Lawmaker wants 12 Mindanao revolutionaries declared national heroes

A bill declaring 12 revolutionaries from Mindanao as national heroes for leading the Filipinos' fight against Spanish and American colonizers has been filed at the House of Representatives.

Cagayan de Oro Representative Rufus Rodriguez made the proposal under House Bill 1461 or the Mindanao Heroes Declaration Act, saying this will correct the bias against the heroic participation of the people from the different regions of the country in fighting the colonizers.

House Bill 1461 covers the following 12 revolutionaries from Mindanao:

• General Nicolas Capistrano
• Colonel Velez
• Captain Vicente Roa 
• Simeon Ledesma
• Rufino Delosa
• Capitan Daligdig
• Simon Gonzales
• Wenceslao Gonzalez
• General Vicente Alvarez
• Datu Uta
• Datu Ali 
• Amai Pakpak

"These heroic wars waged by our Muslim brothers sapped and diminished the military strength and divided the attention of the Spanish authorities. The Muslim resistance led the strengthening of the Katipunan because without the military campaign in Mindanao, there would have been more than enough Spanish forces in Manila to check the Katipunan," Rodriguez said in filing the bill.

"The Moros may not have taken part in the actual combat during the revolution, but their unwavering resistance to Spanish domination is enough contribution to the cause of freedom. Their resistance and offensive operations undermined the Spanish plan to subjugate the archipelago," he added.

Rodriguez's bill also mandates the National Historical Commission to conduct a full-blown research on the life and the activities of the above-mentioned persons.

House Bill 1461 also tasks the NHC to publish a book on these heroes from Mindanao as well as to erect the monuments and the historical markers of the different sites of the war against the Spaniards and the Americans in coordination with the local governments of the area.

"Revolution is change and change is a process, in short, a revolution does not happen at a flick of fingers, but develops until it matures. The Moro resistance, raids and piracies therefore , were the Moro contributions in the fight against the colonizers that reached the climax in the Philippine Revolution of 1896," Rodriguez said.

The proposed measure sets a budget of P30 million for the NHC for the implementation of the law.

The Philippines celebrates National Heroes' Day yearly every 29th of August. —Llanesca T. Panti/KBK, GMA News