Heneral Luna, the enemy, the resource: ating sarili

By Carlos A. Arnaldo
Manila
September 30, 2015





In the film, Heneral Luna, director Jerrold Tarog sought to sharpen the prism on the past and appreciate Antonio Luna for what he really and truly was: an arrogant, mercurial, temperamental military strategist who held on firmly to his basic nationalistic belief,  that he must free the Philippines from the yoke of American colonialism. And anyone who opposed this lifetime tenet of faith, was a traitor to the national cause, or a seeker of comfort under American imperialism and thus should be executed for treason.

That’s how he treated his soldiers, citing always Article One of the Rules of War, that any traitor or coward is to be disarmed, stripped of his rank and executed without court martial. That is also how he gained unpopularity among his own ranks, and especially from the soldiers disarmed and stripped of rank, and most especially from the Caviteños  he de-ranked and who ran to Aguinaldo to become his loyal presidential guard. These were the very ones who led the assassination of General Luna on June 5, 1899.

It was the same freedom of the motherland, the same nationhood, the same independence of country, mind and spirit that José Rizal spoke of in his speeches and wrote of in his novels and poems. Like Rizal, Antonio Luna was himself, ready to die for it. His error or weakness was perhaps his unfailing belief that all nationalistically minded Filipinos should also hold this belief and share his ardour.

But there were also business interests at work and some of these interests may have influenced General Emilio Aguinaldo through his two entrepreneur friends, Felipe Buencamino and Pedro Paterno, to temper the anti-American sentiments and cool down the independence movement. Ironically, it was the very day that Luna sought to meet with Aguinaldo to seek his authority to imprison all Filipinos who are friendly to the US, that the maverick general was assassinated.

From these events, we can make the following observations:

1.    The first Republic of 1898 was short-lived cut off by the Treaty of Paris which ceded the Philippines to the US.
2.    While Aguinaldo remained president until 1901 and while General Luna led the rebelling forces, as a professional soldier and strategist, the Filipinos  did not win. The Philippines quickly came under US forces and the American education campaign.
3.    Apolinario Mabini was the foremost Filipino voice and pen to set the rules and insist on Philippine democracy and civil rights against the onslaught of American colonization mindset.
4.    Under the American regime, Filipinos were not American citizens, but were described as US nationals under the protection of the US. They could apply for an American passport and many went to the US for work or to join the military.
5.    Building nationhood:  “Malaking trabaho ang ipagkaisa isang bansang watak-watak,” said Antonio Luna.
6.    But he also replied our greatest enemy and our greatest resource is “ating sarili!”