The tragic death of Antonio Luna

Abstract

It was June in Paris of 1899 when Juan Luna received news of the assassination of his brother, General Antonio Luna, in Cabanatuan. The news was both tragic and shocking: tragic, since it concerned the untimely death of a young general, only 31, who possessed the intelligence and stamina necessary to effect Filipino victory during the Philippine War of Independence; shocking because General Antonio Luna was killed not by enemy bullets which were whizzing past during that period of war but by the treacherous hands of his countrymen, his own subordinate soldiers who rebelled at the strict military discipline he enforced.

Painter Juan Luna rushed frantic letters to Hongkong, seat of the committee in charge of the diplomatic activities of the Philippine Revolutionary Government, asking for a detailed account of the tragic circumstances surrounding General Luna's death.

But Juan Luna never received a satisfactory answer - not even when he took it upon himself to carry out an inquiry regarding his brothers assassination, for on his way to Manila from Paris on December of that same year, he was the victim of a heart attack in Hong Kong.