Note 1 — To the Brave Sons of the Philippines

The Katipunan League and Freemasonry were not identical institutions. There were many Freemasons who were leaguers, but not because they were Freemasons, as also there were thousands of leaguers who knew nothing of Freemasonry. There is little doubt that Freemasonry suggested the bare idea of that other secret society called Katipunan, whose signs and symbols were of masonic design, but whose aims were totally different. It is probable, too, that the liberty which Freemasons enjoyed to meet in secret session was taken advantage of by the leaguers. There were risings in the Islands long before the introduction of Freemasonry. This secret society was introduced into the Colony a little before the year 1850. In 1893 the first lodges of the Spanish Grand Orient were opened, and there were never more than 16 lodges of this Order up to the evacuation by the Spaniards. Each lodge had about 30 members, or, say, a total of 500. The Spanish deputy, Dr. Miguel Morayta, in his speech in the Spanish Congress in April, 1904, stated that General Ramon Blancoʼs reply to Father Mariano Gil (the discoverer of the Katipunan) was that the identity of Freemasonry with Katipunan “existed only in the brains of the friars and fanatical Spaniards.”