(This item is identical to Appendix VI with the same title found on pages 390-394 of the book entitled "The Filipino Tragedy and Other Historical Facts Every Filipino Should Know," published by the author.)
“Frail, almost blind and unable to walk, General Aguinaldo had spent most of the last four years in the hospital. After suffering the latest in a series of strokes last week, he rallied briefly yesterday and talked with relatives.
“Emilio Aguinaldo was the first of the great Filipino revolutionaries and a forerunner of the band of Asian patriots who fought in the 20th century to free their countries from colonial domination.
“He led the Filipino revolt against Spain in 1896, fighting with a collection of barefoot peasants. Three years later he sparked an insurrection against United States troops he had once regarded as liberators.
“For almost 50 years afterwards he sat in his fortress-like house near Manila and waited—a spectator watching the parade of history. Proud, military in his bearing, he wore starched uniforms with high stiff collars.
“Finally, on July 4, 1946, his homeland was granted its independence, and
General Aguinaldo marched down Manila's Dewey Boulevard. With great ceremony, he removed the black bow tie he had worn for more than four decades as a symbol of mourning. At 80, he became a member of the Philippine Council of State, composed of elder wise men who advised the President. “I’m only a helper,” he once said, a little wistfully. “Once I was President.”
“Born to parents of middle class stock on March 22, 1869, Emilio Aguinaldo grew up at Kawit in Cavite province, about an hour's drive south of Manila. He was educated at a Catholic school in the capital.
“Even as a youth, he made a striking figure. Five feet four inches tall, slender and poised, he was a master fencer and a good shot. He cropped “his dark hair closely, and when he became famous his haircut did too; young men throughout the islands took to wearing “Aguinaldo cuts. ”
“In 1895, he joined the Association of the Sons of the Country, a revolutionary group, and the next year took part in its effort to overthrow the Spaniards. He led the assault against the Spanish garrison in Kawit and overcame its commandant in hand‐to‐hand combat.
“Armed only with bolo knives and a few shotguns, General Aguinaldo's guerrillas fell on the Spaniards at Binakayan on Nov. 11, 1896. The Spanish regulars, under Gen. Blanco, Governor General of the Philippines, were routed.
“Spain poured in reinforcements and backed the rebels into a mountain stronghold north of Manila. But the diplomats in Madrid, pressed for money and men to put down another rebellion in Cuba, decided to sue for peace.
“They persuaded General Aguinaldo to go into exile with 40 of his followers, on the condition that sweeping reforms in the colonial administration would be made. They also gave the guerrilla leader 600,000 pesos, then worth more than $300,000.
“Early in 1898. Commodore George Dewey destroyed the Spanish fleet in the great naval battle of Manila Bay. General Aguinaldo rallied his followers and returned to the Philippines under circumstances that have never been firmly established.
“General Aguinaldo always insisted that Commodore Dewey had sought his assistance and promised that the Philippines would be free after the defeat of the Spanish. Commodore (later Admiral) Dewey, during his lifetime, said coldly and repeatedly that no such pledge had been given.
“Nevertheless, on June 12, 1898, General Aguinaldo stood on the balcony of his home in Kawit and proclaimed the independence of the Philippines. The next year, wearing a top hat. he gravely took office as his country's first President.
“The United States Government was committed, however, to a policy of colonial expansion, and the Philippines had come to be regarded as the American share of the white man's burden.
“So the American Army (one of its commanders was Gen. Arthur MacArthur, father of Douglas) began a long war to subdue the Filipinos.
“The war is seldom described in American history books. Before it was over, more than a quarter‐million people had died, most of them Filipino refugees killed by disease, starvation and exposure.
“By 1901, General Aguinaldo had been pushed back to Palanan, in remote northern Luzon. On March 27, in the middle of a steaming jungle morning, the general was sitting behind his desk at his little headquarters.
“Suddenly firing broke out in the compound, and General Aguinaldo rushed to the window to shout to his men to stop wasting ammunition. When he turned back, he found himself looking down the barrel of a pistol held by an American ex-newspaperman, a brigadier general of Kansas Volunteers named Frederick Funston.
“General Funston, the son of a Kansas Representative popularly known as “Foghorn ” Funston, had marched a force of Americans and Filipinos loyal to the United States through a dense jungle to reach Palanan.
“The party's members represented themselves to the natives as Filipino insurgents who had captured the Americans and ‘were reporting with them to General Aguinaldo's hideout. Deceived by a forged letter, the rebel general had even sent them supplies. Theodore Roosevelt later described General Funston as a man of “iron courage, ” but the British considered his exploit poor cricket. General Aguinaldo himself described his captor, in the years that followed, as a man “with a big heart and fierce courage.”
“The insurgent leader after long torment, finally signed a statement ending the war and pledging his loyalty to the United States. “I believe I am serving thee, my beloved country,” he said.
“General Aguinaldo, a hero to most of his countrymen despite his capture, went back to the gingerbread‐towered house in Kawit and retired from public life. In 1935 he ran for President of the Philippines Commonwealth against Manuel Quezon and lost.
“In 1942, he went on the radio to urge General Douglas MacArthur and the combined United States‐Filipino forces on Bataan to surrender. Some years later, in his liquid Spanish, he told a visitor why:
“ ‘I was just remembering the fight I led. I saw my own soldiers die without affecting future events. To me that seemed to be what was happening on Bataan, and it seemed like a good thing to stop.
“During and after the war, he was accused of collaborating with the Japanese, but he was cleared without a trial in a general amnesty proclamation in 1948. Two of his greatest days came when he was more than 90 years old. On March 22, 1962, his 93rd birthday. President Diosdado Macapagal and American generals and admirals went to Kawait to honor him.
“He sat listening to waltzes played by a United States Air Force Band. All around him were American officers in dress whites, admiring faded photographs with inscriptions to the man Americans once called ‘ that bandit Aguinaldo.’
“Then on June 12 of that year he went to the Luneta Grandstands in Manila to take the cheers of his countrymen celebrating the republic's newly designated Independence Day. It had been 64 years since he proclaimed his country's freedom.
“He married Maria Agoncillo in 1930 after the death of his first wife, Hilaria, by whom he had six children. His second wife died last year in the Veterans Hospital.
“Both President Johnson and General MacArthur issued tributes to General Aguinaldo last night.
“ We are confident,” the President said, ”that his struggle for Philippine independence, his love of freedom and his devotion to country will continue to inspire his people. His monument is the Republic of the Philippines.”
“He was the very incarnation of the Filipino desire for liberty and freedom,” General MacArthur declared, ‘ and his country owes him much. He was a lifelong friend of mine and his death saddens me.’”
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