Macario Sakay: Tulisn or Patriot?by Paul Flores 1996 by Paul
Flores and PHGLAAll rights reserved
Contrary to popular belief, Philippine resistance to American
rule did not end with the capture of Emilio Aguinaldo in 1901.
There were numerous resistance forces fighting for Philippine
independence until the year 1910. One of these forces was led by
Macario Sakay who established the Tagalog Republic.Born in 1870 in
Tondo, Macario Sakay had a working-class background. He started out
as an apprentice in acalesamanufacturing shop. He was also a
tailor, a barber, and an actor incomediasandmoro-moros.His
participation in Tagalog dramas exposed him to the world of love,
courage, and discipline.In 1894, Sakay joined the Dapitan, Manila
branch of the Katipunan. Due to his exemplary work, he became head
of the branch. His nightly activities as an actor
incomediascamouflaged his involvement with the Katipunan. Sakay
assisted in the operation of the Katipunan press. During the early
days of the Katipunan, Sakay worked with Andres Bonifacio and
Emilio Jacinto. He fought side by side with Bonifacio in the hills
of Morong (now Rizal) Province.During the initial stages of the
Filipino-American war, Sakay was jailed for his seditious
activities. He had been caught forming several Katipunan chapters
and preaching its ideals from town to town.This is the author's
impression of what Sakay's Republika ng Katagalugan flag must have
looked like. There are no available pictures of the flag; this
reconstruction was based on a written description.
Republika ng KatagaluganReleased in 1902 as the result of an
amnesty, Sakay established with a group of other Katipuneros
theRepublika ng Katagaluganin the mountains of Southern Luzon.Sakay
held the presidency and was also called "Generalisimo." Francisco
Carreon was the vice-president and handled Sakay's correspondence.
Julian Montalan was the overall supervisor for military operations.
Cornelio Felizardo took charge of the northern part of Cavite
(Pasay-Bacoor) while Lucio de Vega controlled the rest of the
province. Aniceto Oruga operated in the lake towns of Batangas.
Leon Villafuerte headed Bulacan while Benito Natividad patrolled
Tanauan, Batangas.L to R: seated, Julian Montalan, Francisco
Carreon, Macario Sakay, Leon Villafuerte; standing, Benito
Natividad, Lucio de Vega.Sakay and many of his followers favored
long hair, certainly something strange for his era. This
affectation may have been exploited by the Americans in their
efforts to portray Sakay and his men as wild bandits preying on the
simple folk of the countryside. Even today, many in the Tagalog
area (most of whom have never heard of Macario Sakay) refer to a
man with long hair as "someone who looks like Sakay." This is,
perhaps, a testimony to the effectiveness of the American
propaganda campaign.
In April 1904, Sakay issued a manifesto stating that the
Filipinos had a fundamental right to fight for Philippine
independence. The American occupiers had already made support for
independence, even through words, a crime. Sakay also declared that
they were true revolutionaries and had their own constitution and
an established government. They also had a flag. There were several
other revolutionary manifestos written by the Tagalog Republic that
would tend to disprove the U.S. government's claim that they were
bandits.The Tagalog Republic's constitution was largely based on
the early Katipunan creed of Bonifacio. For Sakay, the new
Katipunan was simply a continuation of Bonifacio's revolutionary
struggle for independence.Guerilla tacticsIn late 1904, Sakay and
his men took military offensive against the enemy. They were
successful in seizing ammunition and firearms in their raids in
Cavite and Batangas. Disguised in Philippine Constabulary uniforms,
they captured the U.S. military garrison in Paraaque and ran away
with a large amount of revolvers, carbines, and ammunition. Sakay's
men often employed these uniforms to confuse the enemy.Using
guerrilla warfare, Sakay would look for a chance to use a large
number of his men against a small band of the enemy. They usually
attacked at night when most of the enemy was looking for
relaxation. Sakay severely punished and often liquidated suspected
collaborators.The Tagalog Republic enjoyed the support of the
Filipino masses in the areas of Morong, Laguna, Batangas, and
Cavite. Lower class people and those living in barrios contributed
food, money, and other supplies to the movement. The people also
helped Sakay's men evade military checkpoints. They collected
information on the whereabouts of the American troops and passed
them on.Muchachosworking for the Americans stole ammunition and
guns for the use of Sakay's men.This vest with all its religious
figures and Latin phrases belonged to Macario Sakay. It was his
anting-anting and protected him from bullets and other hazards of
war.Many Filipinos who participated in the fight against Spain and
the United States used anting-antings of all types for personal
protection.
Unable to suppress the growth of the Tagalog Republic, the
Philippine Constabulary and the U.S. Army started to employ
"hamletting" or reconcentration in areas where Sakay received
strong assistance. The towns of Taal, Tanauan, Santo Tomas, and
Nasugbu in the province of Batangas were reconcentrated. This cruel
but effective counter-insurgency technique proved disastrous for
the Filipino masses. The forced movement and reconcentration of a
large number of people caused the outbreak of diseases such as
cholera and dysentery. Food was scarce in the camps, resulting in
numerous deaths.Meanwhile, search and destroy missions operated
relentlessly in an attempt to suppress Sakay's forces. Muslims from
Jolo were brought in to fight the guerrillas. Bloodhounds from
California were imported to pursue them. The writ ofhabeas
corpuswas suspended in Cavite and Batangas to strengthen
counter-insurgency efforts. With support cut off, the continuous
American military offensive caused the Tagalog Republic to
weaken.Fall of SakayWhile all of these were going on, the American
leader of the Philippine Constabulary, Col. Harry H. Bandholtz,
conceived a plan to deceive Sakay and his men. He would later be
quoted as saying that the technique involved "playing upon the
emotional and sentimental part of the Filipino character."In
mid-1905, the American governor-general of the Philippines, Henry
Ide, sent anilustradonamed Dominador Gomez to talk to Sakay. Gomez
presented a letter from the American governor. The written
statement promised that if Sakay surrendered, he and his men
wouldn't be punished or jailed. Moreover, Gomez assured Sakay that
a Philippine Assembly comprising of Filipinos will be formed to
serve as the "gate of kalayaan."Sakay took the bait, went down from
the mountains, and surrendered on July 14, 1906.On July 17, Sakay
and his staff were invited to attend a dance hosted by the acting
governor of Cavite. Just before midnight, they were surrounded,
disarmed, and arrested by American officers who were strategically
deployed in the crowd. Sakay and his men were brought to the
Bilibid Prison. They were tried and convicted as bandits.During the
trial, Gomez was not around to produce the letter from the American
governor-general. He didn't even show up and the letter had
mysteriously disappeared.Sakay was hanged on September 13, 1907.
Before he died, he uttered, "Filipinas, farewell! Long live the
Republic and may our independence be born in the future!"
The mark of Macario Leon Sakay was the long, jet-black
luxu-riant hair that, uncut and un-trammeled, cascaded from the top
of a head, always held high and audaciously, down to his
shoulders.With it, Sakay left a large imprint on the annals of the
Philippine Revolution against Spain of 1896 and the
Filipino-American War of 1899, for the sight of him on his horse,
riding against the wind, at dawn or the dead of night, his black
mane streaming behind him in order to set right some urgent wrong,
alarmed his peoples enemies but gave instant hope to their hapless
cause.He had begun life as a fatherless boy (Sakay was his mothers
surname) in congested, urban-poor, Tondo on Tabora St., earning a
living doing odd jobs as a blacksmith or as occasional tailor, also
as an actor in street theater and comedias, but mostly as a
barber.When he made his commitment to Philippine Independence by
joining his friend, Andres Bonifacios Katipunan, he made hair the
symbol of resistance and vowed he would cut his only after he had
defeated the Americans.During his brief lifetime, Sakay became the
scourge of all his countrys oppressors the Spaniards, the
Americans, the misguided half-bloods and compatriots trying in
every way he knew to secure freedom from injustice for his
people.He was more determined than Rizal, more fortunate than
Bonifacio, purer than Aguinaldo, more lyrically mysterious than
Mabini.If Filipinos had won the war with America, he would probably
have been our Simon Bolvar or our Ho Chi Minh.Instead, because most
history is written by the victors and their partisans and in the
American years, Filipino schoolbooks and acceptable public opinion
followed the black propaganda of the American annexation and
pacification, several generations of Filipinos lived and died,
believing that Sakay was a criminal with lunatic pretensions, a
brigand and a ludicrous bandit.In the late 1930s Lamberto Avellana,
my brother Leonis chum from the American Jesuit Ateneo, movie
director and National-Artist-to-be, made a film about Sakay where
he was portrayed as the villainous bandit, with the Philippine
Constabulary officer playing hero and leading man (Leopoldo
Salcedo.)What a little research can undo.After Independence,
scholars intent on writing history from a Filipino viewpoint began
to review the colonial versions and examine old records.They came
to the conclusion that Sakay was an authentic hero in the best
tradition of Bonifacio, Emilio Jacinto and Apolonio Samson who were
his comrades-in-arms in the Katipunan.Far from being a bandit, he
was a glorious die-hard, incredibly brave and tenacious, a heroic
hold-out for Philippine Independence.In 1952, Antonio K. Abad, a
member of the Philippine Historical Society, published the
definitive biography, General Macario L. Sakay: the only President
of the Tagalog Republic. Was He a Bandit or a Patriot?The foreword
by Prof. Teodoro A. Agoncillo, read, No Filipino has been so
maligned in history as General Macario SakaySakay and his men lived
dangerously and thus invited the hatred of the early Americans who
started a double-barreled campaign of imperialism and
liquidation.The Americans called them bandits and outlaws Mr.
Antonio K. Abad has recreated the hero out of a mass of
documentsHis work is a vindication of the much maligned man who
dared posterity to emulate his deep devotion to the ideals of
independence.The day Rizal was exiled to Dapitan, in July 1892, a
group of middle-class Manileos met at a private residence on
Azcarraga (now Recto) and founded the Katipunan (Ang Kataastaasang
Kagalanggalangan Katipunan ng mga Anak ng Bayan), the secret
society that planned and initiated the armed struggle against
Spain. In four years, the K.K.K.s membership rose to almost 30,000:
students, workers, merchants, farmers from the eight provinces that
started the Revolution.Sakay was an early joiner.After that
disastrous first battle in San Juan in August, 1896, Sakay joined
the forces that encamped in the hills of Marikina and Montalban and
fought in the Katipunan battles, including the victory at San
Mateo. After several reverses, the Manila Katipuneros retreated to
Cavite where a new general, Emilio Aguinaldo, turned the tide,
defeated Bonifacio in a power struggle (Aguinaldos Caviteo Magdalo
vs. Bonifacios Manileo Magdiwang) and went on to win many
encounters. The Spanish government called a truce and negotiated
the Pact of Biyak-na-Bato.The heads of the Revolutionary Army
retreated to Hongkong, from where they spent the Spanish indemnity
money on arms, befriended the US Consuls in Hong Kong and Singapore
and resumed the Revolution in 1898 at the height of the
Spanish-American War, assuming that the Americans were their allies
and protectors. Aguinaldo proclaimed Philippine Independence in
Cavite in June, 1898, with the revolutionary forces 80,000 strong,
laid successful siege to Spanish Manila, proceeded to liberate
Luzon and expected to enter the beleaguered capital and install a
Philippine Independent Republic.But the US had an altogether
different agenda. It kept the Filipino forces from entering the
city, signed a treaty of surrender with Spain and American troops
entered Manila all by themselves, proclaiming the start of the US
Occupation, on Aug. 13, 1898.Dewey had destroyed the Spanish fleet
in Manila Bay on May 1, and land troops, newly arrived under Gen.
Wesley Merritt, took possession. They had to wait, however, for the
Treaty of Paris in which Spain ceded a colony it no longer held to
the US for $20 million, and started in February 1899, a first
military encounter with Filipino troops holding the trenches around
Sta. Mesa. The Filipino-American War was formally settled in 1902,
after the capture of Aguinaldo in his mountain hideout in Palanan,
Isabela, in 1901. But Filipino guerrilla action against the US
forces did not end until 1907 when the first Filipino parliament
was allowed by the US America spent $300 million more pacifying the
Filipinos they thought they had bought at the bargain-basement
price of $20 million.Having survived the Revolution against Spain,
Sakay was, at the beginning of the Philippine resistance to the US,
an undercover man in Manila where he tried to reactivate the
Katipunan, organizing commandos and intelligence and sabotage
units.While head of the Dapitan section of the K.K.K., Magdiwang in
Manila, Sakay was arrested and jailed by US authorities and
released under the general amnesty of July 1902. He quickly took to
the hills and organized huge guerrilla forces which operated in
Rizal, Cavite, Laguna, Batangas, and the foothills of Mt. Banahaw.
No ragtag band, just one of Sakays commanders had 4,000 troops.In
his mountain lair, he proclaimed, on May 6, 1902 the establishment
of the Kapuluang Katagalugan (The Tagalog Archipelago) with himself
as president, Francisco Carreon as vice-president and Lt. Gen.
Julian Montalan as chief of staff. The terms Tagalog Archipelago
were chosen in contrast to the Philippine Republic of the rival
Aguinaldo Magdalo.In a second manifesto, a constitution was enacted
and published in Tagalog and Spanish in newspapers edited by Lope
K. Santos, proclaiming the Tagalog Archipelago as the true
revolutionists, with a government at Dimas-Alang, beseeching the
representatives of other nations for help in acquainting the world
with our true intent and aims for our unfortunate country. Sakays
government had a flag, a system of taxation, a disciplined army
consisting of regular battalions and regiments of infantry,
artillery, engineer and medical corps with separate commands in
full uniform. It operated in total defiance of the hugely superior,
first modern foreign army, infuriating and mocking US authorities
in Manila. It was a hard state with strict laws impersonally and
impartially executed, especially capital punishment and physical
maiming imposed on informers, collaborators, and spies of the US
government. It took the Americans 3,000 troops and two more years
to think they had defeated Sakay. Although, pacification had
formally ended, there was no let-up in the attacks of Sakays forces
on US installations.At last in 1905-06, the Americans devised a
more successful trap. First, they passed a Brigand Act defining all
forms of resistance to US rule as criminal acts deserving of
capital punishment.American officials were able to wean many of the
ilustrado elite from their anti-colonial advocacies. Men like T.
Pardo de Tavera formed the Federalista Party that aspired to
statehood in the US Union; the Paternos, Aranetas, Benitezes
participated in other events; Epifanio de los Santos became a
delegate to the US Exposition in St. Louis in 1904. Alongside with
Sakays guerrillas, bands of highwaymen, robbers, cattle-rustlers
operated in the Luzon countryside and, when caught, claimed to be
Sakays troops. Sakay himself, a dashing, romantic figure, was
rumored to have kidnapped the comely wife of a provincial governor
who vowed revenge. One of the most charming, persuasive ilustrados,
Dr. Dominador Gomez, was asked by the Americans to approach Sakay
and discuss amnesty for his thousands of soldiers.Gen. Leon
Villafuerte later testified that Dr. Gomez had told Sakay and his
officers that, The American governor-general has promised to create
a national assembly of our countrymen elected by the people where
our leaders can be trained for eventual self-government. As soon as
we prove ourselves capable, we shall be granted independence. After
long treks to Tanay and several visits by Dr. Gomez, Sakay,
Carreon, Villafuerte, Montalan and de Vega came to Manila on a
safe-conduct pass from the Americans. Dressed in rayadillo
uniforms, carrying pistols and daggers, their long hair neatly
combed, they came on foot with hundreds of overjoyed townspeople
showering them with food and other gifts, guitar music and singing.
People acclaimed them as celebrity heroes and they were feted at
banquets and dances.On July 17, they were invited to a town fiesta
in Cavite by US Col. Van Shaick, the acting Cavite governor. An
orchestra played dance music amid American flags and bunches of
flowers. At 11:30 a.m., US officers, pistols in hand, walked in and
although Sakay fought unarmed against his giant attacker, he and
his officers were disarmed. The building was surrounded by Filipino
Constabulary officers.Gen. Villafuerte shouted, We have been
betrayed and we are trapped. Doctor, what is the meaning of this?
Dr. Gomez stepped forward: Theres no use fighting. Sakays eyes were
bloodshot. He said, Tell the Americans to face us in the open
field, in honorable battle. And to the Filipino Constabularios, he
remarked, Arent you ashamed of what you are doing? Manacled, they
were taken by boat to the Hotel de Oriente in Binondo and then to
Bilibid Prison. Captain Rafael Crame presided over the preliminary
investigation and the accused were charged under the Brigand Act.
They were defended by Attys. Felipe Buencamino and Ramon Diokno
(father of the great anti-Marcos militant Pepe Diokno).In Bilibid,
the prisoners were allowed visits by family and friends who were
astoundingly numerous, bringing food, gifts, letters. Sympathizers
who pleaded for clemency, included Aguinaldo, Gregorio Aglipay, the
Iglesia Filipina Independiente, the Liga de Mujeres, the Union
Obrera Democratica. The prisoners also witnessedprison atrocities
(which today recall Guantanamo and Abu-Ghraib): 300 members of the
Sakay forces were secretly hanged inside Bilibid and 100 more were
injected with lethal serum. Many of them had surrendered because
Sakay had told his troops they would not be harmed because the
Americans had promised a congress of elected Filipino
representatives who would rule the country if they abjured armed
resistance.At the trial at the Court of First Instance, using false
witnesses, Sakay and his men were accused of robbery in band,
murder, rape, summary executions, arson, kidnapping.Dr. Dominador
Gomez instructed them to plead guilty because they would then be
pardoned. The public defenders, Attys. Buencamino and Diokno,
advised them to plead not guilty, to show both innocence and
non-recognition of US sovereignty.On Aug. 6, 1907, Judge Ignacio
Villamor (who would become UP president) convicted them. Those who
had pleaded not guilty, like Sakay and de Vega, were hanged. The
others, who had listened to Dr. Gomez, had their death sentences
commuted or were later released.A discrepancy intrudes at this
point. Just who was Dr. Dominador Gomez? The agent chosen by the
Americans to lure Sakay into leaving his headquarters in the
mountains of Tanay to come to Manila? From William J. Pomeroy and
the National Historical Institute; we learn that he was a medical
doctor, a graduate from the University of Sto. Tomas, who in 1903,
at the beginning of the American regime, had taken over from
Isabelo de los Reyes the leadership of the Union Obrera and had
participated in a large anti-American rally. Gomez was arrested for
sedition, tried and convicted to four years of hard labor and
ordered to pay a fine. His case was on appeal to the Supreme Court
(manned by US justices), his sentence un-served, when he began to
negotiate Sakays surrender, going on arduous treks to Tanay for
long discussions, showing a letter from the US governor-general
that promised a Filipino assembly, the door to freedom, if Sakay
and his generals laid down their arms.The American betrayal in
Cavite, Sakays and his mens trial, and conviction have already been
told in this article. What remains to be noted is that, two weeks
after Sakay was hanged, Dr. Dominador Gomezs pending case was
summarily revived and quickly dismissed for insufficient evidence.
Gomez then went on to become a representative for the First
Philippine Assembly of 1907 where he was denounced and expelled by
Sergio Osmea and Manuel Luis Quezon, for having served as a surgeon
in the Spanish army in Cuba and received a medal from the Spanish
queen during the Spanish-American War. But in 1909, Gomez was
re-elected to a second term because, despite his previous
disgraceful expulsion, he was backed by the US authorities. The
facts speak for themselves. Sakay was the plea bargain.At 8:30 in
the morning, on Sept. 13, 1907, Sakay and Col. Lucio de Vega were
taken from their bartolina to the gallows. Reaching the platform,
Sakay shouted at the top of his lungs, I face the Lord Almighty
calmly but we must tell you that we are not bandits and robbers as
the Americans accuse us, but members of the revolutionary force
that defended our country. Long live the Philippines! Adios
Filipinas!Sakay was 37.The day before, a big crowd of Manila
residents had gathered in front of Malacaang Palace in an unusual,
emotional demonstration pleading for clemency, but the American
governor-general refused to see them. Almost the same crowd, larger
and more vociferous, was at the gates of Bilibid Prison asking to
be allowed to wrap the bodies of Sakay and Col. De Vega in
Katipunan flags before they were buried. They were refused.The US
Government kept their word about calling a Filipino assembly. In
October 1907, the First Philippine Assembly of Filipinos elected
(by men of property) was inaugurated at the Manila Grand Opera
House on Calle Cervantes (now Rizal Avenue) by Secretary of War
William H. Taft. Acting Secretary of the Philippine Commission
Ferguson read the Spanish translation of Tafts speech, followed by
an invocation by Bishop Barlin. After the roll call, with names
like Gabaldon, Gomez, Guerrero, Imperial, Osmena, Palma, Quezon,
Velarde, De Veyra, roundly applauded, the session was adjourned
till the afternoon. A young delegate from Cebu, Sergio Osmea was
elected Speaker by acclamation.But Philippine Independence was
granted by America only 40 years later, on 4 July 1946, after a
devastating war, and on several conditions: equal rights to US
citizens in the development of natural resources, US military bases
in perpetuity, economic treaties including the onerous free trade
(that denied industrialization to this country), also interventions
in Philippine elections and in foreign and educational policies.It
was the kind of independence, Macario Leon Sakay, Katipunero and
patriot, an organization genius as his American captors described
him, never would have settled for or even considered. He would have
chosen instead to die fighting America, if he had known the truth
and seen the future of his adored Filipinas.
Lapu-Lapuwas the king of Mactan, an island in the Visayas,
Philippines, who is known as the first native of the archipelago to
have resisted Spanish colonization. He is now regarded as the first
Filipino hero.On the morning of April 27, 1521, Lapu-Lapu and the
men of Mactan, armed with spears, and kampilan, faced Spanish
soldiers led by Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan. In what
would later be known as the Battle of Mactan, Magellan, and several
of his men were killed.According to Sulu oral tradition, Lapu-Lapu
was a Muslim chieftain, and was also known as "Kaliph Pulaka".[3]
The people of Bangsamoro, the Islamic homeland in the Philippine
Islands, consider him to be a Muslim and a member of the Tausug
ethnic group.[4] A variant of the name, as written by Carlos Calao,
a 17th century Chinese-Spanish poet in his poem "Que Dios Le
Perdone" (Spanish, "That God May Forgive Him") is "Cali Pulacu".The
1898 Philippine Declaration of Independence refers to Lapu-Lapu as
"King Kalipulako de Maktan".[6] In the 19th century, the reformist
Mariano Ponce used a variant name, "Kalipulako", as one of his
pseudonyms.Lapu-Lapu(fl.1521) was a ruler ofMactanin theVisayas.
ThePhilippinesregards him as the firstFilipinohero because he was
the first native to resistSpanish colonizationthrough his victory
over the explorerFerdinand Magellan. Monuments of Lapu-Lapu have
been built inManilaandCebuwhile thePhilippine National Policeand
theBureau of Fire Protectionuse his image in his honor.He is best
known for theBattle of Mactan, which happened at dawn on April 27,
1521. The battle halted the Magellan expedition and delayed Spanish
occupation of the islands by over forty years until the expedition
ofMiguel Lpez de Legazpiin 1564.Besides being a rival ofRajah
HumabonofCebu, little is known about the life of Lapu-Lapu and the
only existing documents about his life are those written byAntonio
Pigafetta. His name, origins, religion, and fate are still a matter
of controversy.