that even harm had been done. Filipinos also
then pursue their education and became richer and better educated than the Spanish
administrators. In 1872, Rizal was 11; Bonifacio was 7; Mabini was 8; and, Aguinaldo
was 3, who later became the soul and muscle of Philippine Revolution. Thus, the
Fathers GOMBURZA were the voices crying in the wilderness, preparing the way for
Rizal and his generation and all the others who came after them. They are notably the
precursors of the Filipino nation, that held the beginning of our Filipino Nationalism.