Review

Reviewed Work(s): The Katipunan and the Revolution: Memoirs of a General with the
Original Tagalog Text by Santiago V. Alvarez and Paula Carolina S. Malay
Review by: Bernardita R. Churchill
Source: Journal of Southeast Asian Studies , Sep., 1997, Vol. 28, No. 2 (Sep., 1997), pp.
444-446
Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of Department of History,
National University of Singapore

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 444 Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 28, 2 (1997)

PHILIPPINES

The Katipunan and the Revolution: Memoirs of a General with the Original Tagalog
Text. By SANTIAGO V. ALVAREZ. Translated by PAULA CAROLINA S. MALAY.
Introduction by RUBY R. PAREDES. Manila: Ateneo de Manila University Press, 1992.
Pp. xx, 476. Maps, Diagram, Index.

This book is a very important work and the publication by the Ateneo de Manila University
Press is very timely because of the celebration of the Centennials of the Philippine
Revolution and the Declaration of Philippine Independence (1996-98). The Tagalog text
of General Alvarez's memoirs was serialized in thirty-six installments, from July 24,
1927 to April 15, 1928, in the Tagalog weekly, Sampagita, and which up until this
present publication has not been readily available to researchers. The volume published
by Ateneo comes in its original Tagalog, which is as faithful as possible (with a few
"silent corrections", in the words of the publisher) to the edition that appeared in the
weekly, as well as in a very readable English translation by the late Paula Carolina
Malay. It also has a well-thought out introduction by Ruby R. Paredes which places the
Alvarez memoirs in the context of other important published works on the Revolution by
participants of that event.
The Philippine Revolution against Spanish rule, which broke out in August 1896, was
initiated by the revolutionary movement launched by Andres Bonifacio who had founded,
four years earlier, the secret society popularly known as the Katipunan. From Manila,
where the revolution started, the movement quickly spread to the Tagalog provinces north
and south of the city. In Cavit? province south of Manila, "the Province of the Revolution",
two factions emerged ? the Magdiwang under Mariano Alvarez and the Magdalo under
Emilio Aguinaldo.
Santiago V. Alvarez, author of the memoirs, was the son of Mariano and a general of
the army on the Magdiwang side. For five full years, from August 1896 to August 1901,
he claimed to be one of those "who guided the Revolution" (p. 3), although he was
already active in the Katipunan as a member and as a delegate even before its outbreak.
His memoirs were based on notes he kept about the events of the Revolution and records
which were entrusted to him by "the original founders of the Katipunan" (p. 4). Thus he
was not only an eyewitness but also an active participant of the events he narrated in this
work.
When he wrote his memoirs in 1927, Alvarez was already fifty-five years old, but he
felt compelled to write them so "I could shed more light on the different facets of the
Revolution, ... in the interest of honorable truth...." (pp. 3, 4). The memoirs begin on
March 14, 1896, when he accompanied Emilio Aguinaldo and Raymundo Mata, both
fellow Cavitenos, to Manila for their initiation into the Katipunan by Andres Bonifacio
himself.
He carries the story up to the conclusion of the Truce of Biyak-na-bato and the
voluntary exile of Aguinaldo and his companions to Hong Kong. While the focus of the
memoirs is on the unfolding of the Revolution in Cavit? and Bonifacio's involvement in
Magdiwang/Magdalo affairs and his tragic death, Alvarez also included some details on
how the Revolution played out elsewhere in Luzon ? in Manila and environs, Morong
(Rizal), Laguna, Batangas, Bulacan, Nueva Ecija and elsewhere.

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Book Reviews 445

The story of the Revolution has been told and retold before in many ways by many
historians and writers (as Ruby Paredes presented in her introduction), but a full history
of the Revolution still waits to be written, one that will look at how the Revolution
unfolded throughout the archipelago and that will relate the different regions to a com
prehensive whole. More importantly, that history should also look at the many facets of
that period beyond the political or military or personal dimensions of that momentous
period. The Revolution was probably the most important political movement of the
nineteenth century and, in the words of O.D. Corpuz, "the watershed of Filipino nation
alism ... a historic step away from the past and towards a new phase of the nation's
future, ... that brought the divided parts of the Filipino people together" (The Roots of
the Filipino Nation [Quezon City: Aklahi Foundation, Inc., 1989], I, xviii; II, pp. 268
69). It is of course no exaggeration that the archival materials, in the Philippines, Spain,
the United States and elsewhere, that await the patient researchers are voluminous. They
need to be examined carefully and as objectively as possible by historians, especially
Filipino historians, so that certain controversies could be laid to rest (or at least accepted
as realities of history) and they do not, in the meantime, expend too much emotional
energy over the minutiae of "mundane issues" such as dates, places, and personalities (for
instance, the "First Cry of the Revolution" or "the First President of the First Republic").
As pointed out in the introduction, there are more important and complex historiographie
questions that need to be addressed and that have more relevance to the development of
the Filipino nation a hundred years from those events in 1896.
The Alvarez memoirs tell a gripping story of the events of 1896-97 (the Tagalog
original more so) and is especially revealing for its account of the events which led to
one of the most controversial events of the Revolution ? the execution of Katipunan
Supremo Andres Bonifacio and his brother Procopio, charged with sedition against the
Revolutionary Government established in Tejeros in March 1897 and led by Emilio
Aguinaldo. While not explicit in his presentation, Alvarez nevertheless, on several
occasions, wrote of what might possibly have brought on the case against Bonifacio ?
one reads of the deepening animosity and widening rift developing between Magdiwang
and Magdalo partisans (or more specifically, between Bonifacio who was a Magdiwang
partisan and Aguinaldo, the Magdalo leader and his partisans) way back in August 1896,
which he felt jeopardized not only the unity of the armies of the two factions, but also
the Revolution itself, especially in that initial crucial period between 1896-97. He wrote
of the unseemly behavior of Magdalo troops towards the Magdiwang, the lack of
enthusiasm of the Magdalos towards the prosecution of the Revolution in its initial phase
after August 1896, and an undercurrent of political rivalry between Bonifacio and
Aguinaldo (and his Magdalo partisans) which intensified as a result of rebel setbacks in
Cavit? and which led to Bonifacio's death in May 1897. One can almost sense the pain
in Alvarez as he wrote about the tragedy of Bonifacio's death and the subsequent loss of
Cavit?, the heartland of the Revolution, to the Spaniards. While loyal to the end to
Bonifacio, one does not get the feeling that Alvarez was partial only to the Magdiwang
and the Supremo.
Alvarez relates the human side of the Revolution which touched the lives not only
of the notables (principales) of the various towns and provinces which joined the
revolution, but also ordinary people ? men and women whose names have been
submerged in the history of the Revolution but whose devotion to the Revolution was

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 446 Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 28, 2 (1997)

just as intense, ordinary folk who were full of revolutionary fervor and eager for the
fight that they had to be restrained. He also noted Guardias Civiles who defected, bandits
who turned revolutionaries, Spaniards who joined the rebels, and lower-class messianic
groups whose commitment to freedom was just as sincere, if of a different ideological
orientation. The dedication displayed by these people is inspiring, for they were prepared
to sacrifice life and limb for the cause of the Revolution, even in the face of the appalling
lack of arms and food, and the sometimes temperamental outbursts of nature conspiring
to make the struggle more difficult. The Alvarez account did not extol only the courage
and commitment of these revolutionaries, but he also pointed out, unfortunately, the
cruelty and abuses committed in the name of the Revolution and the personal and regional
antipathies that could not be exorcised from among its partisans supposedly working for
a noble and enobling mission. These things do happen in extraordinary times, such as
the Revolution was.
There must be other notes and memoirs stashed away in family chests that need to
come to light to add to the story of the Revolution. The Alvarez memoirs have included
some of these accounts ? for example those of Juan Maibay, General Lucino de la Cruz,
General Ramon Bernardo, Col. Genaro de los Reyes, and Lt. Miguel Ramos. Since 1994,
the National Commission on Culture and the Arts ? Committee on Historical Research
(NCCA-CHR) has conducted seminar workshops on the Revolution throughout the country.
The materials so far gathered confirm that the Revolution was an undertaking of practically
all classes and communities of Filipinos.
The Translation Project Group of the Association for Asian Studies and Ateneo de
Manila University Press should be commended for making this volume readily accessible
to Filipinos and Philippine scholars.

University of the Philippines/De La Salle University Bernardita R. Churchill

The Revolution Falters. The Left in Philippine Politics After 1986. Edited by PATRICIO
N. ABINALES. Ithaca: Cornell University Southeast Asia Program, 1996. Pp. 183.

Some months ago, The Manila Times (30 October 1996, p. 6) editorialized that being a
Leftist in the Philippines had lost its glamour^ no longer was it "worn like a badge of
honor". Nowadays, with Marcos long out of office, who even cares what the badge looks
like?
The six essays in this collection look at what remains of the badge, taking a broad
view of "Left", but they deal for the most part with the partial self-destruction of that
part of the Philippine Left that adhered to, or closely sympathized with, the Communist
Party of the Philippines, including its armed force, the National People's Army, and the
National Democratic Front, in the years since 1986. From a time when the CPP appeared
to many people to offer the only alternative to the oppressive dictatorship of Marcos, it
now appears to be one small player among many.
Kathleen Weekley sets the pace with an evaluation of the theoretical splitting of the
party, especially the 1991-93 conflict between the "Rejectionists", who sought new
directions in a more democratic post-Marcos society, and the "Reaffirmists" under Jose

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