Daet Revolt
By: Atty. Vivencio F. Abaño, Mr. Gregorio Pimentel Jarencio (Descendants of the Martyr Jose Abaño), Mr. Igmedio L. Zaldua (Descendants of the Martyr Tomas Zaldua)
CHAPTER 1
Camarines Norte has the enviable distinction of being the first province in the Bicol Region to organize a Katipunan and to give direct assistance to the Philippine revolutionary movement.
Prior to the outbreak of the revolution in 1896, there existed in Camarines Norte certain cooperatives. Agricultural producers supplied these cooperatives with abaca, copra and other products, which were then sold by the cooperatives without passing through middlemen. Parts of the profits of the cooperatives were secretly remitted to the revolutionary movement of Andres Bonifacio.
The cooperative also served as effective through covert means of spreading the ideals of the revolution. Their members could move around freely without arousing the suspicion of the Spanish authorities. While outwardly buying the produce of the farmers in the different barrios and towns of Camarines Norte, they were also able to inform those who were receptive about the activities of the then Manila-based revolutionary movement. In this manner, many Filipinos in the province became aware and sympathetic to the cause of the Katipunan. These included not only the intellectuals and educated class, but also the farmers and laborers.
The formation of the cooperatives was promoted by the La Cooperativa Popular, founded sometime in 1894 by Don Vicente Lukban y Rilles, a former Justice of the Peace of Labo, Camarines Norte. Lukban was arrested in that town in 1860 but both his parents were from Tayabas (now Quezon Province).
Lukban was arrested by the Spanish authorities in 1896 because of his political activities and was incarcerated in Manila until August 1897. Upon his release, he immediately joined General Emilio Aguinaldo and was commissioned to serve as one of his staff in the armed forces of the revolutionary government.
On orders of Aguinaldo, Lukban extended the insurrection to the Bicol Region. In November 1897, he carried out secret communications with Don Ildefonso Moreno (Moreno Street in Daet was named after him), a prominent resident of Daet. The communications were coursed through certain Filipino officers of the merchant ship Taal who were partisans of the revolution. Lukban entrusted to Moreno the organization of a Katipunan unit in Camarines Norte, and advised him to await arms and further instructions from Aguinlado’s headquarters in Biak na Bato.
Moreno started the organization of the Katipunan that very same month of November 1897. he did not encounter any difficulty since many Filipinos in the province were already sympathetic to the cause of the Revolution. Membership swelled rapidly due in great part to the groundworks prepared years earlier by the cooperatives. The Katipunan in the Camarines Norte attracted many followers and sympathizers, including not only prominent Filipinos of Daet and the other towns of Labo, Talisay and Calasgasan (Calasgasan was a municipality at the time, and became a barrio of Daet during the American rule), but also the principalia (Important residents/ members of the community) and employees of the court. Even the fifteen native soldiers of the local detachment of the Guardia Civil became partisans of the Katipunan and were receiving secret instructions from Moreno.
Moreno was the head of the Katipunan in Camarines Norte. His leader or lieutenants in the organization were Telesforo Zaldua, teniente mayor (Chief lieutenant second to the capitan municipal or gobernadorcillio in the government of the town), Jose Abano, capitan municipal (The gobernadorcillio, or the head of a town similar in some ways to the present day mayor) of Daet, Domingo Lozada, former capitan municipal, Gavino Saavedra, and others.
CHAPTER II
THE MONTH OF MARCH 1898
Unrest began to be felt in the Bicol region.
Rumors circulated in Daet about a disturbance that would take place on the feastday of the Anunciation when members of the Spanish community, including the parish priest of Daet, Fray Juan Perdiguero (The friars in the Bicol region were from the Franciscan Order) would be killed. Nothing happened on that feastday, nor on the following day when it was said that the rumored plot would definitely take place.
Yet, the rumors persisted. The Spanish civil and military authorities decided to investigate. The head of the local Guardia Civil, Lieutenant Maximiano Correa, called those who were suspected or accused of being members of the Katipunan. They denied the existence of the Katipunan in Daet or in any part of Camarines Norte. Lt. Correa was satisfied and let them go.
However, the Spanish community of Daet continued to suspect that some plot against them was afoot. They took the precaution of preparing the house of Florencio Arana, a Spanish merchant of long residence in Daet, as their refuge and defense in case of any disturbance or uprising (Evidence indicates that the house of Arana was near northwestern corner of the present Vicente Basit Street and Justo Lukban Street, a short distance from the old Spanish bridge then named San Narciso Bridge).
CHAPTER III:
THE 13TH DAY OF APRIL 1898
The Pact of Biak na Bato was signed by General Emilio Aguinaldo and the Spanish government. Aguinaldo left for exile in Hongkong. One of the members of his entourage was Vicente Lukban.
Moreno felt that the Katipunan movement in Camarines Norte had to rely on his judgment and on their available resources in the absence of Lukban. With this in mind, he continued to make preparations to strikes against the Spanish authorities in the province.
In April 1898, Moreno issued a call from the barrio of Barra (became the municipality of Mercedes in 1948) to the members of the Katipunan gathered them in the Barrio of Mampili.
Since the Katipuneros were without firearms, except for the fifteen native members of the Civil Guards, Moreno’s plan was to take the Spaniards surprise.
Unfortunately, in the late afternoon of April 13, the scouts he had sent ahead to Daet committed the mistake of appearing and displaying their bolos and red pennants at Daet market (The market at that time was near the church and the present site of CANORECO Office). Someone shouted “Insurrectus”, causing the people in the market to panic and run.
The Spaniards learned of what happened. That very same evening, they gathered their families and transferred to the house of Arana. They took refuge there and prepared to defend themselves. To deprive any attackers of cover, they took the precaution of demolishing the nearby Chinese houses and stores.
That same evening, two Filipinos were apprehended by the Spaniards on suspicion of being Katipuneros, and were put in jail.
Meantime, the Katipuneros who were already outskirts of Daet decided to go to barrio of Barra. Before doing so, they cut the telegraph lines to Nueva Caceres so that the Spaniards could not ask for help or succor from there. Most of the Filipino inhabitants of Daet also left in fear of an anticipated battle between the Spaniards and the Katipuneros.
CHAPTER IV: EVENTS OF THE 14TH DAY OF APRIL
Lt. Correa called for the capitan municipal of Daet, Jose Abaño, and asked him about the events of the previous night. Abaño pretended not to have any knowledge of what happened, and denied the reported sighting of the Katipuneros.
Upon insistence of the Spaniards, Lt. Correa left the house of Arana with eight civil guards and a Spaniards named Domingo Chacarratequi to go to Barra. On their way, they encountered the Katipuneros who attacked them. The party of Lt. Correa withdrew and, while retreating towards the direction of Daet, fired at the Katipuneros pursuing them. The native civil guards, however, were aiming above the heads of the Katipuneros. This was observed by Lt. Correa and other Spaniards about the native civil guards.
When they were running short of ammunition, Lt. Correa ordered one of the civil guards to run ahead and get more ammunition from Daet. The corporal of Civil Guards who had remained in Daet was a native. He refused to give the ammunitions in the absence of a written order from Lt. Correa. It was Arana who grabbed the ammunitions from the corporal and brought them to Lt. Correa. The actuation of the corporal heightened the suspicion of Lt. Correa and other Spaniards about the native civil guards.
It was already nine o’clock in the morning when the party of Lt. Correa managed to get back to Daet and safety of the house of Arana.
The Spaniards moved in food supplies and medicine, in anticipation of a prolonged siege by the Katipuneros. They also succeeded in repairing the destroyed telegraph lines, and were able to send messages to Nueva Caceres about what was happening in Daet.
That same day, the friars from the neighboring towns of Daet arrived at the house of Arana. The last to arrive in the afternoon were Fray Anotionio Mirablanca, the parish priest of Basud, and his brother Siro Mirablanca.
The house of Arana had then been converted into a fortress. Defending it were twelve Spanish military men, the functionaries of Daet, and some businessmen and employees. There were also the fifteen native civil guards who were in secret league with Moreno. All in all, the defenders consisted of about fifty persons armed with rifles.
CHAPTER V: EVENTS OF THE 15TH DAY OF APRIL
The Spaniards arrested Mariano Zaldua, whose brother Telesforo Zaldua was the leader of the Katipuneros in Barra. He was ordered tied and placed under guard together with two other Filipino imprisoned earlier in the evening of April 13.
That same day, the Judge of the Court of First Instance accompanied by two other Spaniards and two civil guards went to the house of the Zaldua’s. They interrogated Tomas Zaldua, a former capitan municipal of Daet and the father of Telesforo and Marianito Zaldua. They ransacked the house to find evidence about the Katipunan. Not finding any, they took with them two trunks of documents and belongings for further scrutiny.
Nothing else happened that day until about 4:00 in the afternoon when the Katipuneros launched their attack against the Spaniards who had taken refuge in the house of Arana. The Spaniards were ready and greeted the rushing rebels with a volley of fire. Three of the attackers coming from the old Spanish bridge were hit in the first discharge.
The Katipuneros then tried to flush out the Spaniards by setting fire to the house of Arana. But the Spaniards had made ready a hundred wet sacks and used them to extinguish the blaze.
In uncontrolled rage, Lt. Correa shot all the bound Filipinos who had been arrested earlier by the Spaniards. Some of the friars, particularly the parish priest of Daet, Fray Pediguero, tried but failed to stop him. Among the prisoners killed was Mariano Zaldua.
The fighting lasted for six hours until 10:00 in the evening.
Later, since the Katipuneros did not possess a single piece of firearm, they confirmed their activities to besieging the town of Daet. The Spaniards on the other hand, satisfied themselves with sporadic sniping from vantage points such as the windows and roof of the house of Arana.
The native civil guards inside the house of Arana were unable to carry out the assignment given to them by Moreno. Since the very beginning of the siege, they were stationed by Lt. Correa far apart from each other. Moreover, there was at least one armed Spaniard behind each one of them watchful of their every move.
The Spaniards also resorted to the ruse of telling the native civil guards that they had heard the siren of a streamboat from Nueva Caceres bringing reinforcement and coming to the rescue.
The Katipuneros and their leaders, Ildefonso Moreno and Telesforo Zaldua, waited in vain that day for the native civil guards to revolt from within the house of Arana and turn their guns on the Spaniards.
CHAPTER VI: EVENTS OF THE 16TH DAY OF APRIL
The morning of April 16 found Daet under the control of the Katipuneros. They completely surrounded the house of Arana where the Spaniards had taken refuge.
The Katipuneros occupied the building of the Court of First Instance near the southern end of the old Spanish bridge. From there, they challenged the Spaniards holed inside the house of Arana. The Katipuneros also freed the prisoners of the public jail and imprisoned the warden. He was later rescued by the Spaniards at the end of the siege.
A new plan of attack was adopted to be carried out that evening. The Katipuneros would launch another attack, at which point the native civil guards inside the house of Arana would fire at the Spaniards, seize their arms and take over the place.
The agreed signal for the start of the attack was the firing of cannon, which the Katipuneros had seized from the convent in Daet. If the civil guards did not answer in any way, the cannon would be fired a second time.
Moreno was inside the house of Arana for the purpose of leading the native civil guards in the intended plan. He had gone there pretending to be loyal to the Spaniards.
But the plan was discovered by the Spaniards. A noted intended to Moreno was tied to a stone which was thrown by the Katipuneros into the house of Arana. Unfortunately, the note which read “Why don’t you these Spaniards?” was found by Arana who accosted and accused the Spaniards, tied and placed under guard so that he would not be able to give any warning to the native civil guards. The Spaniards then prepared for the attack.
Lt. Correa ordered the native civil guards to rest until 12:00 that evening. Then he gathered their arms and handed them over to the Spaniards. Half of the civil guards were thus disarmed.
At about 7:30 in the evening, the first signal of the attack came. The Katipuneros fired the first cannon shot which hit the roof of the house of Arana. They also rang the church bells. The Spaniards fired back.
At that instance, the Spaniards grappled with the native civil guards. Outnumbered, the latter were easily overcome. Seven of them were tied and the others were killed. One of the guards was able to escape with a gun by jumping out of the window and hiding among the shrubs. He later related to the Katipuneros what had happened inside the house of Arana.
Meanwhile, Lt. Correa had climbed up the flat roof of the Arana’s house where Moreno was tied. Upon hearing the signal of the cannon shot, Lt. Correa seized his revolver and fired twice at Moreno. Shortly after, he shot Gabino (Possibly he was Gabino Saavedra) another leader of the Katipuneros and a former Capitan municipal who had joined Moreno inside the house of Arana as part of the plot.
Not contended, Lt. Correa looked for the civil guards. Seeing one, he shot and killed him.
That evening, the floor of the Arana house was spattered with the blood of martyrs Moreno, Gabino and several of the native civil guards.
At dawn of the next day, their corpses were carried down to the yard where they were burned and buried in a common grave. An eyewitness wrote: “Those killed first were brought down to the fire but they were not consumed. It was very painful to see the dogs entertained in the remains. Even the besieged eat human flesh during these days. To avoid further complications, it was determined to burn all the corpses in a hole dug out for the purpose…The remains not consumed by the fire were emitting bad odor and to remedy that, we collected everything left over and burned it with the newly dead”( Translated from the original Spanish)
CHAPTER VII: EVENTS OF THE 17TH DAY OF APRIL
The steamboat Serrantes arrived at Barra from Nueva Caceres with reinforcement consisting of a force of 25 civil guards led by a Captain Abreau and Spanish.
The Katipuneros tried to repulse the new arrivals. They placed their cannons at the road and fired at the Spanish troops. Their efforts, however were fertile as Captain Abreau and his force managed to reach Daet at about 2:30 in the afternoon and to rescue the beleaguered Spaniards in the house of Arana.
Additional reinforcement of 150 troops arrived, under the command of Sgt. Pegerto Lopez and a certain Sgt. Narciso. They had encountered and fought earlier that day some Katipuneros in the municipality of Talisay, where they killed the town’s capitan municipal and a certain man named Luzon.
Thus reinforced, the Spaniards took the offensive in Daet. They drove the Katipuneros from the houses and trenches they still occupied and hunted them down, killing more than thirty that afternoon.
That same afternoon of April 17, Capt.Abreu decided that all those who had revolted and joined the uprising be executed. He made known his decision only to Lt. Correa and some Spaniards.
In the evening, the first executions were carried out under cover of darkness. Lt. Correa called the corporals who had come with Capt. Abreu from Nueva Caceres and Siro Mirablanca and ordered them to take charge of the beheading. Mirablanca refused to take part in the execution. Sgt. Narciso took his place and, together with the two corporals, beheaded the remaining civil guards of Daet on the flat roof of the house of Arana.
The corpses were then thrown from the roof into the street where they were buried the following day.
CHAPTER VIII: SUBSEQUENT EVENTS OF APRIL
The Spaniards regained control on Daet on April 18. A Holy Mass was celebrated by Fray Antonio Mirablanca which was attended only by the Spaniards. The Filipino inhabitants of Daet were not present.
In the afternoon of that day, the Spanish authorities issued a decree ordering the residents to come down from their houses and those who had fled to return to Daet. They were told that they had nothing to fear and that no reprisal or punishment would be inflicted on them.
However, the Spaniards arrested the leaders and members of the Katipunan and even those who were merely suspected by them. Many were executed.
Among those put to death during the first week following the collapse of the revolt were Capitan municipal Jose Abaño and former capitanes municipal Tomas Zaldua and Domingo Lozada. Abaño and Zaldua were tortured; the former was afterwards thrown into a well while his still alive. Aniceto Gregorio, together with six other Filipinos, was reported to have seen burned alive in the plaza. Others were bayoneted to death.
CHAPTER IX: EVENTS OF THE FOLLOWING MONTHS
On the first day of May, the streamboat Montanes arrived at the port of Barra with 50 members of the recently organized Rural Guides on board. They were sent by the Spanish Captain General and commanded by First Lt. Alfredo Darnell.
Upon their being stationed in Daet, the Spanish military authorities formed a Tribunal de Cuchillo (Committee of Executioners). This tribunals or committee took charge of passing sentence without trial of the suspected Katipuneros and their sympathizers.
Daily arrests were made. Most were incarcerated in the local jail, and the rest were put in the ground floor of the house of Arana. There they awaited the sentence of death pronounced by the Committee. The executions were carried out by the soldiers of the Rural Guides, who shot, beheaded or bayoneted the victims.
Other prominent townsmen who were put to death were Rosalio Pajarillo and Jacinto Rada, officials of the Court of First Instance of Daet; Isidoro Avila, a school teacher; Andres Dames and Andres Obana, clerks of the Court of First Instance; valentine Lipana, vaccinator; Domingo Lozada, former capitan municipal of Daet; Agaton Orias, proprietor; Leoncio Carranceja, Angel Zaleta, Eleuterio Zaleta and Pedro (Perico) Amorsolo, students; Sixto Santa Catalina, Justice of the Peace of Calasgasan; Joaquin Moreno, cousin of Ildefonso Moreno;Gregorio del Valle and Florente Bacerdo.
Andres Dames, Andres Obana and Vicente Salvaria were killed on the road to Basud. They had been ordered to go with a patrol of Rural Guides. Once inside the town of Daet, they were told to dismount from heir horses and were then shot in the back.
The Rural Guides continued to hunt down the remnants of the Katipunan. Suspected Katipuneros were arrested and killed in nearby towns. In the latter part of June, the Rural Guides made an expedition to the Islands of Canimog and Caringo, where some of the Katipuneros had hidden. There they found and killed some of them.
Other Filipinos who suffered arrest, torture or death were Eugenio Boac, Santiago Ellaga, Esteban Imperial, Armando Millares, Leoncio Montes, Roman Pajarillo, Florente Samante, Felix Vana, Eleuterio Zaleta, Arcadio Varga, Leoncio Avila, Valentin Cabanela, Severo Bernabe, Gregorio Luyon, Ceferino Millares, Leopoldo Nadal, Vicente Perez y Gonzales, Claro Pimentel, Ananias Salveria and Diego Liñan.
By the end of August 1898, the Tribunal de Cuchillo ordered the arrest of the last batch of victims. These were Florentino Yaneza, Valeriano Calleja, Teodoro Banan and Severo Banan. They were kept imprisoned until the following month.
Earlier in August, General Vicente Lukban had overrun the Spanish force in the Southern Tagalog and upon order of General Aguinaldo, proceeded to the Bicol Region. The Spaniard in Camarines Norte informed of the advancing forces of General Lukban, through of making a stand against him. Later, however, they decided to abandon the province. The first groups of evacuees were the friars and some of the Spanish functionaries.
On September 8, the forces of General Lukban landed at Mmbulao (Mambulao is now the town of Jose Panganiban in honor of the propagandist) and Paracale. That same day, the Spaniards boarded the Norwegian streamboat Vigdo at the port of Barra and left for Hongkong. The next day, a second group of Spaniards took passage on the streamboat Montanes for Nueva Caceres.
On September 12, upon learning that the advance units of General Lukban’s army had reached the outskirts of barrio Matango of the town of Indan (Indan was later named as Vinzons in honor of hero Wenceslao Q. Vinzons) and moving towards Daet, the remaining Spanish functionaries and Rural Guides fled to Barra where the Serrantes had just docked that morning. They brought with them the last four Filipino prisoners condemned by the Tribunal de Cuchillo. Before sailing for Iloilo, they bayoneted them to death.
Valeriano Cuaño, a former Capitan municipal, took charge of the government of Daet. When General Lukban arrived in Daet that same month of September, Cuaño turned over the reins of government to him.
General Lukban proceeded to Nueva Caceres with his army, leaving a garrison in Daet under the command of Captain Antonio Sanz. It was during the command of Sanz that the first monument in honor of the national hero, Dr. Jose Rizal, was erected in Daet and unveiled on December 30, 1898.
CHAPTER X: SIGNIFICANCE OF THE DAET REVOLT
In all outward appearance, the Daet Revolt ended in total defeat for the Filipinos and victory for the Spaniards.
Nonetheless, that uprising was the first burst of flames of the revolutionary ferment sweeping the Bicol region. The events of the fateful month of April 1898 signaled the beginning of the end of Spanish colonial authority in the region. Perhaps nothing could have expressed that message more forcefully than the image of Barra and in the distant horizon the fleeing Spaniards on the board the streamboat Serrantes.
Sources:
Interviews
Dolores A. Caminar
Antonio Abaño
Igmedio L. Zaldua
Other known descendants of the Camarines Norte Martyrs
Descendants of General Vicente Lukban
Document from:
National Archives
Abaño Family records
Lukban family records
Books and Manuscripts
Juan Elias Ataviado, The Philippine Revolution in the Bicol Region, August 1896-January 1899 (Manila 1953)
Fray Marcos Gomez, O. F. M., La Revolucion Filipina de 1898 en Ambos Camarines, translated by Fray Apolinar Pastrana (Manila, Regal Printing Co. 1980)
Rey Imperial, Revolutionary Career of Vicente Lukban, A Doctoral Thesis (UP Department of History)
Danilo M. Gerona, From Epic to History: A Brief Introduction to Bicol History (Naga City, AMS Press, 1988)
Juan Carrasco, Sisenado Cabuso and Hilariona Zantua, Mga Bayani Ning Camarines Norte (Manuscript, circa 1952)