What Pilar’s ambition was, it is hard to say; from his actions and writings one is almost driven to the supposition that he had none in particular, but was led to the separatist labors he performed by force of compromise.
When the time was ripe for action Pilar determined to leave Madrid and make his way to Japan. He commenced the journey arriving at Barcelona, from whence he was to make his way east. There, however, he was taken suddenly ill, and died on the 4th of June 1896, in the Hospital of that city.
In many things Pilar was superior to Rizal. Unlike that agitator, Pilar was not a sneaking, skulking petty-politician; he was straight-forward and had the courage of his opinions. What Pilar would have done if placed in the same circumstances as Rizal it is hard to say, but we may be assured that he would not have acted the coward as did Rizal.
Note 10. Antonio and Juan Luna were two of four brothers. The former was a bacteriologist, the latter an artist who at one time, whilst he followed the instruction, and remained under the guidance of his master, showed no little talent. Antonio went to Spain in ’88, and later on passed to Paris where he lived with his brother Juan who supported him. There he devoted himself to the study which made him famous; this he did in the laboratory of Dr. Roux. He became an assistant editor of the Solidaridad, the official organ of filipino freemasonry, and wrote many vicious articles in its columns over the pseudonym of Taga-Ilog. As a member of the freemason fraternity he was known as Gay Lussac.
On his return to Manila he established, for a livelihood, a school of fencing, and like the vain, insensate “magpie in borrowed plumes” that he was, he once sent his seconds to a Spanish officer, inviting him to a duel!
During the second half of the rebellion of ’96, Aguinaldo offered Antonio the position of director of the War Department with the grade of General of Brigade. This honor, however, he declined. The Independencia speaking on this incident, says:—
“The military knowledge of Sr. Luna, acquired during his captivity (sic) in the prisons of the peninsula (Spain), is to be found condensed in two small works, one concerning the organization of the army, having as its base the idea of obligatory service in which he demonstrates that Luzon might put on a war footing 250,000 to 400,000 men, and the whole archipelago as many as from 800,000 to 900,000. The other work is a practical course in field fortifications as adopted by the French and German armies.”[10]
Juan, from childhood, was of an artistic turn of mind and found among his many protectors those who sent him to Spain to study art. In Spain he met with Sr. Alejo Vera, a noteworthy artist, under whom he studied, receiving an exceptional education both in art and in morals, Sr. Vera being a Christian gentleman. Later on he went to Rome, and there formed part of the Spanish artistic colony. After some two or three years of study there he sent to Spain his first painting[11]. Being an artistic production of a Filipino indian it was received with open hands and given a reception greater than it really deserved, as a result of the influence of Luna’s friends. From Rome he went to Paris. It was in that city that he committed the fiendish double murder which so startled and shocked his friends and acquaintances, his victims being his wife and his mother-in-law, sister and mother of a prominent political aspirant of modern Manila. The result of the trial was that the courts of Justice of Paris absolved him. He then returned to Madrid, and soon after, to Manila.
What Spain did for the Filipino brought forth fruit in only a few of the people who fell under her beneficent christian influence. The Lunas were among the few. They, like so many other ungrateful children, repaid their benefactors by becoming leaders of the insensate and inexcusable revolt against them: a revolt, the first act of which was to be the brutal murder of all Spaniards irrespective of parentage or other claims of consideration. Both the brothers suffered arrest by the Spanish authorities for rebellion and sedition, but in spite of the degree to which they were complicated, they remained practically free from punishment, and ever at the right hand of the imbecile General Blanco, himself a freemason, and friend of the enemies of his country. Eventually the two brothers left the ante-chamber of the Governor to enter the security of the military prison.
Both brothers eventually retracted their errors only to fall into them again as soon as the lying protests of repentance had fallen from their lips.