[3] General Diego de los Rios was remaining in Manila to negotiate with the insurgents the liberation of the Spanish prisoners (vide p. [477]).
[4] The decree says:—“Seeing that the Spanish garrison in Baler, consisting of a handful of men, isolated, without hope of succour, is, by its valour and constant heroism worthy of universal admiration, and in view of its defence, comparable only with the legendary valour of the sons of the Cid and of Pelayo, I render homage to military virtues, and, interpreting the sentiments of the Philippine Republic, on the proposal of my Secretary of War, and in agreement with my Council of State, I hereby decree as follows, viz.:—That the said forces shall no longer be considered our prisoners, but our friends, and consequently the necessary passes shall be furnished them enabling them to return to their country. Given in Tárlac on the 30th of June, 1899. The President of the Republic,—Emilio Aguinaldo.”
[5] After the war I visited this former insurgent stronghold. Of the ancient church three walls and a quarter of the roof were left standing. There was nothing inside but shrubs, which had grown up to 3 feet high. In front of the church ruins stood an ironical emblem of the insurgentsʼ power in the shape of an antiquated Spanish cannon on carriage, with the nozzle broken off. Judging from the numerous newly-erected dwellings in this little town, I surmise that three-fourths of it must have been destroyed during the war.
[6] A Chinese half-caste Pampango. I knew him intimately as a planter. He was deported to and died a prisoner in the Island of Guam in 1901.
[7] In 1905 one of the wealthiest men in the Colony was arrested and brought to trial on the charge of having paid, or caused to be paid, the sum of ₱ 20 to an outlaw in Batangas Province. After putting the accused to a deal of expense and annoyance, the Government suddenly withdrew from the case, leaving the public in doubt as to the justice or injustice of the arraignment.
[8] A very intelligent man who was appointed Civil Governor of La Laguna Province when the war terminated.
[9] Early in 1905 the Court of Nueva Ecija passed sentence of imprisonment for life on this man for murder.
The Philippine Republic in the Central and Southern Islands
So interwoven were the circumstances of General Aguinaldoʼs Government in Luzon Island with the events of the period between the naval battle of Cavite and the ratification of the Treaty of Paris, that they form an integral and inseparable whole in historical continuity. In the other Islands, however, which followed the revolutionary movement, with more or less adherence to the supreme leadership of Aguinaldo, the local incidents severally constitute little histories in themselves, each such island having practically set up its own government with only the barest thread of administrative intercommunication.
The smaller islands, adjacent to Luzon, cannot be justly included in this category, because their local rule, which naturally succeeded the withdrawal of Spanish administration, was nothing more than a divided domination of self-constituted chiefs whose freebooting exploits, in one instance, had to be suppressed at the sacrifice of bloodshed, and, in another, to succumb to the apathy of the people.