Lenten Uprising

About 103 years ago, a secret meeting at the sugarcane fields of Jacinto Pacaña in Labangon was held to map out plans for the Katipunan uprising in Cebu.

In attendance aside from Pacaña were Francisco Llamas, Luis Flores, Candido Padilla, Nicolas Godinez and Eugenio Gives, among others, who gathered to fix the date of the uprising. The group decided on April 8, a Good Friday, when Spanish soldiers would be forbidden from carrying bullet cartridges attached to their rifles in deference to the Holy Week observance. Absent in the meeting was Florencio Gonzalez, secretary of the Cebu Ayuntamiento, who, in January that year went to Manila and returned to head the local Katipunan movement. Gonzalez had been under constant surveillance since then and had to refrain from attending the gathering so as to avoid getting undue attention from the authorities.

In that same meeting, they decided to continue the rapid recruitment of Katipuneros that began on March 5 with the dockworkers and hemp cargadores of the British firm Smith, Bell & Company. Moreover, Llamas, Godines and Gives were sent to Manila on different departure dates to acquire rapid military training, given such short notice.

Tension increased when on March 21, Januario Gabrillo, an elderly resident of San Nicolas, was arrested and tortured to death after revealing what little he knew of the movement. More arrests followed, agitating a number of Katipuneros to begin the uprising immediately, though they were prevailed upon by others to wait for the arrival from Manila of a Katipunero by the name of Pantaleon Villegas. Villegas, under the nom-de-guerre “Leon Kilat”, figured prominently at the start of the Cebu uprising, which was moved to April 3 (Tres de Abril) owing to the ambush of three Guardia Civiles by a Katipunan squad in Talisay.

- Ybarra