Smuggling at Customs during Bonifacio’s time

There was smuggling as far back as late 1800s. Andres Bonifacio was a clerk at Aduana (Customs) in Manila. He, Jose Rizal, and Graciano Lopez Jaena sneaked contraband in and out. Not for profit, but pour la patrie.

Feb. 1888 – Boarding the ship Don Juan in Tondo for Hong Kong, Rizal scrutinized the crew for a fellow-Tagalog he could trust with a delicate mission. He decided on cabin boy Perfecto Rufino Riego, 20, of Marinduque. Befriending him, Rizal invited Riego that night to his cabin to lay down the plan. Having heard of Rizal’s reformism, young Riego was enthusiastic. (Courtesy of nephew Domingo Riego Jr., “Philippines Free Press” published his story, 25 Dec. 1948. Quoted in “The I-Stories,” first-hand historical accounts compiled by Prof. Augusto de Viana, UST Publishing House, 2006.)

In Hong Kong, Rizal introduced Riego to Don Jose Maria Basa, a Filipino deported in the aftermath of the GomBurZa Execution. Rizal was changing vessels for Berlin; Riego on return to Manila was to await word from Basa. On the appointed revisit Basa handed Riego three sacks, each containing 50 copies of “Noli Me Tangere.” Riego was to sneak them into Manila harbor. One sack he was to load on a carretela hailed in Binondo. Then he was to tell the cochero he forgot something at the ship and needed to run back for it -- but not to return. The cochero would tire of waiting and take the sack home. Perchance he’d read the novel and give away copies to patriotic kith and kin. Riego was to repeat the process in Sampaloc and Santa Ana districts.

Mission accomplished, Riego reported to Basa on his next sail to Hong Kong. A reward awaited him: a necktie Rizal had bought in Berlin. There were two new sacksful of “Noli Me Tangere,” which he was to distribute to students and Filipino priests in colleges. The rest he was to disperse in other Manila districts using the carretela method.

One day at Tondo dock the Don Juan captain told Riego he had a visitor. It was Rizal’s kuya Paciano, who treated him to lunch and told him of the success of his book circulation. Manila was in turmoil.

July 1892 – On Rizal’s return, Spanish friars were sermonizing his novel as heretical. In a pamphlet “Caingat Cayo” (“Beware”) Fr. Jose Rodriguez, prior of Guadalupe, warned readers of committing mortal sin. Marcelo H. del Pilar countered with “Caiigat Cayo” (“Slippery as Eels”), distributed outside churches as it was designed to look like the denouncement. Originally priced at five pesetas, the novel began to sell as much as P50. Having a copy at home was a status symbol. It was read only surreptitiously, though (Précis from De Viana’s “Jose Rizal in Our Times”, Books Atbp. Publishing, 2014)

Rizal convened Bonifacio, Apolinario Mabini, Timoteo Paez, Pedro Serrano, Ambrosio Salvador, and Deodato Arellano in a new group a-forming. On the night of July 3 he launched La Liga Filipina at the Tondo house of Doroteo Ongjunco. Officers: Salvador, president; Arellano, secretary; Agustin dela Rosa, fiscal; Bonifacio Arevalo, treasurer. Summoned three days later to Malacañang, Rizal was asked by Governor General Eulogio Despujol if he wanted to move to Hong Kong. But found (planted?) in the bag of Rizal’s sister Lucia were handbills deriding amassed wealth by the Dominicans who had a vow of poverty. Rizal was arrested on the spot, incarcerated in Fort Santiago, and ordered exiled to Dapitan. Next day, July 7, Bonifacio, Mabini, Arellano, Teodoro Plata, and Ladislao Diwa formed the Katipunan.

On July 15 ensued human smuggling at the Manila port. Rizal had been brought to the Don Juan (again) for ship-off to Mindanao. Bonifacio sneaked Emilio Jacinto on board to convince Rizal to escape with him. Rizal refused. Bonifacio sneaked Jacinto back out.

Sometime 1884-1885 – Little is known of Lopez Jaena’s return to the Philippines. Perfecto Riego, the Don Juan captain’s orderly, narrated a chance encounter. (As told to Domingo Riego Jr., “Philippines Free Press”, 24 Nov. 1951; excerpted in De Viana’s “The I-Stories”)

Propagandizing in Madrid since 1880, Lopez Jaena was to assume editorship of “La Solidaridad” in Feb. 1885. Yet he had to break self-exile, worried about the Guardia Civil harassing his sisters in Iloilo. Stopping over in Singapore he was spotted by friars, who alerted Manila of his arrival aboard the San Ignacio de Loyola. But Filipino sympathizers there sent word to Don Luis Yangco to have a launch meet him in Corregidor before anchoring in Manila.

One dawn Lopez Jaena disembarked and met with Dons Yangco and Francisco Roxas. Assessing extreme risk in a Manila stay, they decided that he dash back to Spain via Hong Kong. Aboard the Don Juan one Pedro Javier endorsed to Riego as apprentice steward a cheaply dressed man a few years his senior. Riego assigned him to dishwashing. That night ship captain Jose Maria Marquez asked Riego to summon to dinner their sole passenger. Riego knew they had none, yet dutifully knocked on the cabin doors. From behind the fourth came a familiar voice. The passenger who opened it, none other than the trainee, smiled while knotting a tie. Only on docking in Hong Kong did Riego learn he was the valorous Lopez Jaena.

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As most senior in the Supreme Court, Antonio Carpio could have been Chief Justice. But his stance against Chinese incursions in the West Philippine Sea made the appointing power uneasy. He did not pipe down when, although nominated to head the Judiciary, he had to refute Beijing’s history distortions. For that would have meant putting personal ambition above national interest. A true leader.

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Wednesday night at the coliseum, after the UP Maroons trounced the Adamson Falcons in very tight basketball, true sportsmanship reigned. UP fans were yelling in victory when from their side sounded the drums in the familiar spelling cheer of A-D-A-M-S-O-N. It was UP’s way of saying they had put up one helluva fight. Adamson reciprocated by beating their drums and shouting the UP rah-rah.

There’s a message in there from those youths’ gesture.

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