Note 109 — THE PHILIPPINES, 1860–1898—SOME COMMENT AND BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTES

The Pact of Biak-na-bató.—Purposely, the word “treaty,” so often applied to this transaction, is here avoided; for, apart from technical objections to a word that applies to agreements between sovereign powers, this was no treaty in any sense of the word. There was some mystery surrounding the negotiations by which the insurgent chiefs surrendered a few hundred nondescript firearms and retired to Hongkong; untrue or half-true charges were bandied back and forth, for political effect, in the Cortes and the press of Spain; and, of the chief actors in the affair, only Primo de Rivera has given his account—perhaps not with entire frankness.109 Aguinaldo has confined his statements on the subject to the most brief assertions of a general nature110 to the effect that reforms by the Spanish government were promised. Primo de Rivera categorically denies this; while Pedro A. Paterno, the go-between, has made no statement at all during the nine years that have passed since the conflicting statements have been before the public, involving directly the question of his own veracity and good faith. Primo de Rivera is an ex parte witness, to be sure; but his statements upon the more vital points involved are corroborated by the very insurgent documents on this subject captured by the American army in 1899 and now in the War Department at Washington.111 Primo de Rivera says that, when Paterno presented a paper early in the negotiations containing a full program of reforms,112 he rejected the document absolutely, saying he could not discuss such matters with the insurgent chiefs, that the Spanish government would accord such reforms as it thought wise, and he could only interpose his good offices to make recommendations in that respect. The copy of this document now in the War Department at Washington shows the clauses about reform to have been crossed out. Primo de Rivera says that, from that time forth, the negotiation was purely on the basis of a payment to the rebel chiefs to surrender their arms, order the insurgents in the other provinces to do the same, and emigrate to foreign parts. The only documents bearing signatures on both sides, either of those published at Washington or elsewhere, refer exclusively to these particular points of money, surrender of arms, and program of emigration, though Paterno inserted in a preliminary of the final contract on these subjects a clause as to reposing confidence in the Spanish government to “satisfy the desire of the Filipino people.”113 Primo de Rivera recommended the transaction to his government for one reason, expressly because it would “discredit [desprestigiando] the chiefs selling out and emigrating.”114