“pasya” – the decision to revolt; -which is more or less in line with Agoncillo’s,

thus embraces both the pasya and pagpupunit

“pagpupunit” – the tearing of cedulas; and

“unang labanan” – the first encounter with

Spanish forces. *A number of sources, however, indicate that
cedulas were torn on more than one occasion,
• did not all happen at the same
in different places,
time and place
*It is even possible (as Medina believes) that
• Teodoro A. Agoncillo equates the term with
the main pagpupunit preceded the pasya
the pagpupunit, which he says happened
immediately after the pasya.

• Isagani R. Medina also takes the “Cry” to
mean the pagpupunit, but says it happened
before the decision to revolt had been taken.
• Soledad Borromeo-Buehler takes the view –
the traditional view that KKK veterans took, she
says - that the “Cry” should mean the unang
labanan.
Borromeo-Buehler - unang labanan
decision to revolt: when was it taken?
-Monday, August 24, 1896, after a lengthy
meeting (or series of meetings) that had begun
on Sunday, August 23
-Many veterans later recalled August 23 as the
historic day
-others specifically remembered the decision
had not been taken until the early hours of
August 24

 commemorated by the first monument given by at least four important

to the events of August 1896. sources:

*The documentary evidence on the unang 1.Biak-na-Bato constitution of November 1897

labanan is reasonably clear.
*August 26 - The first battle, an encounter with
a detachment of the Guardia Civil
- five kilometers north-east of
Balintawak, between the settlements of
Banlat and Pasong Tamo
*Borromeo-Buehler and Encarnacion have
shown, the most solid, contemporary sources
confirm August 26 to be correct.
1960- official definition of the “Cry” changed
that mentions “the current war, initiated on
August 24, 1896”
- The constitution’s signatories
included at least one participant in
the “Cry” (Cipriano Pacheco)
2.Carlos Ronquillo - first chronicle of the revolt
against Spain by a Filipino
-his work begins with “Sa isang arao ng
pagpupulong sa Balintawak (24 Agosto 1896)
kaarawan nang pasimulan ang Revolucion”

-mean the unang labanan and was defined

instead as “that part of the Revolution when the 3.Liga Filipina memorial
Katipunan decided to launch a revolution
against Spain. This event culminated with the
tearing of the cedula”.
4. Santiago Alvarez, in his memoirs Ang
Katipunan at Paghihimagsik, written in 1927
-Internal evidence suggests that
Alvarez’s account of the meeting on August 24
is based on information he obtained from
Ramon Bernardo
*August 24 has now been confirmed as the date
of the formal decision by the discovery of a
contemporary document - a page from what
Medina calls the “borador ng pulong ng
Kataastaasang Sangunian,”
or rough copybook of the Katipunan Supreme
Council
The document is dated “Kalookan,
Maynila ika 26 ng Agosto ng taong 1896,” and it
begins as follows:
In accordance with the decision taken
by the meeting of the Supreme Assembly held
on the twenty-fourth of the present month
regarding the revolution, and given the
necessity to elect leaders of the people and
directors of the Army
The decision to revolt (ii) who took it?
KKK’s Supreme Assembly- the one who took the
decision to revolt, says the “borador”
The decision to revolt: (iii) where was it taken?
Apolonio Samson’s place in bo. Kangkong,
Caloocan
Melchora Aquino’s place near Pasong Tamo in
bo. Banlat, Caloocan
Juan Ramos’s place in bo. Bahay Toro, Caloocan
*Kangkong
Labi ng Katipunan - Katipunan veterans’
association,
-in 1917, they erected a memorial on
the site where they remembered the decision
to revolt had been taken = at Apolonio
Samson’s house on the Kaingin Road in barrio
Kangkong.
Sa pook na ito,” the inscription stated, plainly
and simply, “...ipinasya ng KKKNMANB ang
paghihimagsik noong ika-23 ng Agosto 1896”
-The Labi ng Katipunan was headed by the
veterans Pio H. Santos (who had participated in
the “Cry”) and Claudio P. Carreon.
Three possible sites :
- Kangkong
- Pasong Tamo (in bo. Banlat)
- Bahay Toro
 8 out of the 10 individuals who
mentioned either Kangkong, Pasong
Tamo, or Bahay Toro, recalled the
decisive meeting and/or the “grito” as
having taken place in Kangkong
 By Tomas Remigio, Julio Nakpil,
Sinforoso San Pedro, Guillermo
Masangkay, Cipriano Pacheco, Briccio
Pantas, Francisco Carreon and Vicente
Samson
Only one veteran – Pio Valenzuela – ever
maintained that the decisive meeting took place
at Melchora Aquino’s place near Pasong Tamo
- in 1911 he also recalled that the
pasya had been taken in Kangkong.
Ramon Bernardo - remembered the decision as
having been taken in Bahay Toro
-but he did not say “Juan Ramos’s place
in Bahay Toro.”
-He said it had been taken at Melchora
Aquino’s place, “sa pook ng Sampalukan, Bahay
Toro.”
-It therefore seems his recollection was
simply mistaken, because Melchora Aquino’s
place was near Pasong Tamo, in bo. Banlat.
*the only possible conclusion to be drawn from
the veterans’ testimony is that “pasya” was
taken by the Supreme Assembly at the house of
Apolonio Samson in Kangkong.
*it seems likely that the main pagpupunit also
took place in Kangkong, as the veteran Cipriano
Pacheco later recalled.
-while the supreme asssembly are meeting at
samsons house, there are 2000 crowds outside
waiting to hear the news. Then Bonifacio led
announce it in a open field where they can hear
him which is a nearby place in samsons house
(kangkong)
“Pugad Lawin near Pasong Tamo”
- In 1920, small group of senior
Katipunan veterans said that “Cry of
Balintawak” was a misnomer, and
should be discarded.
- Balintawak, they insisted is a
particular barrio to the east of
Caloocan, with delineated
boundaries which was not where
“Cry” had occurred.
- “Cry” had occurred, they said, at a
place known as Pugad Lawin
*foremost proponent of this argument was Dr
Pio Valenzuela
He changed his story, more than once:
-1911, he had said the decision to revolt
had been taken at Apolonio Samson’s house in
Kangkong
-1917, he had testified in court that it
had been taken at Melchora Aquino’s house on
the road known as Daan Malalim, in Pasong
Tamo, “also known as Pacpac-lawin.”
-But in his “Memoirs,” which Agoncillo
says date from the early 1920s, he said it had
been taken at the place of Melchora Aquino’s
son, Juan Ramos
, in “Pugad Lawin”
**In contemporary records, alas, and on
contemporary maps, the name Pugad Lawin
cannot be found anywhere.
> Valenzuela recalled that Pugad Lawin was in
Pasong Tamo
-1928, Valenzuela went to Pasong Tamo
to commemorate the “Cry” together with four
other well-known KKK veterans – Gregoria de
Jesus (Bonifacio’s widow), Briccio Pantas and
the brothers Alfonso and Cipriano Pacheco
-The newspaper La Opinion carried this
photograph of the group, who according to the
caption were standing around the exact spot,
where 1,000 bolos had been stored just before
they were used in “el famoso grito”
-it therefore seems, “the Cry” was taken to
mean the unang labanan, which had indeed
taken place near Pasong Tamo
-Even though Pio Valenzuela said the pasya as
well as the unang labanan should be
commemorated at or near this site in Pasong
Tamo
 Around the same time, 1928 or1929,
Pio Valenzuela, Briccio Pantas and
Cipriano Pacheco issued a joint
statement to the effect that the “Cry”
had taken place not in Balintawak,
where the monument had been
erected, but in “the place known by the
name of Pugad Lawin”. This is the
statement, as published in the
Philippines Free Press in November
1930
NA HINDI SA BALINTAWAK NGYARI ANG
UNANG SIGAW NG PANHIHIMAGSIK SA
KINALALAGUIAN NGAYON NG BANTAYOG,
KUNG DI SA POOK NA KILALA SA TAWAG NA
PUGAD-LAWIN.
-this statement refers to the “unang
labanan,” which had indeed been fought near
Pasong Tamo
-It does not imply that Pantas and
Pacheco agreed with Valenzuela that the pasya
should be marked in that same vicinity.
>Pacheco located the pasya and
pagpupunit in Kangkong (stated before)
>Pantas had not been a direct
eyewitness, having left Kangkong for Manila
before the pasya was taken.
**As may be seen, the veterans do not
explicitly state the place they remembered as
Pugad Lawin was where, or near where,
Melchora Aquino had lived in 1896. --- But it
was
- 1940, August, any doubt that Pio
Valenzuela identified Pugad Lawin
with Pasong Tamo, and specifically
with Melchora Aquino’s place, was
dispelled
- together with two other Katipunan
veterans (Genaro de los Reyes and
Sinforoso San Pedro) he returned
there with Eulogio B. Rodriguez and
Luis Serrano of the Philippine
Historical Committee (a forerunner
of the NHCP) to verify the location
- Before posing for photographs, the
party marked the site of Melchora
Aquino’s house with a thin wooden
stake on which somebody placed
their hat.
- The photograph’s caption is not
contemporaneous, because
Caloocan did not attain the status of
a city until 1963.
- It is possible the description of the
site – “Sitio Gulod, Banlat, Caloocan
City” – reflects how the location
was known in the 1960s rather than
in 1940
**Luis Serrano wrote a detailed account of the
1940 expedition which makes it absolutely clear
not only that Valenzuela and his companions
believed the “Cry” took place at or near
Melchora Aquino’s place, a spot they
remembered as Pugad Lawin, but also that their
geographical point of reference, their starting
point for locating the exact spot, was Pasong
Tamo
- The trip to Pugad Lawin in 1940,
Serrano recalls, was organized by
Eulogio B. Rodriguez in his capacity
as chairman of the Philippine
Historical Committee “
- Serrano relates, the party
“negotiated the distance by car up
to Pasong-tamo and hiked about an
hour to Pugad-lawin.”
house in 1940, as he had in the
1910s and 1920s. Except, that is, in
the words of his “Memoirs”.
- Valenzuela relates that the decision
to revolt was taken at the “house,
storehouse and yard of Juan Ramos,
son of Melchora Aquino, in Pugad
Lawin”.
- Teodoro Agoncillo and Isagani
Medina have argued that this
means the pasya site was not at
Melchora Aquino’s place, but at a
completely different location, in
Bahay Toro, three kilometers to the
south west of Pasong Tamo

“We found that Pugad-lawin was a

- And yet Luis Serrano, who
knoll of about 30 or 40 feet higher
personally went with Valenzuela to
than the surrounding territory. As
Pasong Tamo in 1940, and who
the remaining vegetation indicated,
later translated the veteran’s
it must have been well covered with
“Memoirs,” did not draw such an
trees during the revolution. It was a
inference
good observation point from a
military point of view because it
- The crux of the matter, Serrano
commanded an excellent view of
doubtless believed, was that
the whole country to the south and
Valenzuela specified in his
west, the only directions from
“Memoirs,” as elsewhere, that the
where the Spanish forces could be
pasya site was at Pugad Lawin,
expected to come. Some of the big
meaning the wooded knoll, to
trees which formed landmarks of
which they had hiked together from
the place were still recognized by
Pasong Tamo.
Dr. Valenzuela.”
- Valenzuela did not expressly repeat
in his “Memoirs” that Pugad Lawin
- Serrano’s account does not was near Pasong Tamo, but neither
mention Bahay Toro, where the site did he specify any other location
of Pugad Lawin is now officially
marked. - Who actually owned the house and
yard near Pasong Tamo where he
Pio Valenzuela’s “Memoirs” remembered cedulas being
shredded, Melchora Aquino or her
- Serrano’s account shows that son Juan Ramos, was just an
Valenzuela still associated Pugad
Lawin with Melchora Aquino’s
 incidental point of detail, not of
basic geography.
- The advocates of the “Pugad Lawin
in Bahay Toro” position have
presented Pio Valenzuela as their
star witness, and his “Memoirs” as
their prime document. But he does
not mention Bahay Toro as the
pasya site in his “Memoirs,”
Teodoro Agoncillo – initiator of Pugad Lawin’s
relocation
- “cry” in Pugad lawin site, acquired
even greater currency with the
publication in 1956 of Agoncillo’s
Revolt of the Masses, which
remains to this day the standard
work on the Katipunan
- Agoncillo acknowledged that he had
“relied mostly” on Valenzuela’s
testimony when writing about the
“cry”
- He justified his decision by saying
that Valenzuela had been an
eyewitness to the historic event,
that his “Memoirs,” though written
many years afterwards, had been
“based on notes scribbled in 1897,”
and that “events, complete with
details” were still vivid in
Valenzuela’s memory even in his
old age
- Agoncillo decided to follow
Valenzuela’s “Memoirs” in saying
the pasya was taken at Juan
Ramos’s place in Pugad Lawin
- Agoncillo does not, however,
adhere fully to Valenzuela’s version
of events
- Valenzuela believed Ramos and his
mother both lived in “Pugad Lawin
near Pasong Tamo”
- Agoncillo, on the other hand, says
that Ramos lived in “Pugad Lawin”
(without specifying where it was)
but that his mother lived in Pasong
Tamo, and that the two places were
a significant distance apart.
- Immediately after the tearing of
cedulas in Ramos’s yard in Pugad
Lawin on August 23, Agoncillo
writes in Revolt, the Katipuneros
got word the Guardia Civil were
approaching, and so they hastily
marched off in the dark to Pasong
Tamo, arriving at Melchora
Aquino’s house the next day.
- Pugad Lawin the “rebels walked
pell-mell through the night to
Pasong Tamo.”
- The only sources he cites alongside
Valenzuela’s “Memoirs” at this
juncture in Revolt are two other
KKK veterans, Guillermo Masangkay
and Francisco Carreon
Official recognition of “Pugad Lawin, wherever
it was”
-the Philippine government ruled that the term
“Cry of Balintawak” should be discarded in favor
of “Cry of Pugad Lawin.”
- This change was signaled formally in 1963 by
President Macapagal, whose Proclamation 149
declared that the 67th anniversary of the “Cry
of Pugad Lawin”
- By “the event” of August 23,
Proclamation 149 meant the pasya,
not the unang labanan. Agoncillo’s
definition of the “Cry” had become
the official definition.
- The “Cry,” therefore, was officially
redefined, and the “Cry” site was
officially removed from Balintawak,
but it was reassigned to “Pugad
Lawin, wherever it was,” not to a
particular designated spot.
“Pugad Lawin in Bahay Toro”
- the mayor of Quezon City
constituted a “Pugad Lawin
Historical Committee” to examine
whether the “Cry” site could be
definitively identified at last.
- The Committee, that is to say,
accepted his position that Pugad
Lawin was a considerable distance
from Pasong Tamo, and that the
yard where cedulas were shredded
had belonged to Juan Ramos, not to
his mother, Melchora Aquino.
- The search for Pugad Lawin thus
boiled down to a search for where
Juan Ramos had lived.
- Pugad Lawin Historical Committee
did not discover any fresh
documentary evidence in its 1983
investigation BUT claimed to have
identified the former site of
Ramos’s place on the basis, it
seems, of oral testimony from one
of Juan Ramos’s grandsons,
Escolastico Ramos
Isagani Medina’s case for “Pugad Lawin in
Bahay Toro”
-They found the evidence submitted by the
Quezon City mayor’s Committee to be too
tenuous, the case too dubious
Isagani R. Medina-The foremost proponent of
“Pugad Lawin in Bahay Toro” in this renewed
debate
-He presented the case for Bahay Toro
more fully, and with more
documentation, than anybody else has
before or since
-first in a paper he delivered at a
conference in 1993
-then in his annotations to Ronquillo’s
memoirs
**Medina found official documents from 1896,
the vecindarios or lists of residents for the
municipality of Caloocan, which show that
Melchora Aquino and Juan Ramos, mother and
son, were listed under different cabecerías.
- Melchora Aquino lived with her
youngest daughter, Juana Ramos.
- Another of her daughters, Estefania
Ramos, was living with her family
nearby
- Her son Juan Ramos, however, was
registered in another cabecería, of
which he was himself the cabeza de
barangay, and was living with his
wife, Alejandra Alcantara, and two
young children, Filomena and
Canuta
**Medina includes photographs of the relevant
pages from the vecindarios in his annotated
edition of Ronquillo’s memoirs.
Only medina claimed pugad lawin in barrio
bahay toro