6p
Luciano San Miguel & Personal Flag - Singles (50,000)
Design Coordinator:
Augusto V. de Viana
Layout Artist:
Alfonso V. Divina
First Day Covers: Manila
Luciano San Miguel - 100th Death Anniversary
One of the unsung heroes of Philippine independence. Luciano San
Miguel was born on January 7, 1875 in Noveleta, Cavite. Said to have
studied agriculture at the Ateneo de Manila, San Miguel took on odd
jobs including sewing and "inspecting" the hacienda of Don Pedro
Roxas in Nasugbu, Batangas. When the Revolution broke out, he joined
the Katipunan, Magdiwang chapter, in his hometown, whose more famous
members were the father and son tandem of Mariano and Santiago
Alvarez and Artemio Ricarte.
He led a unit of rebels in garrisoning Nasugbu, later defending it
against the Spanish forces headed by a Colonel Pazos. Outgunned and
outnumbered, San Miguel and four other surviving defenders lost
Nasugbu to the enemy. Impressed by his courageous performance, his
Magdiwang superiors immediately promoted him to brigadier-general,
but this was, however, withdrawn when the revolutionary army
underwent reorganization.
From March to April 1897, as the commander of the rebel lines in San
Francisco de Malabon, he ferociously stalled the enemy's triumph by
continuously pushing back towards Noveleta the troops of General
Lachambre.
He was one of the first officers to heed Aguinaldo's renewed call
for revolution when the latter returned to the country in May 1898.
He was tasked with the supervision of the uprising in several
provinces in Luzon including Pampanga, Manila, Morong, Laguna,
Batangas, and Cavite. It was his movement in Cavite, however - the
capture of thousand captives and enemy weaponry - that catapulted
his name to revolutionary prominence.
In the early days of the war against the Americans, San Miguel led
his soldiers against the fierce attacks of the enemy in San
Franciscodel Monte. Like his fellow Filipino warriors, he and his
men gave a brave, but eventually doomed, struggle against an enemy
that proved a hundred times mightier than the Spaniards.
Hoping to reverse the trend of the war, with the revolutionists
slowly losing to the enemy, he resolved, in late 1899, to resurrect
the Katipunan. On December 6, he issued a circular to this effect
among his officers and troops in Zambales. The idea of a resurrected
Katipunan quickly caught fire and spread from there to the Central
Luzon provinces, to the lIocos in the North and to Manila in the
South.
In October 1902, he was elected "Captain-General" and supreme
commander of the remaining revolutionary forces. He gathered his
forces and embarked on a guerilla struggle that tested the might of
the enemy, thereby becoming one of the most wanted leaders by the
authorities.
He died defending his Motherland in the battle of Corral-na-Bato in
Morong (now Rizal), on March 27, 1903