The Philippines: Past and Present (Volume 2 of 2)Worcester, Dean C. (Dean Conant)
History
The Philippines: Past and Present (Volume 2 of 2)
Worcester, Dean C. (Dean Conant)
Philippines; Philippines -- History -- 1898-1946
"The facts of the case seem to me to be the following: In
January, 1899, Doctor Burgos was employed in Bilibid prison by the
Americans, and as an officer of Sandatahan was deep in the plotting
for a general massacre of the foreigners in Manila. Sometime that
month he wrote to Aguinaldo that the uprising in Manila should
begin in Bilibid prison, and that the Sandatahan should be posted
on San Pedro street and the adjacent thoroughfares in preparation
for an attack upon the Zorilla theatre, where the Pennsylvania
regiment was quartered across the way from the prison (Exhibit
349). His suggestion was adopted as part of the plan for the
uprising. Burgos, like the majority of the Filipinos in Manila,
believed that Aguinaldo would win, and was doing what he could
to aid his cause, but without giving up his position under the
American government. The plan embodied in Luna's order was to be
carried out as part of the attack upon Manila; but that attack
was delivered prematurely, and it was found impossible to carry
out the uprising in Manila which was to have preceded the attack
upon the American lines. After February 5, 1899, the majority
of the Filipinos in Manila ceased to believe that Aguinaldo was
going to beat the Americans, and Burgos, who was known to have
taken part in the movement in Manila headed by Sandico, found it
expedient to ward off any investigation of his conduct by giving
information. He wanted to stay out of prison, and he wanted to
remain surgeon of Bilibid prison. He was well aware that Sandico
was known by the Americans to have organized bodies of sandatahan
in Manila, and he therefore delivered to the provost marshal
general a partial copy of Luna's order which, if it was not then
in his possession, he had seen; and he saw no reason for telling
more than seemed expedient for the attainment of his immediate
purpose, he said that it had been issued by Sandico, who he well
knew the Americans would believe was the man most likely to have
issued it. He naturally desired to avoid having to make too many
explanations. In 1901, Luna being dead, and Burgos being safe
from his vengeance, he found no great difficulty in delivering
up the original document, which was probably, as he said, in the
papers of Colonel Leyba, or Leiva, a native of Manila whose family
lived there and whose house had probably been a centre of insurgent
intrigue. In 1899 or 1900 Colonel Leyba, a trusted and confidential
aid of Aguinaldo, had been murdered by 'The Guards of Honour'
in Pangasinán Province, and Burgos seems to have had access to
his papers. This, at least to me, seems a plausible explanation
of the incomplete form in which this first order appeared, and
why it appeared at all. It is true that I have found no record of
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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