By: Atty. Vivencio F. Abaño
The
official seal of the province of Camarines Norte has the figure of a
landmark, which stands, in the capital town of Daet. Some of you, I am
sure, must have visited the landmark. Or at least, have heard or seen
the photograph of it.
I refer to a white three-sided spire
with a square base, about twenty feet high made of coral stones. It is
located in a small park just across the Daet town hall. The monument was
erected by the people of Camarines Norte in honor of Dr. Jose Rizal on
December 30, 1898, two years to the day after his martyrdom in
Bagumbayan in 1896.
The Daet landmark is known, and officially recognize, as the FIRST RIZAL MONUMENT.
The
First Rizal Monument symbolizes what happened in the province of
Camarines Norte during the turbulent years of the Philippine Revolution.
Its shape and design, the site on which it stands, the coral stones
used, the writings on its base – all are expressions of the nationalist
sentiments of the people of the province, their role and participation
in that greater struggle of a nation for independence.
The
tapering spire and its triangular shape is Masonic in design. It is the
triangle of the Masons, and later, of the Katipunan whose insignias were
patterned after Masonic triangular emblems. Like our national flag, it
is reminiscent of the first Katipunan war standards and combat banners
bearing a triangle with three K’s. the design is understandably Masonic
because those inspired, organized and led the struggle in the province
were not only nationalists but also were mostly, if not all, members of
Freemasonry.
As early as 1889, the first predominantly
Filipino Masonic lodge in Spain counted among its original members a
native son of Camarines Norte. These members, like Marcelo H. Del Pilar, Graciano Lopez Jaena and Mariano Ponce,
had intended to make use of their Masonic relationships for political
purposes to obtain liberal reforms for the Philippines including
representation in the Spanish Cortes. The lodge’s name was Revoluccion
and its Bicolano member was Jose Maria Panganiban who was born in the gold mining town of Mambulao, which now bears his name.
Panganiban was the “JOMAPA” of the La Solidaridad,
the eloquent and brilliant speaker highly admired by his peers in the
Propaganda Movement. His fellow propagandist Jose Rizal wrote of him:
“Panganiban was a true orator, of easy and energetic words, vigorous
concepts, practical and transcendental ideas, and of elevated thoughts.
His was an eloquence, at once seductive and convincing. Deeply informed
of things Philippine, how many times did he move his audience depicting
the ills of that land, the profound agonies it suffers, the immense
pains it feels. How many times did he excite the general admiration of
those listening to him as he expounds suitable and practical remedies,
indicating reforms that would be carried out in accordance with the
peculiar needs of the country.”
It is a measure of Panganiban’s patriotism and his dedication to the
cause that despite the rigors of poverty and the ravages of
tuberculosis, he persisted till the end in the struggle of reforms. In
August 1890, he died at the age of 27. On his grave as the epitaph:
“Here lies the avenger of the honor of the Filipinos”, written by
Graciano Lopez Jaena.
The same Masonic ties of those in the
nationalist, and later revolutionary, movement would exist as well among
Panganiban’s province mates living in Camarines Norte.
Then the
first Filipino lodge in the country, named Nilad, was set up in January
1892, other lodges quickly sprang up both around Manila in the
Provinces. Bicol had its Masonic Lodges, starting with the Logia de
Bicol. The lodge in Camarines Norte was Triangulo Bicol, whose
Worshipful Master was Vicente Lukban, a juez de paz of the town of Labo.
Sometime
in 1894, the Masons of Triangulo Bicol led by Vicente Lukban founded
the La Cooperativa Popular, an agricultural society which worked in
spreading the ideas of the movement among the inhabitants of Camarines
Norte. The members of cooperative avoided incurring the suspicion of the
Spanish authorities by going to the barrios of the proince ostensibly
for the purpose merely of buying agricultural products from the farmers.
Their main objective, however, was to indoctrinate. While the
cooperative did engage in the commerce of agricultural products, part of
this profits was secretly sent as financial contribution to the
Manila-based Katipunan organization. It appeared that Vicente Lukban had
established early ties with Andres Bonifacio who was himself a Mason.
After
the discovery of the Katipunan in August 1896, Vicente Lukban was among
the many who were arrested were six other residents of Camarines Norte,
namely: Gregorio Luyon, Diego Liñan, Adriano Pajarillo, Pablo Del
Villas, Ramon Cabezudo and Florentino Peñaloza. They appeared to be,
like Lukban, members of the Masonic lodge. Gregorio Luyon and Diego
Liñan certainly were.
Undoubtedly, it was because of their
membership in Freemasonry that Vicente Lukban and others had first drawn
the suspicion of the Spanish authorities, and been branded as enemies
of the regime. Ironically, it was these same Masonic ties that saved
them later from execution by firing squad, a fate suffered by their
fellow Bicolanos from Nueva Caceres in January 1897 at Bagumbayan.
According
to Diego Liñan, as recounted by his own living son Dr. Jose Liñan, the
Spanish officers who were in charge of them during their detention at
Fort Santiago happened to be Masons themselves. These officers covertly
protected them and even managed to exclude them from prosecution and
trial. Eventually, these Spanish Masons succeeded in effecting their
release from Fort Santiago.
The account of Diego Liñan most
probably contained a measure of truth. A similar incident among Spanish
and Filipino Masons is recorded to have happened twenty-five years
earlier in the aftermath of the Cavite Mutiny of 1872. in his
translation of Manuel Artigas y Cuervas “Sucesos de 1872 (Events of
1872), Onofre D. Corpus made the following notes about Rafael Izquierdo,
the same Spanish governor-general who had sent the GOMBURZA priests to the gallows:
“We must take note of a fact of no slight significance. In Filipinas
the Masons were viewed as enemies of the regime, and in 1872 as in other
times the opportunity to check them arose. But Izquierdo was a Mason
himself. When it was reported that this or that person was directly
associated with events in Kawit he did not approved the death penalty on
anyone who turned out to be a Mason. In the case of natives, he
prohibited the re-arrest of those who were members of Masonic lodges,
ordering that those who were already in custody be sent to Spain or
Africa to serve out their sentences, a decision without precedent.
Enrique Paraiso, Crisanto Delos Reyes and Maximo Inocencio, all natives,
were sentenced to exile in the presidios of Cartagena and Ceuta [down
the southeastern coast of Spain and at the northernmost tip of Africa,
respectively]. Paraiso was a member of the Masonic lodge in Pandacan
while Reyes and Inocencio were members of the lodge in Kawit.”
(National Glories Series, The Events
of 1872, a Historico-Bio-Bibligraphical Account by Manuel Artigas Y
Cuerva, Translation & Notes by O. D. Corpuz, University of the
Philippines Press, 1996 page 155).
The arrest and
imprisonment of Vicente Lukban and his fellow Masons did not deter them.
On the contrary, most of them became all the more involved in the
revolutionary movement. Soon after his release from Bilibid Prison in
May 1897, Vicente Lukban joined Emilio Aguinaldo at the latter’s
headquarters in Biyak-na-Bato. He would be a signatory to the
Biyak-na-Bato Constitution in November 1898, and would later become one
of the foremost Bicol Generals of the Philippine Revolution and the
Philippine-American War.
The other Masons in Camarines Norte,
including some of those arrested in September 1896, would form the core
and leadership of Katipunan unit in the province headed by Ildefonso
Moreno. By November 1897, the unit was fully organized, thanks in no
small measure to the groundworks prepared years earlier by the La
Cooperatiba Popular. It included members of the principalia like Jose
Abaño, the capitan municipal of Daet, former gobernadorcillos Tomas
Zaldua. Even the fifteen native members of the local Guardia Civil,
including their cabo Salvador Marañon, were in secret league with the
Katipunan and were receiving instructions from Ildefonso Moreno.
In
April 1898, the Katipuneros of Camarines Norte rose in revolt. From
April 14 to 17, the Daet uprising spread to the other towns of Basud,
Calasgasan, Talisay and Labo. The Spanish military and civilian
communities took refuge and barricaded themselves in the mansion of
Spanish merchant Florencio Arana.
There they were besieged by the
Katipuneros who fought and started their assaults from the very site
where the First Rizal Monument now stands.
For four days, the
Filipino fighters had almost total control of five towns, and would have
captured the others if not for their lack of sufficient firearms and
the apathy of some their countrymen.
The Daet Revolt was crushed
mercilessly after a large Spanish reinforcement arrived from Nueva
Caceres ad other parts of Camarines Norte on April 18, 1898. many
Filipinos were arrested, tortured and/or executed. According ti
historian Juan Elias Ataviado in hi book, “The Philippine Revolution in
the Bicol Region”,around 500 Filipinos were killed, including the
Katipunero leaders Ildefonso Moreno, Telesforo Zaldua, Gavino Saavedra
and Jose Abaño.
The native members of the local Guardia Civil who
had joined the revolt were meted particularly cruel punishment. They
were beheaded upon the order of Captain Francisco Andreu, head of the
Spanish contingent from Nueva Caceres, and their remains thrown to the
dogs. Only one guard, Alipio de Leon, escaped the massacre of his
compatriots.
The extreme cruelty inflicted on the Filipinos in
Daet did not long remain unavenged. The Filipino civil guards in Nueva
Caceres learned of what had happened, particulary to the native members
of the Daet Guardia Civil. The following September 1898, they too
revolted under the leadership of Elias Angeles and Felix Plazo. One of
their first targets was Captain Francisco Andreu. He and his entire
family, save for the two youngest children who feigned death, were
killed in the assault on their house.
That same month of
September 1898, Camarines Norte was totally liberated from the
Spaniards. The Spanish authorities – military, civil and ecclesiastical –
had fled or left the province posthaste upon hearing of the landings of
Vicente Lukban’s expeditionary army at Mambulao and Paracale. He
arrived in Daet on September 12, 1898, finding it free of the colonial
masters, proceeded to Nueva Caceres with his army.
The following
December, the free people of Camarines Norte embarked on the project to
construct a monument in honor of Dr. Jose P. Rizal, the first province
to do so.
The site chosen for the monument was he very place
where the Katipuneros had fought and held their ground in the Daet
Revolt of April 1898. the Spanish carcel where many of the Katipuneros
were incarcerated, tortured and executed in the aftermath of the revolt
was demolished. The coral stones therefrom, perhaps still bearing the
stains of the martyrs’ blood were carted to the site and use as building
blocks for the triangular spire and its square base. As a finishing
touch, the words “Noli Me Tangere”, “El Felibusterismo” and “Morga” were painted on the three sides of the square base.
The
inclusion of the word “Morga” was not without significance. It
obviously referred to Rizal’s translations and annotation of Sucesos de
las Islas Filipinas (Historical Events of the Philippine Islands), the
Spanish official Antonio de Morga’s seventeenth-century account of the
conditions obtaining in the country before and during the Spanish
conquest. Although not familiar – even among present-day Filipinos – as
Rizal’s Noli and Fili, his edition of Morga was no less important.
While
his Noli revealed the decline of the fatherland under the destructive
effect and exploitation by Spanish colonization, in contrast Rizal’s
edition of the Morga sought to awaken among his countrymen the
consciousness of their past and the advanced state of the Filipinos
prior to the coming of the Spaniards, their early accomplishments as
well as their ethnic and cultural links to other Malay peoples.
Rizal
was at pain to show that the pre-Hispanic Filipinos had a system of
writing, bodies of costumes, traditions and usages. Filipino artisans,
like Panday Pira, had forged cannons and built seagoing vessels as few
others did in Southeast Asis. Agriculture and industry – like the
growing of cottons, the weaving of cloth, the mining of gold and other
metals, even the export of silk to Japan where today the best silk comes
from – existed prior to the Spanish colonial conquest. Pre-Hispanic
Philippines appeared to be at one of the crossroads of Asian trade, and
its products reached other countries of Asia.
Rizal’s preface to his edition of the Morga closed with the following words to his countrymen:
“If the book succeeds to awaken your consciousness of our past,
already effaced from your memory, and to rectify what has been falsified
and slandered, then I have not worked in vain, and with this as a
basis, however small it may be, we shall be able to study the future.”
Such portrayal of the Filipino past and his Malayan links provided a
rational and moral legitimation for a people who were used to the notion
of loyalty to Spain but now were called upon to wage a revolution
against it. Andres Bonifacio’s first manifesto to the public published
in the Katipunan’s newspaper Kalayaan echoed Rizal’s Morga.
“In the early times when the Spaniards had not yet set foot in this
land, under the government of our true compatriots, the Filipinos were
living in great abundance and prosperity. They lived in harmony with
neighboring countries, especially the Japanese, with whom they carried
on commerce and trade, and their industry produced extra-ordinarily
abundant fruits. As a result everyone lived in the fashion of the
wealthy. Young and old, and even women knew how to read and write in our
own native writing.”
To the people of Camarines Norte at the time, Rizal’s purpose in writing
his edition of the “Morga” appeared to be known. Certainly, the
painting of the word Morga on the First Rizal monument in Daet indicated
that they were aware of its significance, and mayhaps of their
country’s past and ethno-cultural heritage which Rizal had sought to
reconstruct in his historical work.
Three decades later, that
awareness and consciousness would be articulated with brilliant and
forceful eloquence by another great son of Camarines Norte, Wencesclao
Q. Vinzons. While the student council president at the University of the
Philippines in 1932, he delivered his winning oratorical piece
“Malaysia Frredenta” about the history of the Southeast Asian countries
with Malayan origin. Vinzons, who would become the youngest delegate to
the 1935 Constitutional Convention, and the later Governor and
Congressman of Camarines Norte, went a step further by advocating a
federation of Malaysian states, the Pan Malayan Union.
Vinzons’ eloquent words are a fulfilled prophecy as they echo along the corridors of time:
“Óur racial history is marked by the occasional display of the genius of remote ancestors. Under the influence of Hindu
culture, the Shri-Visayan empire consolidated a vast territory from
Formosa to Ceylon, and embracing to the South Java and the Moluccas. A
unified Malaysia extending from the northern extremity of the Malay
Peninsula to the shores of New Guinea, from Madagascar to the
Philippines and to the remotest islands of Polynesia will be a powerful
factor in the oceanic world. Its magnitude seems to be preposterous and
absurd – a highly impossible project. But your answer to this challenge
will be your verdict on the capacity of your race for civilization and
your vision of a redeemed Malaysia will be the salvation of your
prosperity.”
Vinzons’ vision of regional cooperation among peoples of common Malay
stock but bearing the diverse imprints of Western, Islamic and Indic
influences was an idea ahead of his time. But it would be a reality in
the MAPHILINDO of the 1960’s and to a certain extent in today’s ASEAN.
Where
did Vinzons get his initial inspiration? Did he, as a young boy
studying in Daet, often walk past the First Rizal Monument? Did he at
times tarry and stand before it, pondering its significance and meaning?
Years
earlier, in the early morning of December 30, 1898, a multitude of
Camarines Norteños had gathered and stood at that same place to witness
the unveiling of the First Rizal Monument. It must have been a glorious
sight bringing tears to well in the eyes of the men and women present,
the survivors and eyewitnesses of the Daet Revolt. There before them,
glistening in white, was the symbol of their province’s struggle for the
cause of freedom, a testament to the heroism and martyrdom of her sons
as much as it is a monument in honor and recognition of the greatest
hero and martyr of the nation, Dr. Jose Rizal, pride of the Malay Race.
