Federico de Monteverde y Sedano, Campaña de Filipinas, La división Lachambre. 1897 (Madrid, 1898.) Excellent account of the campaign of Polavieja by his aide; somewhat grandiloquent, considering the comparative insignificance of the military operations themselves.
Les Philippines et l’insurrection de 1896–1897 (Paris, 1899); a thirty-nine-page reprint from Revue militaire de l’étranger.
L. Aycart—La campaña de Filipinas. Recuerdos é impresiones de un médico militar (Madrid, 1900). Contains some charts and some interesting data on the military campaign as such.
Manuel Sastrón—La insurrección en Filipinas y guerra hispano-americana (Madrid, 1901).[108] Written by a Spanish official in Manila during this time, and composed of accounts and documents drawn mainly from the press of Manila. It is, however, the most useful arsenal of data.
Major John S. Mallory—The Philippine Insurrection, 1896–1898 (appendix viii to report of Major-General G. W. Davis, commanding the division of the Philippines, in Report of War Department, 1903, vol. 3, pp. 399–425). A non-critical compilation, mostly from Sastrón and Monteverde y Sedano. It is, however, by far the best review of the 1896–97 insurrection as such that is available in English, and is a fairly satisfactory account for one who cannot consult the Spanish sources. Far better than Foreman’s account.
M. Arroyo Vea-Murguía—Defensa del sitio de Naic (Filipinas). Antes y despues. (Madrid, 1904.) Of little value.
The Pact of Biak-na-bató.—Purposely, the word “treaty,” so often applied to this transaction, is here avoided; for, apart from technical objections to a word that applies to agreements between sovereign powers, this was no treaty in any sense of the word. There was some mystery surrounding the negotiations by which the insurgent chiefs surrendered a few hundred nondescript firearms and retired to Hongkong; untrue or half-true charges were bandied back and forth, for political effect, in the Cortes and the press of Spain; and, of the chief actors in the affair, only Primo de Rivera has given his account—perhaps not with entire frankness.[109] Aguinaldo has confined his statements on the subject to the most brief assertions of a general nature[110] to the effect that reforms by the Spanish government were promised. Primo de Rivera categorically denies this; while Pedro A. Paterno, the go-between, has made no statement at all during the nine years that have passed since the conflicting statements have been before the public, involving directly the question of his own veracity and good faith. Primo de Rivera is an ex parte witness, to be sure; but his statements upon the more vital points involved are corroborated by the very insurgent documents on this subject captured by the American army in 1899 and now in the War Department at Washington.[111] Primo de Rivera says that, when Paterno presented a paper early in the negotiations containing a full program of reforms,[112] he rejected the document absolutely, saying he could not discuss such matters with the insurgent chiefs, that the Spanish government would accord such reforms as it thought wise, and he could only interpose his good offices to make recommendations in that respect. The copy of this document now in the War Department at Washington shows the clauses about reform to have been crossed out. Primo de Rivera says that, from that time forth, the negotiation was purely on the basis of a payment to the rebel chiefs to surrender their arms, order the insurgents in the other provinces to do the same, and emigrate to foreign parts. The only documents bearing signatures on both sides, either of those published at Washington or elsewhere, refer exclusively to these particular points of money, surrender of arms, and program of emigration, though Paterno inserted in a preliminary of the final contract on these subjects a clause as to reposing confidence in the Spanish government to “satisfy the desire of the Filipino people.”[113] Primo de Rivera recommended the transaction to his government for one reason, expressly because it would “discredit [desprestigiando] the chiefs selling out and emigrating.”[114]
The first proposition of the insurgents was for 3,000,000 pesos; Primo de Rivera acceded, under authority from Madrid, to 1,700,000 pesos; and the total sum named in the contract signed on December 14, 1897, is 800,000 pesos. When Aguinaldo and his twenty-seven companions reached Hongkong, they received 400,000 pesos and never any more. Though really looking at it as a bribe, the Spanish government had consented to the money payment ostensibly on the ground of indemnity to widows, orphans, and those who had suffered property losses by the war, and to provide support for the insurgent chiefs abroad. That it was the idea of at least some of the insurgent leaders that the money was to be divided between them is shown by a protest signed by eight of those who remained behind to secure the surrender of more arms than the paltry number of two hundred and twenty-five turned over at Biak-na-bató, appealing to Primo de Rivera for “their share.”[115] The latter says he turned over to these men and Paterno the 200,000 pesos of the second payment (the actual disposition of which is unknown[116]); and that he turned over the remaining 200,000 pesos to Governor-General Augustín in April, 1898, when it was evident that peace had not been assured, after all. As to the remaining 900,000 pesos which Primo de Rivera had authority to pay, but which did not appear in the final contract, Primo de Rivera says (pp. 133, 134) that Paterno omitted them from the document because they were to be used to “indemnify those not in arms,” and that he did not “think it prudent to inquire further about them at the time.”[117]
Enough has been developed to show the demoralizing character of the transaction. In justice to Aguinaldo and his closest associates, it is to be said that they had kept the money practically intact, for use in a possible future insurrection, until they spent some of it for arms after Commodore Dewey’s victory in Manila Bay.[118] Nor are we able to say categorically that Aguinaldo and the other leaders in Biak-na-bató were not led to believe that specific reforms had been promised verbally by Primo de Rivera in the name of his government; Aguinaldo and Paterno could clear up that matter, but neither speaks. Just what informal discussion of this subject there was between Paterno and Primo de Rivera, we do not know; but the latter’s own version will warrant the conclusion that he at least permitted Paterno to lay before the insurgents the fact that he was making recommendations on this line, and to hold out the expectation of results, once he was not confronted with armed rebellion.[119] He declares that a scheme of Philippine reform, covering also the friar question, had been drawn up and agreed upon, when Premier Cánovas was assassinated and the Conservatives soon after fell from power; but he does not tell us what were the reforms as to the friars. Primo de Rivera continued to give his ideas as to the need for reform in provision of parishes, church fees, local government, education, civil service, etc., after the Liberals came into power. Yet, though stating the case against the friars in strong terms, virtually confirming every charge made against them, he appears to have advised only a curtailment of their power and a more rigid discipline, not their elimination as parish-priests, which was the aim of most of the insurgents.[120] When a Spanish editor in Manila began writing in February, 1898, of political reforms in the direction of “autonomy,” without submitting his articles to previous censure, Primo de Rivera suspended publication of the periodical.[121] That Spanish circles in Manila as well as the Filipinos were in expectation, in late 1897 and early 1898, of the announcement of some comprehensive scheme of Philippine reform, is apparent from the press of the time.[122] The Liberal press of Madrid and Barcelona was also actively agitating reform for the Philippines, and Spanish Liberals and Filipinos addressed petitions on the subject to the government at Madrid.[123] The general belief at Manila was also that some sort of promise of reforms had passed at Biak-na-bató, even that it included the gradual withdrawal of the friars.[124] That the religious orders themselves knew that they were the storm-center is sufficiently shown by the Memorial of April 21, 1898, reproduced post, pp. 227–286.[125]
The Question of Independence.—We have, on one hand, the assertions of rabid Spanish writers that separation from Spain was throughout the real aim of the Filipino leaders, who merely covered it under a plea for reforms (the friars say, under a false assertion that the Filipinos were opposed to them). We have, in direct opposition, the assertions of Spanish Liberals and of some Filipinos that the movement was inspired by genuine loyalty to Spain, and was only a protest and appeal for reforms even in its last phase as an outbreak in arms, 1896–98. This view was accepted by the Schurman Commission in 1899. Again, during the years from 1898 to date, when demands for independence were made upon the United States, the more radical Filipino leaders, first in insurrection, now in political agitation, have asserted that complete political independence was definitely the aim in 1896–97, and was the ideal in mind for some years before. Thus they would corroborate the assertions of the more rabid Spaniards who claimed that Rizal and all his co-workers, both in the aristocratic ranks above and in the Katipunan below, were hypocritical in their protestations of loyalty to Spain. Where does the truth lie?