CASE STUDY 4: Where did the Cry of Pugad Rebellion Happened?

I. Introduction

Nineteenth-century journalists used the phrase "el grito de

rebelion" or "the Cry of Rebellion" to describe the momentous events

sweeping the Spanish colonies. In Mexico, it was the "Cry of Dolores"

(September 16th, 1810), Brazil the "City of Ypiraga" (September

7th, 1822), and in Cuba the "Cry of Matanza" (February 24th, 1895).

In August 1896, northeast of Manila, Filipinos similarly

declared their rebellion against the Spanish colonial government.

Manuel Sastron, the Spanish Historian, institutionalized the

phrased for the Philippines in his 1897 book, La Insurreccion en

Filipinas. All these "Cries" were milestones in the several

colonial-to-nationalist histories of the world.

Originally, the term cry referred to the first clash between

the Katipuneros and the Civil Guards (Guardia Civil). The cry could

also refer to the tearing up of community tax certificates (cédulas

personales) in defiance of their allegiance to Spain. The

inscriptions of "Viva la Independencia Filipina" can also be

referred as term for the cry. This was literally accompanied by

patriotic shouts.

Due of competing accounts and ambiguity of the place where this

event took place, the exact date and place of the Cry is in contention.

From 1908 until 1963, the official stance was that the cry occurred

on August 26 in Balintawak. In 1963 the Philippine government

declared a shift to August 23 in Pugad Lawin, Quezon City.

II. Body

Raging controversy

If the expression has taken literally –the Cry as the shouting

of nationalistic slogans in mass assemblies –then there were scores

of such Cries. Some writers refer to a Cry of Montalban in April

1895, in the Pamitinan Caves, where a group of Katipunan members

wrote on the cave walls, "Viva la indepencia Filipina!" long before

the Katipunan decided to launch a nationwide revolution.

The Historian Teodoro Agoncillo chose to emphasize Bonifacio's

tearing of the cedula (tax receipt) before a crowd of Katipuneros,

who then broke out in cheers. However, Guardia Civil Manuel Sityar

never mentioned the cedula's tearing or inspection in his memoirs

(1896-1898). Still, he did note the pacto de Sangre (blood pact)

mark on who he met in August 1896 on Balintawak's reconnaissance

missions.

Some writers consider the first military engagement with the

enemy as the defining moment of the Cry. To commemorate this martial

event upon his return from exile in Hong Kong, Emilio Aguinaldo

commissioned an "Himno de Balintawak" to herald renewed fighting

after the failed peace of the pact of Biak na Bato.

It is not clear why the 1911 monument has erected there. It could

not have been to mark Apolonio Samson's house in barrio Kangkong;

Katipuneros observed that site on Kaingin Road, between Balintawak

and San Francisco del Monte Avenue.

Neither could the 1911 monument have been erected to mark the

site of the first armed encounter, which, incidentally, the

Katipuneros fought and won. A contemporary map of 1896 shows that

the August battle between the Katipunan rebels and the Spanish
forces led by Lt. Ros of the Civil Guards took place at sitio Banlat,

North of Pasong Tamo Road, far from Balintawak. The site has its

marker.

It is quite clear that first, eyewitnesses cited Balintawak as

the better-known reference point for a larger area. Second, while

Katipunan may have been massing in Kangkong, the revolution has

formally launched elsewhere. Moreover, eyewitnesses and, therefore,

historians disagreed on the site and date of the Cry.

But the issue did not rest there. In 1970, the Historian Pedro A.

Gagelonia pointed out:

The controversy among historians continues to the present day.

The "Cry of Pugad Lawin" cannot be accepted as historically accurate.

It lacks positive documentation and supporting evidence from the

witness. The testimony of only one eyewitness (Dr. Pio Valenzuela)

is not enough to authenticate and verify a controversial issue in

history. Historians and their living participants, not politicians

and their sycophants, should settle this controversy.

Conflicting Accounts

Pio Valenzuela had several versions of the Cry. Only after they

are compared and reconciled with the other accounts will it be

possible to determine what happened.

In September 1896, Valenzuela stated before the Olive Court,

which has charged with investigating persons involved in the

rebellion, only that Katipunan meetings took place from Sunday to

Tuesday or 23 to August 25th Balintawak.

In 1911, Valenzuela averred that the Katipunan began meeting

on August 22nd while the Cry took place on August 23rd at Apolonio

Samson's house in Balintawak.

 From 1928 to 1940, Valenzuela maintained that the Cry happened

on August 24th at the house of Tandang Sora (Melchora Aquino) in

Pugad Lawin, which he now situated near Pasong Tamo Road. A

photograph of Bonifacio's widow Gregoria de Jesus and Katipunan

members Valenzuela, Briccio Brigido Pantas, Alfonso, and Cipriano

Pacheco, published in La Opinion in 1928 and 1930, was captioned

both times as having been taken at the site of the Cry on August

24th, 1896 at the house of Tandang Sora at Pasong Tamo Road.

In 1935 Valenzuela, Pantas and Pacheco proclaimed, "na hindi sa

Balintawak nangyari ang unang sigaw ng paghihimagsik na

kinalalagian ngayon ng bantayog, kung di sa pook na kilala sa tawag

na Pugad Lawin." (The first Cry of the revolution did not happen

in Balintawak where the monument is but in a place called Pugad

Lawin.)

The Pugad Lawin marker

The prevalent account of the Cry is that of Teodoro Agoncillo in

Revolt of the masses (1956):

In Pugad Lawin, where they proceeded upon leaving Samson's place

in the afternoon of the 22nd, the more than 1,000 members of the

Katipunan met in the yard of Juan A. Ramos, son of Melchora

Aquino,…in the morning of August 23rd. The considerable discussion

arose whether the revolt against the Spanish government should start

on the 29th. Only one man protested. But he is overruled in his

stand. Bonifacio then announced the decision and shouted: "Brothers,

it was agreed to continue with the revolt plan. My brothers, do

you swear to repudiate the government that oppresses us?" And the

rebels, shouting as one man, replied: "Yes, sir!" "That being the

case," Bonifacio added, "bring out your cedulas and tear them to
pieces to symbolize our determination to take arms!".. . Amidst

the ceremony, the rebels, tear-stained eyes, shouted: "Long live

the Philippines! Long live the Katipunan!

Agoncillo used his considerable influence and campaigned for

a change in the recognized site to Pugad Lawin and August 23rd,

1896. In 1963, the National Heroes Commission (a forerunner of the

NHI), without formal consultations or recommendations to President

Macapagal.

Consequently, Macapagal ordered that the Cry of Balintawak is

called the "Cry of Pugad Lawin," and celebrated on August 23rd

instead of August 26th. The 1911 monument in Balintawak was later

removed to a highway. Student groups moved to save the discarded

monument, and it was installed in front of Vinzons Hall in the

Diliman campus of the University of the Philippines on November

29.

The NHI files on the committee's findings show the following:

• Pio Valenzuela, the leading proponent of the "Pugad Lawin" version,

was dead by the committee's research.

• Teodoro Agoncillo tried to locate the marker installed in August

1962 by the UP Student Council. However, it was no longer extant

in 1983.

Despite the above findings and the absence of any clear evidence,

the NHI disregarded its own 1964 report that the Philippine

Historical Committee had determined in 1940 that the Pugad Lawin

residence was Tandang Sora's. It is not Juan Ramos's and that the

specific site of Pugad Lawin was Gulod in Banlat.

The dap-dap tree in the Pugad Lawin site determined by Agoncillo

and the NHI is irrelevant since none of the principals like Pio
Valenzuela, Santiago Alvarez, and others, nor historians like

Zaide- and even Agoncillo himself before that instance- mentioned

such a tree.

Based on the 1983 committee's findings, the NHI placed a marker

on August 23rd, 1984, on Seminary Road in barangay Bahay Toro behind

Toro Hills High School, the Quezon City General Hospital, the San

Jose Seminary. It reads:

Ang Sigaw ng Pugad Lawin (1896)

Sa paligid ng pook na ito, si Andres Bonifacio at mga isang libong

Katipunero at nagpulong noong umaga ng ika-23 Agosto 1896, at

ipinasyang maghimagsik laban sa Kastila sa Pilipinas. Bilang

patunay ay pinag-pupunit ang kanilang mga sedula na naging tanda

ng pagkaalipin ng mga Pilpino. Ito ang kaunaunahang sigaw ng Bayang

Api laban sa bansang Espanya na pinatibayan sa pamamagitan ng

paggamit ng sandata.

The place-name "Pugad Lawin, "however, is problematic. In

History of the Katipunan (1939), Zaide records Valenzuela's mention

of the site in a footnote and not in the body of text, suggesting

that the Historian regarded the matter unresolved.

The Turning Point

Eyewitness accounts mention captures escapes, recaptures,

killings of Katipunan members; the interrogation of Chinese spies;

the arrival of arms in Meycauyan, Bulacan; the debate with Teodoro

Plata and others; the decision to go war; the shouting of slogan;

tearing of cedulas; the sending of letters presidents of Sanggunian

and balangay councils; the arrival of the civil guard; the loss

of Katipunan funds during the skirmish. All these events, and many

others, constitute the beginning of a nationwide revolution.

 The Cry, however, must be defined as that turning point when

the Filipinos finally rejected Spanish colonial dominion over the

Philippine Islands, by formally constituting their national

government, and by investing a set of leaders with authority in

initiating and guiding the revolution towards the establishment

of a sovereign nation.

Constitution Statements

Ang paghiwalay ng Filipinas sa kahariang España sa patatag ng

isang bayang may sariling pamamahala’t kapangyarihan na

pangangalang “Republika ng Filipinas” ay siyang layong inadhika

niyaring Paghihimagsik na kasalukuyan, simula pa ng ika- 24 ng

Agosto ng taong 1896.

These lines in a legal document are persuasive proof that in

so far as the leaders of the revolutionary concerned, the revolution

began on August 24th, 1896. The paper was written only one and a

half years after the event and signed by over 50 Katipunan members,

Emilio Aguinaldo, Artemio Ricarte, and Valentin Diaz.

Emilio Aguinaldo's memoirs, Mga Gunita ng Himagsikan (1964), refer

to two letters from Andres Bonifacio dated 22 and 24 August.

The first monument to mark the Cry was erected in 1903 on Ylaya

Street in Tondo. It is where Liga Filipina was founded in front

of the house. The tablet cites Andre Bonifacio as a founding member,

and as "Supreme Head of the Katipunan, which gave the first battle

Cry against tyranny on August 24th, 1896."

III. Conclusion

The above facts render unacceptable the official stand that the

turning point of the revolution was the tearing of cedulas in the

"Cry of Pugad Lawin" on August 23rd, 1896, in the Juan Ramos's house

in "Pugad Lawin" Bahay Toro, Kalookan.

The events of 17-26 August 1896 occurred closer to Balintawak

than to Kalookan. Traditionally, people referred to the "Cry of

Balintawak" since that barrio was a better-known reference point

than Banlat.

In any case, "Pugad Lawin" is not historiographically verifiable

outside of the statements of Pio Valenzuela in the 1930s and after.

In Philippine Historical Association round-table discussion in

February this year, a great-granddaughter of Tandang Sora protested

using the toponym "Pugad Lawin," which, she said, referred to a

hawks nest on top of a tall Sampaloc tree at Gulod, the highest

elevated area near Balintawak. It indeed negates the NHI's premise

that "Pugad Lawin" is on Seminary Road in Project 8.

We should celebrate the establishment of a revolutionary or the

facto government that was republican in aspiration. Bonifacio's

designation as the Kataastaasang Pangulo (Supreme President) and

the election of the members of his cabinet ministers in Sanggunian

and Balangay heads have authorized these moves. It took place at

around noon on Monday, August 24th, 1896.

Therefore, the so-called Cry of Pugad Lawin of August 23rd is

an imposition and erroneous interpretation, contrary to

indisputable and numerous historical facts.

The centennial of the Cry of Balintawak should be celebrated

on August 24th, 1996, at the barn and house of Tandang Sora in Gulod,
now barangay Banlat, Quezon City. That was when and where the

Filipino nation-state was born.

IV. References

Sichrovsky, Harry. "An Austrian Life for the Philippines:The Cry

of Balintawak". Retrieved August 29, 2009.

Borromeo-Buehler, Soledad M. (1998), The cry of Balintawak: a

contrived controversy : a textual analysis with appended documents,

Ateneo de Manila University Press

Zaide, Gregorio (1990). "Cry of balintawak". Documentary sources

of Philippine history

Zaide, Gregorio (1990). "Cry of Pugad Lawin". Documentary sources

of Philippine History

https://www.scribd.com/presentation/425942093/Where-Did-the-Cr

y-of-Rebellion-Happen-pptx

https://www.coursehero.com/file/p7nn2ne/Case-Study-4-Where-Did

-the-Cry-of-Rebellion-Happen-Momentous

https://prezi.com/p/pmxxkpjgl7ty/cry-of-rebellion/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cry_of_Pugad_Lawin

http://gwhs-stg02.i.gov.ph/~s2govnccaph/about-culture-and-arts

/in-focus/balintawak-the-cry-for-a-nationwide-revolution/

https://filipino.biz.ph/history/pugadlawin.html