Newberry Library

Emilio Aguinaldo

Philippines. Gobierno revolucionario. President (1898 : Aguinaldo)

Philippines. Military governor (1898-1900 : Otis)

Edward E. Ayer Manuscript Collection (Newberry Library)

Letter, dated Nov. 18, 1898, from Emilio Aguinaldo, president of the First Philippine Republic, to Major General Elwell S. Otis, commander of the American occupation forces in Manila, and second military governor of the Philippines after the war with Spain, in which Aguinaldo justifies holding Spanish civil servants and clergy as prisoners of war. Aguinaldo defends his decision by pointing out that these very people took an active military role in trying to defeat the Philippine revolutionaries, even taking up arms against them. Even the clergy abandoned their ministry, and became willing servants of the Spanish government, often participating in vile denunciations of innocent Philippine citizens. He cites as examples the involvement of the parish priest of Lipa in Batangas province as head of a volunteer militia, and the priests of Manila who formed a well-armed and active military company to fight the rebels. Convents were used to shelter Spanish troops and to store weapons. Aguinaldo justifies his actions with references to the works of Fiore, Martens, Bluntschli, and the Geneva Convention; and invokes the internationally accepted right of reprisal--used by Gen. Washington in the American Revolution and the Germans in 1870--as a means of forcing the enemy to comply with its obligations. Aguinaldo is holding these prisoners of war to insure freedom for the many imprisoned and exiled Philippinos and to force the Vatican to recognize the secular rights of the Philippine clergy.

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