On January 20, 1872, two hundred Filipinos employed at the Cavite arsenal staged a

revolt against the Spanish government’s voiding of their exemption from the payment of
tributes. The Cavite Mutiny led to the persecution of prominent Filipinos; secular priests
Mariano Gómez, José Burgos, and Jacinto Zamora—who would then be collectively
named GomBurZa—were tagged as the masterminds of the uprising. The priests were
charged with treason and sedition by the Spanish military tribunal—a ruling believed to
be part of a conspiracy to stifle the growing popularity of Filipino secular priests and the
threat they posed to the Spanish clergy. The GomBurZa were publicly executed, by
garrote, on the early morning of February 17, 1872 at Bagumbayan.

The Archbishop of Manila refused to defrock them, and ordered the bells of every
church to toll in honor of their deaths; the Sword, in this instance, denied the moral
justification of the Cross. The martyrdom of the three secular priests would resonate
among Filipinos; grief and outrage over their execution would make way for the first
stirrings of the Filipino revolution, thus making the first secular martyrs of a nascent
national identity. Jose Rizal would dedicate his second novel, El Filibusterismo, to the
memory of GomBurZa, to what they stood for, and to the symbolic weight their deaths
would henceforth hold:

The Government, by enshrouding your trial in mystery and pardoning your co-accused, has
suggested that some mistake was committed when your fate was decided; and the whole of the
Philippines, in paying homage to your memory and calling you martyrs, totally rejects your guilt.
The Church, by refusing to degrade you, has put in doubt the crime charged against you.

To mark the 142nd anniversary of the martyrdom of the priests Mariano Gómez, José
Burgos, and Jacinto Zamora, we have put together resources that detail the effect of
their martyrdom upon the Philippine revolution. Below you will find an infographic on
prominent Filipinos executed in Bagumbayan from 1843 to 1897 and writings by
personalities of the Philippine revolution on GomBurZa, including a retelling of their
execution.

MARTYRDOM AT BAGUMBAYAN: HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE ROSTER OF

HEROES AND PATRIOTS EXECUTED IN BAGUMBAYAN, 1843-1897

THE REVOLUTIONARY GENERATION ON GOMBURZA

• JOSE RIZAL’S LETTER TO MARIANO PONCE, 18 APRIL 1889—

“Without 1872 there would not now be a Plaridel, a Jaena, a Sanciangco, nor would the
brave and generous Filipino colonies exist in Europe. Without 1872 Rizal would now be
a Jesuit and instead of writing the Noli Me Tangere, would have written the contrary. At
the sight of those injustices and cruelties, though still a child, my imagination awoke,
and I swore to dedicate myself to avenge one day so many victims. With this idea I have
gone on studying, and this can be read in all my works and writings. God will grant me
one day to fulfill my promise.” [via]

• JOSE RIZAL’S LETTER TO MARIANO PONCE, 18 APRIL 1889—

“If at his death Burgos had shown the courage of Gomez, the Filipinos of today would
be other than they are. However, nobody knows how he will behave at that culminating
moment, and perhaps, I myself, who preach and boast so much, may show more fear
and less resolution than Burgos in that crisis. Life is so pleasant, and it is so repugnant
to die on the scaffold, still young and with ideas in one’s head…” [via]

• “RITUAL FOR THE INITIATION OF A BAYANI,” 1894—

Document, via Jim Richardson, details the ritual to be followed when a Katipunan
member with the rank of Soldier (Kawal) is to be elevated to the rank of Patriot (Bayani):
“Presiding over the ritual, the Most Respected President (presumably Bonifacio himself)
reflects on the martyrdom of the priests Burgos, Gomez and Zamora—a great wrong,
he says, that tore aside the veil that had covered the eyes of the Tagalogs. Tracing the
Katipunan’s political lineage a little further back, he also alludes to the movement for
reforms that preceded the Cavite mutiny, mentioning specifically the newspaper El Eco
Filipino, which was founded by Manuel Regidor (the brother of Antonio Ma. Regidor),
Federico de Lerena (the brother-in-law of José Ma. Basa) and other liberal Filipinos in
Madrid in 1871. Copies were sent to Manila but soon began to be intercepted, and
people found in possession of the paper were liable to be arrested.” [via]

• EMILIO JACINTO, “GOMEZ, BURGOS AT ZAMORA!” APRIL 30, 1896—

Jim Richardson: “The day that Gomez, Burgos and Zamora were executed, writes
Jacinto, was a day of degradation and wretchedness. Twenty-four years had since
passed, but the excruciating wound inflicted that day on Tagalog hearts had never
healed; the bleeding had never been staunched. Though the lives of the three priests
had been extinguished that day, their legacy would endure forever. Their compatriots
would honor their memory, and would seek to emulate their pursuit of truth and justice.
As yet, Jacinto acknowledges, some were not fully ready to embrace those ideals,
either because they failed to appreciate the need for solidarity and unity or because
their minds were still clouded by the smoke of a mendacious Church. But those who
could no longer tolerate oppression were now looking forward to a different way of life,
to a splendid new dawn.” [via]
RECALLING THE GOMBURZA

•  EDMOND PLAUCHUT, AS QUOTED BY JAIME VENERACION—

The Execution of GomBurZa [via]

Late in the night of the 15th of February 1872, a Spanish court martial found three
secular priests, Jose Burgos, Mariano Gomez and Jacinto Zamora, guilty of treason as
the instigators of a mutiny in the Kabite navy-yard a month before, and sentenced them
to death. The judgement of the court martial was read to the priests in Fort Santiago
early in the next morning and they were told it would be executed the following day…
Upon hearing the sentence, Burgos broke into sobs, Zamora lost his mind and never
recovered it, and only Gomez listened impassively, an old man accustomed to the
thought of death.

When dawn broke on the 17th of February there were almost forty thousand of Filipinos
(who came from as far as Bulakan, Pampanga, Kabite and Laguna) surrounding the
four platforms where the three priests and the man whose testimony had convicted
them, a former artilleryman called Saldua, would die.

The three priests followed Saldua: Burgos ‘weeping like a child’, Zamora with vacant
eyes, and Gomez head held high, blessing the Filipinos who knelt at his feet, heads
bared and praying. He was next to die. When his confessor, a Recollect friar , exhorted
him loudly to accept his fate, he replied: “Father, I know that not a leaf falls to the
ground but by the will of God. Since He wills that I should die here, His holy will be
done.”

Zamora went up the scaffold without a word and delivered his body to the executioner;
his mind had already left it.

Burgos was the last, a refinement of cruelty that compelled him to watch the death of his
companions. He seated himself on the iron rest and then sprang up crying: “But what
crime have I committed? Is it possible that I should die like this. My God, is there no
justice on earth?”

A dozen friars surrounded him and pressed him down again upon the seat of the
garrote, pleading with him to die a Christian death. He obeyed but, feeling his arms tied
round the fatal post, protested once again: “But I am innocent!”

“So was Jesus Christ,’ said one of the friars.” At this Burgos resigned himself. The
executioner knelt at his feet and asked his forgiveness. “I forgive you, my son. Do your
duty.” And it was done.
(Veneracion quotes Leon Ma. Guerrero’s The First Filipino: “We are told that the crowd,
seeing the executioner fall to his knees, suddenly did the same, saying the prayers to
the dying. Many Spaniards thought it was the beginning of an attack and fled panic-
stricken to the Walled City.”)

• LEON MA. GUERRERO, IN  THE FIRST FILIPINO, ASIDE FROM CITING EDMOND
PLAUCHUT, REVYE DES DEUX MONDES, MAY 15, 1877, WROTE:

“Montero deserves a hearing because he had access to the official records. His
account, in brief, is that the condemned men, in civilian clothes, were taken to the
headquarters of the corps of engineers outside the city walls, where a death-cell had
been improvised. Members of their families were allowed to visit them. The night before
the execution, Gómez went to confession with an Augustinian Recollect (leaving a
fortune of 200,000 to a natural son whom he had had before taking orders); Burgos to a
Jesuit; Zamora, to a Vicentian. At the execution itself, Burgos is described ax
“intensamente pálido;” Zamora, as “afligidísmo;” and Gómez as “revelando en su faz
sombría la ira y la desesperacíon.” The judgment was once more read to them, on their
knees. Burgos and Zamora “lloraban amargamanete,” while Gòmez listened “con
tranquilidad imperturbable. Ni un solo músculo de su cara se contrajó.” The order of
execution, according to Montero, was Gómez, Zamora, Burgos and Saldúa last of all.
He explains the panice saying it was the natives when a horse bolted: Burgos, thinking
rescue was on the way, rose to his feet and had to be held down by the executioner.
Monero denies both the anecdotes concerning Gómez and Burgos. It is fair to add that
Montero seems to lose his composure in refuting Plauchut.” [via]