The indio leader

Abstract

MAGNIFICENT eulogies on General Emilio Aguinaldo's life in our national history as a freedom fighter, recalling his intense love of country and personal sacrifices during the most heroic period of our life as a people, have been written on the occasion of his death. Indeed the beloved leader fully deserves all the accolades and honors heaped upon him not only today, not only by the past two generations which had either witnessed his power to inspire men to heroism and self-sacrifice or felt the impact of his leadership in consolidating a nation and creating a stronger patriotism than had existed before, but by generations of Filipinos to come. They will forever feel indebted to him for the dignification in the eyes of the outside world of a downtrodden Oriental race, in the field of battle, Filipinos will always remember his name with love and pride.

To what has been said of his life story there is little that I can add that has not already been said by better equipped historians. But from a different point of view I would like to bring into prominence Aguinaldo's figure side by side with those military leaders who, before him but like him, had taken up arms elsewhere for the deliverance of their peoples from colonial rule.

From George Washington, Father of his country, and Agustin Iturbide, liberator of Mexico, in North America, to Francisco Miranda, the Precursor Jose San Martin, Protector of Peru, and Simon Bolivar, Liberator of Colombia, in South America, the leaders of the independence movements were not now to the arts of campaigns and battles. In fact it can be said that they were polished and professional soldiers. Not Aguinaldo. Himself a man of modest education, he "mustered an army out of men who never fought but with the knife, bow, and arrow," as a American biographer of his wrote in 1901.