Henchmen of Aguinaldo (Tirador ni Aguinaldo)

 

The news material was from a Manila newspaper .1920s. The photo was just superimposed -- With Antonio Abad interviewing Janolino.

Can anyone tell the reason for the existence and also the duty of the Kawit detachment, battalion, troop... whatever? Somehow it has a vague order and command. This group of Cavitenos perhaps had only one defined role, being the extra and ultra military exponent of Cavitismo and "Aguinaldismo" -- If I may say. They might have been true patriots at the beginning of the revolution, abled men who were with Aguinaldo during Cavite's glorious run against the Spanish Forces, but what happened to them after politics took its divisive role in the revolution was a different story.


We define "henchman" in Tagalog as "tirador or the much blunt version perhaps would be "taga-tumba". The Bonifacio brothers were said to be , one of the first victims of the "tiradors" of Cavitismo. But there was a certain Col. Ignacio Paua, a full-blooded Chinaman born in Binondo one of the arresting officers and who reportedly stabbed the Supremo with a dagger in the neck. Paua is not from Cavite but privy to the Caviteno moves.

There was also the young Gregorio Del Pilar, the romanticized version of a 19th Century Filipino warrior (If there is such). He was a Bulakenyo. Allegedly he hunted down some of the men of Antonio Luna. Incidentally, it was Nick Joaquin who first gave the title of Aguinaldo's henchman to Gregorio del Pilar.

Of course, there was Pedro Janolino (aka Pedrong Kastila), who during the late 1920s admitted to journalist Antonio Abad that he was the first to give the death blow against the fuming mad Luna, giving his alibi that out of confusion and self-defense, he had no choice but to strike. And there was this letter from Aguinaldo that recently came out of the open- commanding Luna to report to Cabanatuan. It was a conspiracy of a wider scope, when one reads another account that if Luna fails to come to Cabanatuan another detachment was waiting in Pampanga to eliminate him.

In the 1930s when Aguinaldo, running as President against Quezon called on the former Katipuneros to bury their differences and unite, Gen. Jose Alejandrino, a known friend of General Luna, ironically heed the call, visiting the wake of Gen Tomas Mascardo. Witnessed said Alejandrino approached the casket and without saying a word, just left -- But it would not be surprising if someone like him who witnessed the brutality of political wrangling had whispered; "Memento Mori!"



The poster of the highly acclaimed movie "Heneral Luna"(2015) -- Which highlight the so-called henchmen (tirador) controversy.


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