12 DECEMBER

1888 - Twenty-one young women of Malolos, Bulakan in the colony the Philippines submit a petition to Spanish Governor-General Valeriano Weyler requesting permission to set up a night school that would teach them the Spanish language with a Latin professor, Teodoro Sandiko, as teacher; two months later, upon the prodding of the "Great Propagandist" Marcelo H. del Pilar, Filipino patriot and polymath Jose Rizal would later laud the lasses for their exceptionally courageous behavior in a letter entitled "To the Young Women of Malolos"; the petitioners are Alberta S. Uitangcoy, sisters Teresa, Maria, and Basilia V. Tantoco; Rufina T. Reyes; sisters Leoncia and Olympia S. Reyes; sisters Elisea and Juana Reyes; Sister Eugenia and Aurea Tanchangco; Anastacia M. Tiongson; sisters Basialia, Paz, Aleja, Mercedes, and Agapita Tiongson; and sisters Filomena, Cecilia, and Feliciana Tiongson. 


1899 - Only 10 months into the Philippine-American War (1899-1914), Daniel Tirona, an Emilio Aguinaldo loyalist,  surrenders his troops in Cagayan Valley before the enemy Bald Eagle forces; Tirona, then secretary of war of the Katipunan chapter Magdalo, was responsible for insulting secret-society-turned-revolutionary-government Kagalanggalangang Katipunan  nang  manga Anak nang  Bayan (KKK Supremo Andres Bonifacio  after being elected Interior Minister during the controversial Tejeros Convention and for earlier propagating poison letters against the latter;  the easy surrender of the Cagayan Valley forces would be ascribed to the "infamy, cowardice, and shamelessness of General Tirona," who would then subsequently infamously act as the personal servant of an American captain, bearing the insults of his former soldiers and civilians with such unmanly lack of pride, until his rapid promotion as the household's mayordomo.




Photo credit: WikiPilipinas