3rd Speaker of Opposing side (Spanish Account Side)

Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen I am Noven Villaber

the 3rd speaker of the opposing side which is the Spanish
account.
It would be interesting to know the perspectives of the
Spanish. A good source would be Wenceslao Retana, Jose
Rizal’s peninsular nemesis and staunch defender of the crown.
After 1898, Retana was remorseful of the loss of the Philippines
and wrote had they listened to the clamors for reforms in the
colony.
By 1872, a growing number of colonists were calling
themselves “Filipinos” on top of the usual peninsulares, insulares,
mestizo, Indio, sangley. However, if you observe the primary and
secondary sources, the term “Filipino” is being rarely used. The
leader of the mutiny, Sergeant La Madrid, was referred to as
“insulares” and his men were written as “artillerymen of the
arsenal”; barely using the term Filipino. The word “Filipino” will not
appear until the chapters on “Propaganda Movement” that
resulted from the mutiny. According to a newspaper in 1872, on
the day of the execution, Burgos and Zamora were written as
“Spaniards born in the Philippines” and Gomez “Mestizo de
Sangley”. Saldua was also executed, a soldier from the Cavite
Arsenal. None in the text ever referred to him as “Filipino” nor
“Spaniard”.
A century later, it was only then that elementary text books
on Tagalog would call GomBurZa, La Madrid and the soldiers as
“Pilipino” and victims of racial discrimination. However, the more
scholarly original manuscripts and the secondary manuscripts
written for college students (and based on original manuscripts)
barely mention the word “Filipino” but rather their caste or job
titles.
 Let me give a hypothesis on the Spanish perspective, based
on what they wrote during that time.
1. It seems that for the Spaniards, the mutiny was simply a
civil disturbance; judging from how the newspapers
described the priests as “Spaniards born in the Philippines”

2. La Madrid, Burgos, Zamora and possibly Saldua were

creoles; 1872 was a time that the creoles were more
troublesome than their obedient and mostly loyal indio
counterparts.

3. Philippines was not alone in experiencing chaos from the

secularization issue and war conflict between liberals and
royalists, the root of the mutiny. In Spain, the mightier
country itself was literally in arms against each other, kings
and queens being replaced violently by a revolution after
the other, fighting happening in the streets; men, women,
children dead. Philippines did not have a monopoly of
liberals and reformists; liberals and reformists were also
being executed in Spain. In fact, the Philippine Revolution
and Latin American Revolutions was an overflow of the
chaos in Spain. Spain will finally erupt to a full blown
fighting war in the 1930s between royalists and liberals,
ending in Francisco Franco’s victory.

4. Although the colonists began to call themselves

“Filipinos”, this did not pose much threat to the crown as
late as 1872. The likes of Varela, Pelaez, Burgos were
probably considered “a few troublemakers”. When Andres
Novales revolted in 1823 and declaŕed Philippine
Independence, accounts say that the people were cheering
Novales and his army as he marched towards Fort
 Santiago, but that was as far as they went, nobody did
made any move. In fact, it was Novales’ own brother who
quelled the rebellion like a minor civil disturbance. It was in
1872 that government officials realized that the crowd
before the gallows were for the first time united as a nation.
It was the first time a crowd knelt in unity to pray for the
executed “convicts” as if they were one of them. To
increase the paranoia of the government and church
officials, the crowd included Indio’s whom they had
counted on for loyalty against the creoles (note that the
creole dons must have been cruel themselves, Burgos
himself had accounts of punishing Indio priests for
insubordination against a creole or peninsular priest). But
that morning of 1872, a crowd of Indio’s, mestizos, creoles
and even peninsulars -who consìdered Philippines their
homes, developed a sense of nationhood. The Cavite
Mutiny sparked the beginning of emotional divorce
between Spain and its colony and little did they know will
be the beginning of their demise.

5. The brother of Rizal, Paciano, was closely linked to

Burgos as his student and border. Rizal’s activism would
be sparked by Paciano’s subversive thoughts from Burgos.
In 1892, Rizal organised the La Liga Filipina, a society of
reformists from Manila High Society. In the same year, the
league broke into two -the conservative and peaceful Los
Cuerpos Compromisarios under Apolinario Mabini. Radical
members led by Andres Bonifacio formed the
Kataastaasang Kagalanggalangang Katipunan ng mga
Anak ng Bayan (Los Hijos Del Pais), adopting the
namesake of the early creole insurrections before them.

On the other side as well with Jose Montero Y Vidal’s account.

Jose Montero y Vidal is a Spanish Historian, who interpreted that
the Mutiny was an attempt to remove and overthrow the Spanish
Colonizers in the Philippines. His account, corroborated with the
account of Governor - General Rafael Izquidero y Gutierrez, the
governor-general of the Philippine Islands during the Mutiny. They
mentioned that the mutiny was powered by a group of native
clergy. He pointed out the three main points that the Cavite
Mutiny is an aim of natives to get rid of the Spanish government in
the Philippines, due to the removal of privileges enjoyed by the
laborers of the Cavite arsenal such as exemption from the tribute
and forced labor. The democratic and republican books and
pamphlets, the speeches and preaching of the apostles of these
new ideas in Spain and the outburst of the American publicists
and the cruel policies of the insensitive governor whom the
reigning government sent to govern the country. Filipinos put into
action these ideas where the occurring conditions which gave rise
to the idea of achieving their independence.

With the account of  Governor-General Rafael Izquierdo y

Gutiérrez. He insisted that the mutiny is stimulated and prepared
by the native clergy, mestizos and lawyers as a signal of objection
against the injustices of the government such as not paying
provinces for tobacco crops, pay tribute and rendering of forced
labor. It is not clearly identified if Indios planned to inaugurate a
monarchy or a republic because they don't have a word in their
own language to describe this different form of government,
whose leader in Filipino would be called "hari". However, it turned
out that they would set at the supreme of the government a priest,
that the leader selected would be Jose Burgos or Jacinto Zamora
which is the plan of the rebels who guided them, and the means
they counted upon its realization.
Furthermore, the Mutiny implicated three (3) priests; these
three were Indio’s (no Pinoy yet that time). The mutiny was in the
arsenal (munitions), very important for the Castillians. So, what to
expect? The firing squads were busy. You can check Zaide and
Agoncillo books.
The three priests were executed by strangulation or the old,
nasty way of garrote or tightening your neck till you breathe no
more. The Castillians strangled the priests because they were
Indios, so the propaganda goes. In another generation, Castillian
heads were severed from their necks. And the map of Islas
Filipinas disappeared from the Spanish globe.
The Mutiny and the repression that follows created a new
generation that aimed to kick out Spain. When the norte
americanos came, Spain was only in control of a few cities and
Manila. By losing to the norte americanos, the Castillians saved
their necks from Pinoy bolos. That was in the 1890s.
Relevance today is that there is no arsenal in Cavite now.
The Mutiny is history. But its significance was that there is no
need to talk to the Castillians.
Now to any Pinoy thinking of mutiny or rebellion, the
standard answer is Don’t. But if you have started it, then Win!.
Otherwise you will get the garrote or the firing squad. To the
Vanquish, tears.