Aguinaldo's place in history

Abstract

TIME may afford a man the long perspective to reinforce his belief in personal destiny, yet it also works in such mysterious ways as to make any man, whatever his antecedents, its own plaything. Thus, General Emilio Aguinaldo, having played his role of leader, patriot, and hero at the most critical moment of the country’s history, has been victimized by time. His long life-span, more than half a century of which he spent in comparative quiet, with desultory excursions into politics, gave him sharp perspectives and tragic-comic memories which enriched his personal experiences, but which robbed him of the chance to make himself the foremost Filipino hero. Had he died in battle, had he fought back mercilessly when some of his own men sold him down the river at Palanan and died fighting to the last ditch, like his young rear-guard commander, General Gregorio del Pilar, his monument today would have graced every town plaza.

There was something in General Aguinaldo’s destiny that marked him off, first, as a young upstart- able, patriotic, and even brilliant at times and, second, as a retired hero- quiet, unassuming, and calculating. Born into a family that was not distinguished either for intellectual attainments or for economic prominence, Aguinaldo tasted a little of Spanish education, taught for a while, and then took to commerce as a means of fortifying his family's sagging economy. He was until then an ordinary young man known only as straight-backed, quiet, and soft-spoken. And then the Katipunan, with its incendiary leaflets and revolutionary aims, extended its plebian arms to Cavite, where the tradition of robust manhood is expressed in deadly combats. It was the eve of the Revolution against Spain, and Aguinaldo having now achieved a sort of fame as a newly-elected headman of his town, took the first significant step in his life by enlisting as a member of the revolutionary secret society.