The Cavite Mutiny

 January 20, 1872, brief uprising of 200 Filipino troops and workers at the Cavite arsenal, which
became the excuse for Spanish repression of the embryonic Philippine nationalist movement.
Ironically, the harsh reaction of the Spanish authorities served ultimately to promote the
nationalist cause.
The mutiny was quickly crushed, but the Spanish regime under the reactionary governor
Rafael de Izquierdo magnified the incident and used it as an excuse to clamp down on
those Filipinos who had been calling for governmental reform. A number of Filipino
intellectual were seized and accused of complicity with the mutineers. After a brief trial,
three priests—José Burgos, Jacinto Zamora, and Mariano Gómez—were publicly
executed. The three subsequently became martyrs to the cause of Philippine
independence.
Mutiny, any overt act of defiance or attack upon military (including naval) authority by
two or more persons subject to such authority. The term is occasionally used to describe
nonmilitary instances of defiance or attack—such as mutiny on board a merchant ship or
a rising of slaves in a state in which slavery is recognized by law or custom. Mutiny
should be distinguished from revolt or rebellion, which involve a more widespread
defiance and which generally have a political objective.
The Gomburza
On February 17, 1872, the three martyred Priests, Fathers Mariano Gomez, Jose
Apolonio Burgos, and Jacinto Zamora, better known for the acronym GOMBURZA, were
executed by garrote by the Spaniards in Bagumbayan in connection with the 1872 Cavite
Mutiny.
The three priests incurred the hatred of the Spanish authorities for leading the campaign
against the abusive Spanish friars and fighting for equal rights among priests. They
fought on unresolved issues about secularization in the Philippines that resulted in a
conflict among the religious regulars and the church seculars.
The Cavite Mutiny of workers in the arsenal of the naval shipyard over pay reduction
owing to increased taxation was magnified into a dangerous rebellion and was seized by
Spanish authorities as an occasion to silence the proponents of secularization.
The Spanish prosecutors bribed a witness to testify against the three priests who were
charged with sedition and treason, which led to their death by garrote.

Their execution left a profound effect on many Filipinos, including Dr. Jose Rizal, the
national hero, who dedicated his novel Noli Me Tangere to their memory.