Independence Day

ANGELES CITY—A group here has persisted in keeping this city relevant during the celebration of Independence Day despite its being relegated by government to the fringes of history.

While other sites, like Rizal Park and Kawit, Cavite, take center stage during Independence Day celebrations attended by top government officials, the Kuliat Foundation Inc. (KFI), a private historical and cultural group, kept the memory of June 12, 1899, at the Pamintuan Mansion here alive.

Local historian Daniel Dizon said this city and the mansion have never been declared official Independence Day rites venues despite being where General Emilio Aguinaldo led the celebration on June 12, 1899, of the first anniversary of Philippine independence.

The celebration was held in the middle of war with the United States.

The 1899 anniversary is not given national importance although the KFI has been reenacting the event for at least 10 years now, according to Dizon, head of KFI’s historical section.

No Philippine president has ever been at the rites since KFI began these in 1999, or a year after the centennial of Philippine Independence, said Carmen Tayag-McTavish, KFI president.

Accounts gathered by Dizon showed that the mansion, at the corner of Miranda and Santo Entierro Streets, served as the seat of government and presidential palace of the first republic in Asia.

‘Greatest event’

The June 12, 1899, rites began with Mass followed by a grand military parade of some 2,000 soldiers led by Gen. Gregorio del Pilar of Bulacan and Gen. Manuel Tinio of Nueva Ecija.

With the soldiers and military officials assembled at the eastern side of the mansion, Aguinaldo addressed them in Spanish, saying: “Let us remember that this day commemorates the greatest event in our political evolution, the first anniversary of the proclamation of our independence in Cavite the 12th of June 1898, the date on which the Philippine people, thirsting for liberty, justice and the exercise of their proper rights, thronged to Cavite, to carry out this high patriotic manifestation, the beginning of a new era of progress and well being for our idolized country, to the cry of ‘The Philippines Free and Independent.’”

In the same speech, found by US Army historian Capt. John Taylor in the Philippine Insurgent Records, Aguinaldo also said: “[W]e will be slaves to none, nor will we allow ourselves to be deceived with soft words.”

“We affirm that Filipinas is for the Filipinos,” he said.

From the window, Aguinaldo also unfurled and waved the Filipino flag sewn in Hong Kong and used in the Kawit rites, Dizon said, citing documented accounts of that event.

Dizon said the national government cannot be faulted for not taking notice of what transpired at the Pamintuan Mansion because “it was only recently that this has been discovered.”

He said the 1899 celebration was first mentioned in an article by Leopoldo Serrano in a 1960 issue of the Philippines Free Press. It was also briefly cited in a book by Teodoro Kalaw.

But in the 1948 edition of “A Brief History of the Town of Angeles” by Dr. Mariano Henson, there is no mention of that event.

Republic on the run

Dizon said Henson must have not recorded this because like other intellectuals and members of rich families, he could have evacuated to safety.

A poet of Angeles, Don Jose Sanchez, mentioned Aguinaldo’s stay at the mansion and the event in his book “Loleng.”

Taylor’s success in locating the copy of Aguinaldo’s June 12, 1899 speech validated the event, Dizon said.

“This was the first and perhaps last celebration of the fledgling republic-on-the-run, relentlessly pursued by the American imperialists,” the KFI said in a statement it distributed Friday.

Dizon said there is no executive order directing the inclusion of the Pamintuan Mansion as an official venue of Independence Day rites.

McTavish hopes that the inclusion of the Pamintuan Mansion in flag-raising events last year is a first step toward official recognition.

KFI said until that is done through an executive order, the Pamintuan Mansion and the historic event it hosted will remain in the margins.

NHI marker

The Filipino-American War can well be considered largely fought in Central and northern Luzon because these were where Filipino soldiers set up intricate defenses against advancing US troops, said Prof. Robert Tantingco, executive director of the Holy Angel University’s Center for Kapampangan Studies.

Aguinaldo was arrested in Palanan, Isabela, on March 23, 1901.

The National Historical Institute has recognized the historical value of the Pamintuan Mansion through a marker installed at its gate.

The structure bears a concrete reminder of Mother Philippines—a stone statue of a woman standing on the mansion’s tower. Her long hair and traditional baro’t saya (dress) are carved in a way that these seemed to be blown by the wind.

The tower and the statue were not part of the original house built by Don Mariano Pamintuan as a wedding gift to his only son, Florentino, according to Dizon.

Florentino added those in 1917. The room at the tower served as a meditation place for the monthly sojourns of Jose Maria, Florentino’s son who became a priest. The statue was installed as a décor.

Patis Tesoro’s grandpa

Fashion designer Patis Tesoro said Florentino, her grandfather, built the tower to check the arrival of bandits and guests.

The woman, she said, was a symbol of freedom.

Augustinian brother Francis Musni said the Liberty-inspired image was popular during the American period.

The same image is found in arches, coins, mail stamps and paintings in those times. Some statues had the flags of either the Philippines or the United States as dresses, he said.

Documentation by one of the heirs, Milagros Faustino-Lane (daughter of Paz, Florentino’s daughter), showed that the mansion has more memories to it.

After the Americans captured Malolos in Bulacan in March 1899, Gen. Antonio Luna moved the Army’s general headquarters to San Fernando, then to the Pamintuan Mansion.

There, he set up the Sta. Rita-Porac-Angeles-Magalang-Mabalacat defense line, with Angeles as the central command post. It was deemed then to be the most formidable defense line against the Americans.

Juan Luna, Arthur MacArthur

In a room at the mansion’s ground floor, Luna edited the newspaper “La Independencia,” research by the Pamintuan heirs showed.

American general Arthur MacArthur used it as headquarters until 1901 while Kamikaze pilots used the mansion as base during the Japanese occupation in the early 1940s.

Don Pedro Tablante bought the house in 1959 and leased it to the city government as an annex.

The precursor of the KFI, the Angeles City Historical and Cultural Committee, convinced the Tablante family to donate the house to the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas in 1981.

Under then BSP governor Jaime Laya, the house underwent a five-year restoration under the guidance of Ado Escudero, and was inaugurated in 1988 as the Central Luzon office of the BSP.