The rebels stopped all the traffic on the Tondo-Malabon steam tramway line, and shortly afterwards the Manila-Dagúpan railway trains had temporarily to cease running.
On June 10, 1898, General Monet received, through a Chinaman, a message from the Gov.-General to hasten to Manila with all the force he could bring. Monet had been so long in the northern provinces unsuccessfully trying to hold them against the rebels that his fate was, for a time, despaired of in the capital. Hemmed in on all sides by the enemy, concentration of all his detachments for general retreat was impossible. The forces spread over Tárlac, North Pangasinán and Nueva Ecija had to be left to their fate; their junction was quite impracticable, for, surrounded everywhere by the enemy, each group was then only just able to defend itself, and subsequently most of them fell prisoners. With only 600 fighting men, escorting 80 wounded, General Monet set out on his terrible southward march amidst recurring scenes of woe and despair. At every few miles between San Fernando and Macabebe his progress was hampered by an ever-increasing terror-stricken, weeping crowd of European women and children who besought him not to let them fall into the hands of a revengeful enemy. In the course of his march at most another hundred fighting men, a few of whom were natives, were able to join the retreating column. Their ammunition was scarce; they had no artillery waggons; every carromata (gig) of the districts traversed had been seized by the enemy. Near San Fernando his passage was disputed, but he entered the town, nevertheless, and evacuated it immediately after, having secured only 12 carts for the transport of the sick and the wounded and what little remained of the war-material. The greatest difficulty was how to feed the swelling mob of refugees. At 6 a.m. on June 14 a start was made for Santo Tomás, but they were so fiercely attacked on the road that, for the moment, annihilation seemed inevitable. Concentrated between Apálit, Santo Tomás, Bacolor, and Mexico the rebel forces were estimated at 9,000 well-armed men, between whom Monetʼs column had to pass or die. The sobs of the children, the lamentations of the women, the invocation of the saints by the helpless were drowned in the united yelling of half-starved troopers in their almost superhuman struggle for existence. Fortunately the best order possible, under such distressing circumstances, was maintained by the splendid officers supporting Monet. They were men personally known to many of us years before. Lieut.-Colonel Dujiols commanded the vanguard; the rearguard was under Major Roberto White; the refugee families were in charge of Lieut.-Colonel Oyarzábal, all under the superior orders of Colonel Perez Escotado. At length they cut their way through to Apálit, where the railway station served them as a stronghold, which they were able to defend whilst food was served out and some attention could be bestowed on the sick and wounded. On leaving Apálit a group of rebels approached the column with a white flag saying they were friendly Macabebes, but when they were close enough they opened fire. Nearly the whole town turned out against the fugitives, and Monet had to hasten the march by deploying his troops to keep the road clear. Understanding well that Monet was acting only on the defensive to cover his retreat, the rebels sent him an audacious message offering to spare the lives of his people if he would surrender their arms. The generalʼs reply was in the negative, adding that if he once reached Santo Tomás not a stick or stone of it would he leave to mark its site. This defiant answer nonplussed the rebels, who had private interests to consider. To save their property they sent another message to General Monet, assuring him that he would not be further molested; and to guarantee their promise they sent him the son of a headman as hostage, whose life they said he could take if they broke their word. That night was, therefore, passed, without attack, at Mandaling, around which outposts were established and trenches occupied. The following day the retreating column and the refugees reached Macabebe safely,[7] but what became of their leader at this crisis we must leave to future historians to explain. Some nine months afterwards the acts of two generals were inquired into by a court of honour in Spain; one of them was disgraced,[8] and the other, who was accused of having abandoned his whole party to escape alone in disguise, was acquitted.
General Augustiʼs wife and family were chivalrously escorted from Macabebe, where they were quite safe, by a loyal Philippine volunteer named Blanco (the son of a planter in Pampanga), who was afterwards promoted to effective rank of colonel in Spain. They were conducted from the Hagonoy marshes to the Bay of Manila and found generous protection from the Americans, who allowed them to quit the Islands. The Spanish garrisons in the whole of La Laguna and Pampanga had surrendered to the rebels, who were in practical possession of two-thirds of Luzon Island. General Augusti was personally inclined to capitulate, but was dissuaded from doing so by his officers.
Several American generals arrived with reinforcements, more were en route, and about the middle of July the Commander-in-Chief, Maj.-General Wesley Merritt, reached the Islands and remained there until the end of the following month, that is to say, for about 10 or 12 days after the Spanish surrender and the American military occupation of Manila were accomplished facts. On the way out from San Francisco to Manila some American ships called at the Ladrone Islands and brought the Spanish garrison of about 40 men prisoners. The surrender of the capital had been again demanded and refused, for the Spaniards were far from being starved out, and the American commander had strictly forbidden Aguinaldo to make an attack on the city. Aguinaldo, however, had been wonderfully active elsewhere. In several engagements the Spaniards were completely routed, and in one encounter the rebel party took over 350 prisoners, including 28 officers; in another, 250 prisoners and four guns; and 150 Spaniards who fled to Cavite Viejo church were quietly starved into surrender. Amongst the prisoners were several provincial governors, one of whom attempted to commit suicide. At Bacoor a hotly-contested battle was fought which lasted about nine hours. The Spaniards were surprised very early one morning, and by the afternoon they were forced to retreat along the Cavite-Manila road to Las Piñas. The Spanish loss amounted approximately to 250 troops wounded, 300 dead, and 35 officers wounded or dead. The rebels are said to have lost more than double this number, but whatever may have been the sacrifice, the victory was theirs. The Spaniards would probably have come better out of this combat but for the fact that a native regiment, hitherto loyal, suddenly murdered their officers and went over to the rebels. The Spaniards undoubtedly suffered much from unexpected mutinies of native auxiliaries and volunteers at critical moments, whilst in no case did rebels pass over to the Spanish side.[9] They were not long left in possession of Las Piñas, where a subsequent attack in overwhelming numbers drove the survivors still nearer to the capital.
Long before the capitulation of Manila the rebels were as well armed as they could wish from three sources,—that is to say, the Americans, the Spanish arms seized in warfare, and consignments from China. They also made good use of their field-pieces, and ever and anon the booming of cannon was heard in the streets of Manila. The Spaniards, hard pressed on all sides, seemed determined to make their last stand in the old citadel. The British banks shipped away their specie to China, and the British community, whose members were never united as to the course they should adopt for general safety, was much relieved when several steamers were allowed, by the mutual consent of Admiral Dewey and General Augusti, to lie in the bay to take foreigners on board in case of bombardment. Emilio Aguinaldo, on his return to the Islands, had declared himself Dictator. The Dictatorial Government administered the provinces as they were conquered from the Spaniards, collected taxes, and enacted laws. In a monthʼs time the management of these rural districts had so far assumed shape that Aguinaldo convened deputies therefrom and summoned a Congress on June 18. He changed the name of Dictatorial to Revolutionary Government, and on June 23 proclaimed the Constitution of that provisional government, of which the statutes are as follows:—
(Translation)
Don Emilio Aguinaldo y Famy,
President of the Philippine Revolutionary Government and Commander-in-Chief of its army
This Government, desirous of demonstrating to the Philippine people that one of its objects is to abolish with a firm hand the inveterate vices of Spanish administration, substituting a more simple and expeditious system of public administration for that superfluity of civil service and ponderous, tardy and ostentatious official routine, I hereby declare as follows, viz:—