LUKBAN
deceive the province . It came to a point that three residents of Tiabong arrived at his present sanctuary in Buan , intending to poison him , decapitate him when he was dead and present his head to the Americans who had offered 5,000 pesos for it .
He had the author of the poisoning arrested , but instead of punishing him , he taught him a lesson about how a good Filipino citizen should act , “ the manner of conspiring , attacking and repulsing the enemy , until he became a good pupil .” After the confrontation , the man , who was called Felipe Zuñiga , became one of his active assistants working in their favour . Pleased with the results of his lessons , Lukban presented him with a revolver so that he could assume command of his own town . 18
He also learned that the Americans had started to build up a ‘ benevolent ’ image in an effort to counter that of his own , saying that they were better than the ‘ Tagalo ’ because they charged only one peseta contribution . The ‘ Americanistas ’ - or the allies of the Americans in the pueblos of Samar – pinpointed the place where Lukban had hidden the money and his arsenal . Now the Americans were said to be distributing the funds to the inhabitants after finding them . One of the largest beneficiaries of the fund was Vicente Jazmines , the appointee of the Americans as the chief of Catbalogan . He was given 5,000 pesos .
But the ‘ benevolent ’ image that the Americans were trying to build were easily offset by the actions of many of the soldiers while in their sorties in the hamlets and villages of Samar . Reports of “ abuses against women . sacking houses and taking possession of all the wealth and perpetrating other abuses which no history of warfare records , the married women who excite their evil passions are killed by the soldiers ’ bayonets if their demands are not met ” were recorded by Lukban and dutifully reported . 19
In his solitary moments at Buan , Lukban realized that since this was the first time the people had experienced war , fear and demoralization were just the natural results of being invaded by a stronger force with superior armaments . “ But as I have always believed that after fear comes reflection , and that reflection is followed by reaction , during the period of reflection of the people ,” he said . It was during this period that he started to issue proclamations that he disseminated to his troops and the inhabitants of the pueblos where they were . In his first proclamation , he suspended all citizenship contributions and all imports “ to secure something to again raise the moral and material force which had been totally lost .”
Guerrilla memos
From his mountain hideout , he taught the inhabitants how to fight
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