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If the Philippines followed U. S. precedent, they would inevitably name their great revolutionary general, Emilio Aguinaldo, to the Presidency. But more than three decades have passed between the islands' revolution after the Spanish War and the founding of their Commonwealth. In that period Patriot Aguinaldo faded out of practical politics. He occupied himself in building up a comfortable fortune, a fine home in Kawit. First in the hearts of his countrymen, he enjoyed that warm spot and held additional prestige as head of the organization of revolutionary veterans who could always deliver a handsome bloc of votes at any election. But in recent months he and the politicos have grown apart. As Congress gave General Washington 40,000 acres of land (in addition to the 70,000 he already held) for war services, so the Philippine Government lent General Aguinaldo money. Recently someone, counting up, found that he had borrowed 200,000 pesos ($100,000) in over 20 years, had repaid only 18,000. Some of the borrowed money he used in 1915 as a down payment to buy 2,390 acres of land from the Government. When the Government began last winter to dun him with demands that he return the land for which he had never completed payment, he grew greatly disgruntled. He and the radical Sakdalistas alone opposed the Constitution which the Filipinos last month accepted by a 25-10-1 vote.
No longer was Emilio Aguinaldo unchallenged hero of the Filipinos. Manuel Quezon's Herald Philippines cried out then against him: "You and your brother headed an uprising which started as a suburban affair but which, by accident, ended as a national cause. ... In American eyes you won a glamorous notoriety akin to those of Captain Kidd, Jesse James and Robin Hood. . . . Meanwhile a grateful country placed you under pension while, succumbing to the materialism that supplemented the piety of another sovereignty, you acquired vast tracts of land. . . . Meanwhile, also, you organized your veterans, their sons, their grandsons and other kin into an association which acts clannish as easily as it becomes political. . . ."
Not willing to hear such insults the 65-year-old General resolved to be the Philippine George Washington or nothing. Last week he opened his campaign with a political parade in Cavite at which 1,000 supporters lustily shouted: "Aguinaldo-for-President."
Before the week was out a third Philippine hero had announced his candidacy. Sixty-two years ago Gregorio Aglipay was a peasant boy who drove his grandfather's carabaos through the main streets of Batac. While his boyhood friends grew up to be revolutionists, he joined the Catholic Church determined to share the power of an institution which then owned a third of the islands' wealth. As long as Spanish rule lasted the native priests had little power, were kept at menial tasks. Several who revolted were executed. When Admiral Dewey arrived and the insurrection started, Aglipay became Aguinaldo's chaplain-general, led armed forces in the field. The Spanish church excommunicated him. The U. S. conquerors after a time captured him. He went to Manila, became friends with Governor General William Howard Taft.