30 AUGUST

1896 - The bloody virtually hand-to-hand battle at San Juan del Monte (future "Battle of Pinaglabanan) is fought between the Katipuneros, Filipino revolutionaries, and Spanish colonial forces, a day after Supremo Andres Bonifacio y de Castro led the start of the general uprising during the Philippine Revolution; in the two-part battle, Bonifacio led the Katipuneros in marching evening of August 29 from Santa Mesa to El Polvorin, a Spanish powder magazine located in San Juan del Monte, and by 4:00 of the early morning of August 30, subsequently launching a surprise attack and successfully seizing the magazine, killing the Spanish commander and a number of the artillery men and sending the remaining 100 or so enemy forces to retreat towards the nearby Manila water works deposit office building, the El Deposito; however, the enemy forces were able to call for reinforcement and by noon of the same day the 73rd "Jolo" Regiment made up of Filipino soldiers under the Spanish command of Gen. Bernardo Echaluce y Jauregui began arriving at San Juan del Monte but amidst such formidable, lopsidedly better armed forces, the valiant Katipunero soldiers pushed on the ardous struggle to liberate the nation; the Katipunan or Kataastaasang, Kagalanggalangang Katipunan nang manga Anak nang Bayan was an underground organization formed in the noble aspiration to completely sever oppressive colonial Spanish hold on the Southeast Asian archipelago and was hastily transformed into a revolutionary national government following its premature discovery a few weeks earlier; while the mostly bolo-and-sharpened-stakes-armed Filipino revolutionaries would be no match to the enemy forces equipped with Mauser rifles or pistols, the victory will prove a pyrrhic one for the Spaniards because the blood let from the approximately 150 Katipuneros who will die in battle and the many who will be captured and subsequently executed would but nourish the will of the Filipinos to carry on the fight for independence; that same day, Spanish colonial Governor-General Ramon Blanco officially declares the state of war and martial law on eight provinces, Manila, Bulacan, Pampanga, Nueva Ecija, Tarlac, Laguna, Cavite, and Batangas as the flame of the revolution soon engulfs these provinces.

Photo credit:

http://traveleronfoot.wordpress.com/2008/06/03/the-katipuneros%E2%80%99-baptism-of-fire/