Additional Clauses
Article 31.—The Government shall establish abroad a Revolutionary Committee, composed of an indefinite number of the most competent persons in the Philippine Archipelago. This Committee shall be divided into three sections, viz.:—Of diplomacy; of the navy; and of the army. The diplomatic section shall negotiate with the foreign cabinets the recognition of belligerency and Philippine independence. The naval section shall be intrusted with the study and organization of a Philippine navy and prepare the expeditions which the circumstances of the Revolution may require. The army section shall study military tactics and the best form of organizing staff, artillery and engineer corps, and all that is necessary to put the Philippine army on a footing of modern advancement.
Article 32.—The Government shall dictate the necessary instructions for the execution of the present decree.
Article 33.—All decrees of the Dictatorial Government which may be in opposition to the present one are hereby rescinded.
Given at Cavite, June 23, 1898.
Emilio Aguinaldo.
The Promulgation of the Constitution of the Revolutionary Government was accompanied by a Message from Emilio Aguinaldo, of which the following is a translation:—
Message of the President of the Philippine Revolution
It is an established fact that a political Revolution, judiciously carried out, is the violent means employed by nations to recover the sovereignty which naturally belongs to them, when the same has been usurped and trodden under foot by tyrannical and arbitrary government. Therefore, the Philippine Revolution cannot be more justifiable than it is, because the country has only resorted to it after having exhausted all peaceful means which reason and experience dictated.
The old Kings of Castile were obliged to regard the Philippines as a sister nation united to Spain by a perfect similarity of aims and interests, so much so that in the Constitution of 1812, promulgated at Cádiz, as a consequence of the Spanish War of Independence, these Islands were represented in the Spanish Parliament. But the monastic communities, always unconditionally propped up by the Spanish Government, stepped in to oppose the sacred obligation, and the Philippine Islands were excluded from the Spanish Constitution, and the country placed at the mercy of the discretional or arbitrary powers of the Gov.-General.