Emilio Aguinaldo

Aguinaldo, Emilio 

Born Mar. 22, 1869; died Feb. 6, 1964. Filipino political leader.

Aguinaldo led the bourgeois landowner groups that joined the 1896 revolt against the Spanish oppressors. In 1897 he became president of the Supreme Council of State created by the rebels, but that same year he entered into agreements with Spain, called for an end to the fighting, and left the Philippines. At the start of the Spanish-American War of 1898 he rejoined the rebellion, becoming head of the government and commander-in-chief. In 1899 he became president of the Philippine Republic, which was struggling against the American aggressors. Fearing the sweep of the revolutionary movement, Aguinaldo practiced a policy of compromise with the USA. Captured by American forces in 1901, he called on the people to cease struggling against American colonialists. In the 1930’s he headed the Union of Veterans of the Revolution and the National Socialist Party, both bourgeois-nationalist organizations. He was an unsuccessful presidential candidate in 1935.

G. I. LEVINSON