Note 23. The G. Cons. Reg. was installed in 1893. A masonic document
bearing a seal "Gr. Consejo Regional de Filipinas. G. Secretaria",
and purporting to be a copy of two paragraphs from a letter of the
illustrious bro. Kupang (Marcelo H. del Pilar) dated from Madrid on
the 17th December 1894, says: "D. Miguel (Morayta) has a very poor
opinion of the Reg. (Regional Council).... He says that this Council
continues working well for some few months, at the end of which all
the enthusiasm of the founders vanishes and.... Oh, if we could only
by our acts give the lie to this pessimism. Morayta was the founder
of the Council.
Note 24. La Solidaridad was the official organ of Filipino freemasonry
in all its branches. Although it was published in the peninsula
its circulation was intended for the Philippines. Its editors were
the leaders of the disaffection against the metropolis and stout
advocates, indirectly, of an impossible independence. The chief
aim of the paper was to mortify everything Spanish, and to this
end its columns were continually full of seditious articles aimed,
not merely at individuals but at the State. Its diatribes against
the Government of the Metropolis were of the bitterest nature, and
therefore but little publicity was given to the sheet in Madrid,
where it was printed. It enjoyed no exchange with the periodicals of
importance of the city, had no street sales, nor was it exposed for
sale publicly. The libraries did not carry it on their tables and it
never reached the hands of the public authorities. In fact the people
of the official element know nothing of its existence.
In the office of this bi-monthly paper was established a freemason
lodge bearing the same name as the paper; all the members of the
Association Hispano-Filipina became members of the lodge. Being the
organ of masonry as well as of separatism it was introduced into
the Archipelago and secured a free circulation in all parts of the
principal islands where its calumnies against the Religious Orders
had the effect of producing a decided effect upon the maintenance of
public order.
The statement that the bi-monthly was founded by Pilar is erroneous;
it was first published by Lopez Jaena in Barcelona where it enjoyed
its enforced life till it reached its number 18, of October 1889,
when it suddenly ceased publication on account of the seizure by the
authorities of a number of incriminating documents and pamphlets. It
recommenced publication in Madrid on the 15th of November of the
same year. It was later on acquired by Pilar and Morayta. It was in
reality a vent for the spleen of its writers against Spain and things
Spanish; it was a precursor of the Independencia [34] the official
organ of the Revolution against the U. S., and of the La Democracia
its daughter, the official organ of the Federal Party, the dregs of
the old revolutionary government of Malolos. [35]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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