Biac-Na-Bato Pact 1897

Biac-Na-Bató Pact (1897) 

an accord to halt the armed struggle of Filipino insurgents against Spanish rule during the Filipino National Liberation Revolution of 1896–98. It was signed in Manila on November 18 and was named for the city of Biac-na-Bató, the headquarters of the head of the revolutionary government, E. Aguinaldo. In the negotiations with the Spanish authorities, Aguinaldo’s bourgeois-landowner grouping expressed readiness for a compromise with the colonialists, demanding only reforms (equalization of Filipinos’ rights with those of Spaniards, representation of the Philippines in the Cortes, restriction of the activity of monastic orders, and the like). Governor-general Primo de Rivera confined himself to an oral promise of reforms. Under the Biac-na-Bató Pact the insurgents were to lay down their arms, and their leaders were paid a “compensation” of 800,000 pesos. On Dec. 16,1897, Aguinaldo issued an appeal to cease the struggle, and the revolutionary government dissolved itself. The Spanish authorities failed to keep the promises given at the signing of the Biac-na-Bató Pact. The liberation struggle soon flared up with new force (February 1898).

REFERENCES

Guber, A. A. Filippinskaia respublika 1898 g. i amerikanskii imperializm, 2nd ed. Moscow, 1961.

G. I. LEVINSON