"Men most useful for scouting are those having a greater
power of observation than the ordinary man; such
men should be selected and trained to develop
their greatest use for field service."
--Constabulary Manual

THE Filipino has a flair for secrecy. . . .

The Katipunan had been the original expression of their urge for underground organization, and it had had its beginnings in Spanish times. Organized by one Del Pilar, the brother-in-law of Rizal, the spread of the society had been so rapid that by 1896 it appears that the Grand Council de Katipunan had a roster of at least 200,000 memberships. The society had been designed to precipitate armed revolt against Spain, and its members were bound by the fearful pacto de sangre--the covenant of blood.

With the numerous revolts of the Katipunan against Spanish authority, we are not concerned in this volume. It is sufficient to say that these uprisings were put down with great bloodshed and by mass deportation to the Spanish penal colonies in Africa.

What does concern us is the existence of the active core of the society which carried over to the time of the American occupation and which was largely responsible for the organized resistance of the Filipino army. The Katipunan was also responsible, in later years, for the growth of many of the numerous quasi-religious sects whose members terrorized Samar, Leyte, and Luzon. There is evidence, too, of Katipunan influence in the raids of the organized bandits who caused the Constabulary so much concern in the interval following the insurrection.

The Katipunan had been largely responsible for the Diliman gang under Faustino Guillermo, captured at Coral-na-Bato. The Mendegorin gang of Zambales and Bataan had also been under the influence of the society. This band, previously not mentioned, had been the first to be eliminated in the regular army clean-ups. Santiago Alvarez, President of the Partido Nacionalista movement, had been a confirmed Katupinero; Sakay, one of the vice-presidents, and later founder of his own movement, had been active in the mountains, issuing Katipunan commissions.

When the active insurrection had dwindled to a close, there remained throughout the archipelago, scattered but active Katipunan lodges composed of flaming zealots who were unwilling to admit that their cause was lost. The original principles of the Katipunan fell apart during this disorganized period and the bolder of the members turned to the dubiously patriotic arts of banditry.

This fragment of the Katipunan grew again in strength as it slowly spread across the face of the Islands; it revived the flaming hatred for the United States and entered into secret rebellion with an organization of the mountaineers.

The ignorant hillmen of the provinces were well disposed to listen to the inflammatory suggestions of the Katipunan agents, for ill times had befallen the Islands. The country had been laid waste by war and was in the throes of a painfully slow reconstruction. The situation might be compared to the demoralization in the South following the Civil War. Many natural calamities had been inflicted upon the land. The cattle and carabao were dying of anthrax or were being driven away by the robber bands; 100,000 men and women were dead of cholera. Famine, locusts, rice worms, and flood and drought had completed the rout of the Filipino farmer.

It was the old, old situation of the urban people exploiting a rural neighbor who could ill afford to be exploited. Manila merchants sought to corner the short rice crop, and the Philippine Commission had been forced to appropriate $1,000,000 to stabilize the rice price and import essential quantities of this commodity from Saigon. It was a period of starvation, with each man taking what he could from a weaker neighbor.

The Filipino tao of the farmlands is dependent for existence upon his carabao. These great, placid, long-horned water buffalo are the tractor of the Philippines. They are the transport of the farmer and the cultivator of the rice paddies. Their broad backs form the cornerstone of success or failure for the Filipino planter. The problem of the shortage of the carabao was in great measure the root of the serious guerrilla warfare which took command of the Islands for more than a decade.

In 1901, the supply of carabao had been reduced by disease to but one-tenth of the normal number. Their cost rose from the usual twenty pesos to more than two hundred pesos. With their shortage, the rice crop had dwindled to less than 25 per cent of the normal yield.

It is understandable, then, that the Constabulary interspersed fighting with a great activity in the recovery of stolen and strayed animals. In many respects, their services in this not glamorous duty were more valuable than their prowess with the Springfield rifle. When the carabao became scarce, they became precious.

The guerrilla warfare was almost a war waged for possession of carabao. The big work animals became objects to be acquired by the strongest, and it is small wonder that many honest farmers joined the revolutionary movements to give their work animals the protection of an armed band.

The peaceable farmer was in an unenviable position. As a nonmember of the secret groups, he was subject to constant raid and extortion; as a member, he was harried by army and Constabulary. As a nonmember, he was also subject to reprisal if he gave any aid to the forces of the United States who were seeking the extermination of the outlaw bands.

It was in Cavite and Batangas that the secret sects first began to appear in strength. There, an elaborate schedule of punishments were drawn up to impede the activity of American troopers. Noncombatant natives were served with this warning:

For taking office under the American government -- death.
For giving information to Americans -- cutting off the lips.
For guiding American troops -- cutting tendons of the feet.
For giving supplies to Americans -- crushing fingers with rocks.

Nonmembers were subjected to rigorous taxation, and a system of collection was established through a chain of dread inahans, or agents, who rivaled the Russian secret police in ferocity and ability to strike terror.

Into this disorganization and economic starvation the Katipunan sent capable and oratorical leaders who soon inflamed the ignorant mountaineers with vague promises of a millenium that would succeed American rule. Men opened their veins to mix blood in the pacto de sangre, and religious ceremonial dominated the jungle meetings.

Simple hillmen awoke to find themselves "Generals" of ragged, shouting armies of fanatics. . . .

As outgrowths of this Katipunan, other societies appeared.

In Cavite, Sakay set himself up as "President of the Filipino Republic," and selected Carreon as his "Vice-President." With him was Montalon, one of the most feared of the insurgents, and Felizardo, who was one of the most bloodthirsty villains of the period. Montalon held the portfolio of "Lieutenant-General of the Army of Liberation," and Felizardo was one of his chief murderers and torturers.

In the north, in Luzon, Felipe Salvador burst into prominence as head of the Santa Iglesia, or Holy Church Organization. He posed as a prophet, and affected the long hair of a Biblical saint. His emissaries made use of the old Spanish Weather Bureau to circulate among ignorant farmers predictions of floods and typhoons. His prestige became enormous and adherents flocked to his banner. It was Salvador who had engineered the attack on the Constabulary garrison at San Jose, detailed earlier in this account. He had then retired to the swamps of the Candaba, where he was in the year 1904.

Salvador had been a deserter from the army of General Aguinaldo, and he had set up a system of brigandage in the Province of Nueva Ecija, where he had been an adept plunderer for more than ten years. He was believed by all of his followers to have supernatural powers, including that of invulnerability. Even when he was captured, his followers believed that he would escape or that he would have a second life after death.

This fanatical society of Santa Iglesia was at least semi-religious. It had been started by one Gabino, who was captured and shot by the Spaniards in 1893. From its original designation as Gabinistas, it had been changed, in 1804, to Santa Iglesia.

They carried crosses and rosaries, and had a ritual adapted from certain features of the Catholic ceremony. Otherwise, there was no similarity. Salvador preached socialism, practiced polygamy, and promised that the land and other desirables would be distributed among his followers when the government was overthrown. He preached that then would come a great fire to destroy all unbelievers; and after the fire, a rain of gold and jewels upon the faithful. He said that a wooden club would turn into a rifle if used bravely enough--but that lack of faith would leave it still a wooden club. Salvador had headquarters on Mount Arayat, from which his followers believed his spirit occasionally took flight for interview and personal visit with the Divine Powers.

When Salvador went into one of his prolonged trances he was accustomed to demand female companionship, which was eagerly furnished by the fathers of the more desirable girls of his flock. The long-haired man was accustomed to circulate freely among his subjects, in the main treating them well and offering up public prayers in the market places.

We know little of the Santa Iglesia; today we recall them as a brotherhood that dealt in death. The records of their complicated religious rituals are vague, and they are best remembered by the soldiers in the Philippine jungle who heard their chant of "San Pedro" and saw them leap to attack with the swishing of long crescent blades. The history of the Philippines is filled with records of their bravery; we have many pictures of individual fanatics dying for the belief that their wooden club would turn into a rifle.

They were the Crusaders of the Philippines; they were valiant, wholly futile, religious murderers.

San Felipe Salvador had secured 100 Mauser rifles in an attack upon the Spaniards at Dagupan in 1898. With a force thus well-armed, he had been appointed a Colonel under Aguinaldo in 1899, and when official hostilities came to a close he had refused to surrender. His subsequent activities show that this decision was not prompted by patriotism but by a desire for great personal power.

In 1902 he had been arrested by the Constabulary, before he had become a "Pope" and a religious leader, but he had escaped and set himself up on Mount Arayat to enter a new phase of his activities.

In Leyte, the Constabulary had to contend with "Papa" Faustino Ablena, who had a stronghold in the mountains near Ormoc. Faustino was a man in the fifties; he was fifty-three years old when killed. He, too, had a reputation dating from Spanish times, for he had been arrested in 1887 for organizing the Dios-Dios organization and was sentenced to a prison term in San Ramon at Zamboanga.

With the coming of the new regime to the Islands, Faustino saw the opportunity for "Popehood," and began to work upon the credulous people of the foothills to invest himself with an aura of the supernatural. He signed himself "Senor Jesus y Maria," and began the distribution of charms, love potions, and religious trumperies with a tone of paganism. Lieutenant O'Conner's attack upon his citadel will be discussed later in this volume.

On the island of Negros, a bad cholera epidemic was seized as an excuse for activity on the part of the Babaylanes or Montestas. Under the guidance of "Papa" Isio, with one Dalmacio as an aide, this sect threatened the lowlands and inflamed the population with a proclamation which stated that the cholera was caused by the Americans having poisoned the wells.

Many months were required to settle the cases of Delmacio and "Papa" Isio. Isio had been a tao laborer and a herder of cattle. In 1880 he had fled his position as cattle tender for a wealthy Spanish family, after the killing of a citizen under circumstances which pointed clearly to murder. In the mountains he had gathered a band of men, and having a persuasive personality, he soon was able to begin his forays to the lowlands. In 1896 he had made a disastrous attack upon Magallon and had been repulsed by the Spanish Guardia Civil with a loss of fifty killed. Then he had attacked Cabancalan with better success.

In 1898 Spain turned over the government of the Islands to the Filipinos in an effort to impede American progress. Isio was called in from the mountains by Spanish officials, and wined and dined and given a pretentious uniform.

From that series of interviews Isio emerged a "Pope." He was a source of great annoyance to the American government and was the object of army and Constabulary patrols for years. He was erroneously reported killed in 1905. Of his final end we shall speak later.

On Samar Island, "Pope" Pablo had consolidated factions of the Dios-Dios, which was to develop into pulajanism, discussed in the next chapter. The Dios-Dios had been under Anugar, who now relinquished the leadership to the "Pope." Pablo was the religious head; Pedro de la Cruz rose to become Jefe Superior de Operations; Isidro Pompac, better known as Otoy, became Segundo Jefe de Operations.

Pablo's unofficial army was completed by the sub-chiefs Aguilar. Anugar, Jose Jerna, Vicente Picardal, and the murderous Amongo, who is better known as Teducduc.

Nor was the business of "Holiness" confined to the male sex. On one occasion four "Virgin Marys" were in jail in the Philippines. The activities of the two women "Saints," Margarita Pullio and Catalina Purical, should be briefly mentioned. These ladies were busily engaged for several years in the manufacture and distribution of anting-antings, or charms against bullets. The ladies decided, on September 16, 1903, to relinquish life in the mountains and surrender to American authority.

During the period of "Papal" resistance, the following "Messiahs," in addition to those mentioned above, were eliminated by Constabulary and regulars: "Papa" Fernandez in Laguna; "King" Apo in Pampanga, and many lesser "Saints" who came less under the bright glare of publicity. The period produced three "Jesus Christs" and one "God Almighty"-- all of whom occupied Constabulary jails during this period of religious terror.

Of all of the "Popes," Rios the Tulisan was possibly the most famous. The Province of Tayabas, which had had its full share of religious fanaticism, spawned him. He was a religious curiosity: a queer combination of philosopher, bandit, and psychologist. His Tulisan movement was an offshoot of the Colorum sect, which had established a "New Jerusalem" on Mount San Cristobal near the dividing line of the provinces of Batangas, Tayabas, and Laguna.

Ruperto Rios represented himself as a god, and he found small difficulty in establishing a sect of fervid worshippers about him. So well did he succeed that he organized what he called the "Exterior Municipal Government" of the Philippine Islands (for revenue only), and he set up a pompous regime that bristled with titles. He had a liking for uniformed attendants, and he was fully aware of the value of a sonorous title in the impressing of a simple hill folk. He made it possible, almost literally, for everyone to be a general.

He promoted his men so rapidly that he had about him one captain-general, one lieutenant-general, twenty-five major-generals, fifty brigadier-generals, colonels and majors by the dozen, and lieutenants by the hundred. Over the whole was Rios, as "Viceroy of the Philippine Archipelago."

In time Rios became dissatisfied with earthly titles, and announced himself the "Son of God" and the "Deliverer of the Philippines," placed on earth for a divine mission. As proof of the miraculous power with which God had seen fit to endow him, he dispensed anting-antings that were guaranteed to make the wearer invulnerable to attack.

The ceremonial nature of the Tulisman movement is best indicated by the paraphernalia captured by Captain Murphy on March 8 near Infanta. Among this equipment was a box upon which was painted the word "Independencia." The followers of Rios believed that when they had proven worthy, the Prophet would open the box and this mysterious thing, independence, would come forth to bless them.

Captain Murphy desired to hear more of this marvelous independencia that was contained in the box of "Pope" Rios. His men brought to him a slightly wounded Tulisan, who was interrogated.

"Si, Senor; in the box it was, but by now it has flown away."

"Flown away?"

"Si, Senor Capitan--to the 'Pope,' to be enclosed again in another box."

The fanatic rolled his glistening eyes as he drank in the thought of the approach of the millenium. "When independencia flies from the box, there will be no labor, Senor, and no jails and no taxes."

Fair enough, thinks Captain Murphy. But the "Pope" has promised even more than this. "And there shall be," the native adds, "no more Constabulario."

No labor, no jails, no taxes, and no Constabulary--a principle worthy of war.

Of Rios we shall hear more.

The various religious and political sects that engaged the attention of the Constabulary would fill a long page. Among them may be mentioned the Dios-Dios, the Colorados, the Cruz-Cruz, the Santa Iglesia, the Tulisan, the Cazadoes, the Colorums, the Santo Ninos, the Guardia de Honor, the Hermanos del Tercio Orden, the Babaylanes, and the fanatical Anting-Anting which had been headed by Colache.

In general, these organizations had a close similarity to one another, and their origin could be traced to the original Katipunan. The recruits were malcontents, insurrectos, and more often, murderous banditti. In a few instances, the organizations had a sincere purpose. In general, they were against all law, preying equally upon Americans and their own countrymen.

Here is a proclamation signed by one of these organizers, to indicate the manner in which the sects went about the business of undermining the civil government:

"The Presidente,
Municipality of Minglanilla,

"I, being the envoy of the powerful God to arrange this Province, undoubtedly I will fulfill what the Almighty God has disposed, because the time for the liberty of the Philippine Islands has already sounded and will so happen. I have sent communications to all towns, asking if they intend to take part in the general outbreak. In case favorable, send here guns and revolvers in your charge.

"Anastacio de la Cruz
"The First Teacher"

The religious emissaries constantly invaded the ranks of the Constabulary with suggestions of mutiny and desertion and the killing of officers. The rewards were alluring: places of high command in the hill parties, with commissions as "Generals."

In the light of the temptations offered, the loyalty of these ill-paid privates was almost unbelievable. During the first two years of its existence, the Constabulary lost but fifty-nine men by desertion.

With this understanding of the wave of religious fanaticism that had swept across the country, it may be seen that the nature of the resistance had changed. No longer were the fighting forces in the Philippines concerned so greatly with political groups; it was pseudo-religion that had succeeded as the force behind the combat.

The third battle phase was roaring to life. . . .

Return to Main Page - Jungle Patrol

Original publication © 1938 E. P. Dutton & Co., Inc.

Filipiniana Reprint Series © 1985 Cacho Hermanos, Inc.

This publication (HTML format & original artwork) © 2001 Bakbakan International.

Transcription courtesy of Ashley Bass.