Table of Contents

Page

Table of Contents ………………………………………………………………………1

Chapter I: INTRODUCTION …………………………………………………………

Chapter 2: THE BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY ……………………………………

Chapter 3: DISCUSSION ………………………………………………………………

Chapter 4: CONCLUSION ……………………………………………………………

BIBLIOGRAPHY…………………………………………………………………………

1
CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

The start of the revolution against Spain has been officially commemorated in

recent years as “The Cry of Pugad Lawin.” The historical event marked the beginning of

the Philippine Revolution and their act of defiance against the Spanish Empire wherein

the Katipuneros, as led by Andres Bonifacio. The supposed site of “Pugad Lawin” is

situated in Brgy. Bahay Toro, Quezon City, and is memorialized with a tableau of life-

sized, oddly rigid Katipuneros tearing their cedulas.

Such disputes are due to the ambiguous definitions of what the "cry" meant and

the overlapping statements by the KKK veterans. To specify, the main points addressed

in the mentioned controversy are: (1) whether the “cry” happened in Pugad Lawin or

Balintawak and if it happened on August 23, 1896 or August 24, 1896.

However, the case stands that the Cry of Pugad Lawin happened on August 23,

1896 at Pugad Lawin due to the credibility of the source and its consistency with other

sources. Nonetheless, other historians argue of this statement otherwise. Emilio

Aguinaldo’s memoirs, Mga Gunita ng Himagsikan (1964), refer to two letters from

Andres Bonifacio dated 22 and 24 August of 1896. Traditionally, people in his time

referred to the “Cry of Balintawak” since that barrio was a better known reference point

than Banlat. In any case, “Pugad Lawin” is not historiographically verifiable.

The first cry of the revolution is one of the most significant phenomena in the

history of the Philippines, because the future of the next generation is historical

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responsibility, our hope of the one who came before us, the people who are strong, who

can fight, and the ones who can give us the freedom that we deserve. The Spaniards have

abused many people and if they don’t stop them lot of people will die. They risk their life

to fight towards freedom and independence of the nation.

Momentous events swept the Spanish colonies in the late nineteenth century,

including the Philippines. In the Philippines, the Cry of Rebellion happened in August

1896, northeast of Manila, where they declared rebellion against the Spanish colonial

government. - These events are important markers in the history of colonies that

struggled for the independence against their colonizers.

Prominent Filipino historian Teodoro Agoncillo emphasizes the event when

Bonifacio tore the cedula or tax receipt before the Katipuneros who also did the same.

Some writers identified the first military event with the Spaniards as the moment of the

Cry, for which, Emilio Aguinaldo commissioned a “Himno de Balintawak” to inspire the

renewed struggle after the Pact of the Biak na Bato failed.

This case aims to establish the factors that have led to the first cry of the

revolution in the Philippines, answering what happened in the historic significance to the

Filipinos consists of the realization of the lasting value of freedom and independence and

the need to fight in order to prove themselves worthy to be called a truly free people.

This case study also presents the research findings of the data collected from the

selected primary and secondary sources on the issue or controversy. The main source of

data is the web searches and is also supplemented by library research. The findings will

be presented in relation to the research objectives stated in the study.

3
CHAPTER II

BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

Geography

The barrios, hamlets and farmsteads where the revolution began were all within

the municipality of Caloocan in the province of Manila. The municipality was large, but

sparsely inhabited. Its total population in 1896 was tallied at just 7,829. Of this number,

2,694 lived in the town (población), 977 lived in the largest barrio, Balintawak, and the

remaining 4,158 were scattered in ten other barrios – Baesa, Bagobantay, Bahay Toro,

Banlat, Culiat, Kangkong, Loma, Marulas, Talipapa, and Tangke.

No detailed maps of the municipality are known to have survived from the

Spanish era, and perhaps none ever existed. The barrio boundaries of the time are said to

have been sketchy, and are now forgotten. The terrain, moreover, was unremarkable, a

mix of farmland and rough grassland, talahib and cogon, with few natural

landmarks. Many of the sources on the “Cry” are consequently vague and inconsistent in

how they identify and locate the settlements, roads and other features of the area.

Most confusingly of all, the name “Pugad Lawin” came to be used in the

twentieth century to refer not just to one of the contending “Cry” sites, but to two. First

one site, and then another. Today, the Pugad Lawin marker is in Bahay Toro, where Juan

Ramos had supposedly lived. But in previous decades, as will be discussed later, Pugad

Lawin was said to have been three kilometers or so to the northeast, where Ramos’s

mother Melchora Aquino (“Tandang Sora”) had lived near Pasong Tamo in barrio

Banlat.

4
Pasya, Pagpupunit at Unang Labanan

The debate has long been clouded by a lack of consensus on exactly what is

meant by the “Cry”. The term has been applied to three related but distinct events –

 the “pasya” – the decision to revolt;

 the “pagpupunit” – the tearing of cedulas; and

 the “unang labanan” – the first encounter with Spanish forces.

These three events, to state the obvious, did not all happen at the same time and

place. When and where the “Cry” should be commemorated thus depends on how it is

defined.

Many of the older sources on the “Cry” do not say precisely which event they mean,

and often we can only guess. This problem is so embedded in the literature that it is

impossible to eradicate totally, but wherever practicable these notes will avoid the fluid,

contested “Cry” word, and will seek instead to specify which distinct event is being

discussed – the pasya, the pagpupunit or the unang labanan.

5
Among the historians who have studied the “Cry” in greatest detail, there is a sharp

divergence of opinion as to how the term should be defined.

 Teodoro A. Agoncillo equates the term with the pagpupunit, which he says happened

immediately after the pasya.

 Isagani R. Medina also takes the “Cry” to mean the pagpupunit, but says it happened

before the decision to revolt had been taken.

 Soledad Borromeo-Buehler takes the view – the traditional view that KKK veterans

took, she says - that the “Cry” should mean the unang labanan.

It was the unang labanan, as Borromeo-Buehler

points out, that was commemorated by the first

monument to the events of August 1896. The main

inscription on the plinth read “Homenaje del Pueblo

Filipino a los Heroes de ’96 / Ala-ala ng Bayang Pilipino

sa mga Bayani ng ‘96”, and a smaller plaque bore the date

“26 Agosto 1896” .

Unveiled before a huge cheering crowd in September 1911, the statue was erected in

Balintawak, the largest and best-known barrio in the general area where the Katipuneros had

congregated in August 1896. The name Balintawak was often used as shorthand to denote that

general area, and the “Cry” had become popularly known as the “Cry of Balintawak” even

before the monument was erected. Nobody professed in 1911, though, that the statue marked

the “exact spot” where the first battle had been fought. It was simply in Balintawak, on a plot

6
donated by a local landowner, Tomas Arguelles.

The documentary evidence on the unang labanan is reasonably clear. The first

battle, an encounter with a detachment of the Guardia Civil, was fought on the date

inscribed on the Balintawak monument - August 26 – at a place about five kilometers

north-east of Balintawak, between the settlements of Banlat and Pasong Tamo. A few

sources give the date as August 25 but, as both Borromeo-Buehler and Encarnacion have

shown, the most solid, contemporary sources confirm August 26 to be correct.

The Balintawak monument continued to be the focus of the yearly “Cry”

celebrations, held on August 26, for decades. In the 1960s, however, the official

definition of the “Cry” changed. Officially, the “Cry” ceased to mean the unang labanan

and was defined instead as “that part of the Revolution when the Katipunan decided to

launch a revolution against Spain. This event culminated with the tearing of the

cedula”. This definition, which is more or less in line with Agoncillo’s, thus embraces

both the pasya and pagpupunit, but excludes the unang labanan.

At first sight, the official definition looks clear and straightforward. A number of

sources, however, indicate that cedulas were torn on more than one occasion, in different

places, presumably because Katipuneros were arriving to join their embryonic army over

the course of a number of days, and many wanted to proclaim their rebellion, their

commitment to fight Spanish rule, in the same way. It is even possible (as Medina

believes) that the main pagpupunit preceded the pasya. But then it would have been

premature, because the revolt might have been deferred. It seems more likely, as the

7
official definition of the “Cry” assumes, that the largest, best remembered act of defiant

cedula-tearing happened soon after the pasya had been taken, and in the same vicinity.

When and where, then, should the “Cry,” as defined as the pasya and pagpupunit,

be marked and commemorated? Was there really a “Sigaw ng Pugad Lawin” on August

23, 1896, or not?

The decision to revolt: when was it taken?

It is almost certain that the decision to revolt was taken on Monday, August 24,

1896, after a lengthy meeting (or series of meetings) that had begun on Sunday, August

23. Many veterans later recalled August 23 as the historic day (see the Appendix to these

notes), but others specifically remembered the decision had not been taken until the early

hours of August 24, and this latter date is given by at least four important sources,

namely:

 The Biak-na-Bato constitution of November 1897, which mentions “the

current war, initiated on August 24, 1896.” The constitution’s signatories included

at least one participant in the “Cry” (Cipriano Pacheco) and several others who

would have read circulars and messages from the revolutionists in Caloocan in

August 1896.

 Carlos Ronquillo, in the first chronicle of the revolt against Spain by a Filipino,

written in 1898. His work begins with the words “Sa isang arao ng pagpupulong sa

Balintawak (24 Agosto 1896) kaarawan nang pasimulan ang Revolucion….”

8
 The Liga Filipina memorial erected in Tondo in 1903 by the Samahan ng May pag-

asa, a patriotic society named in Bonifacio’s honor whose members included

several KKK veterans. The inscription on the memorial lists many of those who

attended the famous meeting addressed by Rizal on July 3, 1892, and alongside

Bonifacio’s name it records that he was “Supremo del ‘Katipunan’ que dió el 1er

grito de Guerra contra la tiranía el 24 de Agosto de 1896.”

 Santiago Alvarez, in his memoirs Ang Katipunan at Paghihimagsik, written in 1927

but based, he said, on records entrusted to him by the Katipunan’s first leaders and

fighters. Internal evidence suggests that Alvarez’s account of the meeting on

August 24 is based on information he obtained from Ramon Bernardo, a Katipunan

leader from Pandacan who was a participant in the “Cry.”

August 24 has now been confirmed as the date of the formal decision by

the discovery of a contemporary document - a page from what Medina calls the “borador

ng pulong ng Kataastaasang Sangunian,” or rough copy book of the Katipunan Supreme

Council. Since a proper borador was not to hand in Caloocan at this tumultuous

moment, the Supreme Council’s communications were drafted in some kind of farm

ledger, used under normal circumstances to record crop yields or sales. The text is

therefore written across printed columns that are headed “Maiz,” “Mani,” “Camote” and

so on.

9
The document is dated “Kalookan, Maynila ika 26 ng Agosto ng taong 1896,” and it

begins as follows:

“Ayon sa pinagkaisahan sa ginanap […?]

pulong ng Kataastaasang Kapisanan […?]

ikadalawang puo’t apat nitong umiiral na buan

tungkol sa paghihimagsik (revolucion) at sa

pagkakailangang […?] maghalal ng

magsisipamahala ng bayan at mag aakay ng

Hukbo…….” [In accordance with the decision

taken by the meeting of the Supreme Assembly

held on the twenty-fourth of the present month regarding the revolution, and given the

necessity to elect leaders of the people and directors of the Army…..”]

The Saga of Pugad Lawin

Two decades after the revolution, the celebration of the “Cry” was not a

contentious issue. Ceremonies were held both in Kangkong, where KKK veterans agreed

the pasya had been taken, and in Balintawak, where the famous statue of a bolo-waving,

flag-holding Katipunero stood to commemorate the unang labanan, fought a few

kilometers to the north-east.

How then, has it come to pass that the “Cry” is commemorated today as the

“Sigaw ng Pugad Lawin” at a site in Bahay Toro where not a single KKK veteran ever

located either the pasya or the unang labanan?

The saga of Pugad Lawin, regrettably, is long, tangled and hard to unravel. It is

also a case study in the hazards of oral history. Memories fade. Veterans disagree. Their

10
stories change from one telling to the next. And then reporters and historians

misrepresent what they said.

Kangkong

In 1917 a Katipunan veterans’ association, the Labi ng Katipunan, erected a

memorial on the site where they remembered the decision to revolt had been taken, at

Apolonio Samson’s house on the Kaingin Road in barrio Kangkong. “Sa pook na ito,”

the inscription stated, plainly and simply, “...ipinasya ng KKKNMANB ang

paghihimagsik noong ika-23 ng Agosto 1896”.

Ceremony at the Kangkong marker. The Labi ng Katipunan was headed by the veterans Pio H.
Santos (who had participated in the “Cry”) and Claudio P. Carreon.

Pio Valenzuela’s “Memoirs”

Serrano’s account shows that Valenzuela still associated Pugad Lawin with

Melchora Aquino’s house in 1940, as he had in the 1910s and 1920s. Except, that is, in

the words of his “Memoirs”. In his “Memoirs,” as already mentioned, in a single line

that has muddied the whole issue, Valenzuela relates that the decision to revolt was taken

at the “house, storehouse and yard of Juan Ramos, son of Melchora Aquino, in Pugad

Lawin”.
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In recent decades, as we shall see shortly, Teodoro Agoncillo and Isagani Medina

have argued that this means the pasya site was not at Melchora Aquino’s place, but at a

completely different location, in Bahay Toro, three kilometers to the south west of

Pasong Tamo. And yet Luis Serrano, who personally went with Valenzuela to Pasong

Tamo in 1940, and who later translated the veteran’s “Memoirs,” did not draw such an

inference. The crux of the matter, Serrano doubtless believed, was that Valenzuela

specified in his “Memoirs,” as elsewhere, that the pasya site was at Pugad Lawin,

meaning the wooded knoll (a likely place for a hawk’s nest) to which they had hiked

together from Pasong Tamo.

Valenzuela did not expressly repeat in his “Memoirs” that Pugad Lawin was near

Pasong Tamo, but neither did he specify any other location, so there was no reason for

Serrano to suppose Valenzuela’s mental map of the area had ever changed. Who actually

owned the house and yard near Pasong Tamo where he remembered cedulas being

shredded, Melchora Aquino or her son Juan Ramos, was just an incidental point of detail,

not of basic geography.

The advocates of the “Pugad Lawin in Bahay Toro” position have presented Pio

Valenzuela as their star witness, and his “Memoirs” as their prime document. But he does

not mention Bahay Toro as the pasya site in his “Memoirs,” and there is no evidence he

ever did. Not in any variation of his story. It is ironic, to put it mildly, that Valenzuela is

now presented as the star witness for a version of events – the official “Pugad Lawin in

Bahay Toro” version - to which he did not himself subscribe.

12
Teodoro Agoncillo – initiator of Pugad Lawin’s relocation

Valenzuela’s telling of the “Cry” story, we need to remind ourselves, was just one

version amongst several. It gained a particular weight for a number of reasons – his

seniority in the Katipunan, his status as a physician, his political career, his prominence at

commemorations of the revolution, his contacts with historians, and so on. Pugad Lawin,

his name for the “Cry” site, acquired even greater currency with the publication in 1956

of Agoncillo’s Revolt of the Masses, which remains to this day the standard work on the

Katipunan. Agoncillo acknowledged that he had “relied mostly” on Valenzuela’s

testimony when writing about the “Cry.” He justified his decision by saying that

Valenzuela had been an eyewitness to the historic event, that his “Memoirs,” though

written many years afterwards, had been “based on notes scribbled in 1897,” and that

“events, complete with details” were still vivid in Valenzuela’s memory even in his old

age.

When narrating the story of the “Cry” in Revolt, Agoncillo therefore decided to

follow Valenzuela’s “Memoirs” in saying the pasya was taken at Juan Ramos’s place in

Pugad Lawin. Agoncillo does not, however, adhere fully to Valenzuela’s version of

events. In the present context, one of his departures is especially pertinent. Valenzuela

believed Ramos and his mother both lived in “Pugad Lawin near Pasong Tamo”.

Agoncillo, on the other hand, says that Ramos lived in “Pugad Lawin” (without

specifying where it was) but that his mother lived in Pasong Tamo, and that the two

places were a significant distance apart. Immediately after the tearing of cedulas in

Ramos’s yard in Pugad Lawin on August 23, Agoncillo writes in Revolt, the Katipuneros

got word the Guardia Civil were approaching, and so they hastily marched off in the dark

13
to Pasong Tamo, arriving at Melchora Aquino’s house the next day. Agoncillo repeats

this story in an article he wrote in 1960, saying that from Pugad Lawin the “rebels walked

pell-mell through the night to Pasong Tamo.”

Agoncillo does not explain why his narrative differs from Valenzuela’s

recollections. Nor does he offer any clue in his endnotes. The only sources he cites

alongside Valenzuela’s “Memoirs” at this juncture in Revolt are two other KKK veterans,

Guillermo Masangkay and Francisco Carreon, neither of whom ever acknowledged the

existence of a place called Pugad Lawin at all.

14
CHAPTER III

DISCUSSION

A number of conclusions can be drawn from the results presented in chapter three

and which pertains to the first research objective. From the data presented at chapter two,

Numerous findings emerge. One of the most important outcomes of the research is the

identification of the place of the cry.

The events from the "cry" were all happened and located at the municipality of

Caloocan in the province of Manila. The municipality was large, however in 1896, its

population was tallied at just 7829. There were over 2600 people lived in the town, 977

lived in the largest barrio which was Balintawak, and the remaining 4158 were scattered

in ten other barrios of Caloocan. During the Spanish era, detailed maps of a municipality

were said to be none existing, or if ever this won't be able to survive due to the number of

wars that caused severe damages mostly happened to the areas where documents were

hidden.

The barrio boundaries that time became sketchy making it hard for historians in

identifying the exact locations of a historical event. Several sources of the "cry" were

constantly vague and inconsistent on how the eye witness described the place and located

the settlements, roads, and other features of the area.

The exact location already gave confusion to the historians and became more

complicated when the name "Pugad Lawin", refers not only to one place but two. The

first one was marked at the Bahay Toro to which the son of Melchora Aquino had lived.

15
And the other one was believed to be Melchora's house herself. Wherein it was 3

kilometers away from his sons’. This was located at Pasong Tamo in barrio Banlat.

To avoid any misunderstanding and misleading pieces of information, these

events did not happen at the same time and place, according to Medina, I. The sequence

of these events was not clearly stated in several sources. It's a good thing that there were

historians who have studied the "cry" with the greatest detail.

They provide a strong and sharp divergence of opinion as to how the term should

be defined. According to Teodoro Agoncillo, the term Pagpupunit immediately happened

after the pasya. In Contrast to his statement, Isagani Medina insisted that the Pagpupunit

has happened before the decision to revolt.

And lastly, Soledad Borromeo-Buehler stated that the cry should mean " unang

Laban". Although the sequence of these events was unclear, this still provides ideas about

what does the "cry" means. Given the different interpretations of "cry", the possible

things to be able to understand this is how we define the terms, studying history and

common sense.

It is unlikely possible that the events began with the first encounter followed by

the tearing of cedulas which symbolizes that the Katipuneros were all ready to fight and

decided to take steps forward to revolt.

The "Cry": When has it happened? In the month of August 1896, the supremo

Andres Bonifacio called the attention of the Katipuneros to a meeting. This is to prepare

and to plan what strategy they would take in order to start the revolution.

16
Despite the disagreement of Dr. Jose Rizal and the accusations of the women

regarding their captured husbands because of this society, the Supremo was still intact

with his desperation of claiming Independence.

From the 21st to the 24th of the month, the Katipuneros prepared themselves for

the most awaited revolution. Several accounts claimed that the decision to revolt was

taken on August 24, 1896. This claim was supported by at least four important sources

namely:

 The Biak na Bato constitution of November 1897, which mentions the

current war, initiated on August 24, 1896.

 Carlos Ronquillo, in the first chronicle of the revolt against Spain by a

Filipino, written in 1898.

 The Liga Filipina memorial erected in Tondo in 1903 by the Samahan ng

may pag-asa.

 Santiago Alvarez's memoirs, who was one of the active members of

katipunan and the son of the magdiwang council leader Mariano Alvarez.

Although it was scouted by different sources, August 23, 1896 were also

considered due to Dr. Pio Valenzuela’s memoirs who are also a participant of the

Katipunan. In his memoirs, he stated that the decision to revolt was taken on August 23 at

Pugad Lawin. However, historians have reservations about the credibility of his account

due to his conflicting versions of his statements. Later on, in the year 1935, he

proclaimed that the first cry did not happen in Balintawak rather in the place called Pugad

Lawin. This was supported by Pacheco and Pantas who were also members of Katipunan.

In 1964, Valenzuela’s memoirs were averred that the cry took place on August 23 1896 at

17
the house of Juan Ramos in Bahay Toro, Pugad Lawin. His account influences NHI

making them endorses it to the current president that time Diosdado Macapagal and

ordered that the cry will be celebrated on August 23 and Pugad Lawin be recognized as

its site.

The Cry: where was it taken? Knowing the location where the cry took place is as

hard as knowing the exact date when it taken. There were also several accounts that have

different claims to the location of the historical event. According to Santiago Alvarez,

after leaving the house of Apolonio Samson at Kangkong in August 22, 1896 they went

to the Bahay Toro to which he stated that it was Melchora Aquino’s home. This was the

place where the Supremo gathered all the Katipuneros from different local provincial

council. The following day August 24, 1896 Andres Bonifacio asked for another meeting

making the Katipuneros gathered at the barn of Melchora Aquino also known as Tandang

Sora. Their number was almost 1000 that the other members were located at the back of

the entrance gate.

On that day the Katipuneros raised their cedulas and tear it apart symbolizing that

they were all decided to fight back. Same goes with the memoirs of Dr. Valenzuela,

however they differ from the date of the event and the owner of the house in Bahay Toro.

According to him, it is not Melchora's property rather it was her son Juan Ramos. He also

stated that the Bahay Toro was located at Pugad Lawin. This case was studied by known

historians in his time, Teodoro Agoncillo. In his findings he believed that Melchora

Aquino and Juan Ramos lived separately but still near from each other.

18
CHAPTER IV

CONCLUSION

This chapter discussed the data analysis and interpretation with reference to the

Background of the Study. The aim of this study is to identify the phenomena happened

during the First Cry of the Revolution (August 1896).

The Philippine Revolution or the Cry of Balintawak is one of the most important

events in the country’s history, awakening a proud sense of nationalism for generations of

Filipinos to come. In a period of heavy struggle and conflict, Filipinos of different

backgrounds united with a common goal: to resist colonialism.

Spanish maintained control of the Philippine Islands for more than three centuries

and a half. During the Spanish Colonization of the Philippines, Filipinos lived in misery,

exploitation, slavery and suffering because of misconduct and abuses of the Friars and the

Civil, exhausted the patience of the natives caused them to make a desperate effort to

shake off the unbearable system then commencing the revolution to the Spanish Colonial.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

19
Ambeth R. Ocampo, Bones of Contention: The Bonifacio Lectures (Pasig City: Anvil Publishing

Inc., 2001), 80.

Nicolas P. Zafra, “The ‘Cry of Balintawak’ as a Historical Problem,” Historical Bulletin, IV:3

(September 1960), 13-4.

Carlos Ronquillo, Ilang talata tungkol sa paghihimagsik nang 1896-1897 [1898], edited by

Isagani R. Medina, (Quezon City: University of the Philippines Press, 1996), 676.

[Hereafter, Medina in Ronquillo, Ilang talata].

Teodoro A. Agoncillo, The Revolt of the Masses: the story of Bonifacio and the Katipunan

(Quezon City: University of the Philippines, 1956), 150; Teodoro A. Agoncillo, “Four

Girls and a Man,” Part IX, Manila Times, October 27, 1956; Teodoro A. Agoncillo and

Milagros C. Guerrero, History of the Filipino People, Fifth Edition (Quezon City: R. P.

Garcia, 1977), 196.

Isagani R. Medina, “Ang Unang Deklarasyon ng Paglaya sa Pugadlawin, Bahay Toro, Kalookan,

Agosto 23, 1896,” [1993] in Isagani R. Medina, May tainga ang lupa: Espionage in the

Philippines (1896-1902) and Other Essays (Manila: UST Publishing House, 2002), 69-

90. (Papel na binasa sa “Unang Kapulungang Pambansa ukol sa Pagbabalak sa Sentenaryo ng

Rebolusyong Pilipino,” Adamson University, Hulyo 21, 1993).

Soledad Borromeo-Buehler, The Cry of Balintawak: A Contrived Controversy (Quezon City:

Ateneo de Manila University Press, 1998), 18-20.

“La manifestación popular de 3 de septiembre,” Renacimiento Filipino, September 14,

1911.

20
Borromeo-Buehler points in particular to (i) a report in the Manila newspaper El Comercio,

August 27, 1896; and (ii) a telegraphic report dated August 27, 1896 sent by Francisco

Pintos, a Colonel in the Guardia Civil, to the Governor General. Encarnacion cites

another contemporary report, from the paper El Español, which includes a “Croquis de

las operaciones practicadas,” or sketch map of the routes taken by detachments of the

Guardia Civil on August 25, 26 and 27. Borromeo-Buehler, The Cry of Balintawak, 81-

92; Emmanuel Encarnacion, Ang pamana ni Andres Bonifacio (Quezon City: Adarna,

1997), n.p. See also Manuel Sastron, La insurrección en Filipinas, Tomo 1, (Madrid:

Imprenta de la viuda de M. Minuesa de los Rios, 1897), 621-5; and Governor General

Ramon Blanco’s own account, Memoria que al Senado dirige el General Blanco acerca

de los últimos sucesos ocurridos en la isla de Luzón (Madrid: Establecimiento

Tipográfico de “El Liberal,” 1897), 83.

“Report and Recommendation on The First Cry to the Honorable Chairman and Members of the

National Historical Institute,” October 24, 2001, 6. [Hereafter NHI Panel, “Report.”].

“Constitution of Biac-na-bato,” in John R. M. Taylor, The Philippine Insurrection against the

United States: a compilation of documents, vol. I (Pasay City: Eugenio López

Foundation, 1971), 376.

Santiago V. Alvarez, The Katipunan and the Revolution: Memoirs of a General [1927],

translated by Paula Carolina S. Malay (Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press,

1992), 240; 254.

Medina in Ronquillo, Ilang talata, 32. Medina’s acknowledgments (p.816) unfortunately omit

any reference to this document, and from his 1993 “Unang deklarasyon” paper (p.86) it

21
seems he did not know its source himself. Perhaps he just had a photograph of the one

page. If anyone can find this borador and share its contents, they will be making a major

contribution to the history of the 1896 revolution, a contribution potentially far more

significant than settling the whole “Cry” debate.

José P. Santos, “Ang kasaysayan sa paghihimagsik ni Heneral Cipriano Pacheco,” Lingguhan ng

Mabuhay, December 3, 1933, quoted by Medina in Ronquillo, Ilang talata, 676. If

anybody wanted to know the exact location of this field, Pacheco, he would be happy to

accompany them: “Ang sinumang ibig makakita ng pook na tinutukoy ko, ay sasamahan

ko roon, at may mga nabubuhay pang tagaroon na makapagpapatunay sa mga

pangyayaring iyan.”

Francisco Carreon, Untitled memoir, in José P. Santos, Ang tatlong napabantog na tulisan sa

Pilipinas (Tarlac, 1936), extracted in Borromeo-Buehler, The Cry of Balintawak, 158-

9. Veterans’ recollections of the cedula-tearing (“pagpupunit”) vary widely, and cannot

be reconciled. Cedulas may well have been shredded at more than one gathering, because

Katipuneros continued to arrive in Caloocan over the course of three or four days.

Carreon, Untitled memoir, as cited; “Unang Sigaw, Unang Labanan sa Paglaya,” Bagong Buhay,

August 25, 1952 [Interview with Guillermo Masangkay].

“Testimony of Dr Pio Valenzuela in the Case of U.S. vs Vicente Sotto for Libel,” [1917] in

Minutes of the Katipunan (Manila: National Heroes Commission, 1964), 234.

Valenzuela wrote part of his “Memoirs,” the section recounting his famous meeting with

Rizal, in 1914, and citations often ascribe this date to the work as a whole. The other

sections, however, including the lines on the “Cry,” were written later. Pio Valenzuela,

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“Memoirs” [c.1920s], translated by Luis Serrano, in Minutes of the Katipunan, 102; E.

Arsenio Manuel, “Did Rizal Favor the Revolution? A Criticism of the Valenzuela

Memoirs,” Philippine Magazine, 31:1 (December 1934), 540; 562; 566; Gregorio F.

Zaide, History of the Katipunan (Manila: Loyal Press, 1939), 16; Teodoro A. Agoncillo,

“More on the ‘Cry’ of 1896,” Historical Bulletin, IV:4 (December, 1960), 19.

Luis Serrano, “Event observed on wrong date,” Manila Times, August 26, 1962. Serrano does

not record any differences in the three veterans’ recollections, and thereby implies they

all associated both the pasya and the unang labanan with “Pugad Lawin near Pasong

Tamo”. If that was the case, Sinforoso San Pedro must like Pio Valenzuela have changed

his story. In the 1920s, he had insisted the pasya had been taken not at Pugad Lawin but

at Kangkong. Quoted in Sofronio G. Calderon, “Mga nangyari sa kasaysayan ng

Pilipinas ayon sa pagsasaliksik ni Sofronio G. Calderon” (Typescript, 1925), 211-2.

Agoncillo, “Four Girls and a Man,” Part IX, Manila Times, October 27, 1956. This was the final

instalment in Agoncillo’s serialized response to a critique of Revolt by Nicolas

Zafra. The “four girls” of Agoncillo’s title, who had collaborated with Zafra on the

critique, were Prof. Guadalupe Fores-Ganzon, Prof. Josefa M. Saniel, Donata V. Taylo,

and Justina A. Saltiva. Nicolas Zafra, "The Revolt of the Masses": Critique of a Book,”

Philippine Studies, IV:4 (December 1956), 493-514. For further expressions of

skepticism about Agoncillo’s treatment of the Pugad Lawin story, see Gregorio F. Zaide,

The Philippine Revolution, revised edition (Manila: Modern Book Co., 1968), 111-2;

Ambeth R. Ocampo, “Heads Balintawak, Tails Pugad Lawin: Where did Bonifacio utter

the first ‘Cry’?” [1989] in Ambeth R. Ocampo, Looking Back (Pasig: Anvil, 1990),

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78; Borromeo-Buehler, The Cry of Balintawak, 7-8; and Guerrero et al, “Balintawak,”

as cited.

Agoncillo, “More on the ‘Cry’,” 19. Agoncillo does not mention, perhaps never read,

Valenzuela’s testimony in 1911 that the pasya had been taken in Kangkong, or his 1917

court testimony that it had been taken at Melchora Aquino’s place in Pasong Tamo. Nor

does Agoncillo mention Valenzuela’s visits to Pasong Tamo with other veterans to

commemorate the “Cry” in 1928 and 1940.

Borromeo-Buehler, The Cry of Balintawak, 55; Guerrero et al, “Balintawak,” as cited.

Web ref http://www.gov.ph/1963/08/22/proclamation-no-149-s-1963/ (Accessed November 13,

2014).

Gregorio Zaide suggests the issue was scarcely debated. The National Heroes Commission, he

writes, took the decision “without consulting the historians who were not employed by

the government and without public hearings.” Zaide, The Philippine Revolution, 111.

Manila Times, August 24, 1963; Sunday Times, August 23, 1964; Philippines Daily Express,

August 23, 1985

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