‘La Señora Presidente’
Historians often complain when there is not enough primary source material for their research, writing, or lecturing. Sometimes, they also complain when there is too much material. I planned today’s column on the tragic death of Aurora Aragon Quezon on April 28, 1949. She was shot dead. Her corpse was dragged from the car onto the dusty road she had inaugurated years earlier, then stripped of jewelry and belongings by the Huks. The bandits overlooked an earring in their hasty getaway. This would not have happened if her car had stayed with the convoy from Manila to Baler, but they sped ahead to avoid dust from the vehicles ahead. Did the car have inadequate air-conditioning?
Going through old newspaper articles on this story in the Lopez Museum years ago made me sick because of the gruesome photos. I stopped cold and could not proceed. To restart research begun long ago, I checked the online “New York Times Machine” and the archive of Time magazine. No Philippine newspapers from the period were available online, but thanks to Manuel L. Quezon III, four scrapbooks of scanned newspaper clippings, a post-assassination biography of Mrs. Quezon by Sol Gwekoh, and an extremely detailed timeline are posted online. I was overwhelmed, and I would miss my deadline even skimming quickly through every page. I will return to Mrs. Quezon’s death another time.
While on the topic of first ladies, I decided to write another column on the first one, Hilaria del Rosario de Aguinaldo (1877 to 1921), the first wife of Emilio Aguinaldo. Three years ago, I wrote about Hilaria, aka “Yayang,” based on two documents with reference to her that were misfiled in the “Katipunan Documents” collection of the National Library of the Philippines. Based on its markings, the documents should be filed in the “Philippine Insurgent Records” that cover the second phase of the revolution and the Philippine-American War. Dated July 1, 1898, from Makati, the letter from Julliana Valerina, the wife of Gen. Pio del Pilar, looks insignificant on the first page. A cover letter sent with a leg of ham, a bunch of bananas of the “lacatan” variety, and a box of noodles. On the second page is an appeal to Emilio Aguinaldo, through his wife, for the pardon and release of a certain Andres Guico of Biñan. Julliana pleaded in Tagalog, “ipakiusap sa minamahal mo puong asaua na makalivertad na kong sakali at maynagaua mang kasalanan ay kanila na puong patawarin.”
I always thought Hilaria passed away shortly after the end of the Philippine-American War, prompting Aguinaldo to remarry Maria Reyes Agoncillo (1879 to 1963) in 1930. Thanks to a lead provided by Eufy Agbayani, I downloaded Hilaria’s 1920 testament from the Mormon genealogical website (familysearch.org) stating that: she was 45 years old; a resident of Tinabunan, Imus, Cavite; and that she was the wife of Aguinaldo, separated for 15 years due to her medical condition. Wikipedia gives her date of death as March 6, 1921. Cause of death is pulmonary tuberculosis. Wikipedia even gives a citation for this information, but when you click it, it leads to her baptismal certificate. Familysearch.org provides a newspaper clipping giving the date of death as March 10, 1921; pneumonia is the cause of death. Always validate Wikipedia entries, including the citations that they provide for documentation.
My friend Gary de la Rosa, who lives in Chicago, recently posted on Facebook the cover of Harper’s Bazaar dated July 7, 1900, which carried a photo and profile of “Yayang.” An internet search through American libraries was fruitless; this particular issue was elusive, so I requested from De La Rosa photos of the article and was surprised by the detail. On Nov. 13, 1899, Aguinaldo’s party, including Hilaria and their two children, left Tarlac and moved up north to escape the enemy forces in hot pursuit. After Christmas, Hilaria surrendered to the enemy and was sent to house arrest in Manila. Yayang was described as: “a rather good-looking Filipino woman of about thirty years, clad in the graceful dress of the islanders, and resembling thousands of her less prominent race sisters. She is better looking from the Filipino standpoint than from ours; she is plump, pleasant-faced, and, to her countryfolk, distinctly attractive. She will not talk Spanish with a foreigner; it is said she can speak this language, but does not care to do so. To converse with her, it is necessary to enlist the services of a Tagalog interpreter.
“Today ‘La Señora Presidente’ has the appearance of a woman who has suffered, not the term of her unhappiness yet past. Her eyes, with their expression of sadness and dejection, show her distress of mind … She lost her infant daughter last November, and later her three-year-old son died in Bacoor. The death of her son [Miguel] is an established fact, but for the present, those who surround Mrs. Aguinaldo have deemed it wise to withhold from her the confirmation of this news…”
Since my 1998 Inquirer series on the revolution, so much has turned up not just from libraries and archives but from estate sales and flea markets in the United States. All these are stray pieces of an unending jigsaw puzzle I vainly try to complete.
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Comments are welcome at ambeth.ocampo@inquirer.net
