Does this look like a dangerous woman?
Well, apparently to the Spanish, she was. Dangerous enough that she had to be exiled to Guam from her native Philippines.
Her name was Melchora Aquino, but, already in her 80s when she was arrested, she was known as Tandang Sora, "tandang" being a form of the Tagalog word matanda, or "old."
She was arrested by the Spaniards for aiding the Filipino revolutionaries fighting for independence from Spain. She allowed them to hold meetings in her house; fed them and provided them supplies; gave them simple medical attention. For that, she was arrested and exiled to Guam in 1896. She may well have been on the same ship of exiles as my great-grandfather, also a Filipino political prisoner.
She had a fellow female political prisoner by the name of Segunda Puentes Santiago, which I believe is in the Spanish fashion of putting her father's surname first.
When they arrived on Guam in 1896, they were housed with a Filipino resident of Guam, Justo Bautista Dungca, rather than stay with hundreds of male prisoners at the cuartel (barracks).
She returned to the Philippines when the Spanish-American War was over in 1898, but some say she stayed till 1903 when Mabini and the others exiled here in 1901 returned to the Philippines. But Mabini never says so, and he wrote a diary.
She died at the age of 107.
Pale Eric, according to Dr. Augusto V. de Viana, "In the Far Islands,: The Role of Natives from the Philippinees in the Conquest, Colonization and Repopulation of the Mariana Islands (2004:134) Melchora Aquino and Segunda Puentes were placed under house arrest Don Justo Dungca's residence where they also did house work.
ReplyDeleteDe Viana's cites the work of Isagani R. Medina, "Melchora Aquino Wife of Fulgencio Ramos," In: Women in the Philippine Revolution, Edited by Rafaelita Hilario Soriano. Quezon City: Printon Press, 1995), pp 12-13.
Bernard Punzalan
Dungca himself was Filipino so I'm sure she felt at home! Thanks for the info!
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