Exam Focus

Cavite Mutiny
Cavite Mutiny, (January 20, 1872), brief uprising of 200 Filipino troops and workers
at the Cavite arsenal, which became the excuse for Spanish repression of the
embryonic Philippine nationalist movement. Ironically, the harsh reaction of the
Spanish authorities served ultimately to promote the nationalist cause.

The mutiny was quickly crushed, but the Spanish regime under the reactionary
governor Rafael de Izquierdo magnified the incident and used it as an excuse
to clamp down on those Filipinos who had been calling for governmental
reform. A number of Filipino intellectuals were seized and accused of complicity
with the mutineers. After a brief trial, three priests—José Burgos, Jacinto Zamora,
and Mariano Gómez—were publicly executed. The three subsequently became
martyrs to the cause of Philippine independence.

Insurrection, an organized and usually violent act of revolt or rebellion against

an established government or governing authority of a nation-state or other
political entity by a group of its citizens or subjects; also, any act of engaging in
such a revolt. An insurrection may facilitate or bring about a revolution, which is
a radical change in the form of government or political system of a state, and it
may be initiated or provoked by an act of sedition, which is an incitement to
revolt or rebellion.

Mutiny, any overt act of defiance or attack upon military (including naval)
authority by two or more persons subject to such authority. The term is
occasionally used to describe nonmilitary instances of defiance or attack—such
as mutiny on board a merchant ship or a rising of slaves in a state in which
slavery is recognized by law or custom. Mutiny should be distinguished from
revolt or rebellion, which involve a more widespread defiance and which
generally have a political objective.
 Cry for the Rebellion
(Pugadlawin/ Balintawak)
Introduction

The start of the revolution against Spain has been officially commemorated in
recent years as “The Cry of Pugad Lawin.” The supposed site of “Pugad Lawin” is
situated in Brgy. Bahay Toro, Quezon City, and is memorialized with a tableau of
life-sized, oddly rigid Katipuneros tearing their cedulas.

The inscription on the marker at the site says that “In the vicinity of this place,
Andres Bonifacio and about one thousand Katipuneros met on the morning of
August 23, 1896 and decided to launch the revolution against the Spanish
government in thePhilippines. They affirmed their decision by tearingtheir
cedulas, symbols of the enslavement of theFilipinos. This was the first cry of the
oppressedpeople against the Spanish nation, and was givenforce by means of
arms.” In 1896, according to theNational Historical Commission (NHCP), the
houseand yard of Juan Ramos had stood on this site.

Historians agree the precise date and location are not vitally important. They
concur, afew mavericks excepted, that the “Cry” took place between August
23 and 26, 1896 inwhat was then the municipality of Caloocan. The doubt about
the exact site could be putaside, as Ambeth Ocampo has suggested, simply by
calling the occasion the “Cry ofCaloocan”. 1 But this fudge would not end the
controversy. Official history demands precise dates to commemorate and exact
places to mark, and historians feel uneasy thatdecades of debate have not
produced any clear answers. Pinpointing the “Cry” is achallenge they have
failed to meet. Nicolas Zafra voiced such a view back in 1960. Thedetail of the
“Cry” might seem insignificant in relation to the broader sweep of events,he
acknowledged, and indeed it might seem “pointless and unprofitable” to
pursue thematter, but the historical profession had a duty to ensure the facts of
public history wereas accurate as humanly possible. Settling the problem, he
said, would redound to the“credit, honor and glory of historical scholarship in
our country.”

Geography

The barrios, hamlets and farmsteads where the revolution began were all within
themunicipality of Caloocan in the province of Manila. The municipality was
large, butsparsely inhabited. Its total population in 1896 was tallied at just 7,829.
Of this number,2,694 lived in the town ( población), 977 lived in the largest
barrio, Balintawak, and theremaining 4,158 were scattered in ten other barrios –
Baesa, Bagobantay, Bahay Toro,Banlat, Culiat, Kangkong, Loma, Marulas,
Talipapa, and Tangke.

No detailed maps of the municipality are known to have survived from the
Spanish era,and perhaps none ever existed. The barrio boundaries of the time
are said to have beensketchy, and are now forgotten. The terrain, moreover,
was unremarkable, a mix offarmland and rough grassland, talahib and cogon,
with few natural landmarks. Many ofthe sources on the “Cry” are consequently
vague and inconsistent in how they identifyand locate the settlements, roads
and other features of the area.

Most confusingly of all, the name “Pugad Lawin” came to be used in the
twentiethcentury to refer not just to one of the contending “Cry” sites, but to
two. First one site,and then another. Today, the Pugad Lawin marker is in Bahay
Toro, where Juan Ramoshad supposedly lived. But in previous decades, as will
be discussed later, Pugad Lawinwas said to have been three kilometers or so to
the northeast, where Ramos’s motherMelchora Aquino (“Tandang Sora”) had
lived near Pasong Tamo in barrio Banlat.
● Teodoro A. Agoncillo equates the term with the pagpupunit, which he says
happened immediately after the pasya.

● Isagani R. Medina also takes the “Cry” to mean the pagpupunit, but says it
happened before the decision to revolt had been taken.

● Soledad Borromeo-Buehler takes the view – the traditional view that KKK
veterans took, she says - that the “Cry” should mean the unang labanan.

It was the unang labanan, as Borromeo-Buehlerpoints out, that was

commemorated by the firstmonument to the events of August 1896. Themain
inscription on the plinth read “ Homenajedel Pueblo Filipino a los Heroes de ’96 /
Ala-alang Bayang Pilipino sa mga Bayani ng ‘96”, and asmaller plaque bore the
date “ 26 Agosto 1896”.

Unveiled before a huge cheering crowd inSeptember 1911, the statue was
erected inBalintawak, the largest and best-known barrio inthe general area
where the Katipuneros hadcongregated in August 1896. The nameBalintawak
was often used as shorthand to denotethat general area, and the “Cry” had
becomepopularly known as the “Cry of Balintawak” evenbefore the monument
was erected.

Nobody professed in 1911, though, that thestatue marked the “exact spot”
where the firstbattle had been fought. It was simply inBalintawak, on a plot
donated by a locallandowner, Tomas Arguelles.

The documentary evidence on the unang labanan is reasonably clear. The first
battle, an encounter with a detachment of the Guardia Civil, was fought on the
date inscribed onthe Balintawak monument - August 26 – at a place about five
kilometers north-east ofBalintawak, between the settlements of Banlat and
Pasong Tamo. A few sources give thedate as August 25 but, as both Borromeo-
Buehler and Encarnacion have shown, themost solid, contemporary sources
confirm August 26 to be correct.

The Balintawak monument continued to be the focus of the yearly “Cry”

celebrations,held on August 26, for decades. In the 1960s, however, the official
definition of the“Cry” changed. Officially, the “Cry” ceased to mean the unang
labanan and was definedinstead as “that part of the Revolution when the
Katipunan decided to launch arevolution against Spain. This event culminated
with the tearing of the cedula”. 10 Thisdefinition, which is more or less in line with
Agoncillo’s, thus embraces both the pasyaand pagpupunit, but excludes the
unang labanan.

At first sight, the official definition looks clear and straightforward. A number
ofsources, however, indicate that cedulas were torn on more than one
occasion, in differentplaces, presumably because Katipuneros were arriving to
join their embryonic army overthe course of a number of days, and many
wanted to proclaim their rebellion, theircommitment to fight Spanish rule, in the
same way. It is even possible (as Medinabelieves) that the main pagpupunit
preceded the pasya. 11 But then it would have beenpremature, because the
revolt might have been deferred. It seems more likely, as theofficial definition of
the “Cry” assumes, that the largest, best remembered act of defiantcedula-
tearing happened soon after the pasya had been taken, and in the same
vicinity.

When and where, then, should the “Cry,” as defined as the pasya and
pagpupunit, bemarked and commemorated? Was there really a “Sigaw ng
Pugad Lawin” on August 23,1896, or not?

The decision to revolt: when was it taken?

It is almost certain that the decision to revolt was taken on Monday, August 24,
1896,after a lengthy meeting (or series of meetings) that had begun on Sunday,
August 23. Many veterans later recalled August 23 as the historic day, but others
specifically remembered the decision had not been taken until the early hours
of that day, such decision begins as follows:-

“Ayon sa pinagkaisahan sa ginanap pulong ng Kataastaasang Kapisanan

ikadalawang puo’t apat nitong umiiral na buan tungkol sa
paghihimagsik(revolucion) at sa pagkakailangang maghalal ng
magsisipamahala ng bayan atmag aakay ng Hukbo.......” [In accordance with
the decision taken by themeeting of the Supreme Assembly held on the twenty-
fourth of the presentmonth regarding the revolution, and given the necessity to
elect leaders of thepeople and directors of the Army.....”]

The decision to revolt (ii) who took it?

The decision to revolt, says the “ borador” document, was taken by the KKK’s
Supreme Assembly. First constituted in December 1895, the Assembly
wasdescribed by Emilio Jacinto as the primary and paramount body within
theKatipunan (“ ang una at lubos na kapangyarih ang ay hahawakan ng
Kataastaasang Kapisanan”). Anyone who failed to follow its decisions, he said,
would becommitting treason against the whole organization. The Assembly
comprised themembers of the Supreme Council, the presidents of the
Sangunian Bayan (popularcouncils) and the presidents of Balangay (branches)
not affiliated to popularcouncils, but in practice the presidents were often
accompanied by one or two otherleading activists from their sections.

Milagros Guerrero has suggested that the Supreme Assembly’s decision needed
to beconfirmed or ratified by the KKK Supreme Council. Such a “two-stage
pasya,”however, is not corroborated by the “ borador” document, which
indicates the SupremeAssembly’s decision was final. Even had it wished to do so
(which it did not), theSupreme Council did not have the authority to rescind the
decision. In any case, it wouldhave been impractical to call upon the Supreme
Assembly to reconvene and reconsider.As soon as the decision had been taken,
some of the Assembly members had hurriedback to their branches in Manila
and other provinces to tell their brethren what hadhappened, and to ready for
the fight.

The decision to revolt: (iii) where was it taken?

Now that we know the decision to revolt was taken on August 24, after
deliberations thathad begun the previous day, we might hope to be clearer
about where it was taken. Weno longer need to worry, in this immediate
context, where Bonifacio and the members ofthe Katipunan Supreme Assembly
were on August 25 or 26. We only need to establishwhere the Assembly met on
August 23 and 24. Unfortunately, this is not a great help.The sources are still
conflicting. They broadly agree that the leading revolutionists wentfirst to
Caloocan ( población) after leaving Manila, and then headed eastwards
viaKangkong towards Pasong Tamo and eventually Balara. The sources still offer
no accord,however, as to the whereabouts of the leading revolutionists on the
critical dates ofAugust 23 and 24. Some sources say they left Kangkong as early
as August 23 20 , whereasothers say they were still in Kangkong as late as August
26

The task of determining the exact place at which the decision to revolt was
taken,therefore, remains difficult and convoluted. The sources offer three
specific possibilities:-

Apolonio Samson’s place in bo. Kangkong, CaloocanMelchora Aquino’s place

near Pasong Tamo in bo. Banlat, CaloocanJuan Ramos’s place in bo. Bahay
Toro, Caloocan

Kangkong best-known place.” For the present purpose, these vaguer sources
must be put to oneside in favor of those that are more specific.
Appendix 1 to these notes tabulates the testimony of veterans who referred
specificallyto one or more of the three possible sites – Kangkong, Pasong Tamo
(in bo. Banlat), andBahay Toro. This tabulation shows that a very clear majority –
8 out of the 10 individualswho mentioned either Kangkong, Pasong Tamo, or
Bahay Toro - recalled the decisivemeeting and/or the “ grito” as having taken
place in Kangkong. This was the locationspecified by Tomas Remigio, Julio
Nakpil, Sinforoso San Pedro, Guillermo Masangkay,Cipriano Pacheco, Briccio
Pantas, Francisco Carreon and Vicente Samson.

Only one veteran – Pio Valenzuela – ever maintained that the decisive meeting
took placeat Melchora Aquino’s place near Pasong Tamo. But his memory was
erratic. He also oncerecalled (in 1911) that the pasya had been taken in
Kangkong. 25 If his testimony on thatoccasion is counted, the tally for Kangkong
would be 9 out of 10.

One other veteran – probably Ramon Bernardo – remembered the decision as

havingbeen taken in Bahay Toro, but he did not say “Juan Ramos’s place in
Bahay Toro.” Hesaid it had been taken at Melchora Aquino’s place, “ sa pook
ng Sampalukan, BahayToro.” 26 It therefore seems his recollection was simply
mistaken, because MelchoraAquino’s place was near Pasong Tamo, in bo.
Banlat.

Unless and until any solid evidence is found to the contrary, therefore, the only
possibleconclusion to be drawn from the veterans’ testimony is that “ pasya”
was taken by theSupreme Assembly at the house of Apolonio Samson in
Kangkong.

It seems likely that the main pagpupunit also took place in Kangkong, as the
veteranCipriano Pacheco later recalled. Whilst the Supreme Assembly was
meeting at Samson’shouse, he relates, a crowd about 2,000 strong had
congregated outside, eager andimpatient to hear the news. As soon as the
Assembly had voted by a big majority tolaunch the revolution, Bonifacio
wanted to announce the momentous decisionsomewhere everyone could
gather around and hear him. He led the crowd fromSamson’s house to a place
nearby (“ malapit pa doon”) where there was an open field(“ malaking
kaparangan”).

He told them the momentous news: “Brothers,” he shouted, “The decision is to

go aheadwith the revolution.” (“ Mga kapatid, ang pinagkaisahan ay
ipagpatuloy angpaghihimagsik.”)

It was the decision the crowd wanted, and they cheered. “Do you swear,”
Bonifacio askedthem, “to reject the government that oppresses us?” “Yes!” the
crowd roared. “In thatcase,” Bonifacio urged them, “bring out your cedulas and
rip them up, as a symbol ofdefiance!” (“ Kung gayon, ilabas ninyo ang inyong
mga sedula personal at punitin, tandang pagtalikod sa kapangyarihan!”)

The Katipuneros fervently heeded his call, weeping with emotion as they ripped
theircedulas to shreds. Bonifacio raised the cry “ Mabuhay ang Katagalugan!,
and the crowd responded as one, “Mabuhay!”

The saga of Pugad Lawin

Two decades after the revolution, the celebration of the “Cry” was not a
contentiousissue. Ceremonies were held both in Kangkong, where KKK veterans
agreed the pasyahad been taken, and in Balintawak, where the famous statue
of a bolo-waving, flag-holding Katipunero stood to commemorate the unang
labanan, fought a few kilometersto the north-east.

How then, has it come to pass that the “Cry” is commemorated today as the
“Sigaw ngPugad Lawin” at a site in Bahay Toro where not a single KKK veteran
ever located eitherthe pasya or the unang labanan?
The saga of Pugad Lawin, regrettably, is long, tangled and hard to unravel. It is
also acase study in the hazards of oral history. Memories fade. Veterans
disagree. Theirstories change from one telling to the next. And then reporters
and historiansmisrepresent what they said.

“Pugad Lawin near Pasong Tamo”

The story begins in the late 1920s, when a small group of senior Katipunan
veteransbegan to press the case that the term “Cry of Balintawak” was a
misnomer, and shouldbe discarded. Balintawak, they insisted, in the strict,
narrow sense – a particular barrio tothe east of Caloocan, with delineated
boundaries – was not where the “Cry” hadoccurred. The “Cry” had occurred,
they said, at a place known as Pugad Lawin.

The foremost proponent of this argument was Dr Pio Valenzuela, who had been
theVice-President of the Katipunan at the outbreak of the revolution and who
had latterly,in the early 1920s, been the provincial governor of Bulacan. He was
a prestigious figure,but not a good witness to history. He changed his story, more
than once. In 1911, as wenoted, he had said the decision to revolt had been
taken at Apolonio Samson’s house in evidence that the other veterans in the
photograph took the same view.

At around the same time as this commemoration, in either 1928 or 1929, Pio
Valenzuela,Briccio Pantas and Cipriano Pacheco issued a joint statement to the
effect that the “Cry”had taken place not in Balintawak, where the monument
had been erected, but in “theplace known by the name of Pugad Lawin”. This is
the statement, as published in thePhilippines Free Press in November 1930 37 :-

ISANG PAGUNITA
Upang Matuwid ang Paniwala sa Unang Sigaw saPanhihimasik Kaming Naguing
Kasanguni ng Pangulo ngKataas taasan, Kagalanggalang Katipunan ng
mgaAnak ng Bayan na si Andres Bonifacio.Kaming nalalabi pang Kasama sa
unang labanan iyon.Alang-Alang sa Ikapapanuto ng mga Mananalaysay at
nghinaharap ay Nagpapahayag :-

NA HINDI SA BALINTAWAK NGYARI ANG UNANG SIGAW NG PANHIHIMAGSIK SA

KINALALAGUIAN NGAYON NG BANTAYOG, KUNG DI SA POOK NAKILALA SA
TAWAG NA PUGAD-LAWIN.

Briccio Pantas C. Pacheco Pio Valenzuela.

Like the coverage of the 1928 commemoration, this statement refers to the “
unanglabanan,” which had indeed been fought near Pasong Tamo. It does not
imply that Pantasand Pacheco agreed with Valenzuela that the pasya should
be marked in that samevicinity. Pacheco, as we noted, located the pasya and
pagpupunit in Kangkong, and Pantashad not been a direct eyewitness, having
left Kangkong for Manila before the pasya wastaken. 38

As may be seen, the veterans do not explicitly state the place they
remembered as PugadLawin was where, or near where, Melchora Aquino had
lived in 1896.

But it was. Any doubt that Pio Valenzuela identified Pugad Lawin with Pasong
Tamo, andspecifically with Melchora Aquino’s place, was dispelled in August
1940, when together with two other Katipunan veterans (Genaro de los Reyes
and Sinforoso San Pedro) hereturned there with Eulogio B. Rodriguez and Luis
Serrano of the Philippine HistoricalCommittee (a forerunner of the NHCP) to
verify the location. Before posing forphotographs, the party marked the site of
Melchora Aquino’s house with a thin woodenstake on which somebody placed
their hat.
The photograph’s caption is not contemporaneous, because Caloocan did not
attain thestatus of a city until 1963. 39 It is possible the description of the site –
“Sitio Gulod,Banlat, Caloocan City” – reflects how the location was known in the
1960s rather than in1940. Fortunately, though, Luis Serrano wrote a detailed
account of the 1940 expeditionwhich makes it absolutely clear not only that
Valenzuela and his companions believed the“Cry” took place at or near
Melchora Aquino’s place, a spot they remembered as PugadLawin, but also
that their geographical point of reference, their starting point for locatingthe
exact spot, was Pasong Tamo.

The trip to Pugad Lawin in 1940, Serrano recalls, was organized by Eulogio B.
Rodriguezin his capacity as chairman of the Philippine Historical Committee “for
the purpose offirst, verifying the date of the ‘Cry,’ second, ascertaining the truth
of a report thatBonifacio and some members of the Katipunan had buried
certain important documentsof the Katipunan there, and third, locating the
exact spot where the house of TandangSora stood.” After picking up the three
veterans, Serrano relates, the party “negotiatedthe distance by car up to
Pasong-tamo and hiked about an hour to Pugad-lawin.”

“We found that Pugad-lawin was a knoll of about 30 or 40 feet higher than
thesurrounding territory. As the remaining vegetation indicated, it must have
been wellcovered with trees during the revolution. It was a good observation
point from a

39 Minutes of the Katipunan, with a preface by Carlos Quirino (Manila: National

Heroes Commission,1964; and Manila: National Historical Institute, 1978, 1996 and
2011).

the wooded knoll (a likely place for a hawk’s nest) to which they had hiked
together fromPasong Tamo.
Valenzuela did not expressly repeat in his “Memoirs” that Pugad Lawin was near
PasongTamo, but neither did he specify any other location, so there was no
reason for Serranoto suppose Valenzuela’s mental map of the area had ever
changed. Who actually ownedthe house and yard near Pasong Tamo where he
remembered cedulas being shredded,Melchora Aquino or her son Juan Ramos,
was just an incidental point of detail, not ofbasic geography.

The advocates of the “Pugad Lawin in Bahay Toro” position have presented
PioValenzuela as their star witness, and his “Memoirs” as their prime document.
But he doesnot mention Bahay Toro as the pasya site in his “Memoirs,” and there
is no evidence heever did. Not in any variation of his story. It is ironic, to put it
mildly, that Valenzuela isnow presented as the star witness for a version of events
– the official “Pugad Lawin inBahay Toro” version - to which he did not himself
subscribe.

Teodoro Agoncillo – initiator of Pugad Lawin’s relocation

Valenzuela’s telling of the “Cry” story, we need to remind ourselves, was just one
versionamongst several. It gained a particular weight for a number of reasons –
his seniority inthe Katipunan, his status as a physician, his political career, his
prominence atcommemorations of the revolution, his contacts with historians,
and so on. Pugad Lawin,his name for the “Cry” site, acquired even greater
currency with the publication in 1956of Agoncillo’s Revolt of the Masses, which
remains to this day the standard work on theKatipunan. Agoncillo
acknowledged that he had “relied mostly” on Valenzuela’stestimony when
writing about the “Cry.” 43 He justified his decision by saying thatValenzuela had
been an eyewitness to the historic event, that his “Memoirs,” thoughwritten
many years afterwards, had been “based on notes scribbled in 1897,” and
that“events, complete with details” were still vivid in Valenzuela’s memory even
in his oldage. 44

When narrating the story of the “Cry” in Revolt, Agoncillo therefore decided to
follow Valenzuela’s “Memoirs” in saying the pasya was taken at Juan Ramos’s
place in Pugad Lawin. Agoncillo does not, however, adhere fully to Valenzuela’s
version of events. In the present context, one of his departures is especially
pertinent. Valenzuela believed Ramos and his mother both lived in “Pugad
Lawin near Pasong Tamo”. Agoncillo, on the other hand, says that Ramos lived
in “Pugad Lawin” (without specifying where it was) but that his mother lived in
Pasong Tamo, and that the two places were a significant distance apart.
Immediately after the tearing of cedulas in Ramos’s yard in Pugad Lawin on
August 23, Agoncillo writes in Revolt, the Katipuneros got word the Guardia Civil
were approaching, and so they hastily marched off in the dark to Pasong Tamo,
arriving at Melchora Aquino’s house the next day. 45 Agoncillo repeats this story
in an article hewrote in 1960, saying that from Pugad Lawin the “rebels walked
pell-mell through thenight to Pasong Tamo.”

Agoncillo does not explain why his narrative differs from Valenzuela’s
recollections. Nordoes he offer any clue in his endnotes. The only sources he
cites alongside Valenzuela’s“Memoirs” at this juncture in Revolt are two other
KKK veterans, Guillermo Masangkayand Francisco Carreon, neither of whom
ever acknowledged the existence of a placecalled Pugad Lawin at all.

Agoncillo candidly admits that his reconstruction of events is “speculative.” He

does not indicate in Revolt, or in his 1960 article, exactly where he thought
Pugad Lawin was situated, merely that it was a considerable distance to the
west of Pasong Tamo. 49 But subsequently, in 1962, he claimed he had identified
the exact spot where Juan Ramos’shouse once stood, and he placed a marker
there together with members of the UP Student Council. When he revisited the
locality in the early 1980s, however, he found it had disappeared. 50 Nobody
now remembers where it was, and nobody knows what documentary or oral
evidence had persuaded Agoncillo he had found the right spot.

It is unlikely Agoncillo placed his marker in the same place as the present-day
“Sigaw ng Pugad Lawin” marker in Bahay Toro. The present marker and
memorial are about two kilometers from Balintawak – perhaps half an hour’s
walk along a road or track, perhaps an hour across fields or grassland.
Agoncillo, though, says Pugad Lawin was a “big distance” from Balintawak. It
took the rebels the best part of a day, he indicates, “to negotiate the distance
between the two points.”

The Committee relayed its findings to the government’s historical agency (then
called the National Historical Institute), which dispatched someone to visit the
site, deliberated on the matter, and declared the Committee to be right. On the
occasion of the next commemoration of the “Cry,” on August 23, 1984, the NHI
placed its marker at the site in Seminary Road, Bahay Toro where it has since
remained. 57

Isagani Medina’s case for “Pugad Lawin in Bahay Toro”

Some people, needless to say, begged to differ from the NHI. They found the
evidence submitted by the Quezon City mayor’s Committee to be too tenuous,
the case too dubious. For a while, though, the debate subsided. It did not
resume until the mid-1990s, before and during the centennial of the revolution,
when various forums were organized at which historians and veterans’
descendants voiced their contending views. After its long stagnation, the
debate at last moved forward. New documentary evidence was presented,
and the discussion as a whole was more detailed and nuanced than hitherto.
Most importantly, some of the leading protagonists put their arguments inwriting,
and their evidence into the public domain.

The foremost proponent of “Pugad Lawin in Bahay Toro” in this renewed debate
was Isagani R. Medina. He presented the case for Bahay Toro more fully, and
with more documentation, than anybody else has before or since, first in a
paper he delivered at a conference in 1993 and then in his annotations to
Ronquillo’s memoirs. 58 He patently wished to make his case as forceful and
persuasive as he could, and it seems unlikely he omitted any evidence he felt to
be significant. We now need to examine the case he makes.
Medina found official documents from 1896, the vecindarios or lists of residents
for the municipality of Caloocan, which show that Melchora Aquino and Juan
Ramos, motherand son, were listed under different cabecerías. This strongly
suggests they resided(officially at least, in terms of registration) in different
places. Melchora Aquino lived with her youngest daughter, Juana Ramos.
Another of her daughters, Estefania Ramos,was living with her family nearby. Her
son Juan Ramos, however, was registered in another cabecería, of which he
was himself the cabeza de barangay, and was living with his wife, Alejandra
Alcantara, and two young children, Filomena and Canuta.

Medina includes photographs of the relevant pages from the vecindarios in his
annotated edition of Ronquillo’s memoirs. Unfortunately, though, he does not
explain how he jumps from the evidence that Ramos and his mother lived in
different places to the conclusion that Ramos’s cabecería was located in “sitio
Pugad Lawin.” On his photograph of Ramos’s vecindario, Medina (or someone)
has written “Pugad Lawin, sitio of Bahay Toro,” and his caption says likewise. But
elsewhere in his annotations he frankly acknowledges that such a place cannot
be found in nineteenth-century records.

It is possible Medina identified the location on the basis of what Ramos’s

grandson, Escolastico Ramos, had told the Quezon City mayor’s committee in
1983. Medina himself notes, however, that other family members told contrary
stories. The weightiest is the testimony of Ramos’s daughter, Monica Ramos-
Figueroa. She had come out to meet Pio Valenzuela and the others when they
visited Pugad Lawin in 1940, back when it was a “wooded knoll” not far from
Pasong Tamo. She had posed with the rest of the party for picture-taking around
the “exact spot,” marked by a stake with a hat on it, where her grandmother’s
house had once stood. And four decades later, towards the end of her long life,
she told a news reporter the historic “ pagpupunit ng sedula” had been where
her grandmother lived. Her father, she told the newsman, had owned a 3
hectare plot of land in the same vicinity. 61 If this was the case, Ramos might
well have owned a house and yard near Pasong Tamo even if he was registered
as living somewhere else.
Whatever the case, and whatever the explanation, the fact is that Ramos’s
daughter, the descendant best acquainted with the family’s situation around
the turn of the century(she was born in 1896), believed their home was at
“Pugad Lawin near Pasong Tamo.” Her grandchildren continued to confirm this
had been her belief after death. It was only her son, Escolastico Ramos, so far
as is known, who situated Pugad Lawin in Bahay Toro, and his reasons for
contradicting his mother’s testimony are not on record.

The other evidence Medina presents to support his “Pugad Lawin in Bahay Toro”
position might be described as equally insubstantial. But that would be too kind.
His other evidence, to be blunt, borders on the spurious.

Medina claims his position is corroborated by the recollections of five Katipunan

veterans who actually witnessed the “Cry” and one other who was very close to
the events of August 1896. This is what he writes, very clearly and precisely,
about four of the witnesses: “ Ang pagpupunit ng sedula... nga’y nangyari sa
may sityo Pugad-lawin, sanayon ng Bahay-Toro sa bayan ng Kalookan... noong
Agosto 23, 1896. Ito’ypinatutunayan ng apat na saksi: Dr Pio Valenzuela, Briccio
Brigido Pantas, CiprianoPacheco at Domingo Orcullo.” 63 The fifth “ saksi sa
mga pangyayari sa Pugadlawin,” hesays, was Mariano Alvarez. 64

In reality, not a single one of these five men left any written testimony to the
effect that Pugad Lawin was situated in the barrio of Bahay Toro. Valenzuela,
Pantas and Pacheco,as we saw, commemorated the “Cry” near Pasong Tamo
in 1928, and Valenzuela did so again in 1940. Orcullo, the delegate sent by the
Magdalo council in Cavite to the decisive meeting of the KKK Supreme
Assembly, did not leave a memoir himself.