Course Guide

Readings in
Philippine
History

Prepared by
Levi B. Velasco, MPA (PhDPA)
Email: levivelasco25@gmail.com
Facebook Messenger: Levi B. Velasco

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Introduction

Good morning!

My name and qualifications appear on the title page of this module and I am your
professor. Recalling the past life is hard for those who suffered unfavorable events,
heartwarming for those who encountered mirthful memories. Same thing happens when we read
novels, stories and histories of past generations. But as a Filipino, we need to study the subject
no matter how painful it was during those times of struggle.

Studying history allows us to gain valuable perspectives on the problems of our modern
society. Many problems, features, and characteristics of modern Philippine society can be traced
back to historical questions on our colonial past, as well as our pre-colonial culture. Our export-
oriented economy, for example, can be traced back to the ending of the galleon trade and the
subsequent liberalization and tying of the country to the world market, coupled with the lack of
industrial advancement in the islands. This and other lessons can be uncovered by digging deep
into the country’s past.

This also applies to other countries’ histories, and while studying the past may not
actually present a solution to current problems or directly answer questions, they lend new and
alternative perspectives to current situations and allow us to further understand current problems.

Course Objectives
We shall be guided by the course objectives developed by the Commission on Higher
Education. At the end of the midterm modules, learners should be able to:
1. Define History.
2. Review the issues on Philippine history.
3. Grasp the flashback of past events and the views of historians.
4. Familiarize the historical sources.
5. Wade through the first voyage around the world of Magellan as narrated by Pegafetta.
6. Soak up to the spirit of Kartilya ng Katipunan (KKK).

Course Structure
Readings in Philippine History is 3 units CHED mandated subject with 4 Midterm period
modules. Each instructional module usually has the following sections: Introduction, Objectives,
Text, Activity, Self-Assessment Questions, and Summary.

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Course Content:
Unit Unit Title Module Module Title
II Spaces for Conflict 5 Philippine Independence
6 C. Aquino’s Speech
7 First Mass
8 Did Rizal Retract?

Schedule of Activities
ACTIVITY DATE/TIME/VENUE COURSE REQUIREMENT COVERAGE
1 Online Articulation 1 Module 5
2 Articulation 2 Module 6
3 Articulation 3 Module 7-8

Guidelines on Class Activities and Student Participation

1. The course uses Google classroom as the venue of our classroom. It includes recitation
via Discussion Forum. You are required to participate in the DF and interact with your
classmates asynchronously. If you do not have access 100% to Google classroom the
same will be posted on the Group Chat via Facebook that I am going to create for the
class that will serve as your attendance for the whole Prelim.
2. Activities and SAQs in your module are all graded and equivalent to the
Quizzes/Activities/Projects in a Face to Face mode.
3. Tutor Mark Assignment will be posted a week before the scheduled deadline of
submission above. It has the highest rating for the covered term
4. Submission Online. You can submit your accomplished Activity/SAQs/TMA online by
simply sending it to my email or by sending screenshots via Facebook messenger.
Submission Hardcopy. You can also send the accomplished course requirements/module
by sending the hardcopy to Forbes College office.

Guidelines and Procedures for Submission of Assignments

1. Submit the course requirement to me through the Google classroom and email to
levivelasco25@gmail.com.
2. Be punctual in submitting requirements.
3. The format is MS Word file only not PDF.

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 Grading Scheme
The Final Grade of each student per
The Grade of each student per major exam
Semester

Quizzes 25% Prelim Exam 20%

Recitation 25% Midterm Exam 20%
Major Exams 25% Pre-Final Exam 25%
Attendance10% Final Exam 35%
Project 20% Total 100%
Total 100%

Course Materials/Modules
To work on the modules effectively, here are some guidelines:
1. It is best to read the modules in sequence. Perhaps it would help if you can scan all the
materials at the start of the course. That way, you become familiar with the different
modules and the extent of readings you have to do.
2. Try your best to work on all SAQs and activities.
3. Budget your time well using the schedule of activities. The schedule has been so
designed to give us adequate time to cover all the materials in the course.
Academic Integrity
We expect all course participants to be diligent and honest in preparing assignments.
These have been so designed to encourage independent work. Whenever you have to cite the
ideas or opinions of other people, you must identify your sources (the authors and your
references).

Please do not copy the assignments of other students. Dishonesty and other unscrupulous
practices, especially those violating academic integrity and intellectual property rights, will not
be tolerated.

Contact Information
If you have questions regarding the course requirements and module, you may get in
touch with us through the following:
LEVI B. VELASCO
Email: levivelasco25@gmail.com
Facebook: Levi B. Velasco

Email:
FORBES COLLEGE

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MIDTERM PERIOD starts here;

Analysis: Proclamation of the independence of the Philippines,

by Jose P. Laurel, President of the Preparatory Commission for
Philippine Independence, Manila, October 14, 1943:

Love of freedom has always been the dominating impulse which

has given the historical evolution of the Filipino race a meaning and a
purpose. In war and in peace, the Filipinos have ceaselessly fought and
labored for their freedom ever since they were brought under foreign
yoke, first under Spain for three hundred years or more and later under
America for the last forty years. Their incessant and arduous quest for
liberation has been hallowed by the blood and suffering of countless
Filipino heroes and martyrs.

As a consequence of the Greater East Asia War, the great

Nipponese Empire, true to its altruistic mission in waging that war, has
enabled the Filipino people to realize at last their dream of freedom by
allowing them to form a Preparatory Commission for Philippine
Independence, to adopt a Constitution for an independent Philippines,
and to take all other requisite steps for the establishment of the Republic
of the Philippines.

The Filipino people value their independence as the blessed fruit of

the sacrifices of their heroic forefathers and brothers who fought and
died in far-flung battlefields, from Mactan to Bataan, in their persistent
struggle for freedom.

They glory in it as the fulfillment of the Will of Divine Providence

which has given to all nations of the earth the inalienable right to be free
and independent.

This is the moment they have long awaited. This is the bright
morning after the long night of their colonial subjection. With heads
erect and brows serene they now stand in the sun even as once, more
than four hundred years ago, their forefathers stood as freemen beholden

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to none. For the ancient honor of their nation is redeemed at last. For the
rich and unbounded opportunities that freedom offers are now within
their grasp—

The opportunity to govern themselves and to run their affairs

without intervention of any foreign power;

The opportunity to develop their natural resources and thus insure

their economic self-sufficiency under the principle of the Philippines for
the Filipinos;

The opportunity to discover and develop their individual and

national potentialities uninhibited by the force of political subjection or
by the blight of racial prejudice;

The opportunity to rehabilitate themselves in mind and spirit in

accordance with the best that man has thought and said and done
through the ages;

The opportunity to find themselves anew learn the ways they have
forgotten and make themselves into the nation that God and Nature
intended they should be;

The opportunity to establish a sovereign republic dedicated to the

ideal of peace, liberty and moral justice;

The opportunity to contribute their share in the common prosperity

of the nations of Greater East Asia and of all mankind; and

The opportunity to cherish their independence in order that it may

endure forever as an inexhaustible fountain of blessings for this and for
future generations of their race.

The Filipino people, through the Preparatory Commission for

Philippine Independence, invoking the aid of Divine Providence, and the
hallowed spirits of Filipino patriots and martyrs who gave their lives for
the freedom of their fatherland, hereby proclaim to the world that they
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are, as of right they ought to be, a free and independent nation; that they
no longer owe allegiance to any foreign nation; that henceforth they
shall exercise all the powers and enjoy all the privileges to which they
are entitled as a free and independent state; and that for the defense of
their territorial integrity and the preservation of their independent
existence, they pledge their fortune, their lives, and their sacred honor.

Corazon Aquino's Speech before the Joint session of the United

States Congress
Speech before the Joint session of the United States
Congress  (1986) 
by Corazon Aquino

11th President of the Philippines
Delivered on September 18, 1986 at the United States
Capitol, Washington, D.C., United States of America
Mr. Speaker, Senator Thurmond, Distinguished members of
Congress, 3 years ago I left America in grief, to bury my husband Ninoy
Aquino. I thought I had left it also, to lay to rest his restless dream of
Philippine freedom. Today, I have returned as the President of a free
people.
In burying Ninoy, a whole nation honored him. By that brave and
selfless act of giving honor to a nation in shame recovered its own. A
country that had lost faith in its future, found it in a faithless and brazen
act of murder. So, in giving we receive, in losing we find, and out of
defeat we snatched our victory.
For the nation, Ninoy became the pleasing sacrifice that answered
their prayers for freedom. For myself and our children, Ninoy was a
loving husband and father. His loss, three times in our lives was always
a deep and painful one.
Fourteen years ago this month, was the first time we lost him. A
President turned dictator and traitor to his oath, suspended the

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constitution and shut down the Congress that was much like this one
before which I’m honored to speak. He detained my husband along with
thousands of others - Senators, publishers, and anyone who had spoken
up for the democracy as its end drew near. But for Ninoy, a long and
cruel ordeal was reserved. The dictator already knew that Ninoy was not
a body merely to be imprisoned but a spirit he must break. For even as
the dictatorship demolished one-by-one; the institutions of democracy,
the press, the congress, the independence of a judiciary, the protection of
the Bill of Rights, Ninoy kept their spirit alive in himself.
The government sought to break him by indignities and terror.
They locked him up in a tiny, nearly airless cell in a military camp in the
north. They stripped him naked and held a threat of a sudden midnight
execution over his head. Ninoy held up manfully under all of it. I barely
did as well. For forty-three days, the authorities would not tell me what
had happened to him. This was the first time my children and I felt we
had lost him.
When that didn’t work, they put him on trial for subversion,
murder and a host of other crimes before a military commission. Ninoy
challenged its authority and went on a fast. If he survived it, then he felt
God intended him for another fate. We had lost him again. For nothing
would hold him back from his determination to see his fast through to
the end. He stopped only when it dawned on him that the government
would keep his body alive after the fast had destroyed his brain. And so,
with barely any life in his body, he called off the fast on the 40th day.
God meant him for other things, he felt. He did not know that an early
death would still be his fate, that only the timing was wrong.
At any time during his long ordeal, Ninoy could have made a
separate peace with a dictatorship as so many of his countrymen had
done. But the spirit of democracy that inheres in our race and animates
this chamber could not be allowed to die. He held out in the loneliness of
his cell and the frustration of exile, the democratic alternative to the
insatiable greed and mindless cruelty of the right and the purging
holocaust of the left.

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 And then, we lost him irrevocably and more painfully than in the
past. The news came to us in Boston. It had to be after the three happiest
years of our lives together. But his death was my country’s resurrection
and the courage and faith by which alone they could be free again. The
dictator had called him a nobody. Yet, two million people threw aside
their passivity and fear and escorted him to his grave. And so began the
revolution that has brought me to democracy’s most famous home, the
Congress of the United States.
The task had fallen on my shoulders, to continue offering the
democratic alternative to our people.
Archibald MacLeish had said that democracy must be defended by
arms when it is attacked by arms, and with truth when it is attacked by
lies. He failed to say how it shall be won.
I held fast to Ninoy’s conviction that it must be by the ways of
democracy. I held out for participation in the 1984 election the
dictatorship called, even if I knew it would be rigged. I was warned by
the lawyers of the opposition, that I ran the grave risk of legitimizing the
foregone results of elections that were clearly going to be fraudulent.
But I was not fighting for lawyers but for the people in whose
intelligence, I had implicit faith. By the exercise of democracy even in a
dictatorship, they would be prepared for democracy when it came. And
then also, it was the only way I knew by which we could measure our
power even in the terms dictated by the dictatorship.
The people vindicated me in an election shamefully marked by
government thuggery and fraud. The opposition swept the elections,
garnering a clear majority of the votes even if they ended up (thanks to a
corrupt Commission on Elections) with barely a third of the seats in
Parliament. Now, I knew our power.
Last year, in an excess of arrogance, the dictatorship called for its
doom in a snap election. The people obliged. With over a million
signatures they drafted me to challenge the dictatorship. And I, obliged.
The rest is the history that dramatically unfolded on your television
screens and across the front pages of your newspapers.

9
 You saw a nation armed with courage and integrity, stand fast by
democracy against threats and corruption. You saw women poll
watchers break out in tears as armed goons crashed the polling places to
steal the ballots. But just the same, they tied themselves to the ballot
boxes. You saw a people so committed to the ways of democracy that
they were prepared to give their lives for its pale imitation. At the end of
the day before another wave of fraud could distort the results, I
announced the people’s victory.
Many of you here today played a part in changing the policy of
your country towards ours. We, the Filipinos thank each of you for what
you did. For balancing America’s strategic interest against human
concerns illuminates the American vision of the world. The co-chairman
of the United States observer team, in his report to the President said, “I
was witness to an extraordinary manifestation of democracy on the part
of the Filipino people. The ultimate result was the election of Mrs.
Corazon Aquino as President and Mr. Salvador Laurel as Vice-President
of the Philippines.”
When a subservient parliament announced my opponent’s victory,
the people then turned out in the streets and proclaimed me the President
of all the people. And true to their word, when a handful of military
leaders declared themselves against the dictatorship, the people rallied to
their protection. Surely, the people take care of their own. It is on that
faith and the obligation it entails that I assumed the Presidency.
As I came to power peacefully, so shall I keep it. That is my
contract with my people and my commitment to God. He had willed that
the blood drawn with a lash shall not in my country be paid by blood
drawn by the sword but by the tearful joy of reconciliation. We have
swept away absolute power by a limited revolution that respected the life
and freedom of every Filipino.
Now, we are restoring full constitutional government. Again as we
restore democracy by the ways of democracy, so are we completing the
constitutional structures of our new democracy under a constitution that
already gives full respect to the Bill of Rights. A jealously independent

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constitutional commission is completing its draft which will be
submitted later this year to a popular referendum. When it is approved,
there will be elections for both national and local positions. So, within
about a year from a peaceful but national upheaval that overturned a
dictatorship, we shall have returned to full constitutional government.
Given the polarization and breakdown we inherited, this is no
small achievement. My predecessor set aside democracy to save it from
a communist insurgency that numbered less than five hundred.
Unhampered by respect for human rights he went at it with hammer and
tongs. By the time he fled, that insurgency had grown to more than
sixteen thousand. I think there is a lesson here to be learned about trying
to stifle a thing with a means by which it grows. I don’t think anybody in
or outside our country, concerned for a democratic and open Philippines
doubts what must be done. Through political initiatives and local re-
integration programs, we must seek to bring the insurgents down from
the hills and by economic progress and justice, show them that which the
best-intentioned among them fight. As president among my people, I
will not betray the cause of peace by which I came to power. Yet,
equally and again, no friend of Filipino democracy will challenge this. I
will not stand by and allow an insurgent leadership to spurn our offer of
peace and kill our young soldiers and threaten our new freedom.
Yet, I must explore the path of peace to the utmost. For at its end,
whatever disappointment I meet there is the moral basis for laying down
the Olive branch of peace and taking up the sword of war.
Still, should it come to that, I will not waiver from the course laid
down by your great liberator.
“With malice towards none, with charity for all, with firmness in
the right as God gives us to see the right, let us finish the work we are in
to bind up the nation’s wounds. To care for him who shall have borne
the battle and for his widow and for his orphans to do all which may
achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with
all nations.”

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 Like Abraham Lincoln, I understand that force may be necessary
before mercy. Like Lincoln, I don’t relish it. Yet, I will do whatever it
takes to defend the integrity and freedom of my country.
Finally may I turn to that other slavery: our $26 billion foreign
debt. I have said that we shall honor it. Yet, the means by which we shall
be able to do so are kept from us. Many of the conditions imposed on the
previous government that stole this debt, continue to be imposed on us
who never benefited from it.
And no assistance or liberality commensurate with the calamity
that was vested on us have been extended. Yet ours must have been the
cheapest revolution ever. With little help from others, we Filipinos
fulfilled the first and most difficult condition of the debt negotiation, the
full restoration of democracy and responsible government. Elsewhere
and in other times, a more stringent world economic conditions, marshal
plans and their like were felt to be necessary companions of returning
democracy.
When I met with President Reagan, we began an important
dialogue about cooperation and the strengthening of friendship between
our two countries. That meeting was both a confirmation and a new
beginning. I am sure it will lead to positive results in all areas of
common concern. Today, we face the aspiration of a people who have
known so much poverty and massive unemployment for the past 14
years. And yet offer their lives for the abstraction of democracy.
Wherever I went in the campaign, slum area or impoverished
village. They came to me with one cry, democracy. Not food although
they clearly needed it but democracy. Not work, although they surely
wanted it but democracy. Not money, for they gave what little they had
to my campaign. They didn’t expect me to work a miracle that would
instantly put food into their mouths, clothes on their back, education in
their children and give them work that will put dignity in their lives. But
I feel the pressing obligation to respond quickly as the leader of the
people so deserving of all these things.

12
 We face a communist insurgency that feeds on economic
deterioration even as we carry a great share of the free world defenses in
the Pacific. These are only two of the many burdens my people carry
even as they try to build a worthy and enduring house for their new
democracy. That may serve as well as a redoubt for freedom in Asia.
Yet, no sooner as one stone laid than two are taken away. Half our
export earnings, $2 billion dollars out of $4 billion dollars which is all
we can earn in the restrictive market of the world, must go to pay just
the interest on a debt whose benefit the Filipino people never received.
Still we fought for honor and if only for honor, we shall pay. And
yet, should we have to ring the payments from the sweat of our men’s
faces and sink all the wealth piled by the bondsman’s two-hundred fifty
years of unrequitted toil. Yet, to all Americans, as the leader to a proud
and free people, I address this question, “Has there been a greater test of
national commitment to the ideals you hold dear than that my people
have gone through? You have spent many lives and much treasure to
bring freedom to many lands that were reluctant to receive it. And here,
you have a people who want it by themselves and need only the help to
preserve it.”
Three years ago I said, Thank you America for the haven from
opression and the home you gave Ninoy, myself and our children and for
the three happiest years of our lives together. Today I say, join us
America as we build a new home for democracy; another haven for the
opressed so it may stand as a shining testament of our two nations’
commitment to freedom.

Limasawa or Butuan? Debates continue on where first Mass was

held
By: Rosalie AbatayoNovember 13,2019 - 09:18 PM

Read more: https://cebudailynews.inquirer.net/270037/limasawa-or-
butuan-debates-continue-on-where-first-mass-was-held#ixzz6XKB8eaYL

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 CEBU CITY, Philippines —— With the quincentennial
celebration approaching, the Catholic Bishops Conference of the
Philippines (CBCP) hopes the debates on the true location of the first
Mass will finally be resolved.

Fr. Marvin Mejia, secretary-general of the CBCP, said the matter

was still being looked into by the National Historical Commission of the
Philippines (NHCP) and the Association of Church Historians in the
Philippines.

The first Mass and the first baptism are the two major historical
ecclesiastical events that are given focus in the quincentennial
celebrations sanctioned by the CBCP and the Archdiocese of Cebu.
Cebu is identified as the site of the first baptism with Rajah Humabon,
Queen Juana and hundreds of their community members being the first
converts, according to the accounts of Antonio Pigafetta, the chronicler
of the Magellan-Elcano expedition. The first baptism was on April 14,
1521. According to Pigafetta, the first Mass was celebrated on March
31, 1521, an Easter Sunday. Pigafetta referred to the venue as “Mazaua.”
Some say that the venue is the island of Limasawa in Leyte. Others,
however, claim that Pigafetta was referring to Masao the community at
the mouth of Agusan River adjacent to what is now the city of Butuan.

Nearing 500 years since the first Mass, debates continue whether it
was held on Limasawa Island, in Agusan or somewhere else. “As far as
our history books, the first Mass is in Limasawa. But there are other
places that are claiming that the first Mass was held in their locality. The
historical commission somehow opens the discussion among experts and
historians,” Mejia said.

Mejia attended the Archdiocese of Cebu’s press conference on

Wednesday, November 13, which tackled about the plans of the Catholic
church for the quincentennial celebration.

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They announced that to commemorate the first baptism, 500 children
with special needs would be baptized in the Basilica Minore del Santo
Niño in Cebu City on April 14, 2021.

The first Mass, on the other hand, shall be celebrated across the
country as it will be commemorated on the Easter of 2021 which falls on
April 12. This way, Mejia said, the first Mass would be well celebrated
and commemorated by all churches regardless of where the true site
would be. “Even if the issue is not yet resolved, the celebration and the
commemoration would still happen,” said Mejia.

He said that it would be up to the dioceses who were claiming to

be the site of the first Mass if they would hold a big event for the Easter
Mass./dbs

Did Jose Rizal Retract?

APRIL 8, 2012 | FIBBOYS
 Did Jose Rizal Retract?
No, Rizal did not retract. Although there were many opinions and
evidences presented by various authors as to whether Rizal did or did
not retract. Nonetheless, until now there is no proof or any justification
to end the debate.
The following assertions bring about the testimonies that Rizal did
not retract before his execution.

First was the copy of the retraction paper that was allegedly signed
by Rizal that was even kept secret and was only published in
newspapers. When Rizal’s family requested for the original copy, it was
said that it was lost. Could the Jesuits be this irresponsible to not know
the value of the paper? Or was it just hidden?

Thirty-nine years later the original copy was found in the

archdiocesan archives. Ricardo Pascual Ph. D who was given permission
15
by the Archbishop Nozaleda to examine the document and later
concluded in his book, “Rizal beyond the Grave” that the documents
presented was a forgery. The common rebuttal of this argument was
either Father Balaguer or Father Pi had made errors in reproducing
another copy of the original.

Another evidence as to Rizal did not retract is that when Father

Balaguer came to terms that he married Jose and Josephine, after Jose
had signed the retraction paper, however, there were no marriage
certificate or public record shown that could prove Father Balaguer’s
statements.

Why would Rizal retract when he knows for a fact that even if he
signs the retraction paper he would still be executed? Since the
Archbishop and Jesuits cannot do anything to mitigate his penalty
because the judicial process involved was purely a military tribunal
where civilian or church interference was uncommon and not allowed.
Rizal was accused of participating in filibusterous propaganda where the
penalty as provided by the Spanish Code is death. The same of what
happened to the three priests who were garrotted years earlier, even
though they were still a part of the church; they were still treated as
rebellious and were also not given a proper burial.

Furthermore, way back when Rizal was still exiled in Dapitan,

Father Sanchez- Rizal’s favourite teacher from Ateneo- was sent by the
Jesuits superiors to try to convince his former student’s allegation
towards the Catholic religion and Spanish religious in the Philippines.
Father Sanchez told him to retract in exchange of a professorship, a
hundred thousand pesos and an estate (Laubach, 1936) however Rizal
rejected the offer.

It was argued that Rizal retracted in order to save his family from
further persecution, to give Josephine Bracken a legal status as his wife
and to assure reforms from the Spanish government. It is more likely to
be of Rizal’s mentality however, come to think of it, would Rizal just
16
simply neglect all the writing he conceived with his hard work? The
same writings that brought him to the point of being executed? No.

Rizal’s behavior during his last hours in Fort Santiago does not
point to a conversion- the Mi Ultimo Adios and letters- or indicate even
a religious instability. In the evening where his sister and mother arrived,
never had he mentioned about the retraction, contrary to what Father
Balaguer claimed that even in the afternoon, Rizal was oblivious and
was asking for the formula of the retraction.

Rizal was fixated of the thought that he would die for the love of
his country, he, himself had coveted death a long time ago. His character
speaks so loud that even all of Rizal’s friends do not believe that he have
written a retraction.

Let us look at Rizal’s character as a man aged 33. He was mature

enough to realize the consequences of the choice he had made even
before he opposed to the Jesuits; he had been anticipating this to happen
and would be unlikely if he had a behavior showing a threat from death.
Anyone who has been studying his biography and had been acquainted
with him knows this is so, even the priests had admitted that Rizal
showed a behavior consistent of what he was throughout his mature
years.

Whatever further study that may emerge as to the truth about

Rizal’s retraction controversy, “…it detracts nothing from his greatness
as a Filipino.”

Cry of Pugad Lawin

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Cry of Balintawak (Filipino: Sigaw ng
Balíntawak, Spanish: Grito de Balíntawak), was the beginning of
the Philippine Revolution against the Spanish Empire.

17
 At the close of August 1896, members of the Katipunan secret
society (Katipuneros) led by Andrés Bonifacio rose up in revolt
somewhere in an area referred to as Caloocan, wider than the
jurisdiction of present-day Caloocan City which may have overlapped
into present-day Quezon City.
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.
Because 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.
Different Dates and Places
Various accounts give differing dates and places for the Cry. An
officer of the Spanish guardia civil, Lt. Olegario Diaz, stated that the
Cry took place in Balintawak on August 25, 1896. Historian Teodoro
Kalaw in his 1925 book The Filipino Revolution wrote that the event
took place during the last week of August 1896 at Kangkong,
Balintawak. 
Santiago Alvarez, a Katipunero and son of Mariano Alvarez, the
leader of the Magdiwang faction in Cavite, stated in 1927 that the Cry
took place in Bahay Toro, now in Quezon City on August 24, 1896. Pío
Valenzuela, a close associate of Andrés Bonifacio, declared in 1948 that
it happened in Pugad Lawin on August 23, 1896. Historian Gregorio
Zaide stated in his books in 1954 that the "Cry" happened in Balintawak
on August 26, 1896. Fellow historian Teodoro Agoncillo wrote in 1956
that it took place in Pugad Lawin on August 23, 1896, based on Pío
Valenzuela's statement.

18
 Accounts by historians Milagros Guerrero, Emmanuel Encarnacion
and Ramon Villegas claim the event to have taken place in Tandang
Sora's barn in Gulod, Barangay Banlat, Quezon City. Some of the
apparent confusion is in part due to the double meanings of the terms
"Balintawak" and "Caloocan" at the turn of the century. Balintawak
referred both to a specific place in modern Caloocan City and a wider
area which included parts of modern Quezon City. Similarly, Caloocan
referred to modern Caloocan City and also a wider area which included
modern Quezon City and part of modern Pasig. Pugad Lawin, Pasong
Tamo, Kangkong and other specific places were all in "greater
Balintawak", which was in turn part of "greater Caloocan".

Guillermo Masangkay
On August 26th, a big meeting was held in Balintawak, at the
house of Apolonio Samson, then cabeza of that barrio of Caloocan.
Among those who attended, I remember, were Bonifacio, Emilio
Jacinto, Aguedo del Rosario, Tomas Remigio, Briccio Pantas, Teodoro
Plata, Pio Valenzuela, Enrique Pacheco, and Francisco Carreon. They
were all leaders of the Katipunan and composed the board of directors of
the organization. Delegates from Bulacan, Cabanatuan, Cavite,
and Morong were also present.
At about nine o'clock in the morning of August 26, the meeting
was opened with Andres Bonifacio presiding and Emilio Jacinto acting
as secretary. The purpose was to discuss when the uprising was to take
place. Teodoro Plata, Briccio Pantas, and Pio Valenzuela were all
opposed to starting the revolution too early...Andres Bonifacio, sensing
that he would lose the discussion then, left the session hall and talked to
the people, who were waiting outside for the result of the meeting of the
leaders. He told the people that the leaders were arguing against starting
the revolution early, and appealed to them in a fiery speech in which he
said:"You remember the fate of our countrymen who were shot in
Bagumbayan. Should we return now to the towns, the Spaniards will
only shoot us. Our organization has been discovered and we are all

19
marked men. If we don't start the uprising, the Spaniards will get us
anyway. What then, do you say?"
` "Revolt!" the people shouted as one.
` Bonifacio then asked the people to give a pledge that they were to
revolt. He told them that the sign of slavery of the Filipinos were (sic)
the cedula tax charged each citizen. "If it is true that you are ready to
revolt... I want to see you destroy your cedulas. It will be a sign that all
of us have declared our severance from the Spaniards.
The Cry of Balintawak occurred on August 26, 1896. The Cry,
defined as that turning point when the Filipinos finally refused Spanish
colonial dominion over the Philippine Islands. With tears in their eyes,
the people as one man, pulled out their cedulas and tore them into
pieces. It was the beginning of the formal declaration of the separation
from Spanish rule."Long Live the Philippine Republic!", the cry of the
people. An article from The Sunday Tribune Magazine on August 21,
1932 featured the statements of the eyewitness account by Katipunan
General Guillermo Masangkay, "A Katipunero Speaks".
Masangkay recounts the "Cry of Balintawak", stating that on
August 26,1896, a big meeting was held in Balintawak at the house of
Apolonio Samson, then the cabeza of that barrio of Caloocan. At about
nine o'clock in the morning of August 26, the meeting was opened with
Andres Bonifacio presiding and Emilio Jacinto acting as Secretary. In
August 1896, after the Katipunan was discovered, Masangkay joined
Bonifacio, Emilio Jacinto, and others in a clandestine meeting held on
the 26th of that month at Apolonio Samson’s house in Caloocan.
Initially, the leaders of the movement quarreled over strategy and
tactics, and many of its members questioned the wisdom of an open
rebellion due to the lack of arms and logistical support. However, after
Bonifacio’s intense and convincing speech, everyone destroyed their
cedulas to symbolize their defiance towards Spain and, together, raised
the cry of “Revolt". 

20
Pio Valenzuela
In 1935, Pio Valenzuela, along with Briccio Pantas and Enrique
Pacheco said (in English translation) "The first Cry of the revolution did
not happen in Balintawak where the monument is, but in a place called
Pugad Lawin." In 1940, a research team of a forerunner of the National
Historical Institute (NHI) which included Valenzuela, identified the
location as part of sitio Gulod, Banlat, Kalookan City. IN 1964, the NHI
described this location as the house of Tandang Sora.
The first place of refuge of Andres Bonifacio, Emilio Jacinto,
Procopio, Bonifacio, Teodoro Plata, Aguedo del Rosario, and myself
was Balintawak, the first five arriving there on August 19, and I on
August 20, 1896. The first place where some 500 members of the
Katipunan met on August 22, 1896, was the house and yard of Apolonio
Samson at Kangkong. Aside from the persons mentioned above, among
those who were there were Briccio Pantas, Alejandro Santiago, Ramon
Bernardo, Apolonio Samson, and others. Here, views were only
exchanged, and no resolution was debated or adopted. It was at Pugad
Lawin, the house, store-house, and yard of Juan Ramos, son of Melchora
Aquino, where over 1,000 members of the Katipunan met and carried
out considerable debate and discussion on August 23, 1896. The
discussion was on whether or not the revolution against the Spanish
government should be started on August 29, 1896... After the
tumultuous meeting, many of those present tore their cedula certificates
and shouted "Long live the Philippines! Long live the Philippines!"

Santiago Alvarez
The account of Santiago Alvarez regarding the Cry of Balintawak
flaunted specific endeavors, as stated:
We started our trek to Kangkong at about eleven that night. We
walked through the rain over dark expanses of muddy meadows and
fields. Our clothes drenched and our bodies numbed by the cold wind,
we plodded wordlessly. It was nearly two in the morning when we
reached the house of Brother Apolonio Samson in Kangkong.
21
 We crowded into the house to rest and warm ourselves. We were so
tired that, after hanging our clothes out to dry, we soon feel asleep. The
Supremo began assigning guards at five o'clock the following morning,
Saturday 22 August 1896. He placed a detachment at the Balintawak
boundary and another at the backyard to the north of the house where we
were gathered. No less than three hundred men assembled at the bidding
of the Supremo Andres Bonifacio.
Altogether, they carried assorted weapons, bolos, spears, daggers, a
dozen small revolvers and a rifle used by its owner, one Lieutenant
Manuel, for hunting birds. The Supremo Bonifacio was restless because
of fear of sudden attack by the enemy. He was worried over the thought
that any of the couriers carrying the letter sent by Emilio Jacinto could
have been intercepted; and in that eventuality, the enemy would surely
know their whereabouts and attack them on the sly. He decided that it
was better to move to a site called Bahay Toro. At ten o'clock that
Sunday morning, 23 August 1896 we arrived at Bahay Toro. Our
member had grown to more than 500 and the house, yard, and
warehouse of Cabesang Melchora was getting crowded with us
Katipuneros. The generous hospitality of Cabesang Melchora was no
less than that of Apolonio Samson. Like him, she also opened her
granary and had plenty of rice pounded and animals slaughtered to feed
us. The following day, Monday, 24 August, more Katipuneros came and
increased our number to more than a thousand.
The Supremo called a meeting at ten o'clock that morning inside
Cabesang Melchora's barn. Flanking him on both sides at the head of the
table were Dr. Pio Valenzuela, Emilio Jacinto, Briccio Pantas, Enrique
Pacheco, Ramon Bernardo, Pantelaon Torres, Francisco Carreon,
Vicente Fernandez, Teodoro Plata, and others. We were so crowded that
some stood outside the barn. The following matters were approved at the
meeting:

1. An uprising to defend the people's freedom was to be started at

midnight of Saturday, 29 August 1896;

22
 2. To be on a state of alert so that the Katipunan forces could strike
should the situation arise where the enemy was at a disadvantage.
Thus, the uprising could be started earlier than the agreed time of
midnight of 29 August 1896 should a favorable opportunity arise
at that date. Everyone should steel himself and be resolute in the
struggle that was imminent; and
3. He immediate objective was the capture of Manila.
After the adjournment of the meeting at twelve noon, there were
tumultuous shouts of "Long live the Sons of the People!"

Rizal’s retraction: Truth vs Myth

By Tomas U. Santos-October 4, 201
THE DEBATE continues.

Since Rizal’s retraction letter was discovered by Father Manuel Garcia, C.M. in 1935, its
content has become a favorite subject of dispute among academicians and Catholics. The letter,
dated December 29, 1896, was said to have been signed by the National Hero himself.

It stated: “I declare myself a Catholic and in this religion in which I was born and
educated I wish to live and die. I retract with all my heart whatever in my words, writings,
publications and conduct has been contrary to my character as son of the Catholic Church.”

The controversy whether the National Hero actually wrote a retraction document only lies
in the judgment of its reader, as no amount of proof can probably make the two opposing groups
—the Masonic Rizalists (who firmly believe that Rizal did not withdraw) and the Catholic
Rizalists (who were convinced Rizal retracted)—agree with each other.

Proofs, documents

History books tell most people that the first draft of the retraction was sent by Archbishop
Bernardino Nozaleda to Rizal’s cell in Fort Santiago the night before his execution in
Bagumbayan. But Rizal was said to have rejected the draft because it was lengthy.

According to a testimony by Father Vicente Balaguer, a Jesuit missionary who

befriended the hero during his exile in Dapitan, Rizal accepted a shorter retraction document
prepared by the superior of the Jesuit Society in the Philippines, Father Pio Pi.

23
 Rizal then wrote his retraction after making some modifications in the document. In his
retraction, he disavowed Masonry and religious thoughts that opposed Catholic belief.

“Personally, I did not believe he retracted, but some documents that was purchased by the
Philippine government from Spain in the mid-1990s, the Cuerpo de Vigilancia de Manila,”
showed some interesting points about the retraction, said Jose Victor Torres, professor at the
History department of the De La Salle University.

Popularly known as the Katipunan and Rizal documents, the Cuerpo de Vigilancia de
Manila is a body of documents on the Philippine revolutions that contains confidential reports,
transcripts, clippings, and photographs from Spanish and Philippine newspapers.

Despite this, Torres said his perception of the Filipino martyr would not change even if
the controversies were true.

“Even though it would be easy to say he retracted all that he wrote about the Church, it
still did not change the fact that his writings began the wheels of change in Philippine colonial
society during the Spanish period—a change that led to our independence,” Torres said. “The
retraction is just one aspect of the life, works, and writings of Rizal.”

But then, Torres noted that the controversy is irrelevant today.

“The way Rizal is taught in schools today, the retraction means nothing,” he said.

‘Unadorned fact’

Filipino historian Nicolas Zafra considered the controversy as “a plain unadorned fact of
history, having all the marks and indications of historical certainty and reality” in his book The
Historicity of Rizal’s Retraction.

Dr. Augusto De Viana, head of UST’s Department of History , also believes that Rizal
retracted and said the National Hero just renounced from the Free Masonry and not from his
famous nationalistic works.

“He (Rizal) retracted. He died as a Catholic, and a proof that he died as a Catholic was he
was buried inside the sacred grounds of Paco Cemetery,” said De Viana, who compared the
martyr with Apolinario Mabini, a revolutionary and free mason who was buried in a Chinese
cemetery.

24
 De Viana said it is not possible that the retraction letter had been forged because
witnesses were present while Rizal was signing it.

He added that the evidence speaks for itself and moves on to the question on Rizal’s
character as some argue that the retraction is not in line with Rizal’s mature beliefs and
personality.

“Anti-retractionists ask, ‘What kind of hero is Jose Rizal?’ They say he was fickle-
minded. Well, that may be true, but that is human character. Rizal was not a perfect person,” De
Viana said.

He also mentioned that just like any person, Rizal was prone to flip-flop. He believes that
Rizal retracted because the national hero wanted to be at peace when he dies.

But would Rizal’s works deem irrelevant and futile because of his retraction?

De Viana answered, “Rizal awakened our knowledge of nationalism. For me, that is
enough. The issue will not invalidate his works in any way.”

In Focus: Balintawak: The Cry for a Nationwide Revolution

June 06, 2003

MILAGROS C. GUERRERO EMMANUEL N. ENCARNACION RAMON N. VILLEGAS

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” (16 September 1810), Brazil the “City of Ypiraga” (7 September 1822),
and in Cuba the “Cry of Matanza” (24 February 1895). In August 1896, northeast of Manila,
Filipinos similarly declared their rebellion against the Spanish colonial government. It was
Manuel Sastron, the Spanish historian, who 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.

Raging controversy

If the expression is 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
on 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.

25
 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 in his memoirs (1896-1898) the tearing or inspection of the
cedula, but did note the pacto de sangre (blood pact) mark on every single Filipino he met in
August 1896 on his reconnaissance missions around Balintawak.

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 a “Himno de Balintawak” to herald renewed fighting
after the failed peace of the pact of Biyak na Bato.

On 3 September 1911, a monument to the Heroes of 1896 was erected in what is now the
intersection of Epifanio de los Santos Avenue and Andres Bonifacio Drive –North Doversion
Road. From that time on until 1962, the Cry of Balintawak was officially celebrated every 26
August.

It is not clear why the 1911 monument was erected there. It could not have been to mark
the site of Apolonio Samson’s house in barrio Kangkong; Katipuneros marked 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 own 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 was 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” (August 23, 1896) 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 determined what really happened.

26
 Was there a meeting at Pugad Lawin on 23 August 1896, after the meeting at Apolonio
Samson’s residence in Hong Kong? Where were the cedulas torn, at Kangkong or Pugad Lawin?

In September 1896, Valenzuela stated before the Olive Court, which was charged with
investigating persons involved in the rebellion, only that Katipunan meetings took place from
Sunday to Tuesday or 23 to 25 August at Balintawak.

In 1911, Valenzuela averred that the Katipunan began meeting on 22 August while the
Cry took place on 23 August at Apolonio Samson’s house in Balintawak.

From 1928 to 1940, Valenzuela maintained that the Cry happened on 24 August 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 24
August 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.)

In 1940, a research team of the Philippines Historical Committee (a forerunner of the

National Historical Institute or NHI), which included Pio Valenzuela, identified the precise spot
of Pugad Lawin as part of sitio Gulod, Banlat, Kalookan City. In 1964, the NHI’s Minutes of the
Katipunan referred to the place of the Cry as Tandang Sora’s and not as Juan Ramos’ house, and
the date as 23 August.

Valenzuela memoirs (1964, 1978) averred that the Cry took place on 23 August at the
house of Juan Ramos at Pugad Lawin. The NHI was obviously influenced by Valenzuela’s
memoirs. In 1963, upon the NHI endorsement, President Diosdado Macapagal ordered that the
Cry be celebrated on 23 August and that Pugad Lawin be recognized as its site.

John N. Schrumacher, S.J, of the Ateneo de Manila University was to comment on Pio
Valenzuela’s credibility:

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 from the time he surrendered to the Spanish authorities and made various statements not
always compatible with one another up to the time when as an old man he was interviewed by
Agoncillo.

Pio Valenzuela backtracked on yet another point. In 1896, Valenzuela testified that when
the Katipunan consulted Jose Rizal on whether the time had come to revolt, Rizal was
vehemently against the revolution. Later, in Agoncillo’s Revolt of the masses, Valenzuela

27
retracted and claimed that Rizal was actually for the uprising, if certain prerequisites were met.
Agoncillo reasoned that Valenzuela had lied to save Rizal.

The Pugad Lawin marker

The prevalent account of the Cry is that of Teodoro Agoncillo in Revolt of the masses (1956):

It was in Pugad Lawin, where they proceeded upon leaving Samson’s place in the
afternoon of the 22nd, that 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. Considerable
discussion arose whether the revolt against the Spanish government should be started on the
29th. Only one man protested… But he was overruled in his stand… Bonifacio then announced
the decision and shouted: “Brothers, it was agreed to continue with the plan of revolt. 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 influenced and campaigned for a change in the
recognized site to Pugad Lawin and the date 23 August 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 be called the “Cry of Pugad
Lawin,” and that it be celebrated on 23 August instead of 26 August. 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 29 November 1968.

In 1962, Teodoro Agoncillo, together with the UP Student Council, placed a marker at
the Pugad Lawin site. According to Agoncillo, the house of Juan Ramos stood there in 1896,
while the house of Tandang Sora was located at Pasong Tamo.

On 30 June 1983, Quezon City Mayor Adelina S. Rodriguez created the Pugad Lawin Historical
Committee to determine the location of Juan Ramos’s 1896 residence at Pugad Lawin.

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

 In August 1983, Pugad Lawin in barangay Bahay Toro was inhabited by squatter
colonies.• The NHI believed that it was correct in looking for the house of Juan Ramos
and not of Tandang Sora. However, the former residence of Juan Ramos was clearly
defined.• There was an old dap-dap tree at the site when the NHI conducted its survey I
1983. Teodoro Agoncillo, Gregorio Zaide and Pio Valenzuela do not mention a dap-dap
tree in their books.

28
 • Pio Valenzuela, the main proponent of the “Pugad Lawin” version, was dead by the
time the committee conducted its research.

• Teodoro Agoncillo tried to locate the marker installed in August 1962 by the UP
Student Council. However, was no longer extant in 1983.

In spite of the above findings and in 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 and not Juan Ramos’s and that the specific
site of Pugad Lawin was Gulod in Banlat.

The presence of 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.

On the basis of the 1983 committee’s findings, the NHI placed a marker on 23 August
1984 on Seminary Road in barangay Bahay Toro behind Toro Hills High School, the Quezon
City General Hospital and 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.

(On this site Andres Bonifacio and one thousand Katipuneros met in the morning of 23
August 1896 and decided to revolt against the Spanish colonial government in the Philippines.
As an affirmation of their resolve, they tore up their tax receipts which were symbols of
oppression of the Filipinos. This was very first Cry of the Oppressed Nation against Spain which
was enforced with use of arms.)

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 as unresolved.

Cartographic changes

Was there a Pugad Lawin in maps or literature of the period?

A rough sketch or croquis de las operaciones practicadas in El Español showed the

movements of Lt. Ros against the Katipunan on 25, 26, and 27 August 1896. The map defined
each place name as sitio “Baclac” (sic: Banlat). In 1897, the Spanish historian Sastron mentioned
Kalookan, Balintawak, Banlat and Pasong Tamo. The names mentioned in some revolutionary

29
sources and interpretations- Daang Malalim, Kangkong and Pugad Lawin- were not identified as
barrios. Even detailed Spanish and American maps mark only Kalookan and Balintawak.

In 1943 map of Manila marks Balintawak separately from Kalookan and Diliman. The
sites where revolutionary events took place are within the ambit of Balintawak.

Government maps issued in 1956, 1987, and 1990, confirm the existence of barangays
Bahay Toro, but do not define their boundaries. Pugad Lawin is not on any of these maps.

According to the government, Balintawak is no longer on the of Quezon City but has
been replaced by several barangays. Barrio Banlat is now divided into barangays Tandang Sora
and Pasong Tamo. Only bahay Toro remains intact.

Writer and linguist Sofronio Calderon, conducting research in the late 1920s on the
toponym “Pugad Lawin,” went through the municipal records and the Census of 1903 and 1918,
could not find the name, and concluded that “Isang…pagkakamali… ang sabihing mayroong
Pugad Lawin sa Kalookan.” (It would be a mistake to say that there is such as Pugad Lawin in
Kalookan.)

What can we conclude from all this?

First, that “Pugad Lawin” was never officially recognized as a place name on any
Philippine map before Second World War. Second, “Pugad Lawin “ appeared in historiography
only from 1928, or some 32 years after the events took place. And third, the revolution was
always traditionally held to have occurred in the area of Balintawak, which was distinct from
Kalookan and Diliman.

Therefore, while the toponym “Pugad Lawin” is more romantic, it is more accurate to
stick to the original “Cry of Balintawak.”

Determining the date

The official stand of NHI is that the Cry took place on 23 August 1896. That date, however, is
debatable.

The later accounts of Pio Valenzuela and Guillermo Masangkay on the tearing of cedulas
on 23 August are basically in agreement, but conflict with each other on the location. Valenzuela
points to the house of Juan Ramos in Pugad Lawin, while Masangkay refers to Apolonio
Samson’s in Kangkong. Masangkay’s final statement has more weight as it is was corroborated
by many eyewitnesses who were photographed in 1917, when the earliest 23 August marker was
installed. Valenzuela’s date (23 August ) in his memoirs conflict with 1928 and 1930
photographs of the surveys with several Katipunan officers, published in La Opinion, which
claim that the Cry took place on the 24th.

The turning point

30
 What occurred during those last days of August 1896? 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 civil guard; the loss of Katipunan funds during
the skirmish. All these events, and many others, constitute the beginning of 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
own national government, and by investing a set of leaders with authority to initiate and guide
the revolution towards the establishment of sovereign nation.

Where did this take place?

The introduction to the original Tagalog text of the Biyak na Bato Constitution states:

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…

The Spanish text also states:

La separacion de Filipinas de la Monarquia Española, constituyendose en Estado

Independiente y soberano con Gobierno propuio, con el nombre de Repulica de Filipinas, es en
su Guerra actual, iniciada en 24 de Agosto de 1896…

(The separation of the Philippines from the Spanish Monarchu, constituting an

independent state and with a proper sovereign government, named the Republic of the
Philippines, was the end pursued by the revolution through the present hostilities, initiated on 24
August 1896…)

These lines- in a legal document at that – are persuasive proof that in so far as the leaders
of the revolution are concerned, revolution began on 24 August 1896. The document was written
only one and a half years after the event and signed by over 50 Katipunan members, among them
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. They pinpoint the date and place of the crucial
Cry meeting when the decision to attack Manila was made:

Noong ika-22 ng Agosto, 1896, ang Sangguniang Magdalo ay tumanggap ng isang lihim
na sulat mula sa Supremo Andres Bonifacio, sa Balintawak , na nagsasaad na isamng
mahalagang pulong ang kanilang idinaos sa ika-24 ng nasabing buwan, at lubhang kailangan na
kame ay mapadala roon ng dalawang kinatawan o delegado sa ngalan ng Sanggunian. Ang

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pulong aniya’y itataon sa kaarawan ng kapistahan ng San Bartolome sa Malabon, Tambobong.
kapagkarakang matanggap ang nasabing paanyaya, an gaming Pangulo na si G. Baldomero
Aguinaldo, ay tumawag ng pulong sa tribunal ng Cavite el Viejo… Nagkaroon kami ng pag-
aalinlangan sa pagpapadala roon ng aming kinatawan dahil sa kaselanang pagdararanang mga
pook at totoong mahigpit at abot-abot ang panghuli ng mag Guardia Civil at Veterana sa mga
naglalakad lalung-lalo na sa mag pinaghihinalaang mga mason at Katipunan.

Gayon pa man ay aming hinirang at pinagkaisahang ipadalang tanging Sugo ang

matapang na kapatid naming si G. Domingo Orcullo… Ang aming Sugo ay nakarating ng
maluwalhati sa kanyang paroonan at nagbalik din na wala naming sakuna, na taglay ang sulat
ng Supremo na may petsang 24 ng Agosto. Doon ay wala naming sinasabing kautusan,
maliban sa patalastas na kagugulat-gulat na kanilang lulusubin ang Maynila, sa Sabado ng gabi,
ika-29 ng Agosto, at ang hudyat ay ang pagpatay ng ilaw sa Luneta. Saka idinugtong pa na
marami diumano ang nahuli at napatay ng Guardia Civil at Veterana sa kanyang mga kasamahan
sa lugar ng Gulod …

(On 22 August 1896, the Magdalo Council received a secret letter from Supremo Andres
Bonifacio, in Balintawak, which stated that the Katipunan will hold an important meeting on the
24th of the said month, and that it was extremely necessary to send two representatives or
delegates in the name of the said Council. The meeting would be timed to coincide with the feast
day of Saint Bartolomew in Malabon, Tambobong.

Upon receiving the said invitation, our President, Mr. Baldomero Aguinaldo, called a
meeting at Tribunal of Cavite el Viejo…We were apprehensive about sending representatives
because the areas they would have pass through were dangerous and was a fact that the Civil
Guard and Veterans were arresting travelers, especially those suspected of being freemasons and
members of Katipunan.

Nevertheless, we agreed and nominated to send a single representative in the person of

our brave brother, Mr. Domingo Orcullo… Our representative arrived safely at his destination
and also returned unharmed, bearing a letter from the Supremo dated 24 August. It contained
no orders but the shocking announcement that the Katipunan would attack Manila at night on
Saturday, 29 August, the signal for which would be the putting out of the lamps in Luneta. He
added that many of his comrade had been captured and killed by the Civil Guard and Veterans in
Gulod…)

The first monument to mark the Cry was erected in 1903 on Ylaya Street in Tondo, in
front of the house were Liga Filipina was founded. 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 24, 1896.”

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 23 August 1896, in the
Juan Ramos’s house in “Pugad Lawin” Bahay Toro, Kalookan.

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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 the use of
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. This certainly negates the NHI’s premise
that “Pugad Lawin” is on Seminary Road in Project 8.

What we should celebrate is the establishment of a revolutionary or the facto government

that was republican in aspiration, the designation of Bonifacio as the Kataastaasang Pangulo
(Supreme Presiddent), the election of the members of his cabinet ministers and Sanggunian and
Balangay heads which authorized these moves met in Tandang Sora’s barn near Pasong Tamo
Road, in sitio Gulod, barrio Banlat then under the jurisdiction of the municipality of Kalookan.
This took place at around noon of Monday, 24 August 1896.

It is clear that the so-called Cry of Pugad Lawin of 23 August is an imposition and
erroneous interpretation, contrary to indisputable and numerous historical facts.

The centennial of the Cry of Balintawak should be celebrated on 24 August 1996 at the
site of 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.

Activity 1

1. Articulate on the following topics;

a. The essence of Philippine Independence
b. Corazon Aquino’s Speech
c. The First Mass in the Philippines
d. Did Rizal Retract?
e. Influences among Filipinos of the Cry of Balintawak.

Summary

Historians spend a lot of time thinking about the past. Should they also ponder the
future? World History for Us All explores the past at some very large scales. By doing so, it
shows the existence of some very large trends. Some trends are so large that they will surely
persist far into the future. This makes it tempting to try to peek into the future as well as the
past, for we know that these trends will not change overnight. What might happen to

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humanity and its earthly environment in Big Era Ten or beyond? The very large trends
should give us some clues.

Reference

Halili, MC. (2004). Philippine History

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