Critical Essay on the “Cries”

 Critical

 Essay

 Manila

Four different sources, places and dates have been chosen from namely: The Cry of
Pugad Lawin by Pio Valenzuela on August 23 and 26; The Cry of Bahay Toro by
Santiago Alvarez on August 24; The Cry of Kalookan by Gregoria de Jesus on August
23; The Cry of Balintawak by Captain Oglegario Diaz on August 25; The Cry of
Balintawak by Guilliermo masangkay on August 26; and lastly, The Cry of Balintawak by
Vicente Samson on August 26; while Pasong Tamo was not mentioned again
throughout the chapter. The only detail that they all agree about is the year 1896.

All 6 different sources present similar ideas in their stories but different dates and places
which caused them to oppose each other. Until the National Historical Institute (NHI)
discovered Valenzuela’s Memoirs that is parallel to his first statement on the first ‘cry’
which is The Cry of Pugad Lawin. As NHI considered the information found as precise.
Around the year of 1963, Pres.

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Diosdado Macapagal agreed with the discovery of NHI and declared it as the official
‘cry’ which launched the 1896 Philippine Revolution.

While I-Stories considers Valenzuela’s Pugad Lawin version as the most credible for a
reason that his memories about the happening was still fresh when he wrote this. I do
not agree with Valenzuela because he was not consistent with his stories despite the
memoirs of him that was found. Where in later was found out that the place Pugad
Lawin itself could not be proven to exist for no other records during the Spanish
colonization speaks of it. Also in agreement with the testimonials and comments of
different Philippine History book authors such as Pedro A.
Gagelonia of the Far Eastern University who pointed out that “The Cry of Pugad Lawin
cannot be accepted as historically accurate because it lacks positive documentation and
supporting evidences from the witness. The testimony of only one eye witness is not
enough…” along with the statement of John N. Schrumacher, S. J, of the Ateneo de
Manila University which is “I would certainly give much less credence to all accounts
coming from Pio Valezuela, and to the interpretations Agoncillo got from him verbally,
since Valenzuela gave so many versions…” in addition with a part taken from the
textual analysis of Dr.

Soledad Borromeo-Buehler of the University of the Philippines which says “The name
Pugad Lawin does not appear in contemporary accounts of the revolution, nor in the
censuses of 1903, 1918, municipal records of Calookan, nor on pertinent maps of that
town” alongside with analysing the different contemporary records and documents from
the Spanish colonization period where in she found that these documents were
presented or translated to the public in manners such as “unquoted, misquoted or
misrepresented”.

The only way out of this prolonged contention is to consider the idea that the “cry” could
have happened in all of those places on the different dates considering that all of those
places are generally in Caloocan. Relatively, since each “cry” happened on different
dates and places with the same Katipunan leaders, it is possible that they conducted
each cry at each of the different places around Caloocan. A proof that could support my
statement is the discovery that Andres Bonifacio was actually a mestizo who was a
resident of Tondo but was not enrolled for the head tax among the naturales in Tondo
which means that he did not pay taxes which leads to a conclusion that he could not
have had a cedula. Not having a cedula immediately leads to persecution by the
Spaniards whereas Bonifacio was able to survive which could mean that he was able to
produce a fake one. When a cedula was finally found with his name on it, an
investigation proved that it is fake.

Align with the preceding stretch, It may be assumed that Bonifacio could have had
several or even dozens of fake cedulas that he tore up during those numerous “cries”.
In other words, the seven different views about the “cries” may all be correct since they
are all located along the areas of Caloocan, starting with The Cry of Pugad Lawin on
August 23, 1896 down to The Cry of Balintawak on August 26, 1896. Or rather, there is
no choice but to wait for one of them to be proven certain. References Borromeo-
Buehler, S. (1998). The cry of balintawak: A contrived controversy