“Commissioned for the purchase of arms:
| D. Gabino |  | Tantoko | |
| D. Juan | |||
| D. Antonio | |||
| D. Ezequiel | |||
| D. Epifanio Ramos. | |||
| D. Victoriano Luis | for the distinct armories of Manila.” | ||
In a letter of the Secretary to the President D. Agustin Tantoko (a native priest; see page 79):
“I believe we can obtain the dynamite by bribing some of the harbor employees.”
This letter has a foot-note which says: “When you have read this, destroy it.”
Numeriano Adriano testified (fols. 1,309–1,312) that Andrés Bonifacio had collected 10,000 pesos for the purchase, in Japan, of 4,000 rifles with abundant ammunition.
He also stated that the arms had been purchased and were to be landed near by the mountains of San Mateo and in the Batanes islands, from whence they would be brought to Manila.
That “Andrés Bonifacio went to San Mateo with men to receive and arrange arms, whilst Deodato Arellano and Timoteo Paez were encharged to send people to Batanes to the same end.”
Also that “It is said that many of the insurgents in the province of Cavite bear arms of different systems, and he supposed that they must have been acquired by the rich and wealthy persons of that province, such as Francisco Osario and others, who knowing perhaps of the existence of the Liga of Manila, its form and object, had formed their own also, in the said province, in order to unite to that of Manila and make common cause therewith.”
Domingo Franco declared (fols. 1,381–1,382), in answer to a question during his trial, as to what he knew in reference to the purchase of arms and ammunition, that “all he knew was that arms and ammunition had been purchased, because at the end of 1895, or the beginning of 1896, he saw Francisco L. Rojas in his office in Calle Jolo, and the said Rojas told him that he had received a quantity of arms and ammunition.” He stated moreover, that he did not know the make or number, nor where they had been landed.