Primary sources on Gomburza have eluded Filipino historians for a long time, leaving the full story of their martyrdom and their involvement in the 1872 Cavite Mutiny unwritten. Teodoro Agoncillo maintained that the documents on their military trial will never be found because these do not exist. Agoncillo was of the opinion that the kangaroo court that sentenced Gomburza to death by garrote fabricated both the charges and the evidence thus leaving no paper trail. In August 1972, the Spanish government sent a note to then Foreign Secretary Carlos P. Romulo, who had officially requested copies of the Gomburza trial documents, stating that the documents could not be found after an extensive search through the Spanish archives, and that these may have been lost during the Spanish Civil War from 1936-1939. I have not lost hope that these will turn up someday because documents relating to the Katipunan were located in the Spanish Military archives some years ago and are now available to historians.
Jesuit historian Fr. John Schumacher, the authority on Burgos, recommends five reliable published sources on the Cavite Mutiny: “L’archipel des Philippines” (Paris, 1877) by Edmond Plauchut; “Historia general de Filipinas” (Madrid, 1887-1895) and “A los martires de la Patria, Burgos, Gomez y Zamora” by Jose Montero y Vidal, the latter appeared anonymously in the Madrid newspaper “Filipinas ante Europa” in 1900 that was attributed to Antonio Ma. Regidor; “Reseña historica de Filipinas desde su descubrimiento hasta 1903” (Manila, 1906) by T.H. Pardo de Tavera; and “Los sucesos de 1872. Reseña bio-bibliografia” (Manila, 1911) by Manuel Artigas y Cuerva. So far only Plauchut and Artigas have been translated from the original French and Spanish. A pity that the current generation of Filipinos is cut off from historical sources by a language barrier.
Gomburza have taken on a life of their own in many ways. In the 1960s, Agoncillo declared that “there is no Philippine history before 1872” emphasizing that whatever events that happened before the 1872 execution of Gomburza were irrelevant to Filipinos because these simply constituted “the history of Spain in the Philippines.”
Jose Rizal in a letter to Mariano Ponce in April 1889 stated: “Without 1872 there would not be now either a Plaridel [M.H. Del Pilar], or [Graciano López-]Jaena, or [Gregorio] Sanciangco, nor would there exist brave and generous Filipino [expatriate] colonies in Europe; without 1872 Rizal would be a Jesuit now and instead of writing Noli me tangere, would have written the opposite. At the sight of those injustices and cruelties, while still a child, my imagination was awakened and I swore to devote myself to avenge one day so many victims, and with this idea in mind I have been studying and this can be read in all my works and writings. God will someday give me an opportunity to carry out my promise.”
Gomburza inspired the Katipunan. Documents in the Spanish Military archives revealed that Andres Bonifacio and his men commemorated Gomburza in 1894, 1895, and 1896. A text attributed to Emilio Jacinto on Gomburza is also in the file. Gomburza appears in Katipunan documents and was even used as a code name. One contemporary source says that Bonifacio distributed small pieces of black cloth to Katipuneros who took them as “anting-anting” or second-class relics cut from the cassocks of Gomburza. During the second phase of the Philippine Revolution and the Philippine-American War, Gomburza continued to inspire. A whole chapter in Apolinario Mabini’s posthumously published memoir “La Revolucion Filipina” (Manila, 1906) is entitled “Cause and effect of the execution of Fathers Burgos, Gomez, and Zamora.”
During the dark days of martial law, a group of priests and seminarians formed themselves into Gomburza to fight against the Marcos dictatorship. The group was founded at the Ateneo de Manila Loyola School of Theology on Feb. 17, 1977, to commemorate the execution of Gomburza. In 2017, the activist Fr. Robert Reyes, better known as “the running priest,” revived the dormant Gomburza, assumed the position of spokesperson, and declared the group against the excesses of the Duterte administration. One hundred and fifty years since their execution Gomburza continues to inspire.