Note 5 — Statement of Capt. Olegario Diaz1

Note 5. Filibusters: more properly called separatists. Noah Webster describes a filibuster as a “lawless military adventurer, especially one in quest of plunder; a free-booter, a pirate.” Hence, taken in its true meaning, the word does not apply to the separatists of the Philippines. Retana classifies the filibuster in three groups: the first: he who, thinking little or nothing of the independence of his country, showed more or less aversion to the peninsular Spaniards. 2. He who, under the pretext or without it, of illustrating his countrymen, inculcated into their minds political ideas which, without meriting the qualification of subversive, tended to incite them against supposed oppressions of the Spaniards; against all things which appeared behind the times, hence according to their way of arguing, against the Religious Corporations, to which they owed everything except their anti-Spaniardism. As a rule those belonging to this group professed great love for the mother-country and did not preach ideas of independence; they held the belief that theirs was the duty to prepare the way for the emancipation which should be attained by their grandchildren. And 3. Those whose aim was to attain the emancipation of their country as soon as possible. This latter group were the true separatists. It is however difficult to distinguish between the filibuster so called, and the true separatist; perhaps the only admissible distinction is that the separatist is a man of peaceful methods whilst the filibuster is a man of struggles. Rizal was more or less a separatist, Andrés Bonifacio a veritable filibuster.