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| Pampanga |
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| You and another person wrote: >The Tagalogs and the Kapampangans were like brothers and shared alliances in >their earlier history as neighbors, something that cannot be said of the > Tagals and the Pintados of the Bisayas who are many seas apart. >When the Macabebes served and fought for the Spaniards and the >Americans against the Tagalogs it was like a brother fighting your own > brother, which is what the "DUGONG ASO" LABEL came from. I think the last sentence above is incorrect and has to be reworded to make it straight. It implies that the Kapampangans suddenly sided with the colonizers while the latter were at war with the Tagalogs. For both the Tagalogs and the Kapampangans became allies of the Spaniards after the capture of Manila by Martin de Goiti. It was just after so many years that the Tagalogs, with their growing sense of nationalism, decided to leave the alliance and fight against their former comrades. What did the Tagalogs expect of the Kapampangans then? Follow suit? At least some of them did so later through defection, but some loyal mercenaries, especially the Macabebes stayed put. So the statement, "When the Macabebes served and fought for the Spaniards and the Americans against the Tagalogs it was like a brother fighting your own brother", is flawed. It should be: "When the Macabebes chose to stay with the Spaniards and the Americans whom the Tagalogs had started to fight against, it was like a brother fighting your own brother." In other words, they were the Tagalogs that broke from the Triple Alliance (see Nick Joaquin's The Wicked Accomplices) composed of Creoles, Pampangans and Tagalogs and declared war on the establishment. This can be likened to a Liberal politician forming another party, the Nacionalista Party. Now, we know that the Pampangans, having stayed with the colonial government, had to defend it from the Tagalog rebels. Which was why "brother fought against brother". Did their stay with the Spanish government make them all of a sudden "dugong aso"? What about them? Were they not also "dugong aso" for some time before that? For having become an American citizen now, would one forget that he himself used to be a Filipino citizen? Just because one is now fighting against the Spaniards does not mean that he didn't use to be a "dugong aso". I'll have to tell my fellow Tagalogs that the only ones that can not be called 'dugong aso" were the Moros of Mindanao. At time or another all of us were "dugong aso", including the Pintados of the Visayas. And going back to the fact that the Pampanguenos in the Spanish army resisted the attacks of the Tagalog revolucionists, well, what ensued was not exactly a Pampango-Tagalog war but one between the Spain and the revolucionists. This is because there were already many Pampanguenos in Bonifacio's Katipunan, one of whom actually was the then up-and-coming dramatist, Aurelio Tolentino. So, in a way, it was also a brother Pampangueno versus brother Pampangueno fight. Now just where were the "dugong aso" among them? Aguinaldo himself --- and the late Blas Ople of Hagonoy knew this --- would not have included Pampanga and Tarlac among the 8 rays of the sun in our flag if the Pampanguenos were not a heroic people. These provinces just did not feel like revolting at first because of the good situation they were in, but later, they were convinced into joining their brothers in the field. Maybe they finally got bitten by the nationalistic bug. But not all of them, of course. The Macabebes among them just could not be persuaded into leaving the Spanish forces. Like the captain of a sinking ship, they preferred to stay behind and fight for the Spanish throne. In my previous message I wrote: It was a Pampangan revolt that the Spaniards feared the most. For who could really be more formidable than the very same soldiers trained in their own forts in Ternate? That's why when a great bulk of them defected from the Spanish army, Aguinaldo and his men found it easy to defeat the greatly weakened enemy in battle after battle. It was this loyal group, this "dugong aso" group, that split into two, one joining Aguinaldo and one that stuck it out with the Spaniards for better or for worse! After a subsequent change of power with America at the helm, it was they too, and I mean the latter, that the new colonizers found it convenient to enlist to serve as scouts in rounding off the "fugitives" and "insurrectos". You would be amazed to know the big monthly pensions Macabebe scouts received from the U.S. for their services, compared with the small sum their brother Pampanguenos in Aguinaldo's army got. >Yes, I've heard that this (Macabebe scout capturing Aguinaldo) was the source of the Kapampangan tag "dugong aso". By the revolutionary standards of late 19th and early 20th century their acts were unforgivable for betraying the 'revolution'. But by military standards they were worthy of praise for bringing victory to their masters. Betraying the revolution? Lito, you must belong to a different school of thoughts. In Iraq, for instance, which ones would you call traitors? Those in the new government set up by the "satanic" U.S., or the "terrorists" that try to destroy such a government? Lynn |
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