Biak-Na-Bato... The Crucible

Aguinaldo@150

He held the cards the minute he reached Biak -na -Bato. For obvious reason, the Spanish Army would not commit its young men into what could be a protracted jungle war. Perhaps the question should be thrown more to the Filipino side and to Aguinaldo: Could they last?"

No other than Governor-General Fernando Primo de Rivera in his speech in front of the Spanish Senate in 1898, described how Filipino fighters from Batangas and Laguna were able to evade the Spanish dragnet, traveling in groups of four or five, following the trail Aguinaldo did earlier, to eventually reach Bulacan and join forces with the troops of General Llanera. Was it an open admittance of a brilliant military tactic? Primo de Rivera will have none of it but one thing was clear to him, the war had breached that "different territory" and Spain would rather wait.

Wait till someone takes the bait. But someone did take the bait. Pedro Paterno, who confessed that his love for both his country of birth, the Philippines, and mother Spain moved him to act as a mediator between the colonial government and Aguinaldo. A classic example of a Filipino "hunyango", an attention seeker. Paterno trusted himself into the limelight, acted like a genuine "butt kisser" to both Spain and Aguinaldo.

Whatever advantage Aguinaldo gain in the stalemate was quickly transformed into a commodity. Name your price to stop all this "kaguluhan". Paterno was the broker. It was agreed at a fixed price. And to the utter dismay of those who at the beginning were opposed to the negotiations, the top brass of the Filipino revolution even agreed to be paid on  installment basis (ginawang hulugan), in exchange for halting the war.

It was said, wherever Aguinaldo stopped on the way to his self imposed exile, people crowd around to catch a glimpse of him. He was allowed to move around in his uniform and of course with his revolver. Filipinos were seeing their "Primer Presidente" in his full regalia. Imagine the impact it created. Did he, for a minute, had a doubt that the decision to abandon was wrong?

He held the cards. I'm sorry but I believed he did, even on the way to exile. In the Spanish Senate, Primo de Rivera frantically defended the conduct of his tenure above all the lull that was Biak-Na-Bato -- indeed the crucible! The name General Emilio Aguinaldo rang around the four corners of the Senate, reverberating outside into the broadest of all four corners. By then it was all clear to Spain whom they just dealt with as if Aguinaldo was telling them; " I am the Philippines!"

~ Pasig City