Antonio Luna - Philippine-American War

Philippine-American War

Luna was one of the first to see action in Manila on August 13, 1898, when the Americans landed troops in Intramuros. Since June 1898, Manila had been completely surrounded by the revolutionary troops. Colonel Luciano San Miguel occupied Mandaluyong; General Pio del Pilar, Makati; General Mariano Noriel, Parañaque; Pacheco, Navotas, Tambobong, and Caloocan. Gregorio del Pilar marched through Sampaloc, taking Tondo, Divisoria, and Azcárraga; Noriel cleared Singalong and Paco, and held Ermita and Malate. Luna thought the Filipinos should just walk in and enter Intramuros to have joint occupation of the walled city. But Aguinaldo, heeding the advice of General Merritt and Commodore (later Admiral) George Dewey, whose fleet had moored in Manila Bay, sent Luna to the trenches where he ordered his troops to fire on the Americans. After the disastrous farce of the American Occupation, Luna tried to complain to American officers at a meeting in Ermita about the disorder made by American soldiers.

To silence Luna, Aguinaldo appointed him as Chief of War Operations on September 26, 1898, and assigned the rank of Brigadier General. In quick succession, he was made the Director of War and Supreme Chief of the Army, arousing the envy of the other generals. Luna felt that bureaucratic placebos were being thrown his way, when all he wanted was to organize and discipline the enthusiastic, ill-fed and ill-trained young troops into a real army.

Luna saw the need for a military school, so in October 1898 he established a military academy at Malolos the Academia Militar, the precursor of the present Philippine Military Academy. He appointed Captain (later Colonel) Manuel Bernal Sityar, a mestizo formerly serving the Spanish Army, as superintendent. He recruited other mestizos and Spaniards who had fought in the Spanish army during the 1896 revolution for training. However, the Academia had to be suspended indefinitely by March 1899 due to outbreak of the Philippine-American War.

A score of veteran officers became the teachers at his military school. He devised two courses of instruction, planned the reorganization, with a battalion of tiradores and a cavalry squadron, set up an inventory of guns and ammunition, arsenals, using convents and town halls, quartermasters, lookouts and communication systems. He built tranches with the help of his chief engineer, General Jose Alejandrino, and had his brother Juan design the school's uniforms (the Filipino rayadillo). He also insisted on strict discipline over and above clan armies and clique loyalties.

Knowing that the fate of the infant Republic was a contest for the minds of Filipinos, Luna turned to journalism to strengthen Filipino minds with the ideas of nationhood and the need to fight a new imperialist enemy. He decided to publish a newspaper, “La Independencia.” This four-page daily was filled with articles, short stories, patriotic songs and poems. The staff was installed in one of the coaches of the train that ran from Manila to Pangasinan. The paper came out in September 1898, and was an instant success. A movable feast of information, humor and good writing, 4,000 copies were printed, which was more than all the other newspapers put together.

When the Treaty of Paris, under which Spain was to cede the Philippines to the United States, was made public in December 1898, Luna quickly realized that only decisive military action could save the republic. He proposed a strategy that was designed to trap the Americans in Manila before more of their troops could land by executing surprise attacks while building up strength in the north. If the American forces penetrated his lines, Luna determined that he would wage a series of delaying battles and prepare a fortress in northern Luzon. This, however, was turned down by the High Command, who still believed that the Americans would grant full independence.

The Americans gained the time and the opportunity to start hostilities with the Filipinos at the place and time of their choice. On the night of February 4, 1899, when most of the Filipino generals were at a ball in Malolos to celebrate the success of the American anti-imperialists delaying the ratification of the Treaty of Paris, the Americans staged an incident along the concrete blockhouses in Sta. Mesa near the Balsahan Bridge. An American patrol fired on Filipino troops, claiming afterwards that the Filipinos had started shooting first and the whole Filipino line from Pasay to Caloocan returned fire and the first battle of the Filipino-American War ensued. Two days later, in response to the incident, the US Senate voted for annexation. In doing so, the conflict became the war of conquest, occupation and annexation that Luna, Mabini, and others had predicted and about which they had warned Aguinado and his generals previously.

Luna, after receiving orders from Aguinaldo, rushed to the front lines from his headquarters at Polo (present-day Valenzuela City) and led three companies to La Loma to engage General Arthur MacArthur's forces. Fighting took place at Marikina, Caloocan, Sta. Ana, and Paco. The Filipinos were subjected to a carefully planned attack with naval artillery, with Dewey's US fleet firing from the Manila Bay. Filipino casualties were high, amounting to around 2,000 killed and wounded. Luna personally had to carry wounded officers and men to safety; of these rescues, the most dramatic was that of Commander José Torres Bugallón. After being hit by an American bullet, Bugallon had managed to advance another fifty meters before he was seen by Luna to collapse by the side of the road. As the Americans kept up their fire on the road, Luna had to gather an escort of around 25 men to save Bugallon, who Luna declared was equivalent to 500 men. Surviving the encounter, Luna tried to encourage Bugallon to live and gave the latter an instant promotion to lieutenant colonel. However, Bugallon died thereafter.

On February 7, Luna issued a detailed order to the field officers of the territorial militia. Containing five specific objects, it began “by virtue of the barbarous attack upon our army on February 4,” and ended with “war without quarter to false Americans who wish to enslave us. Independence or death!” The order labeled the US forces "an army of drunkards and thieves" in response to the continued bombardment of the towns around Manila, the burning and looting of whole districts, and the raping of Filipino women by US troops.

When Luna saw that the American advance had halted, mainly to stabilize their lines, he again mobilized his troops to attack La Loma on February 10. Fierce fighting ensued but the Filipinos were forced to withdraw thereafter. Caloocan was left with American forces in control of the southern terminus of the Manila to Dagupan railway, along with five engines, fifty passenger coaches, and a hundred freight cars. After consolidating control of Caloocan, the obvious next objective for American forces would be the Republic capital at Malolos. However, General Otis delayed for almost a month in hopes that Filipino forces would be deployed in its defense.

Nevertheless, with their superior firepower and newly arrived reinforcements, the Americans had not expected such resistance. They were so surprised that an urgent cable was sent to General Lawton who was in Colombo, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), with his troops. Illustrating the concern that the Americans had, the telegram stated, “Situation critical in Manila. Your early arrival great importance.”

A Filipino counterattack began at dawn on February 23. The plan was to employ a pincer movement, using the battalions from the North and South, with the sharpshooters (the only professionally trained troops) at crucial points. The sandatahanes or bolomen inside Manila would start a great fire to signal the start of the assault. Troops directly under Luna's command were divided into three: the West Brigade under General Pantaleon Garcia, the Center Brigade under General Mariano Llanera, and the East Brigade under General Licerio Gerónimo. It was only partly successful because of two main reasons. Firstly, some of the successful Filipino sectors ran low on ammunition and food, and were thus forced to withdraw to Polo. Secondly, Luna failed to relieve the Pampango militia, already past their prime, when the battalion from Kawit, Cavite, refused to replace the former, saying that they had orders to obey only instructions directly from Aguinaldo. Such insubordination had become quite common among the Filipino forces at that time as most of the troops owed their loyalty to the officers from their provinces, towns or districts and not to the central command. As a result, the counterattack soon collapsed, and Luna placated himself by disarming the Kawit Battalion.

Luna, however, proved to be a strict disciplinarian and thereby alienated many in the ranks of the common soldiers. An example of this occurred during the Battle of Calumpit wherein Luna ordered General Tomás Mascardo to send troops from Guagua to strengthen the former's defenses. However, Mascardo ignored orders by Luna insisting that he was going to Arayat to undertake an "inspection of troops". Another version of Mascardo's reasoning emerged and it was probably that which reached Luna. This version was that Mascardo had left to visit his girlfriend. Luna, infuriated by Mascardo's actions, had decided to detain him. However, Major Hernando, one of Luna's aides, tried to placate the general's anger by convincing Luna to push the case to President Aguinaldo. Aguinaldo complied to detain Mascardo for twenty-four hours. Upon returning to the field, however, the Americans had broken through his defenses at the Bagbag River, forcing Luna to withdraw despite his heroic action to defend the remaining sectors.

And so it went, battle after battle, incident after incident until Luna proferred his resignation, mainly in resentment for the rearmament of the Kawit Battalion as the Presidential Guard. Aguinaldo hesitantly accepted the resignation. As a result, Luna was absent from the field for three weeks, during which the Filipino forces suffered several defeats and setbacks. Receiving the depressing reports from the field through his La Independencia correspondents, Luna went to Aguinaldo and asked to be reinstated with more powers over all the military chiefs, and Aguinaldo agreed by making him Commander-in-Chief of the Filipino forces in Pampanga and Bulacan.

The Luna Defense Line was planned to create a series of delaying battles from Caloocan to Angeles, Pampanga, as the Republic was constructing a guerrilla base in the Mountain Province. The base was planned to be the last stand headquarters of the Republic in the case the Americans broke through the Defense Line. American military observers were astonished by the Defense Line, which they described as consisting of numerous bamboo trenches stretching from town to town. The series of trenches allowed the Filipinos to withdraw gradually, firing from cover at the advancing Americans. As the American troops occupied each new position, they were subjected to a series of traps that had been set in the trenches, which included bamboo spikes and poisonous reptiles.

By the end of May 1899, Colonel Joaquín Luna, one of Antonio’s brothers, warned him that a plot had been concocted by "old elements" or the autonomists of the Republic (who were bent on accepting American sovereignty over the country) and a clique of army officers whom Luna had disarmed, arrested, and/or insulted. Luna shrugged off all these threats, reiterating his trust for Aguinaldo, and continued building defenses at Pangasinan where the Americans were planning a landing.