Article: Dr. Pio Valenzuela - The Revolutionary as a Country Doctor (1958)

Victoria Grande Fort in Melilla, Northern Africa, then a prison facility of the Spanish empire where Dr. Pio Valenzuela was imprisoned as a prisoner of war while he was "used" as a prison doctor, 1897-1899.
Photo: https://www.arc-magazine.com/victoria-grande-fort-morocco/.

The Revolutionary as a Country Doctor

By Valentin C. Loyola

Published in This Week,30 November 1958

Dr. Valenzuela joined secret Katipunan society as medical student; later, he devoted his time to medical practice, finally became Bulacan governor.

Much has been written about the revolutionary activities of General Pio Valenzuela, one in the triumvirate that formed the original nucleus of the secret Katipunan society. But his career in public health has been mentioned only sparingly and fleetingly. Yet, his lifetime work as a country doctor was the best known of his humanitarian activities that endeared him to the people of his province and to his comrades-in-arm in the Katipunan, just as his intense patriotism and exemplary heroism won him the admiration of his countrymen. 

“Medicine was his first love,” says Mrs. Mercedes Los Baños, the general’s third child. “We were told that at an early age he showed such interest in medicine that his parents thought he would settle down solely as a medical practitioner.”

“He told me that it was his obsession to see all his sons take careers in medicine,” said Dr. Rosalinda Garcia-Valenzuela, wife of Dr. Diego Valenzuela, the only son of the late revolucionariowho is a doctor. “All the four sons started courses in medicine, but it was only my husband who pursued the course to the finish; the rest switched to other courses.” 

Don Pio, as the revolutionary hero was lovingly called in Polo, Bulacan, actually started his medical practice when he was only a medical student. At that time, the services of physicians were at a premium, and the University of Santo Tomas student had to answer sick calls out of sheer necessity. 

Valenzuela was a senior medical student at the only medical school in the country, the UST College of Medicine, when on July 15, 1892, he joined the Katipunan, which was then only eight days old. He was then only twenty-three years old. Never a man to do things half-heartedly, he quickly rose to the top hierarchy of the Katipunan supreme council, which was composed of Andres Bonifacio, the supremo; Emilio Jacinto, the secretary-general; and himself, the fiscal general. The triumvirate exercised the power to take the life of anyone found guilty of treachery. 

Between attending secret sessions with the supreme council, Valenzuela nibbled away at his studies, ultimately finishing his medical course in 1895. 

The General had much use for his medical training during the horror-filled Katipunan days. In his “Memoirs of the K.K.K. and the Philippine Revolution,” he wrote: “…While living on Lavezares Street (Manila) I also organized many branches of the Katipunan in various municipalities of Rizal and Bulacan, practising my profession at the same time, accepting fees from those who gave them voluntarily although I never charged anybody. I also gave medicine to the poor, and even set up a small drug store on Lavezares Street under the care of Faustino Duque, who prepared my prescriptions for free distribution to the poor patients.”

Dr. Valenzuela’s most well-known exploit was his mission to contact Dr. Jose Rizal in Dapitan, Zamboanga, where the latter was exiled by the Spanish authorities. Valenzuela was only able to accomplish the mission by using his profession as a “front” to disguise his true role in that particularly dangerous activity. 

On May 1, 1896, a general meeting of about sixty Katipuneros presided by Andres Bonifacio was held in Sitio Ugong, a comparatively unpopulated place in the town of Pasig (Rizal). Valenzuela presented a motion for the solicitation of voluntary contributions with which to buy arms and munitions from Japan. With the procurement of arms, the armed rebellion, aimed at the overthrow of the Spanish government, could be hastened. The motion was unanimously approved after much debate, but with the condition that it be first submitted to Dr. Jose Rizal in Dapitan for approval. 

The meeting, which started in the house of a Katipunan member at eleven o’clock at night, was suspended at four o’clock the following morning to allow for a brief rest and a much-delayed meal. The meeting was resumed in seventeen small bancas, which headed for Bitukang Manok river leading to Antipolo. In that floating confab Valenzuela was elected to undertake the task of contacting Rizal. The meeting was ended at eleven o’clock in the morning of May 2^ndby the simple ceremony of firing two revolvers–one by Bonifacio and the other by Emilio Aguinaldo. 

About his trip to Dapitan, Valenzuela wrote: “With a round-trip first-class ticket which cost me sixty pesos, and under an assumed name of Procopio Bonifacio, I embarked on the steamship Venus on Monday, June 15, 1896, between ten and eleven o’clock in the morning, accompanied by Raymundo Mata, a blind man, and Rufino Magos, both residents of Barrio Binakayan, Kawit, Cavite, who were deck passengers. On the boat as first-class passengers were three women – Josefina Bracken, Narcisa Rizal, and Angelica Lopez, wife, sister, and niece, respectively of Dr. Rizal.”

Of course, it was not the chief objective of his visit to Rizal to bring Raymundo Mata for eye treatment, but had he not devised the trick, this mission would have been his undoing. Only ten minutes after he was introduced to Dr. Rizal, at the latter’s house, a man came with a letter from the governor. The governor wanted to know from Rizal the nature of the business of the visitors. Having been told by Rizal that one was the physician of the blind man and the third an attendant, the governor was satisfied. 

Having conferred with Rizal, during which the exile approved the plan for an armed rebellion, provided arms and munitions could be secured first and the rich and influential Filipinos could be won over to the cause, Valenzuela sailed back on the Venus to report to the supreme council on his mission. 

Before the boat reached Manila, Valenzuela was forced to make known his true identity. A Spanish sergeant of the civil guards, who embarked at Iloilo, died of hemoptisis on the boat. For the boat to enter Manila without quarantine restrictions, a death certificate was necessary. The captain of the boat learned that he was not Procopio Bonifacio, but Dr. Pio Valenzuela.

Dr. Valenzuela’s professional training came in handy again when he was imprisoned by the Spaniards in November, 1896, with a life sentence slapped on him by Governor-General Ramon Blanco. In his three long years of incarceration, which brought him from Manila’s Fort Santiago to the prisons of Spain and North Africa, at least he had the distinction of serving as the prison doctor. It was at the instance of this prison doctor, who swore that Antonio Luna was not a Katipunan member, that he (Luna) was sprung from a Barcelona prison.  This act of Valenzuela released to the revolutionary movement an outstanding military strategist.

Brought home after the Treaty of Paris, Valenzuela was kept from some time in prison in a house in Intramuros, Manila, within stone’s throw of his former Alma Mater, San Juan de Letran College. Other prisoners were released earlier after they swore not to bear arms against the new conquerors, the Americans, but Valenzuela was set free in early part of 1899.

After having served briefly as the first American-appointed mayor of Polo, Bulacan, his hometown, he accepted the position as health officer of the sanitary division composing the towns of Obando, Polo, Meycauayan, and Marilao. His acceptance of the position was an acceptance of a challenge, for at that time Polo and the neighbouring towns, and many provinces for that matter, were in the grip of a cholera epidemic. 

For nineteen years the former fiery revolutionary leader toiled among his people, fighting epidemics and generally working for the better health conditions of his people. As public health man, Dr. Pio Valenzuela became a legend in Bulacan. 

Stories are many about his benevolence. People paid only when they could afford to pay for medical service – and no specific rate was charged from patients. Some, who were too poor to pay, even went home not only with free medicines from the family botica, but also with a little amount of money from the doctor’s pocket.

It is said that he was the despair of some medical practitioners in the area. Some doctors wanted to set up a uniform rate for patients calling from out-the-way places. But Dr. Valenzuela could not bring himself into this kind of business discipline. Sometimes he went on calls that cost him half a day of his time, and all he would earn was fifty centavos or none at all. 

“But even as he was generous to those who could not afford to pay for medical services, he had very little patience with those who broke the health rules that he set,” said Mrs. Los Baños. “He was the ideal public servant.”

Mornings he would go to a place where fresh milk was being peddled. When he saw adulterated milk for sale, he would pour it on the ground. Puto and cookies for sale that were not properly covered suffered the same fate. Meat that was sold in the market without the benefit of inspection found its way into the dump no matter who owned it.

Dr. Valenzuela was the Number One sworn enemy of prostitution in his home town. Even during his time, bawdy-house girls spilled over to suburbs, including Polo. When he heard of the presence of such girls, he would give orders not to allow them to leave his municipality without medical clearance certificates. 

And woe to the people who were the recipient of his bounties for having pretended that they were destitute and, afterwards, seen by the doctor indulging in costly funerals! Those were the times when the doctor hit the ceiling, so to say.

These activities were carried on at the time when he was raising a family. Early in his job, as president of the sanitary division, he married Marciana de Castro, also of Polo. How he carried on in his family life may be gleaned from an important event in the family, fifty-three years after the wedding bells rang for the Valenzuelas. In July, 1953, the Valenzuela family was the recipient of the award of “The Filipino Family of 1953,” from the Women’s Civic Assembly. The other family that obtained the same award that year was the Ramon Magsaysay family.

It was for his name as revolutionary leader and for his reputation as a philanthropic, public health official that the leaders of the Democrata Party, in Bulacan, asked Dr. Valenzuela to run for governor. At first, he refused, but he was later unable to turn his back to the persistent pleadings of Teodoro Sandico and Jose Padilla, Sr. (both served as Bulacan governors), who convinced him that it was a good fight. Only one year before he could have retired as a government doctor, he threw his hat into the political ring, running against a Quezon man, Juan Pascual, of San Miguel.

“The first returns showed that my father won,” reminisced Mrs. Los Baños. “As a matter of fact, he was acclaimed winner and people flocked to our old stone house to congratulate the old man. Later, he was told that he lost by a small majority.”

Valenzuela knew that he was cheated. This disconcerting knowledge brought out again the fighting spirit that had always been his since the prime of his manhood. So he girded himself for a long court battle to contest the election. The case dragged on in the court of first instance, and while it did, he sold a great deal of his property piece by piece to finance the costly legal battle. He did not care if he lost his lands and money: he did not relish being made a sucker by unscrupulous politicians.

Dissatisfied with the decision of lower courts, he elevated the case to the highest court of the land – and he won! His victory, however, cost him a fortune, not to mention the life pension which he could have reaped as a government worker in one more year of service.

The term had still ten months to go, and that’s how long he sat as governor for that term.

But to clinch his belief that he could win in a clean election hands down, he ran again. He defeated his rival by a resounding majority.

Marciana Valenzuela was not enthusiastic on her husband getting enmeshed in politics. Were she not used to her husband’s philanthropies, she could have been more dismayed to find that the governor almost always used his salary to advance the salaries of other employees who did not get their wages on time.

Until his death, this grand old man of Bulacan practised his profession. Many discriminating people of Polo and the surrounding towns thought that no doctor was good enough for them if it was not Dr. Valenzuela. One of the men who was vocal on the proficiency of the old doctor was Dr. Antonio Villarama, onetime secretary of the department of health. Dr. Villarama never forgot how Dr. Valenzuela saved his life by the latter’s skill as a physician. 

One of the important milestones of his medical career was when the Bulacan Medical Society awarded him a plaque, commemorating the golden jubilee of his practice in medicine. The Manila Medical Society could not be outdone, and it likewise remembered him with another golden jubilee award. At the time of his death, Don Pio was sixty-one years in the practice of medicine.

Another humanitarian activity of the late patriot and hero that the Polo people do not forget was his interest in education. Out of his pocket, he rented school rooms for classes that could not be accommodated in government buildings or government-rented buildings.

Don Pio died on April 6, 1956, at the age of eighty-seven. Surviving him was his wife, who was then only seventy-one; his children Abelardo now fifty-seven, chief of the training department of the Industrial Development Corporation; Arturo, fifty-four, with the bureau of customs; Mercedes, fifty-one, a Bachelor of Science in Education, now married to Engineer Joaquin Los Baños; Rosa, pharmaceutical chemist, now married to Fernando Tecson; Amadeo, forty-four, an executive of the Manila Trading and Supply; Alicia, forty, single, principal of the Marilao elementary school; and Diego, thirty-seven, genecology and obstetrics consultant at the North General hospital, in Manila.

Mrs. Marciana Valenzuela died on June 14, 1958, at the age of seventy-three.

When the family was awarded the title of “The Filipino Family of 1953,” the couple had forty-one grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren. “Now there are more,” said Dr. Rosalinda Garcia-Valenzuela, cuddling her youngest son, Pio II, who is five years old.

The Valenzuela Family was awarded as the "Family of the Year" in Malacanang in 1953.

Article: Valenzuela -- Rizal's Mysterious Visitor in Dapitan (1958)

Ang Pag-uusap nina Rizal at Valenzuela sa Dapitan. Likha ni Luciano A. Alejandrino. Nasa Museo Valenzuela. 

RIZAL IN EXILE

When Rizal was exiled in Dapitan, he had a mysterious visitor

By Arturo M. Misa

Published in The Saturday Mirror Magazine, 21 June 1958.

Traveling under the fictitious name of Procopio Bonifacio, Dr. Pio Valenzuela ascended the rickety gangplank of the steamship Venuson Monday, 15th June 1896 on a mission of priceless significance: to appraise Rizal of the formation of the Katipunan and to persuade him to direct the revolution.

With him were Raymundo Mata, a sightless man and Rufino Magos, both of Kawit, Cavite. On the boat as first class passengers were three women who meant the world to Rizal--Josephine Bracken, Narcisa Rizal and Angelica Lopez; wife, sister and niece respectively of the great man.

On the 21st of June 1896, the boat dropped anchor at the Bay of Dapitan. Two hours later the passengers of Venuswere face to face with the man whose name was magic to the Filipinos on the other side of the sea.

That night the group supped pleasantly, during which the conversation flitted from one topic to another, such as how the green mango fruits served as appetizers were more agreeable than the famed olives of Europe and how Rizal had observed, his birthday two days before by taking a dose of fifty centigrams of quinine sulphate due to his high temperature.

After supper, Dr. Pio Valenzuela requested a private audience with Rizal, explaining meanwhile that he did not come merely to seek medical consultation for a greater purpose.

Once seated on a bench about fifty meters from Rizal's dwelling, Dr. Pio Valenzuela appraised Rizal of current development in the Philippines.

"Doctor," he began, "on the night of July 7, 1892 the Katipunan was founded with the main object of seeking the separation of the Philippines from Spain through violent means. In a general assembly held May 1st in Pasig, Morong (now a province of Rizal) the top echelon of the secret society adapted the following resolutions:

(1)Draw to the folds of the Katipunan the intelligent and rich Filipinos.

(2) Solicit funds for the purpose of storing arms cache to promote the cause of the rebels.

(3) Dispatch intelligent Filipino emissaries to Japan who would be responsible for buying arms and munitions, at the same time seek the aid plus protection of the Japanese government in behalf of the Filipino rebels.

(4) Submit the above resolution for Dr. Jose Rizal's approval for which purpose Dr. Pio Valenzuela is named to proceed to Dapitan to confer with Rizal.

"So the seed grows," Rizal replied thoughtfully "at this time when Spain is weakened by the revolution in Cuba, the resolutions are timely and should be executed immediately. A word of caution though. By no means should the armed revolution start until every rebel is adequately armed. Reason and not hot temper should prevail. If the latter predominates over reason, the venture would be suicidal.

"Let us hope that Japan extends a helping arm. You know Dr. Valenzuela, when I last visited Japan, a Japanese minister placed at my disposal three merchant ships with which to carry guns to the Philippines. A rich Filipino whom I approached for a loan P200,000 for the purpose of purchasing firearms turned me down cold".

Dr. Pio Valenzuela's brow creased with a frown as he said: 

"Truly, the problems of the Katipunan grow in magnitude day by day. It is not only financial in nature, but is many faceted as well. So many Katipuneros' blood boils to a dangerous temperature whenever the eye-witness acts of barbarity by their Spanish conquerors."

Rizal opined that the leaders had the strict obligation to prevent the premature blood-letting, to which opinion Valenzuela concurred. He promised to have his men under control the best way he could.

The deportee remarked that the movement would crumble down like a house of cards without the financial backing of the moneyed and influential Filipino class.

"Try to avail yourselves of Antonio Luna's assistance: He is a very intelligent man and has access to the homes of wealthy Filipinos. The best we can do if we fail to win them over to our side, these aristocratic Filipinos, is to neutralize them; prevent them from helping the other side. (The secret chamber of the Katipunan neutralized these Filipinos of doubtful allegiance by drafting fictitious paper linking these aristocrats with the affairs of the Katipunan.)

As the hours raced by, the talk drifted to the plan of Candido Tirona to snatch Rizal from his captors, place him aboard a ship well supplied with coal and conduct the great man to Japan through the Pacific Ocean.

Dr. Rizal broached the subject of a college in Japan for Filipino youths which would later on be made into a university, as the two doctors treaded their way back to Rizal's unpretentious hut. This had been an obsession of Rizal and he was ready to volunteer his services gratis. Doctor Valenzuela commented that his (Rizal's) idea was a worthwhile one but hastened to add that the revolution needed his guiding hand more than the college did.

"I am ready for both," Rizal said.

Valenzuela was apprehensive that the revolution would break out while Rizal was a prisoner in Dapitan and he voiced his fear. Rizal calmed him down by pointing out that his apprehension was unwarranted. The Moros, whom he had treated free-of-charge in more times than one, remembered his kindnesses. With their fast-sailing crafts, they could easily spirit Rizal right from the noses of his jailers if he gave them the green light.

"If the revolution goes ahead of schedule, the Spaniards will not hesitate to empty their rifles on your body."

Rizal replied: "To die and conquer is pleasant, but to die and be conquered is painful."

The duo arrived after ten o'clock from their stroll in the beach and called it a day.

The next day dawned fine and clear. Just before breakfast the doctor meticulously examined the blind man, Raymundo, after which he divulged his findings to Valenzuela. Raymundo's eyes could not be operated on. A lesion had developed in the retina which was congested. However, he prescribe the following:

Potassium iodine---3 grams

Distilled water---100 grams

To be taken one spoonful each morning.

(Sgd.) Dr. Jose P. Rizal 

The doctor and Dr. Pio Valenzuela went to an adjoining hut, much bigger than Rizal's residence. The odor of medicine assailed Dr. Valenzuela's nostrils. Without telling him he guessed that it was a clinic or a small hospital. It was a hospital.

Rizal informed him that boiling water and alcohol were what he employed to disinfect his instruments in surgical cases; that with his limited medical supplies and improvised paraphernalia, he had successfully operated on two Moros; one for inguinal hernia and the other for hidrocele.

A rambling conversation ensued wherein Rizal casually mentioned that his library was being kept intact for him by Mariano Ponce in Hongkong. He also told Valenzuela that after his medical chores, he devoted the rest of his waking hours educating Dapitan's youth whom he taught Tagalog, Spanish, English and French.

Then the conversation rambled back to national affairs. Rizal warned that failure on the part of the Filipinos to wage a war of independence from Spain would inevitably result in Japan's taking a hand in order to obtain it, within a quarter of a century at the latest. He asked who were the top men in the secret society and whether  they were true patriots in the strictest sense of the word. Valenzuela gave him the names of the leaders assuring Rizal at the same time of their inordinate love of country.

The doctor then spoke to Valenzuela of his letter of application for the position as military doctor in Cuba, addressed  to the minister of war of Spain. Valenzuela remarked that the application was unwise, reasoning out that Weyler, the general commanding the Spanish troops in Cuba, might take his life in view of the fact that Rizal and Weyler once had a heated verbal clash over Rizal's Calamba estate. Rizal smiled and said that there was a chance he might shoot Weyler first! Rizal's intention in wanting to be a millitary doctor, was to accumulate a first-hand experience of war , study it in a practical way so that the lessons he could learn in that bloody part of the world could be applied to the Philippines should the necessity arise.

After Dr. Pio Valenzuela had handed the revolver in his trunk, clandestinely stored away in a secret compartment, to Dr. Jose Rizal, the ship sounded its whistle for the visitors to reembark.

As a parting present and as a gesture of appreciation for Valenzuela's calculated risk of visiting him and giving him a fill-in on what were going in the country he loved more than life, Doctor Rizal gave Valenzuela the "Kamuning Cane" which he was very fond of.

Dr. Pio Valenzuela took his place in the banca that was taking him and his companions to the S.S. Venus. The boat left the Bay of Dapitan between twelve and one in the afternoon. On Friday between two and three o'clock in the afternoon, 26th of June 1896 the ship reached Manila.

Forthwith, Dr. Pio Valenzuela reported the result of his interview with Dr. Jose Rizal to Andres Bonifacio, Emilio Jacinto and Guillermo Masangkay who were the ones commissioned by the Supreme Council of the Katipunan to carry out the counsels and suggestions of our national hero.

Article: Pio Valenzuela -- Last of the Great Katipuneros (1949)

Dr. Pio Valenzuela: Last of the Great Katipuneros

By Salvador F. Zaide

Published in Evening News Saturday Magazine, November 26, 1949.

THE KATIPUNAN, so the story goes, was the generating force of the revolutionary tempest that swept violently over the Philippines toward the close of the last century. Founded by Andres Bonifacio, this underground organization of Filipino Patriots whose membership swelled to hundreds of thousands from a mere handful, actually had been dominated throughout its turbulent lifetime by only three men, all heroic to the core, who soon enough were called “kataastaasang tatlo” (Big Three or Triumvirate).

These men were Andres Bonifacio, explosive and headstrong, Emilio Jacinto, soldier-sage now rated by historians as the “brains of the Katipunan.”-and the only living member of the Triumvirate, Dr. Pio Valenzuela, who now leads a sedate and unexciting life – in complete retirement – in his hometown, Polo, Bulacan. The trio was the “towering and driving power” within the Katipunan, and being themselves the sole members of the much feared secret judicial chamber of the organization, they exercised tremendous power over the Katipuneros,including the power to take life of anyone found guilty of treachery.

The aging Polo Katipunerois a living link of our day with the generation of Rizal, Bonifacio, Mabini and other great figures of the revolutionary era. He was among Bonifacio’s closest friends who remained steadfast and loyal to him up to the time the great patriot was killed on orders of the revolutionary government headed by General Emilio Aguinaldo. After the lapse of over half a century, he still feels bitter and resentful over the death of his friend.

Whenever Dr. Valenzuela talks about Bonifacio’s heroic exploits and the cruel fate which cut short his brilliant career as a revolutionary leader, he invariably describes the tragedy in the words of Apolinario Mabini: “Bonifacio’s death constitutes the first triumph of personal ambition over national patriotism!”  Today, at the mellow but unyielding age of 80 years and three months, Don Pio, as the townsfolk of Polo affectionately call him, still moves sprightly about, carrying his big frame with a jaunty vigor. It is obvious that the adventurous nature of the life he led during the revolutionary years has induced a heightening of his perspective and vision. He feels an intense sense of relationship with the past, and more often now turns his back on the present to reminisce on the past. 

History decidedly will always remember Don Pio, besides being a Katipunan stalwart, as a dashing, cloak-and-dagger figure who had pulled of a number of perilous missions for Bonifacio and the Katipunan. Standouts among his high adventures are his secret meeting with Dr. Jose Rizal at the latter’s place of exile in Dapitan, Mindanao, and the negotiation he conducted with Japanese emissaries over the proposed purchase of three boatloads of arms from Japan by the Filipino revolutionists.   

In Dr. Valenzuela’s own words, the Katipunan which was formally organized on July 7, 1892 coinciding with the public announcement by Spanish Governor-General Despujol of Rizal’s banishment to Dapitan, “aimed to unite the Filipinos under one nationality in order to petition Spain for a representation in the Cortes and demand equality of rights between the inhabitants of the Ultramar and the Peninsula; in case these demands were not granted, to collect enough money and provoke a general uprising for the independence of the Philippine Islands under the protectorate of the Japanese empire.”

Rizal, says Don Pio, had finally swung around to a more tolerant attitude toward the necessity, and inevitability, of open rebellion against Spain, “Rizal told as much to Jacinto when the latter sneaked aboard the boat carrying him to Cuba as voluntary army doctor,” he recounts. “He assured Jacinto that his principal reason in applying for the overseas job was to obtain first-hand knowledge of military tactics, so he could take active part in any impending revolution here.”

Relating his interview with Rizal in Dapitan, he reveals that the Calamba doctor-martyr counselled against immediate uprising on two grounds: first, the would-be rebels had insufficient arms; and second most of the wealthy and prominent Filipinos had not expressed their solid support of the libertarian fight. Rizal was clearly of the opinion that should a rebellion break out, the chances were that these affluent Filipinos would likely become “more deadly enemies to the cause than the Spanish authorities.”

Don Pio continues, “Rizal argued the view that once there were enough arms and the majority of the prominent Filipinos had pledged their cooperation, it would be ready then to strike. There was no need also to worry about his safety as he was ready to cope with any eventuality.”

According to only remaining member of the Katipunan Triumvirate, Bonifacio accepted calmly the counsels of Rizal and was therefore resolved to follow them to the letter but for the sudden turn of events which hastened the shooting war between Filipino patriots and Spanish authorities. 

Significantly, Dr. Valenzuela’s narrative in regard to the reaction of Bonifacio when apprised of the results of the interview with Rizal definitely gives the lie to the popular version about this particular incident contained in most school textbooks on Philippine story. The standard textbook  story shows that Bonifacio, stung to the quick by Rizal’s frigid reception of his proposal for immediate revolt, exploded: “Thunder! Where did Rizal read that for a revolution you must first have ships and arms? Where did he read that?”

Dr. Pio Valenzuela was born in Polo, fourth child of Francisco Valenzuela and Lorenzana Alejandrino. His parents were well off, and belonged to the local aristocracy. Even from early childhood, Don Pio had shown such strong inclination towards the medical profession that the entire Valenzuela household took it for granted that he would grow up to be a successful medico. No one was surprised then when young Valenzuela, upon completion of his secondary education, enrolled in the Santo Tomas University, the only school at the time offering complete courses in medicine. 

He did not dream that when he pursued his studies in Manila he would be heading for far bigger things. Valenzuela, in his fourth year in medicine, came to know of the Katipunan, which was barely a week-old, from a housemate, Luciano de Guzman, another young student from Angat, Bulacan. He promptly joined the underground society. 

No living man possesses such intimate background of the Katipunan and its earlier exploits than Dr. Valenzuela who from the day he signed up as a member, had been the constant companion of Bonifacio and Jacinto. Their long intimacy gave, as expected, Valenzuela a rare insight into the character of both leaders.     

What kind of man was Andres Bonifacio? What about Jacinto? “Bonifacio was a born leader of men, with a flair for organization and an unbending fortitude in the face of danger,” thus Valenzuela pictures his friend. “He possessed a rare aptitude for political science and the military. Despite lack of formal education, Bonifacio was thoroughly informed on the American and English governments, as well as on the lives of the US presidents and Joan of Arc.”

Jacinto was only 20 when he died from gunshot wounds sustained during a bitter fighting in Laguna, in Valenzuela’s own words, was: “A towering intellectual whose writing in the Kalayaan, Katipunan newspaper, inflamed the Filipinos into action against Spanish misrule.”

Dr. Valenzuela fought with Bonifacio and Jacinto in the initial skirmish with the enemy 48 hours after the Katipunerosdecided to revolt in a secret meeting held in barrio Pugad Lawin, Caloocan, on Aug. 22, 1896. The engagement which was fought in barrio Pasong Tamo, also in Caloocan, was brief and bitter. “TheGuardia Civiles took to their heels in the face of the determined fight that we put up,” he recollects.

The Pasong Tamoepisode was not without humor as far as Dr. Valenzuela is concerned. It seems that he and Bonifacio got a bellyful of laughs at the expense of Jacinto. Jacinto reportedly was thrown off his horse many times while the trio galloped toward the enemy. And every time he hit the ground, his friends were forced to give him succor, “Poor Jacinto,” Dr. Valenzuela chuckles, “that was the first time he ever rode a horse!”

The revolution spread rapidly to neighboring provinces. Dr. Valenzuela frequently found himself undertaking dangerous missions as Bonifacio’s personal envoy. Returning to Manila from Binan, following a secret mission, the Spanish authorities, who had been closely watching his movements for a long time, caught up with him. Governor-General Ramon Blanco sentenced him to life imprisonment. Other prominent Filipinos imprisoned with Dr. Valenzuela included Antonio Luna, a young chemist who later became the outstanding military strategist of the revolution, and Juan Castaneda, father of the present Philippine army chief of staff.

With Castaneda and Luna, Dr. Valenzuela who was interned at Fort Santiago, was shipped out to Spain where he was thrown in a jail in Barcelona. During his Barcelona “prison stint” he helped the Swiss friends of Luna get him out of jail by testifying that Luna was not a member of the Katipunan. 

From Barcelona, Dr. Valenzuela, Castaneda and other Filipino patriots were transferred to the prison in Madrid, thence to Malaga, also in Spain. Afterwards, the prisoners were moved out to Melilla, an outlying Spanish outpost in Africa, where they remained until after the Treaty of Paris was inked by representatives of the American and Spanish governments. With peace established between the US and Spain, the Spanish authorities put the prisoners on a freighter for Manila. 

But prison life did not end for Dr. Valenzuela and Castaneda, for the US army authorities placed them under arrest upon arrival in Manila. They were imprisoned in a house in Intramuros within a stone’s throw of San Juan de Letran. There they remained until the early part of 1899 when they were finally set free.

The prison pallor was still very much discernible in his features when Dr. Valenzula plunged into peacetime politics. He became the first municipal president of Polo, and afterwards, governor of the province of Bulacan.  

Numerous yarns are now told and re-told by Bulacan folks regarding their former governor. “Barely a week after Dr. Valenzuela assumed the governorship, one story runs, a powerful gambling syndicate in Baliuag sent an emissary to him with a “proposition.” The gambling clique offered him P 1,000 monthly in exchange for official protection. Unmoved by the tempting bribe, Dr. Valenzuela quietly told the gamblers’ representative to get out of his office-fast. Then he acted immediately: he hounded the local constabulary until gambling and vice in the province, especially in Baliuag, disappeared.

Dr. Valenzuela lives quietly with his wife and seven children. He is the favorite story teller of a big brood of 38 grandchildren who like to listen to his stories of his renowned friends, Bonifacio and Jacinto. The good patriot and his wife will celebrate their golden wedding anniversary in February, next year.

Dr. Valenzuela keeps himself well informed on current events. He is alarmed at the worsening communist situation on the domestic front, attaching great significance to the influx of Chinese into the Philippines. “The urge for change prevailing throughout the world may further aggravate the social ferment here unless the government does the right things to buttress our people’s faith in democracy,” says Dr. Valenzuela.  

Documents: Transcript at "Class Cards" ni Pio Valenzuela sa UST

Academic Records ni Dr. Pio Valenzuela sa UST Archives. 

Document: Sesquicentennial Birth Anniversary Certification mula sa NHCP

Certification mula sa National Historical Commission of the Philippines para sa Sesquicentennial Birth Anniversary ni Dr. Pio Valenzuela sa taong 2019.

Document: Partido de Bautismo ni Dr. Pio Valenzuela

Partida de Bautismo ni Dr. Pio Valenzuela. Kopya mula sa UST Archives. 

Dr. Pio Valenzuela: The Last Revolutionary (1954 Article)

Dr. Pio Valenzuela: The Last Revolutionary

By Exequiel S. Molina

Published in This Week, Magazine of Sunday Chronicle. July 4, 1954.

Some sixteen kilometers north of Manila, in the little town of Polo, Bulacan, lives a man who was the contemporary of our Revolutionary heroes. Together with Andres Bonifacio and Emilio Jacinto, he was one of the Katipunan"Big Three," the supreme council which had control over all Katipuneros and the dreaded "Camara Negra" which exercised the power to deal with traitors within the organization. 

Asked to recount his experiences as a revolucionario, Dr. Pio Valenzuela admonished, "I hope you can take down everything, son. I have plenty to tell you."

Looking out of the window, the old man started his story. He has a memory for dates, persons, and places: every once in a while, he would stop to see if I was keeping up with him. "Be sure you don't miss a thing, son," he would say.

Valenzuela joined the Katipunan on July 15,1892, one of a triangle whose two other men were Teodoro Plata, Bonifacio's brother-in-law, and Luciano de Guzman. (The Katipunan was so organized that every member was made to recruit two more, thus forming a live masonic triangle.) At the time he joined the Katipunan, Valenzuela was a fourth year medical student at the University of Sto. Tomas. For the next three years, he attended the secret meetings of the KKK and continued his studies at the Spanish school. In April 1895, he returned home to Polo to organize the movement in Bulacan. This work carried him to Obando, Malolos, as far north as Arayat. In December of that year, he was summoned to Manila by Emilio Jacinto to attend a meeting of the supreme council in Bonifacio's house on Oroquieta street. He was made fiscal and physician of the KKK. In the early part of 1896, he returned to Manila with two townmates and lived in Lavezares, Tondo, in a house which concealed printing presses for an eight-page magazine called Kalayaan, Liberty. Its articles were written by Emilio Jacinto, who used the pen-names "Dimasalang" and "Pingkian"; Andres Bonifacio, who signed his works "Agap-ito" and "Dimasalang" and Dr. Valenzuela whose nom de plume was "Madlang Away." He chose that name, the old doctor remembers, because "I was a ready for a brawl."

Despite a shortage of types, however, the magazine came out three months afterward. Through a ruse by Emilio Jacinto, they made the Spaniards believe the magazine was published in Yokohama, with Marcelo del Pilar as editor. The Spaniards sent an agent to Japan but found no such press. Valenzuela recalls that the membership of the Katipunan grew as fast as the circulation of the Kalayaan. "It grew so fast," he remarked, "that soon nearly all the men of San Juan and Mandaluyong had joined up-even those in the outlying provinces of Rizal, Bulacan, Cavite, Batangas, Pampanga, Tarlac."

On May 1, 1896, Valenzuela attended the Katipunan meeting in Barrio Ugong, Pasig where it was decided to step up collections for the purchase of arms from Japan. The meeting ended two days later in Bitukang Manok, near Antipolo. A month later, Valenzuela boarded the steamer Venus with Raymundo Mata, a blind man, and Rufino Magos, a companion. Their destination was Dapitan in Zamboanga. Valenzuela used Mata, the blind man, as an excuse to see Dr. Rizal, in exile, and inform him of the uprising planned by the Katipunan. During the trip, he used the name "Procopio Bonifacio."

"Rizal approved of our plans," Valenzuela remembers, "but he said we had to wait, till we had more guns." Valenzuela hurriedly returned to Manila, bringing back a kamuning cane and a small bust, both made by Dr. Rizal, the patriot had presented him.

When the ship had arrived in Manila, Valenzuela and his companions hired a banca to ferry them ashore. Once ashore, he hailed a calesa and was surprised to find his companions arguing with the boatman who refused to accept the peseta being offered to him. Thereupon, Valenzuela banged the kamuning cane on the banca three times, bringing the argument to a halt. Then he drew a peso piece, which the boatman promptly refused.

"I think that cane has a charm of some kind in it," he said. "Unluckily, some fellow from Cavite got it and it is probably still there, passing on from one hand to another."

While standard history textbooks say that Bonifacio flamed up when informed that Rizal's advice was to wait till the Katipuneros had sufficient arms, Dr. Valenzuela maintained that the Plebeian took the advice calmly and was for following it, were it not for the premature discovery of Katipunan through one of its members, Teodoro Patiño, on August 19, 1896.

At dusk on August 20, 1896, Valenzuela slipped in a calesa through a cordon of Spanish sentries and joined Bonifacio and Jacinto in Caloocan. Two days later, the first skirmish of the Philippine Revolution was fought in Pasong-Tamo, between forty Guardias Civil and a hundred bolo-wielding Katipuneros. The Guardias Civil fled, leaving behind one dead, and one rifle, and the day’s glory to the revolutionaries, who lost two men that day. The battle of Pasong-Tamo was not without its share of humor. The old doctor laughingly remembers Emilio Jacinto’s frustrations to become a horseman. “Every time he rode a horse, he always fell. In the end, he had to fight the rest of the battles on foot. “He was a great writer but no horseman.”

After Pasong-Tamo, there followed more skirmishes and the arrival of Katipunan reinforcements from all around Manila. “There was a time when there where about 10,000 Katipuneros camped on Tandang Sora’s land. She had to feed them and there was nothing elegant about the food. There were more than twenty taliasis of rice, and we butchered fifty carabaos. There was no time to cook the viand well; when Tandang Sora found out I had no particular fancy for half-cooked carabao meat, she gave me boiled eggs. Emilio Jacinto shared those eggs with me. We always ate alone, in a secluded spot.”

Dr. Valenzuela acted as trouble-shooter for the KKK, going from one town to another, checking up on the different organizations. Returning to Manila from Biñan, he gave himself up to Malacañan. He was confined at Fort Santiago and tried for rebellion. In November, 1986, he was sentenced to life imprisonment, together with Juan Castañeda, father of Gen. Mariano Castañeda, Antonio Luna who got twenty years, and some sixty others.

Following their conviction, the revolucionarios were shipped to Barcelona, where a large crowd awaited them. “It seems”, the doctor muses, "that the friars had been circulating stories in Spain that Filipinos had tails. But the crowd that met us at Barcelona was disappointed, when they saw us in our clean suits." 

From Barcelona, the prisoners were taken to Madrid, where they stayed one month. Valenzuela remembers Antonio Luna as a good cook and an attractive young man who was constantly visited by a pair of Spanish girls. Valenzuela was responsible for Luna’s release when he testified that Luna was in no way a member of the revolutionary movement. This after Luna's instructors in the Belgian academy where he studied the art of war had interceded with the king of Spain. 

For the others, one prison followed another: Malaga, and finally, the Spanish outpost in Melilia, Africa. Following the Treaty of Paris, Valenzuela was finally released in March, 1899. 

He returned to Manila to find himself prisoner once more, this time by the Americans, who were informed by an archbishop that he and Castañeda were generals of the Filipino insurgents. They were confined in a house in Intramuros for three days. Hearing of their plight, Dr. Burgos, a nephew of the martyred Father Jose Burgos, appealed to the American commander. Castañeda was released after he promised not to fight against the Americans, while Valenzuela remained in jail when he refused to give his word. He stayed captive until after the death of Antonio Luna. His bitterness over the death of Bonifacio and the death of Luna made him realize it was useless to fight the Americans. "I wouldn't mind dying at the hands of foreigners but not at the hands of my countrymen.”

Valenzuela was released in August, 1899, and returned to Polo. Following the first elections under the American regime, he was elected president of the municipality on September 6, 1899, and from then lived a quiet life as town official and doctor.

Friends wanted him to run for the governorship of Bulacan, but Dr. Valenzuela refused twice. The third time, he accepted. The election for the Bulacan governorship of 1919 had its share of dirty dealings: however, he fought for two years; finally, the Supreme Court declared him governor. He served the remaining year of that term, was re-elected to office in 1922, and retired at the end of his term in 1925.

Don Pio, as the people of Polo know him, was born July 11, 1869 in Polo. He had an inclination for medicine and everyone around knew he would turn out to be a good doctor. Of his days as a medical student, he remembers how rigid the studies were and how out of sixty classmates only twelve survived the course at the University of Santo Tomas and the San Juan de Dios Hospital.

Dr. Valenzuela married on October 9, 1900 and had ten children, seven of whom are living: Abelardo, a chemical engineer now in Guam; Arturo, employed in the Bureu of Customs; Mercedes, former professor at Philippine Women’s University, married to Joaquin Los Baños, an engineer; Rosa, a pharmacy graduate, married; Amadeo, who works for a Manila automobile concern; Alicia, a teacher now in Malolos; and Diego, who followed his father’s profession and is now a doctor at the North General Hospital.

At eighty-five, Don Pio lives a sedate life. His short cropped hair has turned white. His back is a little bent, but he is as strong as ever: he smiles, though he complains about his knees, which grow a little weaker every day.