The hero of the Filipinos The story of José Rizal, poet, patriot and martyr
themselves at last into unusual character. What was Mabini’s character
may be gathered from this decalogue he composed for his own guidance
and that of his countrymen:
First. Thou shalt love God and thine honor above all things; God as
the fountain of all truth, of all justice, and of all activity; and
thine honor, the only power that will oblige thee to be faithful,
just, and industrious.
Second. Thou shalt worship God in the form that thy conscience may
deem most righteous and worthy; for in thy conscience, which
condemns thine evil deeds and praises thy good ones, speaks thy
God.
Third. Thou shalt cultivate the special gifts that God has granted
thee, working and studying according to thine ability, never
leaving the path of righteousness and justice, in order to attain
to thine own perfection, by means whereof thou shalt contribute to
the progress of humanity. Thus thou shalt fulfil the mission to
which God has appointed thee, and by so doing thou shalt be
honored, and, being honored, thou shalt glorify thy God.
Fourth. Thou shalt love thy country after God and thine honor and
more than thyself: for she is the only paradise which God has given
thee in this life, the only patrimony of thy race, the only
inheritance of thine ancestors, and the only hope of thy posterity;
because of her, thou hast life, love, and interests, happiness,
honor, and God.
Fifth. Thou shalt strive for the happiness of thy country before
thine own, making of her the kingdom of reason, of justice, and of
labor; for if she be happy, thou, together with thy family, shalt
likewise be happy.
Sixth. Thou shalt strive for the independence of thy country; for
only thou canst have any real interest in her advancement and
exaltation, because her independence constitutes thine own liberty;
her advancement, thy perfection; and her exaltation, thine own
glory and immortality.
Seventh. Thou shalt not recognize in thy country the authority of
any person that has not been elected by thee and thy countrymen;
for authority emanates from God, and as God speaks in the
conscience of every man, the person designated and proclaimed by
the conscience of a whole people is the only one that can use true
authority.
Eighth. Thou shalt strive for a republic and never for a monarchy
in the country; for the latter exalts one or several families and
founds a dynasty; the former makes a people noble and worthy
through reason, great through liberty, and prosperous and brilliant
through labor.
Ninth. Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself; for God has imposed
upon him the obligation to help thee, as upon thee the obligation
to help him, and not to do to thee what he would not have thee do
unto him; but if thy neighbor, failing in this sacred duty, attempt
against thy life, thy liberty, and thy interests, then thou shalt
destroy and annihilate him, for the supreme law of
self-preservation prevails.
Tenth. Thou shalt consider thy countryman as more than thy
neighbor; thou shalt see in him thy friend, thy brother, or at
least thy comrade, with whom thou art bound by one fate, by the
same joys and sorrows, and by common aspirations and interests.
Therefore, as long as national frontiers subsist, raised and
maintained by the selfishness of race and of family, with thy
countryman alone shalt thou unite in a perfect solidarity of
purpose and interest, in order to have force, not only to resist
the common enemy but also to attain all the aims of human life.
Meantime, in the great events that had shaken this ancient theater of
bold deeds, the freedom of which Mabini and his fellows had dreamed had
more than once lightened before them. With the news of the discovery of
the Katipunan and the cruelties of the hysteria in high places that
followed next, the revolution spread swiftly to the provinces. Cavite,
Batangas, Zambales, Tarlac rose as the clans rose in Scotland; a
remarkable fact, for here had been no preparation, and the Katipunan
had not gone far beyond Manila walls. Nothing would seem to show more
plainly that the psychology of the people had been all misread. At
Rizal’s school he had noticed that the Spaniards deemed the natives
submissive to kicks and insults when in reality wrath burned in the
native heart. It was so here; while the “miserable Indio” had borne in
silence the lash of the governing class he had not ceased at any time
to resent its sting, and at the first call to revolt the whole Island
went aflame. In a week the comfortable fictions about Filipino
incapacity were shattered by such ponderable facts as shot and shell,
and Spain was retreating before the gravest crisis it had known in its
325 years of mismanagement.
Bonifacio’s forces increased daily. He gave battle to the regular
troops sent against him and sometimes he beat them, sometimes he was
beaten; but never was he dismayed. He developed captains among the
young men that flocked around him; with others, this Emilio Aguinaldo
of whom we have spoken. This was a youth lately out of college that had
never set a squadron in the field nor the divisions of a battle knew
more than Cassio. Yet he quickly showed such natural talents for
command that he made his fame enduring among the military leaders of
all times. He was born in the city of Cavite in March, 1869, and had
studied at the College of San Juan with no more thought of being a
soldier than of being a chiropodist. He had read his horoscope in the
face of fate and perceived that he was to be a farmer and lead a quiet
life among dingles and rice-plots. No sooner had he fingered his degree
at San Juan than he hastened to fulfil this modest destiny by taking a
farm in Cavite province and trying to better the yield of rice there.
He had character, a presence, and a good mind; he had not been farming
long when he was made municipal captain of his district. From his youth
he seems to have been strong for nationalism, being a type of the class
of young men rising in all parts of the Islands on whom the Spanish
collar rested uneasily if at all, the class of which Rizal was the best
example and natural leader. In 1894 he joined the Katipunan. When
Father Gil pulled the strings and revealed, to the fevered imagination
of the Spaniards, the lair of this frightful monster, Aguinaldo was one
of the first to proclaim the revolution. Chiefly it was his work that
made Cavite an insurrectionary stronghold. In whatever he undertook he
showed the executive faculty, the power to get things done quickly and
efficiently, and a cool, hardy courage that no emergency could shake.
Bonifacio advanced him to the highest commands, and in each instance
the result justified the election, for the man had undoubtedly an
instinct for war.
On March 12, 1897, seven months after the Katipunan explosion, a
convention of the revolutionists met to establish a Provisional
Government. No doubt Bonifacio, still head of the Katipunan, expected
to be made president of the Provisional Republic, also; but the
convention’s choice was Aguinaldo. Intrigue may have played some part
in this dénouement; but the impulse to it was Aguinaldo’s brilliant
operations in the field—Napoleon and the Directoire again. Bonifacio
was offered the place of secretary of the interior. He angrily refused
it and took to the mountains with his brothers. In trying to arrest him
a party of soldiers wounded him to death.
For months the war was fought with varying chances. Sometimes the
Filipinos routed the Spaniards; [230] sometimes they were driven back.
Fresh troops came from Spain; gradually the revolutionists retired into
the mountains; but it was evident that no forces the Spaniards were
likely to gather would be enough to suppress this uprising. What Spain
faced was such years of wearying warfare as had drained her treasury
and brought her shame in Cuba. It was a prospect the Government viewed
with no satisfaction. Another governor-general, Primo de Rivera, came
out to take the place of Polavieja, the foolish man that had led the
mad hunt after Katipunanists. Once before de Rivera had been
governor-general; by some extravagance he was believed to understand
the Filipinos and to be their friend. He now sought to end a strife so
unpromising of any result except deficits. A meeting was arranged with
the insurgent chiefs, at which a treaty [231] was patched together
whereby the Filipinos were to have all the reforms and rights they had
demanded and had fought for, except actual independence. When we come
to look to-day at these sweeping changes we should note that prominent
among them was the triumph of the people so long delayed over the
orders. These were to be expelled or secularized. [232] Complete
religious freedom was explicitly guaranteed—and no more friars, no more
System. By this token it would seem, then, that Rizal had already
conquered. He exposed the orders; the orders killed him, but apparently
wrought thereby their own ruin.
Amnesty for all that had taken part in the revolution was promised,
with momentous changes in the methods of government. There was to be no
longer an irresponsible oligarchy ruling as it pleased; the Philippines
were to have representation in the Spanish Parliament; they were to
emerge from the darkness that fostered iniquity and dwell in the
critical spotlights of civilization. There was to be a free press, free
speech, free assembly; there were to be radical reforms in the courts
and other desirable novelties. A sum of money was to be deposited by
the Spanish Government to guarantee the fulfilment of these pledges and
to provide for the families of the revolutionists killed in the war.
Aguinaldo and his commanders were to retire from the country.
This was signed December 14, 1897. In two months it was evident that
the Spanish Government had no intention to keep any of the pledges thus
made. The orders abated nothing of their power and insolence; the
captured revolutionists were rigorously punished and often horribly
mishandled; there was no free speech, no free press; no improvements
were made in the courts; only a part of the guarantee fund was
deposited. The revolution was resumed with new fury. Again the
Filipinos drove the Spanish regulars before them until the noise of
their guns was heard in Manila itself, when the blowing up of the
American battle-ship Maine in the harbor of Havana gave to the
relations between Spain and the United States a new and startling
aspect.
Soon after the declaration of war between these nations and before the
battle of Manila Bay, Commodore Dewey invited Aguinaldo to join him. On
May 11, 1898, the Filipino leader landed at Cavite and took command of
the insurgent army. From that time the Spanish troops met with nothing
but disaster. Step by step they were driven (by native troops and these
only) out of every stronghold, not only in Luzon but in the other
Islands, until August when they were shut up in Manila and completely
surrounded with Filipino trenches, while Dewey’s ships held the sea
approaches. On August 10, Aguinaldo captured the Manila waterworks, and
had the city at his mercy. On August 13 it surrendered, not to him that
really had reduced it, but to the American naval and land forces;
although of such land forces there was but a handful.
Aguinaldo had made Mabini the president of his council and secretary of
foreign affairs. Mabini now bent himself to organize a constitutional
government, and if the achievement that followed had been staged nearer
to the center of the world’s attention it would have been hailed as a