Antonio Luna and the Separation of Church and State
While General Antonio Luna was known for many things: general, Director of War of the First Philippine Republic, he was least known in his civil activities, especially as a member of the Revolutionary Congress (also called the Malolos Congress) that began to convene on September 1898.
The recent movie, Heneral Luna (2015), recounts some of Luna’s encounters with members of the Malolos Congress (a few were members of the Aguinaldo Cabinet), and how they had ulterior motives and vested interests. This portrayal of them is not entirely unfounded. This made Apolinario Mabini and General Antonio Luna on the collision course with the members of the Congress. Apolinario Mabini would be forced to resign as head of the Cabinet, while Antonio Luna would be assassinated.
But while we know the end of the story, it is best to see how these best minds of the day counteracted the deviousness of the members of the Congress with wit, clarity and discernment.
Look at Luna’s strategic mind, from the account of Jose Alejandrino, a member of the Malolos Congress and a close friend of Luna. I surmise this happened in late 1898.
Antonio Luna became a member of Congress. There he affiliated himself with the faction which we can call radical. This faction was formed almost spontaneously when the celebrated debates started in Congress over the separation of Church and State, the expulsion of the friars and other religious congregations from the Philippines, and the prohibition by the Constitution of the formation of new religious orders. The debates showed signs of dragging on forever because, although it appears strange considering the motives which started the Revolution, one half of the members of Congress were adherents of the friars. Eloquent speeches from each group were pronounced but there never was a voting because both groups were afraid of the result of the balloting.
Luna broke the situation with one of those tricks peculiar to his character and which made him famous later.
He assembled all those delegates of the radical faction who had confidence in him advising them to keep away from the sessions of the Congress but requesting them to remain within call at a moment’s notice. With the radicals absent, the Conservatives constituted a majority during the sessions. Having made a careful counting and thinking themselves sure of victory, the Conservatives asked for a vote while the few radicals present registered a token opposition. The motion to call a vote was carried. Then at the precise moment of balloting, Luna immediately called all his adherents to enter the session hall en masse to the surprise of the confident Conservatives. The voting was taken and we won, if I remember right, by one or two votes.
In this manner, provision in our Constitution for the separation of the Church and the State was secured.
While the Malolos Constitution that established the First Philippine Republic had minor imperfections, the provision for the separation of Church and State in its pages was clearly beyond its time. Considering that the the Malolos Constitution was the first republican constitution in Asia promulgated on January 20, 1899, we have Antonio Luna to thank for including freedom of religion to this historic document–an indispensable principle for every Philippine constitution that came after, and a mark of modernity of the Filipino political thought.
Photo above: The staff of the publication, La Independencia, of which Antonio Luna (middle row, left) was founder and editor-in-chief. Some members of the Malolos Congress in the photo were Joaquin Luna (front row, center), Salvador V. del Rosario (middle row, fourth the left), Jose Zulueta (back row, second from the left), Epifanio de los Santos (back row, fourth from the left). These people I identified in the photo were part of the “radical” faction in the Congress before it was dissolved in 1899 at the event of the Philippine-American War.
Photo courtesy of Arnaldo Dumindin.