The date of the arrival of the arms, according as appeared from
evidence given during the trial of Francisco L. Roxas, was to have
been the 31st of December 1896. Lorenzo de la Paz, however, stated
that it was the 1st of September of the said year. Others claimed
it to be the 13th of September or the 30th of November. As may be
easily seen, there was no lack of disagreement among the chiefs
of the revolt, and perhaps, as far as the majority were concerned,
still more exploitation.
Note 92. Pio Valenzuela y Alejandrino was a licentiate of Medicine,
and one of the members of the inferior Supreme Council of the
Katipunan. According to his own story he entered the files of the
society under compulsion at the hands of Andrés Bonifacio, who on
the strength of a love affair, gave him the alternative of death or
membership in the Katipunan (see p. 132). In his declaration during
his trial (fol. 142-147) on the 6th of September 1896, he recorded
how on the 30 day of November, S. Andrew's day of the year 1895,
he was presented by Andrés Bonifacio to various Katipuneros as
"brother" Medico (Doctor), Bonifacio stating that from that time he
(Valenzuela) would be the doctor of the society. He also stated how,
in the following month of January and in another meeting, he was
nominated Fiscal, and official doctor with a salary of thirty pesos
monthly, a salary he had no little difficulty in collecting. He was
commissioned in May 1896 to go to Dapitan to hold a conference with
Rizal concerning armed rising against the supreme authority of Spain
in the Archipelago; but Rizal was shrewder and more far-sighted than
the others and would not consent to the carrying out of the scheme as
proposed by Bonifacio. On the return of Valenzuela Bonifacio imposed
upon him a strict silence concerning the outcome of the conference;
but being pressed by certain members of the society, among whom were
Emilio Jacinto, Secretary of the Supreme Council, and capita Ramon
of Pandacan, he revealed the secret of Rizal's opposition to a plan
he feared would be abortive. When once the cat was out of the bag the
facts soon became public among the principal members, with the result
that many who had promised funds for the purchase of arms etc. in
Japan, refused to pay the amounts promised. Among these was a colonel
of Malabon who had promised 500 pesos for the said object. This breach
of confidence on the part of Valenzuela brought about the separation
of himself and Bonifacio, and the former presented his resignation
as doctor and fiscal of the society. Bonifacio opposed the idea of
his resignation but it was finally accepted, and the former friends
parted company each to work in his own sphere.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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