DOCUMENTS OF THE Katipunan
HOME Emilio Jacinto “¡¡¡ Gomez, Burgos, Zamora !!!”, April 30, 1896 Source: Archivo General Militar de Madrid: Caja 5677, leg.9.1.
Introduction The day that Gomez, Burgos and Zamora were executed, writes Jacinto, was a day of degradation and wretchedness. Twenty-four years had since passed, but the excruciating wound inflicted that day on Tagalog hearts had never healed; the bleeding had never been staunched. Though the lives of the three priests had been extinguished that day, their legacy would endure forever. Their compatriots would honour their memory, and would seek to emulate their pursuit of truth and justice. As yet, Jacinto acknowledges, some were not fully ready to embrace those ideals, either because they failed to appreciate the need for solidarity and unity or because their minds were still clouded by the smoke of a mendacious Church. But those who could tolerate oppression no longer were now looking forward to a different way of life, to a splendid new dawn. Gomez, Burgos and Zamora, affirms Jacinto, knew how to die for their compatriots and the land of their birth. Would their compatriots, he asks, be prepared to sacrifice their lives in turn? That was a difficult question to answer, he concludes, but one thing was certain: the terror that began with the scaffold at Bagumbayan in 1872 had not yet finished. Jacinto prefaces his piece with a stanza from the famous poem Florante at Laura by Francisco Baltazar (Balagtas), a metrical romance that tells in “mellifluous and highly allegorical verse” the story of a knight and a princess in the medieval kingdom of Albania. First published in 1838, its readers and hearers attached to it their own meanings, some in later decades seeing in Florante’s travails “a reflection of their own misery and outrage under the oppressive rule of foreign tyrants.”[1]  Here, the stanza chosen by Jacinto to introduce his tribute to the martyred priests is highly apt: “What lips yet venture to uphold/ The cause of Truth, of Wisdom bold/ Straightaway are struck, and stricken cold/ By swords that reap death in their fold.” [2] Beneath the text, Jacinto has written “Year 1 – Issue 2”, which almost certainly means he intended to publish the piece in the second issue of Kalayaan, the Katipunan paper. Pio Valenzuela recalls in his memoirs that Jacinto wrote and edited this issue single-handedly, and planned to produce 2,000 copies – double the print run of the first issue, which had come off the presses in March 1896. The production process was bedevilled, however, by a continuing shortage of type and by acute fears that the press would be discovered. Toward the end of June 1896 the press was moved out of Valenzuela’s house at 35 Lavezares, San Nicolas, to another house on the same street where his townmates Faustino Duque and Ulpiano Fernandez watched over it, and when the Katipunan was exposed in mid-August it was moved again, to the house of Alejandro Santiago a block north, at 6 Clavel. Soon afterwards, Duque subsequently related, he and Fernandez received a tip-off that the Spanish dragnet was closing in, and “without losing a single minute, (we) destroyed the press, the tools, the types and the moulds. We also burned the papers.”[3] Still lacking its eighth and final page, the second issue of Kalayaan went up in flames, and the pieces Jacinto had written never appeared.
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¡¡¡ Gomez, Burgos, Zamora !!! At ang balang bibig na binubukalan ng sabing magaling at katutuhanan agad binibiyak at sinisikangan ng kalis ng lalung dustang kamatayan F. Balagtas ¡Gomez, Burgos, Zamora ! ¡Mga kababayang inihayin ng kasukaban sa tamparasang sungit ng mga mangyayaring lumulupig sa ating Bayan! ¡Tatlong maningning na ilaw na pinatay ng makamandag na hihip ng sama! ¡Ang kanilang buhay, ang mahalaga nilang buhay ay nilagot sa kalupit-lupit na bibitayan nang ikalabing anim ng Febrero [4] ng taung isang libo, walong dan, pitong puo’t dalawa! ¡Kailan ma’y di napapanood ng langit ang gayong kalaking kataksilang linsil! ¡Gawang di lilimutin magpahangang kailan man ng bayang tagalog! ¡Araw na napakarawal at kalagim-lagim! Buhat sa araw na yaun, ang kanilang mga pusung bukal ng sagana’t wagas na pagibig sa kanilang mga kalulu’t kapatid, ay hindi na tumitibok; ang kanilang kaloobang karurukang mataas ng mga banal na nasa ay hindi na nagpipita; ang kanilang mga bibig ay hindi na nangungusap, hindi na tumututol sa pagsasangalang ng Katuiran at ng kagalingang lahat... Ang kapusungan at ang lilong galit ng mga palamara ay nagdami’t hukom, at sila’y kinitlan ng hininga nang walang makawangis na katampalasanan. Nguni’t, ¡ sa aba nagtatayu ng kapangyarihang hawak sa lusak ng kasamaan! ¡ sa aba ng pangahas na naghahapay ng Katuiran sa ngalan ng Katuiran, ng uslak na nagwawalat ng mga dibdib na mahal sa ngalan ng kamahalan! ¡sa aba nila! Sapagka’t sa kabagsikang malabis ng ginamit na poot, ang bakal na pumatay sa tatlong ginawang sadlakan ng hamak nilang higanti, ay tumagus at nagbukas pa mandin ng isang maluang at malalim na sugat sa pusung kanilang mga kababayan. Dalawang puo’t apat na taun na ang nakararaus, buhat nang mangyari itong di matingkalang kaliluhan, at ang mahapding sugat ay di pa naglalangip, at hanga ngayo’y dumudugo...dumudugo ng walang patid... ¡Gomez, Burgos, Zamora! Kapurihang walang katapusan ang handog ng inyong mga kababayan sa malinis ninyong mga pangalang iniirog! ¡Mapalad na buhay, yaung nagiiwan karakarakang maamis [?] ng isang butihing binhi sa kalooban ng kaniyang bayan, upang magdamdam ang mga alipin at matutuhan nilang ibangun ang dangal ng kanilang katauhan na tuntungan ng kapalaluan ng sukabang panginoon! Ang inyong alaala ay kalakip ng lahat ng makapagbibigay buhay sa Bayang tinubuan. Sapagka’t, kung sa gunita’y nahaharap ang inyong dustang pagkamatay, ang lalung tamad at pikit na nagiisip ay nagbubulay-bulay, at sa naliliming na mga karamaang naghahari’t nakapangyayari, nililimot ng tapat na pusu ang sariling katiwasayan at naaakay lumingon at lumingap sa kalagayang kaaba-aba’t kahambal-hambal na kinasapitan ng lahing tagalog. Kung tinatanghal sa gunamgunam ng mata ng panasudim ang inyong kahabag-habag na anyo, ang mga liig ninyong supil ng panakal na bakal, ang ulong naghingayngay ng malamig ninyong bangkay, sa nagsisikip na dibdib ng inyong mga kapatid ay sumisilakbo ang ningas ng poot, naaalaala nila ang lubhang pagkaayop at pagkailing na lubha ng kanilang kapurihan; naaalaala nila na ang kanilang pinagkalooban ng kanilang kalayaan at mga banal na matuid, ang hinahandugang lagi ng pagud, yaman, buhay at sampung karangalan, ay siyang ganid na halimaw na sumisilo tuina mahalagang buhay ng mga lalaking [one word illegible] na sa kanila’y nagtatangol; naaalaala’t nakikilala nila na ang mga kapusungang [?], ito’y nangyayari dahil sa sila’y kulang ng pagdaramdam at pagkakaisa, puno’t umba [?] ng kanilang kahinaan; naaalaala’t nakikilala nila na wala nang iba pang dapat pagkatiwalaang makapagbabangun ng kanilang Katuiran, kung di ang sariling dahas ng kanilang mga kamay at ang matapang na tibay ng kanilang loob. At sa di na makayang batahing mga kaapihan, ang sa isip na mata’y itinititig sa ibang kabuhayan sa pagasang sakdal, na darating at darating ang bagong maligaya’t marilag na kaarawan. Ang mga buhay ni Gomez, ni Burgos at ni Zamora ay nautas, datapua’t ang mga katutuhanang pinangugulan ng mga buhay na iyan ay hindi namamatay, hindi nawawala. At kung di lumalaganap ng lubos na lubos, at di pa kumakalat sa lahat ng kaisipan, ay dahil sa nangababalut sa gipong kalawang ng masasamang gawi at hamak na pagsasarili; dahil sa nauulapan pa ng masangsang na aso ng mga pauuob [?] ng marayang simbahan. Datapua’t ang nangyaring kakila-kilabot na sinisimulaan sa bibitayan ng Bagumbayan ay hindi pa natatapus.... Si Gomez, si Burgos at si Zamora ay natutong mamatay dahil sa kanilang mga kababayan at dahil sa lupang tinubuan. Ang kanilang mga kababayan kaya nama’y ¿hindi matututong mamatay dahil sa lupang tinubuan at dahil sa kanila? Tanung itong may kahirapan sagutin; datapua’t ang nangyaring kakila-kilabot ay hindi pa natatapus... Dimas Ilaw Maynila 30 abril de 1896 Taung 1 – Bilang 2

Notes

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[1] Bienvenido Lumbera, “The Nationalist Literary Tradition” in Elmer A. Ordonez, ed. Nationalist Literature: a centennial forum (Manila: University of the Philippines Press and PANULAT/ Philippine Writers Academy, 1996), pp.2-3.

[2] Francisco Baltazar (Balagtas), “Pinagdaanang buhay ni Florante at Laura sa cahariang Albania” [1838] in Jovita Ventura Castro, et al (eds.), Anthology of Asean Literatures: Philippine metrical romances (Quezon City: ASEAN Committee on Culture and Information, 1985), p.341. Translation by Tarrosa Subido.

[3] “The Memoirs of Pio Valenzuela” [c.1914] translated from the Tagalog by Luis Serrano, reproduced as Appendix A in The Minutes of the Katipunan (Manila: National Heroes Commission, 1964), pp.107-9; Gregorio F Zaide, History of the Katipunan (Manila: Loyal Press, 1939), pp.49-51.

[4] Historians now agree that the executions took place on February 17. Jacinto may well have taken the date of February 16 from the editorial “16 de Febrero de 1872”, written to mark the twentieth anniversary of the executions in La Solidaridad, the paper edited by Marcelo H. del Pilar in Madrid, in its issue dated February 15, 1892. La Solidaridad in turn inherited the date of the 16th from a report by Edmund Plauchut that it reprinted in the same issue immediately following the editorial. Plauchut’s report, first published in the Paris-based Revue de deux mondes in 1877, suggests in one passage that Burgos, Gomez and Zamora were executed on the 16th, but indicates in another passage that it was the 17th. La Solidaridad, parallel text edition with English translation by Guadalupe Fores-Ganzon, vol. IV (Manila: Fundacion Santiago, 1996), pp.62-75.