JULY 13, 1901

To the Filipino people and its army.

Events known to all and of sad misfortune to the country, have placed me by reason of my rank, in the Supreme Command of our Liberating Forces.

I was desirous that, as when I assumed the Superior Commander ship of Southern Luzon, a General Assembly of those struggling and working for the common cause, should meet and designate who was to assume it. But this Assembly is impossible for the present, and being pressed on the other hand repeatedly by our Committees of Independence abroad as also by prominent persons in the Archipelago, and it becoming daily more urgent and necessary that there should be a Superior Commander to give greater stability and strength to our defense, in order to save it from the grave danger menacing it, I assume this command from this date until said Assembly can meet, when I will gladly withdraw in favor of the person who may be elected by it, my only ambition and my highest desire being to see our land free from the foreign yoke.

I appeal also to you who, for selfish motives, sold the country, and are using all means within your power to deliver it to the enemy bound hand and foot.

I am not blind to the difficult and arduous character of the office, nor to the immense obstacles which it is necessary to overcome under present conditions, but nothing withholds me, because I am certain of your assistance, and with it, I expect, notwithstanding my insignificance, to be able to discharge this very difficult trust in a satisfactory manner.

The triumph of our desires is not an illusion, not even when deception and treason together with the hazards of warfare have greatly thinned our ranks, and many provinces have ceased to defend themselves; it is not an illusion, as long as the resistance of the country does not terminate. And the resistance of the country against foreign domination cannot terminate, because it has been sworn to, because health, dignity, the name and honor of the Philippine People and Army demand it, and because it will never be possible for all to forget their duty nor that all will wish to place themselves under the most miserable subjection. The enthusiastic expressions of allegiance and warm offers that I receive from all sides, assuring me that soon we shall have increased tenfold, but even if this should not occur, it is well known that we shall not secure victory by numbers, because the number of the enemy is nine times as great; nor by great and uninterrupted victories, as they have at their command greater revenues and more elements of warfare, but by firmness and tenacity in our position and by constant sacrifices, which are the principal, if not the only arms with which weak nations, struggling with strong nations have been enabled to secure their independence, and without which it never can be secured. Bolivar for a long time did not have more than 500 men, but he had sufficient firmness and tenacity and he freed half a continent.

Nor is it mistaken optimism on my part to believe in and expect the help of all. Spurious sons of this soil and natural enemies endeavor to make it appear that the people are hostile to those who fight, I am very sure, and I am fully convinced, as are all who know the country, that in the bottoms of all Filipino hearts, love for independence smolders ardently and deeply, that even those who at the present time are serving the enemy for interested or selfish motives desire it; and that even if they apparently keep their distance from and express hate to a certain extent to those who are struggling for their ideal, it is only due to their fear of the devastation and abuses which it is the habit of the enemy and their denaturalized henchmen to mete out to the defenseless.

In saluting the Archipelago this day, as General in chief of its forces, I call upon all its inhabitants, especially upon the dissatisfied, to reply to these outrages and violent acts committed against them and their brothers, to not humiliate themselves by showing servility and cowardice, nor to be satisfied with the presentation of weak and useless complaints, but by going into the field or by sending their sons, if they cannot go in person, to swell the ranks of those who defend the rights of all, in order, in this manner, all armed, forming a solid mass, a single block, immense and unbreakable, to oppose ourselves efficiently and successfully to the ambition of intruders who desire to place us under their yoke by force of arms, under vain and groundless pretexts, while they lyingly preach liberty to the country and to the world, granting some liberties here and there in order to be able better to attain their purpose. I call upon all not to feel fear, but shame, not abjectness, but pain at the offended dignity, increased energy in this supreme and unequal struggle and more decided support of those who fight, as that is what makes the people worthy and as in that manner only will we ever be able to see the day we all sigh for. The independence of a country is not attained by mere wishes nor by the lamentations of women.

if you want peace, ask it not of us, inducing us to lay down our arms, but of those who by invading our country have disturbed it.

Return here to our side, you blind ones, who one day let yourselves be led astray by the enemy, placing your faith in his history and his promises. You have already seen that not even does security for your persons exist, and that now as formerly, you have obtained nothing but vague declarations, without specific terms, without definite time, --a manifest evidence of artful deceit. In exchange for the national sovereignty which they snatch from us and which you renounced at an unfortunate hour, you see that they do not even want to grant you the right of citizenship which they enjoy, a right which you believed you would obtain and which you took as a sign of future extensive liberties, as preliminary to the desired independence. On the other hand, you see that they are imposing upon the country laws which it cannot freely discuss and which it has no right to reject; that taxes are imposed for which no approval has first been requested of the people, taxes which were unknown at the time of the Spanish Government and which are ten times as crushing as those which weighed us down at that time, the final result of which will be that the small landholders and small capitalists will fall into the hands of their great trusts, reducing the sons of this soil to a very lamentable and sad state. You see that they treat us worse than we were treated under the former domination; and that while we are not yet subject to them! Think, reflect on the day we will be... The offices which were dangled as bait and for which many threw themselves at their feet, were distributed not among the natives, as we were led to believe would be done, but among their own people, a few natives only being favored in order that the discontent should not be universal nor the deception extreme. This is more or less the case with everything, and we shall for ever and ever feel the weight of their yoke if we lay down our arms and consent to it; because their pretext is incapacity on our part and education on theirs, and this pretext is very susceptible of an extension without limit and constant arbitrary action, since they have created themselves and will continue to act as the only judges of last resort, from which no appeal can be taken. It is already time that we convince ourselves, brothers, that independence cannot be expected of one who begins by suppressing us, by killing the defenders of the country and razing to the ground the towns which support them. And that, without independence all other kinds of liberty are fictitious, because there is no real guarantee back of them, as the supreme interests of the people and their welfare are always overshadowed by the supreme convenience of the mother country and its inhabitants.

I appeal also to you who, for selfish motives, sold the country, and are using all means within your power to deliver it to the enemy bound hand and foot. I appeal to you as I do to all others who, for any reason, oppose its legitimate defenders, to withdraw from your criminal position, from that murderous work, so that the country will not be obliged to suffer days of mourning and ignominy on your account. Come to fight, not against your brothers, but against the common enemy, and if you cannot or have not the courage to do so, leave alone at least and do not discourage with your pernicious influence those who feel strength and fight spiritedly for our national liberty.

To you soldiers, leaders of our heroic army, my dear comrades in suffering and in danger, I have nothing more to say to you but to continue as you have heretofore, keeping up the struggle, becoming firmer as the reverses increase, in one word, faithfully fulfilling our task of honor.

Assist instead of making war on those who are fighting for the good of all, including your own; they constitute the only true guarantee of what you are today and what you can be later. And if you want peace, ask it not of us, inducing us to lay down our arms, but of those who by invading our country have disturbed it.

I address myself also to the good sons of the great North American nation, in order that they whose spirit of justice and liberty has not been adulterated by the thirst for expansion, may cause this bloody war to cease (this being in the power of their governors to do) which has cost us both so many precious lives and which is ruining both countries. We are sustaining this war for the same purpose as that expressed in their immortal “Declaration”, and we will continue it forever, no matter how disastrous its effects may be, because we are defending our own, as the North Americans defended their own against the British, what all peoples defend to death, what is dearer and more sacred for the sons of a country: the national independence.

To you soldiers, leaders of our heroic army, my dear comrades in suffering and in danger, I have nothing more to say to you but to continue as you have heretofore, keeping up the struggle, becoming firmer as the reverses increase, in one word, faithfully fulfilling our task of honor.

Do not let us permit future generations to damn our names by reason of the sad and dishonorable spectacle of an enslaved country.

To all Filipinos, perseverance, perseverance and always perseverance, without fear of sacrifices or their continuance. All peoples who have fought for their independence were obliged to continue the struggle for 12, 16, 18 and even more years. America herself had to fight nine years. We have been struggling for ours for five years. Let us continue, therefore, as the will of a people has always been much more powerful than the most powerful armies.

Faith, compatriots, and self-denial and union! Do not let us permit that all the sacrifices made and all the lives lost of fathers, sons, brothers and even wives, be in vain. Let us not dishonor the memory of those who preceded us upon the altar of sacrifice to the country! Do not let us permit future generations to damn our names by reason of the sad and dishonorable spectacle of an enslaved country.

Forward without ever turning back! All wars for independence have been obliged to suffer terrible tests. And the assistance from foreign countries which the faint hearted are so anxiously awaiting, will not come until we shall have sufficiently proved by perseverance and sacrifices, in spite of everything, that we really are deserving of liberty, as has been the case with all other countries.

Therefore I repeat: Forward! Always Forward! I will be the first among the first.

This is my plan:

Consideration, honors and kindness for good and true patriots; severity against the malicious and criminals; hard inflexibility towards those who persist in being traitors; humanity towards the enemy, the laws of warfare being strictly observed, but their strict observance also being required, and no yielding with regard to the future of the Archipelago. I shall admit nothing which has no independence as its basis. For which negotiations as also for any other acts, I have granted and do hereby grant the fullest powers to the Central Filipino Committee abroad, whose decisions and recommendations I always intend to observe in all my actions.

CUMBRES DE MAKILING, July 13, 1901.

MIGUEL MALVAR.

Published by the Central Filipino Committee abroad.