diced b Jos e S. Arc a, - non

Philippines from Spain is the same man who had presided over the pennanentmilitary court. And rather than repress or extirpate the Cavite mutiny, itirritated the wound, turning it into a tumor that would ruin the Spanishgovernment. Francisco Moscoso y Lara appears here strangely incooperation with Zobel, and, in turn, the latter with others who, according toLabra and Regidor, were those "who almost admitted having participated" inthe mutiny, the very same people who were saved from the penalty of deathbecause they belonged to the same secret society as the Captain General whofeared a just sentence would unlease an "international conflict." But this wasthe very thing that immediately ensued when one of the true leaders of theconspiracy for the past two years (Zobel in 1874) was jailed by JoseMalcampo, namely, the Admiral with the typical 19th century naval beard,and who turned out to be the founder of masonry in the Philippines, for heestablished the lodge "First Light of the Philippines" in Cavite under thePortuguese Orient, and solved in this curious way, according to Regidor, "thefight between the Spaniards and the masons in Hongkong, which has a trulyinternational and transcendental significance."Thus we now see how a small group of foreigners, among them perhapsReynolds, knew perfectly well the weakness of Spain, knew the militaryforces in the Philippines would hardly suffice to crush the rebellion in Jolowhich they had incited. And they planned a barracks attack when the Spanishfleet was away in the south. The plot was probably organized in the lodge inCavite, whose Filipino members followed the secret, instructions faithfully.The latter in turn were charged with recruiting, on the one hand, the nativesoldiers who had to take up arms and, on the other, the politicallydiscontented to see what measures could be taken against that chronicallyunjust situation. Both had held various meetings separately andindependently, so that one group could agree on a military uprising, but notthe other. A university student, Jose Basa y Enriquez, used to come to thesecret meetings of the military group. He is not to be confused with Jose Ma.Basa, brother of Pio, who was sentenced to 10 years and must have been animportant figure, but about whom hardly anything is known.'The other basic element in this tangle was Francisco Zaldua, possiblyBasa's subordinate and a contractor who claimed to be Fr. Burgos' secretary,and had approached the simple corporals and sergeants, serving as the onlyliaison between the two groups."The point is not whether this was true or not; rather, if Zaldua'sdeclarations were true, the court sentence was just, and indeed Frs. Burgos,Gomez, and Zamora are national heroes by their own making, martyrs of37