Luna, the youngest of the seven siblings and brother of renowned painter Juan Luna, is a chemist and

general who played a huge role in the war of against the United States.

“He served as Director and Assistant Secretary of War and led different battles in Caloocan, Bulacan, and
Pampanga. Because of his strict leadership and punishment of wrongdoing, he incurred the wrath of some
soldiers. Antonio also opposed members of the Aguinaldo cabinet who favored autonomy under
American rule; these men witnessed Antonio’s volatile temper on several occasions,” the NHCP said.

In 1881, Antonio earned a  Bachelor of Arts degree at the Ateneo de Manila University but he also
studied for two years at the University of Santo Tomas, where he received a prize for his work, “Dos
Cuerpos Importantes de Quimica,” before he went to Europe and earned a pharmacist license from
the University of Barcelona.

Antonio also finished his doctorate degree in Pharmacy at Universidad Central de Madrid in 1890.

Aside from working on medical studies, Antonio under his pen name “Taga-Ilog” participated in
campaign reforms and wrote articles for the historic “La Solidaridad” that criticized the friars and abusive
government officials and aspired for changes in the colony.

https://interaksyon.philstar.com/hobbies-interests/2020/06/09/170317/remembering-antonio-luna-
121st-death-anniversary-with-an-online-exhibit/

Antonio Luna was summoned, by telegram, to an important meeting with the president in Cabanatuan.
When he presented himself at Aguinaldo’s headquarters on June 5, 1899, exhausted from a long journey
on horseback, he was told the president was away. There he saw Felipe Buencamino, a high-ranking
official he had arrested for treason, and Aguinaldo’s Kawit bodyguards whom he had disarmed and
punished for insubordination. His famous temper flared, and the soldiers killed him allegedly in self-
defense. Luna and his aide, Paco Roman, were finished off by gunfire; Luna was also stabbed to make
sure he was dead. Being outnumbered,
Luna and his aide could have been disabled or restrained, but the handy alibi, then as now, was simply
nanlaban.

In his angry Guam memoirs, Apolinario Mabini blamed Aguinaldo for the deaths of Bonifacio and Luna.
He even recommended a glorious death on the battlefield as Aguinaldo’s only redemption. Aguinaldo
thumbed his nose at the Sublime Paralytic and outlived all his enemies, dying in 1964, five years short of
his 100th birthday.

Cutting through auction house hype, we know that Luna received two telegrams while he was directing
the construction of the defenses at Binmaley. The first one, sent from Angeles, called Luna to a meeting
on the defense of Pampanga. The second, sent from Cabanatuan, called Luna to a meeting on a revamp in
government.

Antonio K. Abad, in his 1926 book “Ang Mahiwagang Pagkamatay ni Heneral Luna” (The Mysterious
Death of General Luna), wrote that the Angeles telegram was from Aguinaldo, while the Cabanatuan one
was a trap, set by people to settle scores with the fiery general.

Partly in code, the message reads: “Folabo puoncimane iun thiuntodonade sin ordenar fegmicaen ciusi
Esperando contestacion a mi telegrama anterior en que le pediapipso incupsicaen Suplico urgencia….”
Decoded, it reads: “Paging for an important meeting, therefore you are ordered to come here immediately.
Waiting for a reply to my previous telegram about urgent matters to discuss. Beseech urgency.”

Luna’s reply at the bottom of the coded message, supplied by the auction house, is “Felipe Buencamino
not yet detained based on my accusation.” The original Spanish, in Luna’s fine hand, reads: “Felipe
Buencamino aun detenido sin formacion [de] causa base [mi] acusacion.” (Felipe Buencamino still
arrested without prosecution based on [my] accusation.)

While this is not the telegram fished out of Luna’s pockets as he lay dead in the afternoon sun, his fists
clenched in defiance, his mouth curled from the curses hurled at his murderers as they finished him off, it
reopens a wound in our history too painful to bear.

https://opinion.inquirer.net/117657/nanlaban-bonifacio-and-luna

Luna and Apolinario Mabini did not join the First Phase of the Philippine Revolution led by
Andres Bonifacio from 1896-1897, but joined the Second Phase led by Emilio Aguinaldo that
moved from the Philippine Revolution against Spain (1897-1898) to the Philippine-American
War (1899-1902).

I looked back not on Bonifacio but on Luna, because there is an underside to the narrative left
out of textbooks, film and the internet. It is not so much that Antonio Luna did not join the First
Phase of the Revolution, rather he squealed on it! In July 1896, a month before the outbreak of
the Revolution, or the Cry of Pugad Lawin, Luna, moved by his “duty as a loyal son of Spain,”
informed the director of the Municipal Laboratory of Manila of a secret society called the
Katipunan. The director passed on this information to the governor general who summoned Luna
to Malacañang in early August to get this raw intelligence information firsthand. Luna briefed
the governor on this subversive society active in Manila, made up of members from the lower
social classes. Luna said some from the upper classes, like him, knew but did not sympathize
with their motives. Luna met with the governor more than once, and in the later audience
provided details of the initiation rights where the Katipuneros “performed incisions on their arms
and from the blood drawn from the wound sign their Katipunan oaths.”

Luna betrayed his friends and acquaintances, including Rizal, stating in an affidavit sworn in
November 1896 that “the Katipunan is La Liga Filipina, that they had translated the Spanish liga
into the Tagalog katipunan, and its founder is Dr. Jose Rizal.” Poor Rizal did found the Liga that
died stillborn a few days afterwards when he was arrested and exiled to Dapitan in July 1892, but
he was not responsible for the more radical Katipunan that grew out of the Liga under the
leadership of Bonifacio. Without his knowledge and consent, Rizal was made honorary president
of the Katipunan, his photo was displayed on the wall during Katipunan meetings and initiation
of new members, and one of the passwords of the Katipunan was “Rizal.”

So one could say that Luna hammered a nail into Rizal’s coffin, that the Katipunan framed Rizal
who was sentenced to death because he was, according to trial records, “the living soul of the
rebellion.” Rizal did not fire a gun or waved a bolo, but his life and works did inspire the
Revolution.

Why did Luna squeal? He was not happy with prison conditions, and he probably wanted to get
even with those he thought had squealed on him. In his November 1896 affidavit Luna declared:

“I repeat, I am not a rebel, not a filibustero, not a Mason, I sided with the government because it
was my duty, and I denounced all that I knew, with all the natural risks, thus relying on the
justice of Your Honor, I do not doubt that I will be acquitted and set free.”

Luna was not executed like other rebels, he was even made to serve part of his Manila prison
sentence in Spain, where he read up on military science, tactics, fortifications, strategy, etc. that
came in handy when he later had a change of heart and was accepted by Aguinaldo and given the
rank of general. Knowing a hero’s full life instead of just the high points makes for engaging
reading and makes us reflect on much more than just who, what, where and how. Why is more
important.
https://opinion.inquirer.net/109080/heros-full-life#ixzz6i3bKOzYJ
Ambeth R. Ocampo
Follow us: @inquirerdotnet on Twitter | inquirerdotnet on Facebook
Read more: https://opinion.inquirer.net/109080/heros-full-life#ixzz6i3au3l4v

On June 5, 1899, General Antonio Luna was killed in the plaza of a rectory in Cabanatuan,
Nueva Ecija. Luna was to attend a council of war called by General Emilio Aguinaldo.

Luna arrived with two aides-de camp and a mounted escort of twelve men. After dismounting
and dismissing his escort, he proceeded alone to the rectory where Aguinaldo had his
headquarters. On mounting the stairs, he was met by a junior officer, who informed him that
Aguinaldo had left with his command. Luna felt slighted and expressed himself very strongly on
the matter and prepared to take his departure. As he turned to leave the room, a sergeant of one
of the two companies that Aguinaldo had left at Cabanatuan, sprang from behind the door, where
he had been concealed, and attacked Luna from behind, inflicting a severe wound with a bolo.
General Luna, seeing himself surrounded and realizing that he was practically in the same strait
as Andres Bonifacio had been at Naic, some three years previously, drew his revolver to defend
himself. Not wishing to be overcomed by numbers in a hand to hand struggle in the rectory, he
forced his way through his assailants and rushed downstairs into the plaza to summon his escort
to his assistance. On arriving in the plaza, he was confronted by one of the companies that
Aguinaldo had left in Cabanatuan to arrest him at all costs. The officer in command, judging that
Luna, if arrested alive, would only be a source of embarassment to Aguinaldo, ordered his men
to fire a volley. Luna fell at the first discharge but did not die before he wounded a number of
assailants with his revolver.

Earlier, on about March or April, 1899, there were some overtures between Emilio Aguinaldo,
Felipe Buencamino, and Pedro Paterno on the one hand and the American authorities on the
other, towards a compromise on the basis of an autonomous government. It is unknown with
whom these overtures originated, but Aguinaldo was disposed to listen to them. General Antonio
Luna heard of this and, at a cabinet meeting at Cabanatuan, reproached the dictator with wishing
to betray the "extreme" party. It was this party, according to Luna, which represented the people
at large. It certainly did represent the majority of the Filipino leaders and Katipuneros who had
gone into the field to fight for complete independence. They would be satisfied by no such half
measure as autonomy.

The conversation became heated. Luna, who had a violent temper, threatened to kill Aguinaldo.
The latter, however, managed to avoid an encounter just then. But Luna followed up and struck
Buencarnino in the face. Buencamino then made his escape with Pedro Paterno and both took
refuge in a stable.
To Aguinaldo, compromise or no compromise, autonomy or complete independence, there was
not sufficient room in the Philippines for himself and General Luna. He thereupon determined to
lay a trap and rid himself of the violent patriot for once and all. To this end he summoned
General Luna to attend a council of war at Cabanatuan.

https://kahimyang.com/kauswagan/articles/1669/today-in-philippine-history-june-5-1899-
general-antonio-luna-was-killed-by-aguinaldos-men-in-cabanatuan

Sequence for the Video:

WHO WAS ANTONIO LUNA?

Antonio Luna was a soldier, chemist, musician, war strategist, journalist, pharmacist, and hot-headed general, a
complex man who was, unfortunately, perceived as a threat by the Philippines' ruthless first president Emilio
Aguinaldo. As a result, Luna died not on the battlefields of the Philippine-American War, but he was assassinated on
the streets of Cabanatuan.

He was born on October 29, 1866, in the Binondo district of Manila, the youngest child of seven of Laureana
Novicio-Ancheta, a Spanish mestiza, and Joaquin Luna de San Pedro, a traveling salesman. Antonio was a gifted
student who studied with a teacher called Maestro Intong from the age of 6 and received a Bachelor of Arts from the
Ateneo Municipal de Manila in 1881 before continuing his studies in chemistry, music, and literature at the
University of Santo Tomas.

In 1890, Antonio traveled to Spain to join his brother Juan, who was studying painting in Madrid. There, Antonio
earned a licentiate in pharmacy at the Universidad de Barcelona, followed by a doctorate from the Universidad
Central de Madrid. In Madrid, he fell obsessively in love with local beauty Nelly Boustead, who was also admired
by his friend Jose Rizal. But it came to nothing, and Luna never married.

He went on to study bacteriology and histology at the Pasteur Institute in Paris and continued on to Belgium to
further those pursuits. While in Spain, Luna had published a well-received paper on malaria, so in 1894 the Spanish
government appointed him to a post as a specialist in communicable and tropical diseases.

Later that same year, Antonio Luna returned to the Philippines where he became the chief chemist of the Municipal
Laboratory in Manila. He and his brother Juan established a fencing society called the Sala de Armas in the capital.

While there, the brothers were approached about joining the Katipunan, a revolutionary organization founded by
Andres Bonifacio in response to the 1892 banishment of Jose Rizal, but both Luna brothers refused to participate—
at that stage, they believed in a gradual reform of the system rather than a violent revolution against Spanish colonial
rule.
HOW AND WHY DID ANTONIO LUNA SQUEALED ON THE KATIPUNAN?
Although they were not members of the Katipunan, Antonio, Juan, and their brother Jose were all arrested and
imprisoned in August 1896 when the Spanish learned that the organization existed. His brothers were interrogated
and released, but Antonio was sentenced to exile in Spain and imprisoned in the Carcel Modelo de Madrid. Juan, by
this time a famed painter, used his connections with the Spanish royal family to secure Antonio's release in 1897.

According to Filipino Historian, Ambeth Ocampo, that Antonio Luna did not join the First Phase of the Revolution,
rather he squealed on it! In July 1896, a month before the outbreak of the Revolution, or the Cry of Pugad Lawin,
Luna, moved by his “duty as a loyal son of Spain,” informed the director of the Municipal Laboratory of Manila of a
secret society called the Katipunan. The director passed on this information to the governor general who summoned
Luna to Malacañang in early August to get this raw intelligence information firsthand. Luna briefed the governor on
this subversive society active in Manila, made up of members from the lower social classes. Luna said some from
the upper classes, like him, knew but did not sympathize with their motives. Luna met with the governor more than
once, and in the later audience provided details of the initiation rites where the Katipuneros “performed incisions on
their arms and from the blood drawn from the wound sign their Katipunan oaths.”

After his exile and imprisonment, understandably, Antonio Luna's attitude toward Spanish colonial rule had shifted.
Due to the arbitrary treatment of himself and his brothers and the execution of his friend Jose Rizal the previous
December, Luna was ready to take up arms against Spain.

ANTONIO AS COMMANDING GENERAL OF THE PHILIPPINE ARMY

While Antonio Luna was on exile, the monitored the progress of the revolution and spent time on harnessing his
military strategy and tactics, field fortifications, and guerrilla warfare. When news came of the American victory
over the Spanish armada in Manila Bay, he prepared to return to the country. A letter of recommendation from
Felipe Agoncillo to Emilio Aguinaldo stated that Luna had made up his mind to take part in the revolution and to
serve the country. Aguinaldo, against the advice of Mabini and others, took in Luna and named him undersecretary
of war with the rank of brigadier general. He would later justify his decision, saying that although Luna did not
attend a military school “…we needed his terrible temper to impose discipline on our unschooled army.”
In January 1899, he became the Commanding General of the Philippine Army. He also served as Director and
Assistant Secretary of War and led different battles in Caloocan, Bulacan, and Pampanga. Because of his strict
leadership and punishment of wrongdoing, he incurred the wrath of some soldiers. As soon ‘ as hostilities began
between Americans and Filipinos, Luna was appointed commander-in-chief of the Filipino forces in Central Luzon,
where most of the fighting was done. The poor preparation of Aguinaldo’s forces was manifest during the first
weeks of the campaign and some military observers believe that if General Luna had been put in charge of the
preparation of the army before the opening of hostilities, the Filipino army might have been able to offer better
resisting qualities.

Luna was of an impulsive temper, violent in his passions and with an inexorable heart when he believed it
convenient to lay down his iron hand. He was a samurai by instinct, incapable of abandoning a comrade in moments
of danger, and ready to do anything within his power to reward valor and to mitigate the sufferings of a soldier who
complies with his duty. So long as acts of service were involved, he did not consider either friendship or family ties.
He was gifted with a fearful courage and he considered it a dishonor to run in the face of any danger whatever it
might be.

Luna was also known to be a strict disciplinarian and his temper alienated many in the ranks of the common
soldiers. An example of this occurred during the Battle of Calumpit, wherein Luna ordered General Tomás
Mascardo to send troops from Guagua to strengthen the former's defenses. However, Mascardo ignored orders by
Luna insisting that he was going to Arayat to undertake an "inspection of troops". Another version of Mascardo's
reasoning emerged and it was probably that which reached Luna. This version was that Mascardo had left to visit his
girlfriend.[42] Luna, infuriated by Mascardo's actions, had decided to detain him. However, Major Hernando, one of
Luna's aides, tried to placate the general's anger by convincing Luna to push the case to President Aguinaldo.
Aguinaldo complied to detain Mascardo for twenty-four hours. Upon returning to the field, however, the Americans
had broken through his defenses at the Bagbag River, forcing Luna to withdraw despite his heroic action to defend
the remaining sectors.

After several additional bad experiences with the undisciplined and clannish Filipino forces, and after Aguinaldo
had rearmed the disobedient Cavite troops as his personal Presidential Guard, a thoroughly frustrated General Luna
submitted his resignation to Aguinaldo, which Aguinaldo reluctantly accepted. As a result, Luna was absent from
the field for three weeks, during which the Filipino forces suffered several defeats and setbacks. One such defeat
would be at the Battle of Marilao River on 27 March. With the war going very badly for the Philippines over the
next three weeks, however, Aguinaldo persuaded Luna to return and made him commander-in-chief. Luna
developed and implemented a plan to contain the Americans long enough to construct a guerrilla base in the
mountains. The plan consisted of a network of bamboo trenches, complete with spiked man-traps and pits full of
poisonous snakes, which spanned the jungle from village to village. Filipino troops could fire on the Americans
from this Luna Defense Line, and then melt away into the jungle without exposing themselves to American fire.

Antonio also opposed members of the Aguinaldo cabinet who favored autonomy under American rule; these men
witnessed Antonio’s volatile temper on several occasions.

Luna’s last will and testament were found in his papers after his death. It is dated March 31, 1899 and written en
route from San Fernando to Calumpit: “1. I leave whatever I have to my mother. 2. If they will kill me, wrap me in a
Filipino flag with all the clothing with which I was dressed when killed, and bury me in the ground. 3. I wish to state
freely that I would die willingly for my country, for our independence, without thereby looking for death.”

Source: https://criticsrant.com/luna-assassination/
 Antonio-Luna-Eduardo-de-Lete-and-Marcelo-H.-del-Pilar-ca.-1890
 Antonio-Luna-at-Institut-Pasteur-in-Paris
 Antonio-Luna-pic-1891
 Antonio-and-Juan-Luna
 Sala-de-armas-ran-by-the-Luna-brothers-1894
 Carcel-Modelo-in-Madrid-ca-1904
 Gen.-Benito-Natividad-small-arms-fold
 Copy-of-Colonel-Francisco-Paco-Roman
 Luna-stabbed-The-Evening-Times-June-13-1899
 Luna-stabbed-text-1

REFERENCES:
 Dumindin, Arnaldo. "June 5, 1899: Assassination of Gen. Antonio Luna". Retrieved 29 June 2012
 Jimenez, Ruby Rosa A. (2015). Heneral Luna: The History Behind the Movie. Mandaluyong City: Anvil
Publishing
 https://criticsrant.com/luna-assassination/
 https://kahimyang.com/kauswagan/articles/1669/today-in-philippine-history-june-5-1899-general-antonio-
luna-was-killed-by-aguinaldos-men-in-cabanatuan
 https://interaksyon.philstar.com/hobbies-interests/2020/06/09/170317/remembering-antonio-luna-121st-
death-anniversary-with-an-online-exhibit/
 https://opinion.inquirer.net/85501/who-really-ordered-lunas-murder
 https://escholarship.org/content/qt3304f2ks/qt3304f2ks.pdf?t=ozicgv
 https://opinion.inquirer.net/88427/the-way-antonio-luna-died
 https://philippineamericanwar.webs.com/lunaassassination.htm
