Felipe Agoncillo’s diplomatic mission in the US

FILE PHOTO

As the White House celebrates Filipino American History Month this October, I choose to narrate a story of the first Filipino diplomat, Atty. Felipe Agoncillo (1859-1941), of Taal, Batangas.

Felipe Agoncillo – not to be confused with Felipe Calderon or Teodoro Agoncillo – earned his law degree “summa cum laude” from the Universidad de Santo Tomás in 1879. In Taal, Agoncillo as a young lawyer provided free legal assistance to the Batanguenos oppressed by landlords or employers. There was a written notice posted just outside his law office: “Free legal services to the poor anytime.”

Agoncillo at first desired to fight side by side with other Filipino warriors on the battlefield. He wanted to be a foot soldier, but President Aguinaldo said “no.” Aguinaldo saw mankind’s finest qualities in Agoncillo and told him instead: Your talents are maximized, and our Motherland would be better served if you worked as our ambassador and diplomatic troubleshooter.

‘Outstanding first Filipino diplomat’

While the disgraceful skirmishes for independence were raging, the revolutionary government sent our first diplomat, Felipe Agoncillo, first to Washington, D.C., then to Paris and back to Washington. Aguinaldo commissioned Agoncillo as Minister Plenipotentiary, with Sixto Lopez as secretary of the Philippine mission to the United States.

The one and only objective was to secure recognition of Philippine independence as declared by Aguinaldo on June 12, 1898, and ratified by the Malolos Congress on September 29, 1898. All fell in deaf ears.

Agoncillo’s experience in the United States was valid proof of how enduring the Filipino fighting spirit was, even on the level of diplomatic talk. Agoncillo met with President McKinley on October 1, 1899, two months before the scheduled Paris Treaty.

You can’t fail to be proud of Agoncillo, who, before the United States President and Senate, talked straight and to the point, speaking in rococo Castellano.

Regrettably, Uncle Sam paid no heed to Juan de la Cruz’s urgings but instead made two despicable moves. One, McKinley rejected Agoncillo’s request for any Filipino representation at the peace talks between the United States and Spain in Paris and, two, he ignored altogether the previous verbal American commitments to allow the Filipino self-rule.

Papal diplomat to Paris

Meanwhile, Pope Leo XIII sent Archbishop Placide Louis Chapelle (1842-1905) of New Orleans as his Extraordinary Envoy to the Philippines. Archbishop Chapelle was then simultaneously performing his task as apostolic delegate in Cuba and Puerto Rico, all former colonies of the Spanish Empire.

Being a French-American prelate, Chapelle was in a better position to present the side of the Catholic Church to the American and Spanish peace commissioners gathered in Paris, and so he was sent to France for the Treaty of Paris.

In the presence of the Holy See’s representative, both parties found it urgent and necessary to find immediate solutions to the most urgent problems of the Catholic Church in the archipelago. Among others, the problems that required attention were related to the properties and rights of the Spanish religious orders, more specifically, the friar lands.

That cold day of December 10, the Treaty of Paris of 1898 that officially settled the acquisition of the Philippines from Spain by the United States, following Spain’s defeat in the Spanish-American War earlier that same year, was signed.

Agoncillo and the US Senate

The American peace commissioners returned to Washington from Paris feeling victorious, while Agoncillo met in his hotel room and sat down with his diplomatic team to strategize their next move in the hope that something might still be done. His desk in his Washington hotel was burning with letter writing. In addition to sending messages to the US Secretary of State, he also made attempts to communicate and, in fact, actually wrote a letter addressed to James Cardinal Gibbons, Archbishop of Baltimore.

Agoncillo knew that, before the signed Treaty of Paris could take effect, it must be ratified by the US Senate. He took this little window of time to talk straight to the US Senate that the Philippine Republic was entitled to self-government and recognition of other sovereign countries, adding that our freedom has been won, our independence officially proclaimed, and a de facto government was running.

Agoncillo saw a glimmer of hope when the Treaty was vigorously opposed in the US Senate during the initial sessions of debates. Several lawmakers understood the acquisition as a bad precedent of “inaugurating a policy of imperialism.”

Firing at San Juan Bridge

Coincidence, fate, or plot? Two days before the Senate voted on the Treaty, the storm of the Philippine-American War (1899-1902) broke out. The root of the war: An American sentinel of the Nebraska Volunteers fired at a Filipino soldier who attempted to cross the bridge of San Juan del Monte. To buttress the argument in favor of annexation, the American think tank manipulated that single gunshot and let it explode into an all-out war between the two nations.

As expected, Uncle Sam accused the Filipinos before the world of having treacherously begun the hostilities. According to the US Department of State’s Office of the Historian, the hostilities took the lives of 200,000 civilians, 20,000 Filipinos and 4,200 American combatants.

While the military officers in Manila said it was an isolated accident, the February 4, 1899 incident on that San Juan del Monte bridge apparently was a well-thought-out plot so that the US Congress would vote in favor of the Treaty of Paris two days later. The Treaty was approved on February 6 by only a single deciding vote.

The 20-million-dollar acquisition of the Philippines from Spain by the United States was sealed.

Agoncillo’s diplomatic activity incurred expenses that had exhausted his savings. Further, the costs of traveling and negotiating abroad to pursue the best Filipino interests had forced him to sell his wife’s jewelry.

A rich man when he left; he was pauper when he came back. The most gratifying of all was for him to see, live together with, and feel the love of his family in their warm abode in Malate, Manila.

Dr. José Mario Bautista Maximiano is the author of the 3-volume history-theological work on 500 Years of Christianity in the Philippines (Claretian, 2021, 2022). Email: [email protected].