RESEARCH WORK

TH
19 CENTURY PHILIPPINES AS RIZAL’S CONTEXT

SITE OF THE FIRST MASS

 Today, many historians and the
government believed that the first mass
happened/ conducted in the Limasawa off
the tip of Southern Leyte.
 Mazaua (present-day Limasawa, Southern
Leyte).
 Antonio Pigafetta, chronicler of the
Magellan expedition, identified the place as
―Mazaua.‖
 Early accounts—mainly by friars relying on
available writings and on tradition—
Where did the first mass happen? reported the First Mass as being held in
Butuan, Agusan del Norte, specifically on
an island called Masao.
 The NHCP has adopted the
recommendation of a panel of experts
reaffirming earlier findings that the 1521
Easter Sunday Mass was celebrated in
Limasawa and not in Butuan, as claimed
by some historians.
 The first documented Catholic Mass in the
Philippines was held on March 31, 1521,
Easter Sunday.

 Antonio Pigafetta was a famous Italian

traveler who studied navigation and known
by the name of Antonio Lambardo or
Francisco Antonio Pigafetta.
Who is Antonio Pigafetta?
 He was one of the eighteen survivors who
returned to Spain aboard the "Victoria" and
therefore considered as an eyewitness of
the significant events happened on the first
 mass of which Magellan names it the
Islands of Saint Lazarus that is later called
the Philippine Archipelago.
 The First Voyage around the World (1519-
1522) by Antonio Pigafetta. A narrative and
cartographic record of the journey
(including 23 hand-drawn water colour
charts) from Patagonia to Indonesia, from
the Philippines to the Cape of Good Hope,
Pigafetta's The First Voyage around the
World is a classic of discovery and
exploration literature.
 The most important and only complete
narrative of the first voyage around the
world was written by the young Antonio
Pigafetta.
 He described historical events like the first
Easter Day Mass celebrated in the
Philippines and the battle of Mactan, where
Magellan was killed by Lapulapu’s men.
 Pigafetta’s eyewitness account is the
What is the significance of Pigafetta’s
―most detailed and only surviving account‖
Chronicle?
of this critical event in Philippine history,
says Escalante.
 Antonio Pigafetta’s primary reason in
writing the document is to discover and
learn more about the world. He was an
Italian scholar and Pilgrim from the
Republic of Venice. In Ferdinand
Magellan’s attempt to sail the world, he
joined the voyage and served as an
 assistant to Magellan because he desired
to record details and account information
about their journey or expedition. The
have faced multiple challenges that led
to Magellan’s death, but Pigafetta survived
along with his journal. However,
Magellan’s desire to prove that the world
was round was corrected and validated.
The journal contains details and
information about the discovery of places
and people including the Philippines. He
encountered new people that has become
the ground in knowing how they lived in the
past. In addition, his journal gave details
on how the world look.

CAVITE MUTINY
 1872 Cavite mutiny.
 The Cavite mutiny (Spanish: El Motín de
Cavite; Filipino: Pag-aaklas sa Kabite) was
an uprising of Filipino military personnel of
Fort San Felipe, the Spanish arsenal in
Cavite,[1]: 107 Philippine Islands (then also
When and where did the Cavite Mutiny known as part of the Spanish East Indies)
transpire? on January 20, 1872.
 Cavite Mutiny, (January 20, 1872), brief
uprising of 200 Filipino troops and workers
at the Cavite arsenal, which became the
excuse for Spanish repression of the
embryonic Philippine nationalist
movement.
  1872 Cavite Mutiny was one of the most
important events in the history. This
brought us these objectives: to understand
why 1872 Cavite Mutiny happened; to
know who technically instigated the said
event; and to corroborate that the three
secular priests were not implicated, and
conspired the mutiny.
 The mutiny was sparked on January 20,
1872, when the laborers received their pay
and realized the taxes as well as the falla,
the fine one paid to be exempt from forced
labor, had been deducted from their
salaries.
 He traced that the primary cause of the
mutiny is believed to "be an order from
Governor-General Carlos de la Torre
(Izquierdo's predecessor) to subject the
soldiers of the Engineering and Artillery
What are the causes of the mutiny? Corps to personal taxes, from which they
were previously exempt.
 The taxes required them to pay a
monetary sum as well as to perform forced
labor called, polo y servicio.
 Different accounts in the Cavite mutiny
also highlighted other probable causes of
the "revolution" which included a Spanish
revolution which overthrew the secular
throne, dirty propagandas proliferated by
unrestrained press, democratic, liberal and
republican books and pamphlets reaching
 the Philippines, and most importantly, the
presence of the native clergy who out of
animosity against the Spanish friars,
"conspired and supported" the rebels and
enemies of Spain.
 In addition, accounts of the mutiny suggest
that the Glorious Revolution in Spain
during that time added more determination
to the natives to overthrow the current
colonial Spanish government.
 The mutiny was unsuccessful, and
government soldiers executed many of the
participants and began to crack down on a
burgeoning Philippines nationalist
movement.
 Many scholars believed that the Cavite
mutiny was the beginning of Filipino
nationalism that would eventually lead to
the Philippine Revolution of 1896.
 A number of Filipino intellectuals were
What are the effects of the mutiny? seized and accused of complicity with the
mutineers.
 After a brief trial, three priests—José
Burgos, Jacinto Zamora, and Mariano
Gómez—were publicly executed. The
three subsequently became martyrs to the
cause of Philippine independence.
 Jose Rizal dedicated his work, El
filibusterismo, to the executed priests.
 In the aftermath of the mutiny, all Filipino
soldiers were disarmed and later sent into
 exile in Mindanao. Those suspected of
supporting the mutineers were arrested
and executed.
 It was against this charged environment
that GOMBURZA were accused and found
guilty of allegedly orchestrating the Cavite
Mutiny of 1872, and charged with treason
and sedition by Spanish authorities. They
were sentenced to public execution by
garrote in the same year.
 Gomburza, alternatively stylized as
GOMBURZA or GomBurZa,[1][2] refers to
three Filipino Catholic priests, Mariano
Gomez, José Burgos, and Jacinto Zamora,
who were executed by garrote on February
17, 1872, in Bagumbayan, Philippines by
Spanish colonial authorities on charges of
Why was the GomBurZa executed?
subversion arising from the 1872 Cavite
mutiny. The name is a portmanteau of the
priests' surnames.
 Gomburza incurred the hatred of Spanish
authorities for fighting for equal rights
among priests and leading the campaign
against the Spanish friars. They fought on
the issues of secularization in the
Philippines that led to the conflict of
religious and church seculars.
 The three priests incurred the hatred of
the Spanish authorities for leading the
campaign against the abusive Spanish
friars and fighting for equal rights among
 priests. They fought on unresolved issues
about secularization in the Philippines that
resulted in a conflict among the religious
regulars and the church seculars.
 On February 17, 1872, the three martyred
Priests, Fathers Mariano Gomez, Jose
Apolonio Burgos, and Jacinto Zamora,
better known for the acronym
GOMBURZA, were executed by garrote by
the Spaniards in Bagumbayan in
connection with the 1872 Cavite Mutiny.
RIZAL’S RETRACTION
(Discuss the claim of the following individuals regarding Rizal's Retraction)
 Fr. Vicente Balaguer's statement: Balaguer
was one of the Jesuit priests who visited
Rizal during his last hours in Fort Santiago
and claimed that he managed to persuade
Rizal to denounce Masonry and return to
the Catholic fold.
 He says that he received two original texts
of the retraction. The first, which came
from Fr. Pi, contained "the changes which
Fr. Vicente Balaguer
you (Fr. Pi) made"; the other, which is "that
of the Archbishop" was "the exact copy of
the retraction written and signed by Rizal"
(underscoring supplied). Fr. Balaguer said
that the "exact copy" was "written and
signed by Rizal" but he did not say "written
and signed by Rizal and himself" (the
absence of the reflexive pronoun "himself"
could mean that another person-the
 copyist-did not). He only "suspected" that
"Rizal himself" much as Fr. Balaguer did
"not know nor ...remember" whose
handwriting it was. Moreover, According to
Balaguer, Rizal woke up several times,
confessed four times, attended a mass,
received communion, and prayed the
rosary, all of which seem out of character.
 Rizal wanted to emphasize that Philippine
Masonry was not hostile to Catholicism
and that Masonry in London did not require
its members to renounce their faith.
 The Jesuits allowed Rizal to revise the
retraction template, and his final version
read, ―I abominate Masonry as the enemy
of the Church and reprobated by the same
Church‖ (Cavanna 1956, 9)
 Fr. Pio Pi is a superior Spanish Jesuit (a
religious order of the Catholic Church) who
copied and reported Rizal's retraction.
 He sent out Jesuits to Rizal’s chambers to
convince him to retract his anti-Catholic
beliefs and his affiliation with the Masons.
 He said that he had received ―an exact
Fr. Pio Pi
copy of the retraction written and signed by
Rizal. The handwriting of this copy I don't
know nor do I remember whose it is..." He
proceeded: "I even suspect that it might
have been written be of Rizal himself..."
 Father Pio Pi in his declaration said: On
his return to our house from Fort Santiago,
 and while Rizal was being led to the place
of execution, Father Balaguer handed over
to me said document, and after making a
copy there of for our archives, that same
morning I brought it myself to the
Archbishop whom I visited in his Palace.
 Rafael Palma, former president of the
University of the Philippines and a
prominent Mason, disputed the veracity of
the document because it did not reflect
Rizal's true character and beliefs. He
regarded the resurrected retraction story
as a ―pious fraud‖ (Nidoy 2013).
 He believed/claimed that the retraction
Rafael Palma document is a forgery.
 Rafael Palma’s opus on Rizal, titled
―Biografia de Rizal‖ is so anti-Catholic that
the Church successfully opposed its
publication using government funds.
 Others who deny the retraction are Frank
Laubach,a Protestant minister; Austin
Coates, a British writer; and Ricardo
Manapat, director of the National Archives.
 Austin Coates’s interest in Jose Rizal
began when he was Assistant Colonial
Secretary and Magistrate in Hong Kong in
1950. His first study on Rizal was on the
Austin Coates
latter’s year-long stay in Hong Kong (1891-
1892).
 At the time many of the personalities who
knew Rizal were still alive. This early
 awareness on Rizal eventually led to the
writing and publication of his book – Rizal:
Philippine Nationalist and Martyr. (Oxford
University Press, 1956) – first Rizal
biography written by a Europrean since
Vida y Escritos del Dr. Jose Rizal by
Wenceslao Retana in 1907. The second
edition of the book was published in the
Philippines by Solidaridad Publishing
House in 1992.
 Those who had read Rizal’s book or who
knew him closely, which at that time meant
the family and his wide circle of personal
friends, most of whom were abroad, took
one look at the announcement and dubbed
it ….an ecclesiastical fraud.
 While unquestionably a fraud, however, to
suggest that the Archbishop’s
announcement was issued knowingly, or
that there was a plot among the higher
ecclesiastical authorities to perpetrate a
fraud is going too far.
 It was the friars who wanted his retraction.
But while in the event Rizal’s intuition did
not play him false, there is no evidence to
implicate Nozaleda. Along came a small
man with what the Archbishop wanted.
FIRST CRY OF THE REVOLUTION
(Discuss the claim of the following individuals regarding the First Cry of the Revolution)
 Based on the accounts of Pio Valenzuela,
Dr. Pio Valenzuela
a friend of Bonifacio and a member of the
 Katipunan, the first place of refuge of the
Katipunan was in Balintawak specifically at
the house and yard of Apolonio Samson at
Kangkong on August 22, 1896.
 Valenzuela was tasked to discuss the
matter with Rizal and he left for Dapitan on
June 15, 1896. However, Rizal told him
that the revolution should not be started
until sufficient arms had been secured and
the support of the wealthy Filipinos had
been won over.
 Pío Valenzuela, a close associate of
Andrés Bonifacio, declared in 1948 that it
happened in Pugad Lawin on August 23,
1896. Historian Gregorio Zaide stated in
his books in 1954 that the "Cry" happened
in Balintawak on August 26, 1896.
 It was in the store-house and yard of Juan
Ramos at Pugad Lawin on August 23,
1896 where they debated whether the
revolution against the Spanish government
was to be started or not on August 29,
1896. Only Teodoro Plata protested and
fought against a war. After the intense
debate, the people tore their cedula
certificates and shouted ―Long live the
Philippines! Long live the Philippines!‖

 The account of Santiago Alvarez, one of

Santiago Alvarez
the leaders of the Cavite revolution with a
pen name Kidlat ng apoy, stated that they
 went through a tiring journey to the house
of Apolonio Samson at Kangkong.
 On August 22, 1896, the Supremo
assigned guards and placed detachment at
the Balintawak boundary where they are
gathered.
 They arrived at the residence of
Cabesang Melchora on August 23, 1896.
 The approved matters were: an uprising to
defend the peoples freedom was to be
midnight of Saturday August 29, 1896; to
be on a state of alert so that the Katipunan
forces could strike where the enemy was
at its disadvantage, thus the uprising could
be on an earlier than the agreed time of
midnight of August 29, 1896; and the
capture of Manila. After the meeting was
adjourned, there were loud shouts ―Long
live the Sons of the People!‖
 According to the account of Guilllermo
Magsangkay, a friend and fellow
Katipunero of Bonifacio, the uprising
happened on August 26, 1896.
 The same date, a big meeting was held at
the Balintawak in the house of Apolonio
Guillermo Masangkay
Samson with the presence of Andres
Bonifacio as the presider, Emilio Jacinto as
the secretary, Aguedo del Rosario, Tomas
Remigio, Briccio Pantas, Teodoro Plata,
Pio Valenzuela, and others. The goal of
the meeting was to decide when the
 uprising was to take place.
 Bonifacio went outside the hall and told to
the people about the argument of the
leaders inside and delivered a speech in
which he talked about whether they wait
for the Spaniards to shoot them or start the
uprising early since there sedition to the
Spain was discovered.
 The people sided with him and shouted
―Revolt.‖ Bonifacio then asked the people
to pledge to revolt through destroying their
cedulas.
 The board of the directors voted for
revolution despite the protests of Plata,
Pantas, and Valenzuela. This was decided
and the people shouted ―Long Live the
Philippine Republic.‖

References (APA Format)

SITE OF THE FIRST MASS
 Where did the first mass happen?
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 Who is Antonio Pigafetta?
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 Dr. Pio Valenzuela
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