Remembering Tres de Abril

Today is the 114th anniversary of the famous and historic “Tres de Abril” uprising by the men of Pantaleon “Leon Kilat” Villegas who took the Spanish Guardia Civil by surprise when they were attacked in that famous street corner bearing the name Tres de Abril. What was surprising to the Spaniards was the audacity of the men of Leon Kilat to face musket fire by dropping to the ground when muskets were fired. Leon Kilat’s men attacked from across the street and overwhelmed the superior force that the Spanish troops retreated to Magallanes St. all the way to Fort San Pedro.

Leon Kilat then held the City of Cebu for four days, while Spanish troops locked themselves in the safety of the walls of Fort San Pedro. A day after that encounter, Leon Kilat was on his horse when a Spanish sniper fired on him, he fell to the ground but was unscathed. This was another proof of the famous “anting-anting” that Leon Kilat supposedly possessed that protected him from Spanish bullets.

But the civilian populace did not openly support Leon Kilat, fearing that the Spaniards would reinforce the beleaguered Spanish troops who were short on food and water inside the fort. Then the Spanish Cruiser Don Juan Austria, with fresh troops, arrived in the Port of Cebu forcing Leon Kilat and his men to flee to the mountains. A few days later, Leon Kilat’s own men betrayed him, had him drunk and stabbed him while he was asleep. They offered his body to the pursuing Guardia Civil in return for mercy, but the “Juez de Cochillo” all had them killed. I hope you will never forget the day when a Katipunero named Leon Kilat captured the City of Cebu.

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The controversy surrounding the St. Theresa’s College (STC) continues to be the main topic discussed in Cebu’s coffeehouses. What I’ve gathered so far was that, the majority of the people I talked to accepted that STC did the right thing in imposing sanctions on those five girls for violating their school’s handbook. Perhaps the problem lies upon the parents who most probably did not know what their kids were doing. Too often, we parents are the last persons to know about what’s happening to the lives of our kids.

How times have changed indeed. Let me tell you my own story. Way back in the late 60s, I attended a big party thrown by the Lord’s, a famous club of young men (they are still our friends today), at the Club Filipino ballroom in what is today the Isuzu showroom. Because the parking lot was full, I parked my jeep at the Magellan Hotel and left it with a “watch-your-car-boy.” The Magellan Hotel had an access way to the Club Filipino golf club.

As the party lasted through the wee hours, the boy watching my jeep wanted to go home so he rummaged through the glove compartment and saw an empty hand grenade, which I was supposed to weld into my transmission shifter. Seeing the grenade, he called the hotel security, who called the police (they used Volkswagens then). Seeing that no one was around, they merely confiscated my inert grenade.

When I returned to my jeep, the security guard told me the story and said that the police left upon learning that the grenade was empty and missing a clip. They, however, confiscated it. I couldn’t sleep that night, not because I was afraid of the police, but I was afraid that the chief of police would report this matter to my father, who was a strict disciplinarian.

Indeed, in the old days, we were scared more of what our parents would do than what the police would do. In this STC controversy, the students should have been more scared of their parents than their school superiors. But as we pointed out, times have changed. Now it is the parents who demand explanation from the school for the misbehavior or even the misdemeanor of their kids.

As for STC’s supposedly defying a court order, I was elated to see The FREEMAN editorial about this yesterday entitled “Which is dangerous” and I fully concur with that editorial. Hence allow me to reprint an excerpt from that editorial for emphasis.“Some people say Saint Theresa’s College sent a dangerous message to the public when it chose to defy a court order that would have allowed some senior high school students the school had banned from participating in their graduation ceremonies to do so.

It is unfortunate that these people would now say that when these very same people opted to stay deathly quiet when no less than the President of the land ordered his minions to defy not just any court, but the highest court of the land. Where were these people when the President applied double standards in dealing with legal predicaments of his friends? Where were those people when the President caused shortcuts to be made in the legal processes required to impeach a hated enemy?” I rest my case. STC did the right thing!

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