Remembering our own heroes

The annual ritual of commemorating the birthday of Andres Bonifacio, the ill-fated founder of the Katipunan, will once again happen tomorrow, the 149th anniversary of his birth. We know so much about him—which is as it should—and yet we know so little about the people and the circumstances behind the spread of the Katipunan in Cebu in 1898. So little in fact has been written about this period that one can cite barely a handful of secondary sources and not a single book to serve as primary source for detailing its growth and development in Cebu.

Let me therefore digress, amidst the national thanksgiving for the canonization of San Pedro Calungsod, and instead delve into the heroes of the local revolt against Spain on this the eve of Bonifacio’s birthday. We have no one to thank but the late Felix Sales who wrote the 629-page “Ang Sugbu sa Karaang Panahon,” published in 1936 for our primary source. The local historian Dionisio Dy, who wrote a book on the revolution in Cebu, later cited the Sales book via the annotations the former’s book by Fe Susan Go for her master’s thesis at the University of San Carlos.

We have to thank the now-defunct Smith, Bell and Co. for providing the workforce and the venue for the spread of the Katipunan in Cebu. It was in that firm’s warehouse at the waterfront that the initial recruits of the Katipunan in Cebu came from. (Smith, Bell and Co. later built a two-story concrete edifice that is now home to Prince Warehouse Club across the road from the northern side of the Cebu City Hall).

According to Sales, the Katipunan was brought to Cebu some time in January 1898 by recruits in Manila who were specifically tasked with initiating the Cebu side of the anti-Spanish revolt. Among the important heroes of this period of initiation stands the name Anastacio Oclarino who was recruited by the Tagalogs Gil Domingo and Hermogenes Plata to organize a local chapter in Cebu. Oclarino arrived here in January 1898 and met, among others, Florencio Gonzales (the very person we now remember only as F. Gonzales Street), who was about to leave for Manila to pursue his case against Judge Jose Machuca who had recently ordered his dismissal as secretary of the Ayuntamiento. The timely meeting resulted in Gonzales’ keen interest to meet in Manila the Katipunan cell assigned to expand the movement to Cebu. After meeting Domingo and Plata, F. Gonzales was fired with fervor and promptly accepted the role of leading the recruitment in Cebu.

From here on, Cebuano names begin to emerge from the original Tagalog recruiters. By February 1898, Alejo Miñoza, Ambrosio Peña, Mariano Hernandez, and Nicomedes Machacon and native employees of the Cebu branch of Smith, Bell and Co. had been recruited to head their own underground cells and begin spreading the Katipunan. They were mostly maquinistas or what we would today call petty marine engineers, who accompanied the company’s steamships that carried hemp, copra, sugar and rice to Manila each week, most probably allowing the Cebuano Katipuneros to rendezvous with their Manila counterparts on a weekly basis—all at the expense of the British company which had no idea of its role in the impending revolt.

From the waterfront recruits, the Katipunan then spread to San Nicolas, home of the local native, elite and working class. The social historian Michael Cullinane suspects that the eventual recruitment of the well-to-do leaders there (Luis Abellar, Candido Padilla, Jacinto Pacaña, Andres Abellana) had to do with their disenfranchisement following the closure of their local guild early in the 1890s. With anger against the authorities simmering, they were ripe for recruitment by March 1898, barely three weeks shy of the eventual revolt that unfolded hastily and without much planning on Tres de Abril or April 3, 1898 right at the very doorstep of San Nicolas.

And so tomorrow, as we pay homage to the father of the Katipunan, let us also remember those in Cebu who followed in his wake, heroes whom Bonifacio was never fated to meet but who shared his bravery and zeal for freedom.

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Tonight at 7 o’clock, the 120-page coffee table book, “San Pedro Calungsod, The Canonization Album” will be launched at the National Shrine of Saint Joseph the Worker, the parish church of Mandaue. This will unfold prior to the last of the Triduum Masses and the Vigil for San Pedro Calungsod in preparation for Friday’s National Thanksgiving Celebrations at the South Road Properties.

The book will sell for P300 each, a very cheap price for a volume that contains not only full color photographs of the triduum, vigil, canonization, vespers and procession in Rome and the Vatican but also the abridged biography of San Pedro Calungsod, the novena prayers, songs in his honor and excerpts of the homilies delivered by preacher bishops during the triduum in Rome. For those interested to reserve copies, please call Tina at USC Press (Tel. 253-1000 local 175) or e-mail us at [email protected] for details on payment and where to get the book.

At tomorrow’s launching, a limited number will be made available to the public.

During the National Thanksgiving at SRP, copies will also be on sale prior to and after the Mass.