Remembering Tres de Abril

Today is the 121st anniversary of the famous Battle of Tres de Abril or 3rd of April. It was on Palm Sunday in 1898 that Leon Kilat, a Katipunan revolutionario called the men he recruited to fight the Guardia Civil at the very corner of now what is now V. Rama Avenue and Tres de Abril Street and in that skirmish, the Filipinos outgunned the Guardia Civil under the command of Gen. Montero who ran away to hide in Fort San Pedro. Unfortunately at that time, communication was very poor, there were no radios or telephones yet so not many Cebuanos living in Cebu City had an idea what the Katipuneros were doing, why they took on the Guardia Civil, and that a rebellion against Spain was under way!

Leon Kilat and his men surrounded the Fort San Pedro to the point of starving them to surrender. Someone from the fort fired a gun at Leon Kilat who was on top of his horse. He fell from his horse but was unhurt, which people believed he was saved by his “anting-anting” a miraculous amulet. But like I said, not many people knew what was going on. They also didn’t know Leon Kilat, whose real name was Pantaleon Villegas, because he came from Bacong, Negros Oriental.

However, the luck of the Katipuneros changed when Spanish the gunboat Maria Cristina fired into the city and the cruiser Don Juan de Austria arrived in the Port of Cebu with 500 men under the command of General Tejero who freed the Spaniards inside Fort San Pedro, forcing the rebels to flee to the safety of the mountains, while Leon Kilat and his men fled to the town of Carcar.

Sensing their impending defeat at the hands of the fresh Spanish troops, the men of Leon Kilat got him drunk and brought him to a room in the house where they were staying. There, his men, led by his own aide-de-camp Apolinario Alcuitas, then stabbed him to death and brought his body to the Guardia Civil hoping to buy their freedom. But then the Spanish troops had all of them killed. Thus ended the short victory of the freedom of Cebu from Spanish rule led by Leon Kilat.

If only Leon Kilat knew that by this time, the Spanish American War had already started, and just 20 days later, the American Asiatic Fleet led by Admiral George Dewey with the USS Olympia under his command, steamed into Manila Bay and by morning of May 1, 1898, thus began the famous Battle of Manila Bay where Admiral Dewey destroy the Spanish fleet led by Admiral Montojo close to the Cavite Naval yard.

The Spanish squadron consisted of seven ships: the cruisers Reina Cristina (flagship), Castilla, Don Juan de Austria, Don Antonio de Ulloa, Isla de Luzon, Isla de Cuba, and the gunboat Marques del Duero. The Spanish ships were of inferior quality to the American ships. In that naval battle Admiral Dewey only lost a single sailor who died of a heart attack. Thus, the Philippines began its shift from Spanish colonial rule to American rule. This is part of Philippine history and we hope our millennials have read this.

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When I wrote the article that the cleanup by CENRO in the rivers of Cebu, notably the Guadalupe River needed mechanized equipment because of the magnitude of the problem, it was then that I read in the news the other day that the Philippine government was planning on tapping state-owned Chinese infrastructure contractor China First Highway Engineering Co. Ltd. (CFHEC) to help rehabilitate the Pasig River system, a very polluted watercourse that cuts through the metropolis and ends in Manila Bay.

The Pasig River Rehabilitation Commission signed on March 22 a memorandum of understanding with CFHEC to undertake a feasibility study for the full rehabilitation of the Pasig River, including the requirements for the treatment of industrial wastewater and sewerage before draining to the waterways would be undertaken by the CFHEC at no cost to the PRRC. Perhaps we should ask the DENR what it can do to help the CENRO gain access to this Chinese contractor. Like it or not, Cebu needs to clean up its rivers and esteros, and if the Chinese contractor can do this so much better for us. So let us find out how this can materialize?