The Philippine Revolutionary Army, later renamed Philippine Republican Army[4] (
Spanish: Ejército Revolucionario Filipino;
Tagalog: Panghimagsikang Hukbong Katihan ng Pilipinas), was the official
armed forces of the
First Philippine Republic from its
formation in March of 1897 to its dissolution in November of 1899 in favor of guerrilla operations in the
Philippine–American War.
The revolutionary army used the 1896 edition of the Spanish regular army's Ordenanza del Ejército to organize its forces and establish its character as a modern army.[5] Rules and regulations were laid down for the reorganization of the army, along with the regulation of ranks and the adoption of new fighting methods, new rank insignias, and a new standard uniform known as the rayadillo.
Filipino artist
Juan Luna is credited with this design.[6] Juan Luna also designed the collar insignia for the uniforms, distinguishing between the services:
infantry,
cavalry,
artillery,
sappers, and
medics.[7][8][9] His brother, General
Antonio Luna commissioned him with the task and personally paid for the new uniforms.[6] At least one researcher has postulated that Juan Luna may have patterned the tunic after the
EnglishNorfolk jacket, since the Filipino version is not a copy of any Spanish-pattern uniform.[10]Infantry officers wore blue pants with a black stripe down the side, while
Cavalry officers wore red trousers with black stripes.[11][12] Soldiers and junior officers wore straw hats while senior officers often wore peaked caps.
Orders and circulars were issued covering matters such as building trenches and fortifications, equipping every male aged 15 to 50 with bows and arrows (as well as
bolo knives, though officers wielded European swords), enticing Filipino soldiers in the Spanish army to defect, collecting empty cartridges for refilling, prohibiting unplanned sorties, inventories of captured arms and ammunition, fundraising, purchasing of arms and supplies abroad, unification of military commands, and exhorting the rich to give aid to the soldiers.[5]
Aguinaldo, a month after he declared Philippine independence, created a pay scale for officers in the army: Following the board, a brigadier general would receive 600 pesos annually, and a sergeant 72 pesos.
When the
Philippine–American War erupted on February 4, 1899, the Filipino army suffered heavy losses on every sector. Even
Antonio Luna urged
Apolinario Mabini, Aguinaldo's chief adviser, to convince the President that
guerrilla warfare must be announced as early as April 1899. Aguinaldo adopted guerrilla tactics on November 13, 1899, dissolving what remained of the regular army and after many of his crack units were decimated in set-piece battles.[13]
Arsenal
The Filipinos were short on modern weapons. Most of its weapons were captured from the Spanish, were improvised or were traditional weapons. The service rifles of the nascent army were the
Spanish M93 and the Spanish
Remington Rolling Block rifle.[5] Moreover, while in Hong Kong,
Emilio Aguinaldo purchased rifles from the Americans.[14] Two batches of 2,000 rifles each including ammunition were ordered and paid for. The first batch arrived while the second batch never did. In his letters to
Galicano Apacible,
Mariano Ponce also sought weapons from both domestic and international dealers in the
Empire of Japan.[15] He was offered different breech-loading
single-shot rifles since most nations were discarding them in favor of new smokeless
bolt-action rifles. However, there was no mention of any purchase occurring. Another planned purchase was the
Murata rifle from Japan but no record exists that it made its way into the hands of Filipino revolutionaries.
Crew-served weapons of the Philippine military included captured Spanish guns such as
Krupp guns,
Ordóñez guns, and
Maxim-Nordenfelt multi-barreled guns. There were also improvised artillery weapons made of water pipes reinforced with bamboo or timber known as
lantakas, which can only fire once or twice.[5]
The use of the
Murata rifle was proposed by some revolutionaries. There was a planned purchase from Japan with the help of Japanese sympathizers.
Cavalry: Two crossed
lances over two crossed
sabers, surmounted by a sun.
Light Infantry/Rifle battalions: Two crossed
rifles with fixed
bayonets surmounted by a sun, superimposed on three concentric circles.
Intendancy-Quartermaster: A
cockade within a wreath surmounted by a sun.
Signals: Six
lightning bolts over a semicircular wreath surmounted by a sun.
Medical Service: A
bowl of Hygieia within a wreath surmounted by a sun.
Recruitment and conscription
During the revolution against
Spain, the
Katipunan gave leaflets to the people to encourage them to join the revolution. Since the revolutionaries had become regular soldiers at the time of
Emilio Aguinaldo, they started to recruit males and some females aged 15 and above as a form of national service. A few Spanish and Filipino enlisted personnel and officers of the Spanish Army and Spanish Navy defected to the Revolutionary Army, as well as a number of foreign individuals and American defectors who volunteered to join during the course of the revolution.
The Philippine Revolutionary Navy was established during the second phase of the
Philippine Revolution when General
Emilio Aguinaldo formed the Revolutionary Navy. On May 1, 1898, the first ship handed by
Admiral George Dewey to the Revolutionary Navy is a small
pinnace from the
Reina Cristina of
Admiral Patricio Montojo, which was named Magdalo.[17] The Navy was initially composed of a small fleet of eight Spanish steam launches captured from the Spaniards. The ships were refitted with 9-centimeter guns. The rich, namely
Leon Apacible, Manuel Lopez and Gliceria Marella de Villavicencio, later donated five other vessels of greater tonnage, the Taaleño, the Balayan, the Bulusan, the Taal and the Purísima Concepción. The 900-ton inter-island tobacco steamer further reinforced the fleet, Compania de Filipinas (renamed as the navy flagship Filipinas), steam launches purchased from China and other watercraft donated by wealthy patriots.[17][18]
Naval stations were later established to serve as ships' home bases in the following:[18]
Ports of Aparri
Ports of Legaspi
Ports of Balayan
Ports of Calapan
Ports of San Roque, Cavite
On September 26, 1898, Aguinaldo appointed Captain Pascual Ledesma (a
merchant ship captain) as Director of the Bureau of the Navy, assisted by Captain Angel Pabie (another merchant ship captain). After passing of the
Malolos Constitution the Navy was transferred from the Ministry of Foreign Relations to the Department of War (thereafter known as the Department of War and the Navy) headed by
Gen. Mariano Trías.[17][18]
As the tensions between Filipinos and Americans erupted in
1899 and a continued blockade on naval forces by the Americans, the Philippine naval forces started to be decimated.[17]
Brigadier General B. Natividad – Brigade Acting Commander in Vigan under General Tinio.[23]
Colonel Manuel Sityar – Half-Spanish Director of Academía Militar de Malolos. A former captain in the Spanish colonial army who defected to the Filipino side.[24]
Colonel Sebastian de Castro – Spanish director of the military hospital at
Malasiqui, Pangasinan.[21]
Captain Estanislao de los Reyes – Spanish aide-de-camp to General Tinio.[23]
Captain Feliciano Ramoso – Spanish aide-de-camp to General Tinio.[23]
Captain Mariano Queri – Spanish officer who served under General Luna as an instructor in the Academía Militar de Malolos and later as the director-general of the staff of the war department.[21]
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abc"THE PHILIPPINE NAVY"(PDF). dlsu.edu.ph. De La Salle University-Manila (ROTC).
Archived(PDF) from the original on September 14, 2012. Retrieved July 21, 2012.