Juan, from childhood, was of an artistic turn of mind and found among
his many protectors those who sent him to Spain to study art. In
Spain he met with Sr. Alejo Vera, a noteworthy artist, under whom
he studied, receiving an exceptional education both in art and in
morals, Sr. Vera being a Christian gentleman. Later on he went to
Rome, and there formed part of the Spanish artistic colony. After some
two or three years of study there he sent to Spain his first painting
[25]. Being an artistic production of a Filipino indian it was received
with open hands and given a reception greater than it really deserved,
as a result of the influence of Luna's friends. From Rome he went
to Paris. It was in that city that he committed the fiendish double
murder which so startled and shocked his friends and acquaintances,
his victims being his wife and his mother-in-law, sister and mother
of a prominent political aspirant of modern Manila. The result of
the trial was that the courts of Justice of Paris absolved him. He
then returned to Madrid, and soon after, to Manila.
What Spain did for the Filipino brought forth fruit in only a few of
the people who fell under her beneficent christian influence. The Lunas
were among the few. They, like so many other ungrateful children,
repaid their benefactors by becoming leaders of the insensate and
inexcusable revolt against them: a revolt, the first act of which was
to be the brutal murder of all Spaniards irrespective of parentage or
other claims of consideration. Both the brothers suffered arrest by
the Spanish authorities for rebellion and sedition, but in spite of
the degree to which they were complicated, they remained practically
free from punishment, and ever at the right hand of the imbecile
General Blanco, himself a freemason, and friend of the enemies of
his country. Eventually the two brothers left the ante-chamber of
the Governor to enter the security of the military prison.
Both brothers eventually retracted their errors only to fall into
them again as soon as the lying protests of repentance had fallen
from their lips.
Juan died in Hong-Kong; Antonio, after a career of militarism succumbed
to the same unprincipled ambition which carried Andrés Bonifacio to
an untimely grave.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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