The heroes/heroines of the race deserve to be shown in the best light befitting their extreme sacrifice for independence and racial dignity.

Independence and racial dignity were the national objectives for which many Filipinos paid the extreme sacrifice long before 1898. But for reasons that could be lumped under selective amnesia, or worse regional and ethnic bias, many heroes and heroines continue to remain in the dark, as dark as the night when they fell with their blood spilled on Philippine soil.

Batanes hero

Kenan Aman Dangat “Buenaventura” is the BISUMI (Basco, Ivana, Sabtang, Uyungan, Mahatao, Itbayat) chieftain of the Ivatans during the Spanish rule in the late 18th century. He was the Mangpus (Datu) of Malakdang in Sabtang Island when the Spaniards established their rule in Batanes on Thursday, June 26, 1783.

Jona Glorianne Gavilan, UPLB student, reported that Aman Dangat governed his people according to their indigenous laws. When ordered by the Spaniards to follow Spanish policies, he demanded an explanation, but got none. When non-Ivatan subalterns got supplies and timber from his people without just compensation in 1791, he led a righteous protest. The white men retaliated by putting his men in chains. This infuriated him and his people. More than a hundred men from Sabatang joined him in revolt. Seven subalterns were killed.

However, against superior Spanish arms, Aman Dangat and his brave warriors were overpowered, subsequently convicted, their properties confiscated.

Aman Dangat was executed by hanging in late September 1791.

His people preserved his memory and legacy with a freestanding monument at the left entrance of the provincial capital in Basco. He stands 5’8” tall atop a 6’ high base. He brandishes a bolo with his upraised right hand, and clutches a 6’5 long spear with his left. The figure stands staid and misses the active stance of a brave chieftain ready to combat the enemy.

Lucban hero

Religious imposition which the European priests actually did under camouflage of salvation was met with a crusade for religious freedom in the hands of Apolinario dela Cruz (1815-41) aka Hermano Pule (Brother Pule) of Lucban, Quezon. According to Sheena Lorraine Tesoro, UPLB alumna, service to God as a priest was his reason in going to Manila. But no seminary would accept him because he was an “indio,” an insolent, derogatory term which the pale-skinned Europeans used to deride the kayumanggi locals. Together with some 19 like-minded individuals, mostly from Lucban, he organized the Hermanidad dela Archi-Cofriada del Glorioso Señor San Jose y dela Virgen del Rosario, better known as Cofradia de San Jose. His aim: “To promote social intercourse and union among the members who were free to worship God accordingly to the dictates of one’s conscience.”

With Hermano Pule’s charismatic leadership and eloquence, hundreds of people in Quezon, Laguna, and Batangas joined the Cofriada. Peasants, laborers, ilustrados, and rich folks rose up to be counted.

But the Spanish authorities branded the Cofriada as a subversive organization, and Hermano Pule as “a heretic, anti-Christian and a filibuster.” Despite government persecution, Hermano Pule’s followers increased to 5,000. Battles ensued. In one battle, the Cofriada fighters were able to kill many Spaniards, including Joaquin Ortega, mayor of Tayabas.

Hermano Pule, at 25, met a hideous death in Lucban. His captors tied and fed him to an army of red ants on a mound, then beheaded him. After which, the devils incarnate chopped off his body parts and hung them in various parts of the town.

Hermano Pule was a hero in the name of religious freedom.

Negros Occidental hero

Negros Occidental has its own hero—Gen. Juan Araneta.

Upon his return from an 18-month travel to Europe and the US at the end of the 19th century, he was arrested by the interloping Spanish authorities on suspicion that he unloaded contraband machinery in his hacienda. After he was released, he secretly organized local revolutionary forces. According to Kristina Alubog, UPLB alumna in her report submitted to me, Gen. Araneta sent messages to all the presidents of the revolutionary committees to revolt against “those who had come to enslave us three centuries ago.” He instructed them that the revolution shall commence on November 5, 1898.

Riding astride his horse, Gen. Araneta and his fellow revolutionists marched to Bacolod from his home in Ma-ao. They seized control of Bago without any resistance from the shocked and terrified Spaniards. Gen. Araneta raised the Philippine flag in the province for the first time.

The people of Bago City put up a life-size monument to him astride a horse atop a slightly tapering massive base. The general cuts a dignified, determined leader and revolutionary, his head slightly tilted upward to prove that he can level with the enemy. In him resonates every Filipino’s motto at war: PKP—Patay Kung Patay!

Gen. Araneta crushed the apparatus of serfdom and established a structure of freedom in Negros Occidental.

Trece Martires

Trece Martires City in Cavite derived its name from the 13 intrepid Filipinos who met their martyrdom in the hands of an ignominious firing squad on September 12, 1986. They were suspected by the Spaniards as Katipuneros. The 13 martyrs, as reported by Robbie Charles Villagen, my former student in UPLB:

1. Luis Aguado, 33, scion of a rich Christianized Chinese businessman, gave money to the revolutionists with which to buy arms and bolos.
2. Eugenio Cabezas, 41, an active Katipunero, was a freemason who did the decorative platework of church carros.
3. Feliciano Cabuco, 31, upon learning that the Spaniards were out to arrest him, blurted out: “May panahon din sila!”
4. Agapito Conchu, 34, was a public schoolteacher, musician, photographer, painter, and lithographer.
5. Alfonso de Ocampo, 36, was a Spanish mestizo who, after squealing on the names of his companions in the projected uprising in Cavite, attempted to commit suicide by slashing his stomach with a piece of broken glass.
6. Maximo Gregorio, 41, organized two branches of Katipunan.
7. Maximo Inocencio, 63, opened his mansion as the headquarters of Aguinaldo and the revolutionists.
8. Jose Lallana, 60, had no respect to Spanish friars, particularly the gamblers.
9. Severino Lapidario, 49, was a provincial warden who armed the prisoners under him with bolos and other weapons and released them with this mission order: attack the Spanish authorities in Noveleta, Kawit, and Bacoor.
10. Victoriano Luciano, 60, was a pharmacist who used his drugstore as the secret connection with the revolutionists in the Bicol region.
11. Francisco Osorio, 36, was neither a Mason nor a Katipunero, but to the Spaniards, the preservation of their sovereignty was far more important than the life of an innocent man.
12. Hugo Perez, 40, was a physician and a freemason, and one of the cabecillas (little leaders) of the Katipunan.
13. Antonio San Agustin, 36, owned a bazaar-cum-bookstore.

A monument to the 13 martyrs s located near the municipal hall of Trece Martires. They are in various stages of falling to the ground but who, like the Dying Gaul, are still dignified.

Taal heroine

Marcela Marino de Agoncillo sewed her name in Philippine history by sewing the first Philippine flag in Hong Kong.

A full, standing sculpture-in-the-round monument to her shows her displaying linen (the Philippine flag?) slung across her outstretched arms, without even bothering to look at the flag.

The monument could have been best shown if Doña Marcela were in the act of sewing the Philippine flag. The sewer and the sewn have no ideational relationship at all.

Completely forgotten, with not even a monument to them, are Lorenza Agoncillo and Delfina Herboza, who assisted Doña Marcela in sewing the first Philippine flag.

Research

Research must be conducted before a study is attempted. A body of experts may be created to help the sculptor conceptualize a monument. Rule of thumb: concept is primary; likeness is secondary.

The heroes/heroines of the race deserve to be shown in the best light, befitting their extreme sacrifice for independence and racial dignity.