[71] Biblioteca, no. 1689. Note also no. 1675. [↑]
[72] For the latter, consult especially La Iglesia Filipina Independiente, organ of the schism, which was published in some sixty numbers between October 11, 1903, and early in 1905; also the recent pamphlet Documentos interesantes de la Iglesia Filipina Independiente (Manila, 1906). The history of the religious question under the Malolos government and guerrilla warfare, and especially of Aglipay’s part in it, has yet to be written from the documents (at least, unless those who participated are more frank in future than in past statements). [↑]
[73] See for citations and statements (in part conflicting), about the deportees of 1872, Montero y Vidal, Historia, iii, p. 591 and footnote; Pardo de Tavera’s Biblioteca, nos. 1462 and 1463; and notes by Felipe G. Calderón in supplements to El Renacimiento for Aug. 11 and 18, Sept. 1 and 18, 1906. Several Filipino priests were also deported with these civilians, who were, as has been noted in our introduction, for the most part of Spanish, not of Malay, blood, though of Philippine birth. [↑]
[74] Note especially Rizal’s introduction to his novel El Filibusterismo, as showing Filipino opinion on the matter. A story circulated among the people to the effect that the friars brought from Sambales province a native who looked like Father Gomez and who impersonated the latter in order to implicate him in the mutiny at the Cavite arsenal, with similar details, is related in an “Appeal for Intervention” presented by certain Filipinos in Hongkong to the Consul-General of the United States at that place in Jan., 1897. This document, by the way, has never received notice in the United States so far as known to the writer, who has a manuscript copy of it.
Rizal dedicated his novel El filibusterismo to the three priests executed in consequence of the Cavite uprising of 1872. That dedication is as follows: “The Church, by refusing to degrade you, has placed in doubt the crime that has been imputed to you; the Government, by surrounding your trials with mystery and shadows, causes the belief that there was some error, committed in fatal moments; and all the Philippines, by worshiping your memory and calling you martyrs, in no sense recognize your culpability. In so far, therefore, as your complicity in the Cavite mutiny is not clearly proved, as you may or may not have been patriots, and as you may or may not have cherished sentiments for justice and for liberty, I have the right to dedicate my work to you as victims of the evil which I undertake to combat. And while we wait expectantly upon Spain some day to restore your good name and cease to be answerable for your death, let these pages serve as a tardy wreath of dried leaves over your unknown tombs, and let it be understood that every one who without clear proofs attacks your memory stains his hands in your blood!” See J. A. LeRoy’s Philippine Life, pp. 149, 150.—Eds. [↑]
[75] No real attempt to sift the evidence in the case is known to the writer. Montero y Vidal, Historia, iii, chap. xxvii (also read the three preceding chapters), gives the version of one side, with principal citations. Cf. Pardo de Tavera’s Biblioteca under these names, and see his version in Census of the Philippine Islands, i, pp. 575–579. His Reseña histórica de Filipinas suffered some alterations as published in the Spanish edition of the Census, and was separately printed at Manila in 1906, drawing forth a series of articles in the Dominican periodical Libertas (by Friar Tamayo), which also appeared in pamphlet form (Sobre una “Reseña histórica de Filipinas,” Manila, 1906). As regards the 1872 affair, Friar Tamayo has drawn almost entirely from Montero y Vidal. [↑]
[76] As, for example, when José Rizal, yet a mere youth, scandalized the friar and “patriotic” Spaniards in Manila by presenting verses for a school celebration in Manila on “Mi patria” (“My fatherland”). [↑]
[77] Rizal himself returned from Europe to the Orient in 1887, and visited his home, but was persuaded by parents and friends to go abroad again. He is said to have edited various circulars which were sent from Hongkong and distributed in the Philippines. [↑]
[78] Marcelo del Pilar’s pamphlet La soberanía monacal en Filipinas (Barcelona, 1888; reprinted at Manila, 1898) was written with especial reference to these incidents, documents regarding which are given as appendices. Retana analyzed the 1888 petition against the friars, and discussed its signers, in his pamphlet Avisos y profecías (Madrid, 1892), pp. 286–308. See also Pardo de Tavera’s Biblioteca, nos. 1597–1599 and 2807, the latter being a separate print of the petition to the Queen, which appears in Del Pilar’s pamphlet, appendix ix. The reply of the petitioners to the accusation that they really covered separatist aims under their attacks on friar-rule is worth quoting:
“The aspiration for separation is contrary, Señora, to the interests of the Filipinos. The topographical situation of the country, divided into numerous islands, and the diversity of its regional dialects demand the fortifying aid of a bond of union such as the ensign of Spain accords; without such a bond, it would be daily exposed to a breaking-up process hostile to its repose, and the very conditions of exuberant fertility that its fields, mines, and virgin forests afford would offer a powerful incentive to draw upon it international strife to the injury of its own future.” [↑]