VILLAMOR, EDWARD OSCAR D.

BS CRIMINOLOGY

All 6 different sources present similar ideas in their stories but different dates and
places which caused them to oppose each other. Until the National Historical
Institute (NHI) discovered Valenzuela’s Memoirs that is parallel to his first statement
on the first ‘cry’ which is The Cry of Pugad Lawin. As NHI considered the information
found as precise. Around the year of 1963, Pres. Diosdado Macapagal agreed with
the discovery of NHI and declared it as the official ‘cry’ which launched the 1896
Philippine Revolution.

While I-Stories considers Valenzuela’s Pugad Lawin version as the most credible for
a reason that his memories about the happening was still fresh when he wrote this.
I do not agree with Valenzuela because he was not consistent with his stories despite
the memoirs of him that was found. Where in later was found out that the place
Pugad Lawin itself could not be proven to exist for no other records during the
Spanish colonization speaks of it. Also in agreement with the testimonials and
comments of different Philippine History book authors such as Pedro A.

Gagelonia of the Far Eastern University who pointed out that “The Cry of Pugad Lawin
cannot be accepted as historically accurate because it lacks positive documentation
and supporting evidences from the witness. The testimony of only one eye witness
is not enough…” along with the statement of John N. Schrumacher, S. J, of the Ateneo
de Manila University which is “I would certainly give much less credence to all
accounts coming from Pio Valezuela, and to the interpretations Agoncillo got from
him verbally, since Valenzuela gave so many versions…” in addition with a part taken
from the textual analysis of Dr.

Soledad Borromeo-Buehler of the University of the Philippines which says “The name
Pugad Lawin does not appear in contemporary accounts of the revolution, nor in the
censuses of 1903, 1918, municipal records of Calookan, nor on pertinent maps of
that town” alongside with analysing the different contemporary records and
documents from the Spanish colonization period where in she found that these
documents were presented or translated to the public in manners such as
“unquoted, misquoted or misrepresented”.
The only way out of this prolonged contention is to consider the idea that the “cry”
could have happened in all of those places on the different dates considering that all
of those places are generally in Caloocan. Relatively, since each “cry” happened on
different dates and places with the same Katipunan leaders, it is possible that they
conducted each cry at each of the different places around Caloocan. A proof that
could support my statement is the discovery that Andres Bonifacio was actually a
mestizo who was a resident of Tondo but was not enrolled for the head tax among
the naturales in Tondo which means that he did not pay taxes which leads to a
conclusion that he could not have had a cedula. Not having a cedula immediately
leads to persecution by the Spaniards whereas Bonifacio was able to survive which
could mean that he was able to produce a fake one. When a cedula was finally found
with his name on it, an investigation proved that it is fake.

Align with the preceding stretch, It may be assumed that Bonifacio could have had
several or even dozens of fake cedulas that he tore up during those numerous “cries”.
In other words, the seven different views about the “cries” may all be correct since
they are all located along the areas of Caloocan, starting with The Cry of Pugad Lawin
on August 23, 1896 down to The Cry of Balintawak on August 26, 1896. Or rather,
there is no choice but to wait for one of them to be proven certain. References
Borromeo-Buehler, S. (1998). The cry of balintawak: A contrived controversy.