United States or Iceland ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Apparently about the same time J. Limjap submitted to Sandico a project for arming the prisoners in Bilibid Prison with the arms of the American soldiers quartered in the Zorrilla Theatre across the street. He said:
When harmony had been temporarily restored through the good offices of Sandico, Aguinaldo had an interview with Consul General Wildman. He has since claimed that Wildman, too, promised him independence, but the truth seems to be that he himself said he was anxious to become an American citizen. This being impossible, he wanted to return to the Philippines and place himself under Dewey's orders.
The President was certainly not bound to believe that the Filipinos would turn against us even if they did then expect independence. Blount has seen fit to leave unmentioned certain other facts which are very pertinent in this connection. Apparently sometime during September, 1898, Sandico made the following statement in a letter to Aguinaldo:
Aguinaldo planned to occupy the capital not as it had been occupied by the Americans. He planned to take it as Count Tilly took Magdeburg. "The authors of this plan were not savages. Mabini, Sandico, and Luna, Asiatics educated in European schools, were men of trained and subtle minds.
Evidently Sandico continued to interest himself in the matter of preventing disorder, for on September 24, 1898, he wrote Aguinaldo from Manila as follows: "By authority of General Don Pío del Pilar and accompanied by the War Auditor, Señor Urbano, we entered a prison where the individuals Mariano de la Cruz and Mariano Crisóstomo were kept. They were almost prostrated.
On January 30, 1899, a roll of four companies just organized in Malate was forwarded approved by T. Sandico, and on the same day the committee of Trozo, Manila, applied to T. Sandico for permission to recruit a body for the defence of the country. The regiment of 'Armas Blancas' had already been raised in Tondo and Binondo.
It was not difficult for him to obtain volunteers there to rob, to burn, to rape and to murder. These were the crimes for which they were serving sentences. The political prisoners had been released.... "On January 18 Sandico approved of the officers for the first battalion organized by the committees of Sampaloc; on January 27 he approved those of the second battalion.
Sandico thought that Aguinaldo ought to go, for "From conferences which he had with the Admiral of the American fleet and with the American Consul in this colony, he believed that under present conditions it was absolutely necessary for the President to go to the Philippines, since, according to the American Consul, Manila had been taken by said fleet, and a provisional government was now being formed in that capital.
On January 2, 1899, Aguinaldo announced the formation of a new cabinet made up as follows: Apolinario Mabini president and secretary of foreign affairs; Teodoro Sandico, secretary of the interior; Mariano Trias, secretary of the treasury; Baldomero Aguinaldo, secretary of war and navy, and Gracio Gonzaga, secretary of fomento.
At this time Sandico entered the service of the Americans as an interpreter and acted as a spy, endeavouring to keep his people fully informed relative to the plans and acts of his employers.
Word Of The Day