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“We do not find it inconvenient to affirm, but just the opposite, we repeat with pleasure and absolute belief that Spanish freemasonry was ignorant of the true ends of the Filipino masons. But it is proved to our way of thinking, to the point of evidence, that Filipino masonry pursued no other ends than the independence of those islands (the Philippines.)”[3]
It must be noted that this is the opinion of a Spanish patriot, for a patriot Sastrón certainly was, and what is more natural than that a true patriot should doubt the possibility of his own countrymen mixing themselves up in anti-patriotic movements: Yet while Sastrón and other writers would redeem their fellow countrymen from such a stain as that of treason, I am inclined to believe that the asserted ignorance of the Spanish freemason was too often official, that is to say it was not genuine, but limited to the members of the society who enjoyed the privileges of the lower degrees.
There are two sides to every question, however, and that the “other side” may be given a fair hearing, I will quote a declaration of Antonio Luna on this subject. Luna, among the many statements made before the Lieut. Col. in command of the Cuartel de Caballeria, on the 8th of October 1896, confessed that “in the year 1890 or 91, of his own free-will, he formed a masonic project based on Spanish masonry: a project which might, at its proper time be applied to filibuster conspiracy. This project was discussed and approved by the Oriente Español in Madrid; but that center did not know the secondary ends to which it would be applied.... Of his own free-will he manifested that his ideas were, when he formed the project, anti-Spanish....”
With rare exceptions the Filipinos who left their native soil to finish their education in the Spanish peninsula, were those to whom the real work of separatism is owing. The Filipino at home who has fallen into line with his foreign educated brother is but a blind worker. And the Filipino who went to Spain was as a rule, a very general rule, taken under the sheltering care of Miguel Morayta (see note [13]). The responsibility therefore for the ideas inculcated into the minds of those “students” lies, and that heavily, upon Morayta, the chief of that family of freemasonry which claims ignorance of the aims of its filipino membership. The only logical excuse that can be brought forwards is that filipino freemasonry degenerated. When once it took root in the Archipelago it spread with wonderful rapidity. The adepts were for the most part Chinese half-castes; and little by little that strange train of thought of the native, whether he be full blooded or mixed, a train of thought which, like the filipino pony is accustomed to walk backwards when it should go forwards, or like the patient carabao which too often lies down just at the moment when its services are the most needed to drag a load over a mud hole, carried the would-be citizens of an independent country to the verge of political insanity. Certain it is that as the idea of separation became more and more developed the Spanish masons who were member of the Filipino lodges severed their connection therewith. But yet it does not appear within the limits of common sense to believe that the Spanish masons were ignorant; the greater probability is that they were too indulgent, too confiding. To hold too fast to the excuse of ignorance is to profess oneself very ignorant. But whether it was ignorance or the wanting of even that species of patriotism which one expects to find in beasts of burden (for every horse knows his own stables) the black fact still remains that Spanish masonry gave birth to, and fostered, Filipino freemasonry or in other words, the katipunan.
However, be the degree of ignorance what it may, we cannot overlook the fact that the actions of the Tagalog freemasons, the katipunan if you will, for the one and the other are the same thing under different names, were the cause of no little surprise to the Grand Oriente Español. The filipino mason was a traitor to the mother which gave him being and nourished him into activity: a traitor who used the cover of the freemason lodge only that he might the easier and safer hatch out his plot to gain, by the most brutal means imaginable, the independence of his country.
In his declaration made in the presence of Colonel Francisco Olive y Garcia and others on the 23rd of September 1896, Moises Salvador Francisco, of Quiapo (Manila) stated that “in April 1891 he came to Manila bringing with him a copy of the agreements arrived at by the Junta of Madrid, and these he handed over to Timoteo Paez to see if masonic lodges could be established as a commencement of the work. In the following year of 1892 Pedro Serrano arrived from Spain and then Masonry (native) was introduced into the Philippines, the first lodge instituted being the Nilad.”
To give some idea of the separatist aims which gave life and nourishment to the Tagalog revolt, I will quote a few extracts taken from masonic documents, and from the declarations, made by persons complicated in the conspiracy. These declarations were made in the presence of the appointed judge, Col. D. Francisco Olive y Garcia, and others, and are of capital interest in the study of the rise and fall of the filipino “commune”.
I. In an act of Session of the Katipunan Sur at the commencement of the year 1896, the session being opened, the president don Agustin Tantoko, a native priest[4], invited the membership present to express its opinion concerning the questions proposed, viz: how ought we to act towards society; towards ourselves; and how ought we to act in case of surprise. Mariano Kalisan considered, dealing with the first question, that “as their principal object was not to leave alive any Spaniard in all the future Filipino republic” they should procure to make friends with them as much as possible in order to be able to carry out their plans with more surety when the time should arrive to give the cry of independence. D. Gabino Tantoko, brother of the president, considered that the said principle should be carried out especially in dealing with the members of the Religious Orders. Both propositions were accepted.