HOW should I tell you, young people, about the boy from Tondo who became the guiding light of the Philippine Revolution?
It would have been easier to tell the story of the younger Emilio Jacinto y Dizon, the "Brains of the Katipunan and Commanding General of the Philippine Revolution," if we only say that he first saw the light of day on Dec. 15, 1875 in Trozo, Tondo, Manila. He was nicknamed "Miling" as was the usual practice of the time to shorten the name and add the suffix -ang -ing or -ong.
But it is difficult to write about his childhood because even his early biographers like Epifanio de los Santos and the latter’s son, José P. Santos, had very little to say about it and sometimes they even contradicted each other.
What we also have are stories passed down to relatives of the Jacinto family, which have now been written up by a great grandniece, Melissa Galauran Lacerna Dona, in her monograph Dimasilaw which, although they cannot be verified or checked with finality, are nonetheless still important. There is also some new information that some historians like Jim Richardson are writing about based on written records coming from Jacinto's time period.
What emerges makes it more difficult to tell his story. His father Don Mariano Jacinto y Amorin (in the Spanish style, the surname of the mother is appended or added to the surname of the father; “y,” pronounced “ee,” means "and"), depending on the book you are reading, is either a well-known merchant or just a mere "tenedor de libros" or bookkeeper, the person who records the money coming in and out of a business. José P. Santos even "corrected" an earlier account by Isabelo de los Reyes, a journalist and activist who was a contemporary of Jacinto, who said he was a businessman and not a bookkeeper.
Richardson, looking at newspaper accounts from the time, said that Mariano Jacinto was the highest-ranking clerk/bookkeeper of the French merchant and shipping agent Louis Génu with offices at Calle de Jolo in Binondo. Eventually, Génu formally authorized Mariano to represent him in all his business dealings beginning in 1882. Later, in 1892, he appealed a judgment of tax fraud for his boss Monsieur Génu but was rejected. So eventually, and perhaps because of this, he advertised himself as being in trade and shipping services without any reference to the Frenchman. He died the next year, 1883. So, he began as a bookkeeper and ended up as a businessman.
It would be easier to tell the story of Miling if I mention only that his mother's name was Josefa Dizon y Matanza, known as Ñora Pangoy.
But it is difficult to tell because apparently it is not a neat story. New research by Richardson now suggests that when Miling was born, Mariano and Josefa were not married to each other or to anyone else. Which makes Emilio's birth outside of wedlock or in Spanish, he was an "hijo natural.”
After his birth and until around 1880, his parents did not live together. His father lived in a house on Calzada de Iris, between the Santa Cruz and Sampaloc districts, while mother and son lived in Binondo with his mother’s mother Antonia Matanza, her brother José Dizon and her other siblings.
Eventually, according to the Binondo Church register, Mariano got married on Nov. 23, 1878 to Doña Carmen Mañalac. There are family stories that tell us that eventually Mariano went back to Josefa, and that either they married again or lived together. These stories even described Mariano as dying in Ñora Pangoy's arms. That Miling experienced to be cared for and loved by both parents. This perhaps explains why Emilio used only his mother's surname Dizon when he was younger, but upon hitting puberty, he was already using the surname Jacinto.
But according to records, Mariano remained married to Doña Carmen until he died in November 1893. On record, they had five children: Remedios (b. circa 1883); Ricardo (b. 1889); Patrocinia (b. 1890); Consuelo (b. circa 1891); and Carmen (b. circa 1892), who was born a year before Mariano died.
Although you might say today that Emilio's life reflected the wounded and complicated childhood of many who are in the same situation despite our more modern thinking, just imagine being in the same situation as Emilio 150 years ago when people judged children based on the marital status of their parents. He probably experienced being bullied and mocked for not having a father taking care of him. How difficult it would have been for Miling but this did not hinder him from eventually reaching his full potential as a person and finding his purpose in life to help share the light of freedom with his countrymen.
We may never truly know the whole truth about the matter of Jacinto's complicated family life, but on a hopeful note, his half-siblings were actually very proud of him that in 1938, when Carmen Jacinto's daughter wed, the Tribune newspaper carried a photograph of the wedding with a caption that said the bride “is the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Bonifacio Mañalac, and a niece of the Filipino hero, Emilio Jacinto.”
