WHEN DID THE CRY OF REBELLION HAPPEN

• The Cry of Pugad Lawin(Sigaw ng Pugad Lawin), alternately and originally referred as Cry
of Balintawak(Grito de Balintawak), was the beginning of Philippine Revolution against
Spanish Empire.
• It was happened August 25 1896. Historian Teodoro Kalaw in his 1925 book The Filipino
Revolution wrote that the event took place during the last week of August 1896 at
Kangkong, Balintawak. Santiago Alvarez, a Katipunero and son of Mariano Alvarez, the
leader of the Magdiwang faction in Cavite, stated in 1927 that the Cry took place in Bahay
Toro, now in Quezon City on August 24, 1896.
• The term "Cry" is translated from the Spanish el grito de rebelion (Cry of rebellion) or el
grito for short. Thus the Grito de Balintawak is comparable to Mexico's Grito de
Dolores(1810). However, el grito de rebelion strictly refers to a decision or call to revolt. It
does not necessarily connote shouting, unlike the Filipino sigaw.
• Pío Valenzuela, a close associate of Andrés Bonifacio, declared in 1948 that it happened
in Pugad Lawin on August 23, 1896. Historian Gregorio Zaide stated in his books in 1954
that the "Cry" happened in Balintawak on August 26, 1896. Fellow historian Teodoro
Agoncillo wrote in 1956 that it took place in Pugad Lawin on August 23, 1896, based on
Pío Valenzuela's statement. Accounts by historians Milagros Guerrero, Emmanuel
Encarnacion and Ramon Villegas claim the event to have taken place in Tandang Sora's
barn in Gulod, Barangay Banlat, Quezon City.
• Up to the late 1920s, the Cry was generally identified with Balintawak. It was
commemorated on August 29, considered the anniversary of the first hostile encounter
between the Katipuneros and the Guardia Civil. The "first shot" of the Revolution (el
primer tiro) was fired at Banlat, Pasong Tamo, then considered a part of Balintawak and
now part of Quezon City.
• Not all accounts relate the tearing of cédulas in the last days of August. Of the accounts
that do, older ones identify the place where this occurred as Kangkong in
Balintawak/Kalookan. Most also give the date of the cédula-tearing as August 26, in close
proximity to the first encounter. One Katipunero, Guillermo Masangkay, claimed cédulas
were torn more than once – on the 24th as well as the 26th.
• For his 1956 book The Revolt of the Masses Teodoro Agoncillo defined "the Cry" as the
tearing of cedulas, departing from precedent which had then defined it as the first
skirmish of the revolution. His version was based on the later testimonies of Pío
Valenzuela and others who claimed the cry took place in Pugad Lawin instead of
Balintawak. Valenzuela's version, through Agoncillo's influence, became the basis of the
current stance of the Philippine government. In 1963, President Diosdado
Macapagal ordered the official commemorations shifted to Pugad ng uwak, Quezon
City on August 23.
• In 1895 Bonifacio, Masangkay, Emilio Jacinto and other Katipuneros spent Good Friday in
the caves of Mt. Pamitinan in Montalban (now part of Rizal province). They wrote "long
live Philippine independence" on the cave walls, which some Filipino historians consider
the "first cry" (el primer grito).[4]
• There might even be an earlier cry of “independence,” much earlier than Bonifacio’s 1895.
In the evening of January 20, 1843, some Filipino soldiers of the Tayabas regiment did a
kind of coup d’etat and took Fort Santiago and struck fear on the Spanish authorities at
Malacañang. Although they lost, here is the report of the French consul at that time: "...
the rebels were heard to cry out to their countrymen to rise in arms and fight for
independence. This was the first time that word, independence, had been uttered in the
Philippines, as a rallying cry. It is a milestone, Your Excellency, on the road to freedom. "
• The Cry is commemorated as National Heroes' Day, a public holiday in the Philippines.
• The first annual commemoration of the Cry occurred in Balintawak in 1908 after the
American colonial government repealed the Sedition Law. In 1911 a monument to the Cry
(a lone Katipunero popularly identified with Bonifacio) was erected at Balintawak; it was
later transferred to Vinzons Hall in the University of the Philippines-Diliman, Quezon City.
In 1984, the National Historical Institute of the Philippines installed a commemorative
plaque in Pugad Lawin.