The day heroes were made

A. Paulita Roa

MARCH 30, 2016 was the 116th anniversary of the coming of the American forces to Cagayan de Misamis (Cagayan de Oro), the capital town of Misamis province. On that fateful day, the lookout unit headed by Clemente Chaves that was stationed in Buntola Hill (the area where High Ridge restaurant is located) saw the arrival of big American warships that started to unloaded over a thousand American soldiers. They then fired their canon as the agreed upon warning shot to tell the people that the enemy has arrived.

These well armed soldiers in their khaki and dark blue uniforms then marched along del Mar St. (Apolinar Velez St.) as frightened Kagay-anons watched helplessly. A big group of American officers rode in fast motor launches and landed at the back of the Casa Real (city hall). They went up to the building and immediately relieved provincial president Jose Roa y Casas and his other officials of their duties. But they told municipal president Toribio Chaves to stay.

American soldiers were then stationed on every street of the town. All the big houses around the plaza (Gaston Park), including the convent of San Agustin Church, were then converted as barracks for these soldiers. It was also at this time when hundreds of Kagay-anons and Misamisnons went up to the Gango Plateau to join the armed group headed by a young lawyer and school master, Nicolas Capistrano. This group was known as the Liber Troop or Liberation Army.

Months before the American invasion, volunteers underwent military training at the plaza and it was agreed upon that in the event that the Americans will come, they will form a resistance army to fight them in order to secure their freedom. Among the volunteers were a group of women from Lapasan headed by Arcadia Valenzuela.

Today, April 7, 2016, is the 116th anniversary of the Battle of Cagayan de Misamis. A week after the Americans came and occupied the town, Capistrano and his men staged what was to be a surprise attack on the American soldiers sleeping in the houses around the plaza. They waited just outside the town for the church bells to ring for the early dawn mass at the San Agustin Church. When the bells rang, immediately the men sprang into action. Capistrano and his officers on horseback, stood in front of today’s water tower (CdeO City Museum) and silently directed the men through hand signals relayed to other officers who were with the macheteros and the artillery.

According to foremost Kagay-anon historian, Filomeno M. Bautista, the first in line were the macheteros carrying the ladders to scale the houses. The artillery men were next in line. All of them moved silently. Suddenly, the stillness of the early dawn was shattered by the piercing war cries of the Bukidnon warriors, who killed the American guards that were assigned to the quarters of their commanding officer.

This woke up the enemy and fierce fighting ensued inside the barracks while other Americans from the windows and some on the church belfry, exchanged fire with the artillery on the ground. Apolinar Pabayo fought inside the barracks using his sword, wounding many before he himself was killed. Clemente Chacon fought courageously while standing on the ladder. He was pushed and he fell in to the ground, sustaining a big gaping wound on his head. When Capistrano saw that they were losing the fight, he ordered for a retreat. He and his men fled to the direction of Camaman-an where the Americans could not catch them.

Almost a hundred bodies of the men belonging to the Liber Troop lay around the plaza and in some of the nearby houses. Bautista wrote that most of them were young and they gave their lives willingly so they wished to continue to live in freedom that they had briefly enjoyed. It was Toribio Chaves and some Kagay-anons that gathered up the dead and gave them a decent burial.

On April 7, 2000, the National Historical Commission of the Philippines or NHCP (formerly the National Historical Institute) installed the prestigious national historical marker in Gaston Park on the centennial year of the Battle of Cagayan de Misamis. Unfortunately, this marker was moved by Mayor Oscar Moreno without consultation with NHCP to another area in Gaston Park that is devoid of any historical meaning. The original site of the marker faced the Cagayan de Oro General Hospital that once was the Club Popular. It was in Club Popular where most of the men from the Liber Troop signed the Pact of Resistance where they vowed to fight and defend their land to preserve their freedom. Club Popular later became an American barracks that was one of the bloody scenes of this historic battle.