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EMERGING
NATIONALISM
CHAPTER 7
When Rizal published El Filibusterismo in 1891, he dedicated
the book to the three martyred priests. Mariano Gomez. Jose
Burgos, and Jacinto Zamora. In his dedication, he wrote:
Although Rizal was only 10 years old when the three priests
were executed, the events of 1872 would play a decisive role
in shaping Rizal’s ideas and decisions. This chapter will focus
on these events, particlarly the Cavite Muntiny and the
exection of the three priests. Gomez, Burgos, and Zamora.
CAVITE MUNITY
On January 20, 1872, approximately 250 Filipino soldiers and
workers rose in revolt at an arsenal in Cavite. Eleven Spaniards
were killed during the munity, but an immediate assault led by
government forces put an end to the uprising after three days.
An oft-cited reason for the munity was a decree released by
Governor-general Rafael de Izquierdo. The decree ordered that the
arsenal workers would no longer be exempt from the tributo and
polo, a privilage they had enjoyed in the past. Official accounts,
however, argued that the revolt was part of a larger and asserting
independence.
Official reports also claimed that the leaders of the munity had
expected the support of close to 2,000 men from regiments based
both in Cavite and in Manila. The plan was to begin the revolt after
midnight in Manila with rebels setting fires in tondo to distract the
authorities. A signal by way of fireworks would then be sent to the
rebels in Cavite who would then lay siege to the arsenal. In reality,
however, the munity in Cavite began earlier in the evening and
many of those who pledged support defected and vowed loyalty to
Spain. Ultimately, the munity failed and the Spanish gevernment
used the incident as a means to suppress the increasing calls for a
more liberal administration.
Among those who clamored for reforms were Filipino secular
priests. To understand how the Filipino secular priests became
involved in the Cavite Mutiny of 1872, a brief historical background
on missionary efforts in the Philippines shall first be discussed.
The introduction and the strengthening of the Catholic faith were largely
through the efforts of two types of clergy: the regular priests and the
secular priests. The regular clergy, whose jurisdiction fell on their elected
prelates, were better prepared for missionary work because of their
standards of discipline and asceticism. Their job, then, was to introduce
the faith, convert the natives, and establish religious communities. In the
Philippines, five religious orders took on this task: the Augustinians who
arrived in 1565, the Discalced Franciscans who arrived in 1578, the
Jesuits who arrived in 1581, the Dominicans who arrived in 1587, and
the Augustinian Recollects who arrived in 1606.
Secularization Movement
The secular clergy, on the other hand, were priests who "live in the
world." They were under the authority of bishops and not members of a
religious order. Their primary task was the management of the religious
communities and ideally, the continuation of the work already laid down
by the regular clergy. In other words, while it was the task of the regular
clergy to introduce the faith and establish religious communities, the
management of the parishes themselves was left to the secular priests.
The missionary efforts in the Philippines, however, presented a unique
case. In other Spanish colonies, well-established parisited messed the
replacement of regular clergy by secular priests in the management of
the religious communities. In the Philippines, the regular clergy remained
administrators of the parishes well into the nineteenth century.
Two issues were particularly contentious among the clergy in the
Philippines. The first issue had to do with episcopal vistations. An
omamoda bull passed by Pope Adrian VI in 1522 allowed the regulars
to administer the sacraments and act as parish priests independent
from the authority of the local bishop. This bull, however, conflicted
with reforms established in the Council of Trent (1545-1563), which
declared that no priest could care for the souls of laymen unless they
were subjected to episcopal authority that often came in the form of
visitations. Although King Philip II was granted discretionary power to
enforce the reforms in the Philippines, the regular clergy often
thwarted their implementation.
The regular clergy argued that if they allowed the visitations to occur,
the congregation would be subjected to two sources of authority, the
bishop and the provincial superiors, who may, ar some point, issue
conflicting orders. By refusing the episcopal visitations, they hoped to
avoid the possibility of violating their vows of obedience to their own
superiors. Serious attempts to enforce the visitations, however, were
often countered by the regular clergy who abused their authority by
resigning from their posts and leaving the parishes unattended. This
type of situation was especially disastrous in the early stages of
Christianization when the paucity of secular priests often forced the
government to give in to the wishes of the regular clergy.
The second issue had to do with the management of the parishes.
Regular priests maintained control over the parishes in the early
stages of Christianization out of necessity because of the scarcity of
secular priests to whom the parishes would be passed on. However,
beginning in the late seventeenth century, efforts were intensified
to produce and train Filipino secular priests that by the nineteenth
century, they constituted an increasingly significant number.
Despite this, the regular clergy usually contested, if not outright
refused, the rights of the secular clergy to the parishes.
One reason provided by the regulars was that the Philippines still
remained an active mission, en vira conquista espiritual. with some
groups not yet Christianized. They would, therefore, argue that the
Filipinos were not ready to be turned over to the secular clergy.
Another reason was more economic in nature with the regulars
refusing to give up the parishes that generated large profits for
them. However, an overwhelming reason why the regulars refused
to give up the parishes had to do with their view that the Filipino
secular clergy were unqualified and incompetent. Even worse,
some viewed the seculars as potential leaders of any future
separatist movement.
The secular clergy would react strongly to these claims. In the mid-
nineteenth century, Fr. Mariano Gomez, parish priest of Bacoor, and Fr.
Pedro Pelaez, secretary to the archbishop, drew up expositions to the
government on behalf of the secular clergy. but their efforts proved
futile. The struggle eventually took on a different tone towards the
1860s as the issue of secularization was no longer limited to questions
of merit and competence. By 1864, the nature of the issue became one
of racial equality as well. At the forefront of this struggle to gain
equality between Spanish and Filipino priests was Fr. Jose Burgos.
Execution of Gomez, Burgos, and Zamora
As a result of the revolt in Cavite, several priests and laymen were
arrested on the orders of Governor-General Izquierdo. Among the
priests arrested in the succeeding days were Fathers Jose Burgos,
Jacinto Zamora, Jose Guevara, Mariano Gomez, Feliciano Gomez,
Mariano Seville, Bartholomew Serra, Miguel de Laza, Justo Guazon,
Vicente del Rosario, Pedro Dandan, and Anacleto Desiderio. Among
the laymen were lawyers Sanchez, Pedro Carillo, Inocencio, Balbino
Maurice, Ramon Maurente, Maximo Paterno, and Jose Basa. These
Filipinos were sentenced to varying terms of exile in Guam. The three
priests, Burgos, Gomez, and Zamora, were sentenced to death by
garrote on February 15, 1872.
A French writer journalist named Edmund Plauchut gave an
account of the execution:
Late in the night of the 15th of February 1872, a Spanish court
martial found three secular priests, Jose Burgos, Mariano Gomez
and Jacinto Zamora, guilty of treason as the instigators of a mutiny
in the Cavite navy-yard a month before, and sentenced them to
death. The judgment of the court martial was read to the priests
in Fort Santiago early the next morning and they were told it
would be executed the following day... Upon hearing the
sentence, Burgos broke into sobs, Zamora lost his mind and never
recovered, and only Gomez listened impassively, an old man
accustomed to the thought of death.
When dawn broke on the 17th of February, there were almost
forty thousand of Filipinos (who came from as far as Bulacan,
Pampanga, Cavite and Laguna) surrounding the four platforms
where the three priests and the man whose testimony had
convicted them, a former artilleryman called Saldua, would die.
The three priests followed Saldua: Burgos "weeping like a child,
Zamora with vacant eyes, and Gomez bead held high, blessing
the Filipinos who knelt at bis feet, heads bared and praying. He
was next to die. When his confessor, a Recollect friar, exhorted
bim loudly to accept his fate, he replied: "Father, I know that not
a leaf falls to the ground but by the will of God. Since He wills
that I should die here, His holy will be done."
Zamora went up the scaffold without a word and delivered his
body to the executioner, his mind had already left it.
Burgos was the last, a refinement of cruelty that compelled him
to watch the death of his companions. He seated himself on the
iron rest and then sprang up crying: "But what crime have I
committed? Is it possible that I should die like this. My God, is
there no justice on earth?"
A dozen friars surrounded bim and pressed him down again
upon the seat of the garrote, pleading with him to die a
Christian death. He obeyed but, feeling his arms tied round the
fatal post, protested once again: "But I am innocent!"
"So was Jesus Christ," said one of the friars. At this Burgos
resigned himself. The executioner knelt at his feet and asked his
forgiveness. "I forgive you, my son. Do your duty." And it was
done.
Although the public execution of the three priests was meant
to instill fear in the Filipinos, it had the opposite effect. In his
work, La Revolucion Filipina, Apolinario Mabini stated:
The friars wanted to make an example of Burgos and his companions so
that the Filipinos should be afraid to go against them from then on. But
that patent injustice, that official crime, aroused not fear but hatred of
the friars and of the regime that supported them, and a profound
sympathy and sorrow for the victims. This SOTTOW worked a miracle: it
made the Filipinos realize their condition for the first time. Conscious of
pain, and thus conditions of life, they asked themselves what kind of a
life they lived. The awakening was painful, and working to stay alive
more painful still, but one must live. Howe They did not know, and the
desire to know, the anxiety to learn, overwhelmed and took possession
of the youth of the Philippines. The curtain of ignorance woven diligently
for centuries was rent at last: fiat lux, let there be light, would not be
long in coming, the dawn of a new day was wearing.
Group Members
Divina, Joy Obing
Napili, SanLuis Regine
Pasajes, John ily P.
Genorga, Adrian Gabriel V.