The Katipunan Legacy
in Europe and the colonies from where they propagated and
organized resistance among the people by establishing various societies and mutual help organizations with seemingly
reformist ends to cover their activities. At a critical juncture
revolutions were waged to topple monarchism and papal tyranny. These revolutions were either insurrectionary, where
mass defections within the armies of the monarchy were
coordinated with uprisings, or wars waged by revolutionary
armies whose core was formed abroad.
Militant liberals were internationalists. It was common for
many liberals who enrolled in military schools to volunteer
their services to a libertarian revolution that erupted. An
example of internationalism in action can be found in the
American Revolution which was heavily financed by machinations of liberals within the French monarchy and the Masonic
lodges in France where Benjamin Franklin was schooled in
liberalism. The French General Lafayette led critical battles in
the American Revolution for Independence and was made a
hero of the American revolution. The Latin American General
Miranda, a mason, fought three revolutions: the American,
the French and the Latin American revolutions.
In the Philippines, liberalism was initially propagated by Masonic Lodges established for foreigners in the 1850’s, at a
time when the colony was used as a place where Spanish lib-
erals where banished and exiled. However, these early efforts
failed to make significant headway because national consciousness and the idea of nationhood was still nonexistent
among the people who still regarded themselves as tribes
and ethnic groups distinct and hostile to other tribes.
National consciousness was basically achieved as an aftermath of the short-lived Spanish Glorious Revolution of
1868 which overthrew Queen Isabella II and established
a liberal constitutional government. In these two years,
the revolutionary liberal government of Spain sent de la
Torre to the Philippines as the Governor General. He was
aided by the militant Philippine-born Spanish liberal Antonio Ma. Regidor, who was assigned the critical position
of engaging the Spanish Friars who held real power in the
islands. This was the short reign of freedom of the press,
association and expression. The full backing of the Filipino
Secularization Movement to counter friar control of parishes and propagation of nationalism in pulpits by Filipino
priests, reforms benefiting Filipino soldiers in the Spanish
Army to influence their allegiance away from the Spanish
friars to the liberal government, among others, provided
the forms by which the people were mass educated towards national consciousness and the idea of liberty.
After the assassination of General Prim, the leader of the
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