Carabaos in the Philippine-American War

While travelling on the NLEx during the Undas weekend, I noticed my balikbayan cousin taking photos of the landscape with his smartphone. When our eyes met he said: “It’s like a scene from an Amorsolo painting. I cannot afford an Amorsolo, so this is good enough for me.” Unfortunately, the view of Mount Arayat, which would have completed the Fernando Amorsolo landscape, was obscured by clouds. But I’ve noticed that farmers and carabaos are now seldom seen on the fields bordering the NLEx, and that some of the rice fields have been converted into subdivisions. One large area now has the Philippine Arena. Soon Amorsolo’s landscapes will be history.

Passing Meycauayan last week reminded me of a full-page color illustration in Harper’s magazine titled “A charge by carabaos.” This magazine documented the events of the Philippine-American War from the enemy’s point of view, and the picture was a scene in Santa Cruz in April 1899 showing a herd of carabaos that got between the expedition led by Gen. Henry Lawton and the Filipinos. An account by Maj. Putnam Bradlee Strong, adjutant general in the staff of Gen. Arthur MacArthur (the father of Gen. Douglas “I shall return” MacArthur), reads:

“There is a field by Meycauayan (which in the native tongue signifies ‘much bamboo’) not far from Marilao, on the line of the Manila-Dagupan Railway. A herd of carabaos in the bamboo thickets of Meycauayan, trying to get away from the Filipino bullets at the beginning of the engagement, rushed into Captain Randolph’s battery—the Ninth, of the Third Artillery. They broke one man’s leg and gored several of the soldiers, went right through the battery, and then through the battle line formed behind. Major Strong, who was an eyewitness of this strange encounter, adds to the very interesting circumstance that the herd, after its moment of success, passed into a new captivity. Such of the animals as were uninjured our men soon caught, and not long afterwards they were serving as mild-looking, slow-moving bearers of rations, carrying fabulous loads over hill and across stream, and never offering to lie down in the water with their burdens unless those whose business it was to provide for their comfort, forgot to accord the indulgence from time to time.

“Decidedly, the carabao deserves to be made the subject of a character study.”

It was then believed that carabaos attacked the enemy soldiers because they smelled bad compared to the Filipinos. It was said that the dark blue shirts worn by the enemy made carabaos see red. It was even suggested that the carabaos charged at the enemy soldiers because they were not circumcised.

Reading old newspapers also gave me references to carabao meat. On Oct. 1, 1899, the Manila public slaughterhouse dispatched 53 beef cattle and 107 swine, and yet American sanitary inspectors worried about carabaos slaughtered elsewhere being passed off as beef in the public markets. Some enterprising Filipinos considered the enemy so stupid that they passed carabeef off as Australian beef, and got away with it most of the time. A delivery of beef to an enemy ship on Manila Bay was found to be so tough and unwholesome that most of it was thrown overboard.

An article from the Manila Times of Oct. 12, 1899, reads:

“One of the cleverest pieces of work that has ever been done by the civil police was performed yesterday by Corporal Mamerto Hernandez, one of the little brown men in grey who patrol Manila’s streets. Inside of a few hours he had not only arrested two carabao thieves on a clue, but also the receivers and consumers of the same, even regaining what was left of the slaughtered beast. Parts were discovered in various houses, even to the pelt, and the complete animal except one leg was recovered.

“Andres Agapito, the owner of the stolen carabao, is a carreton driver … who hauls coal daily to the waterworks at Santolan. Agapito lives on Calle Santa Mesa opposite the racetrack and keeps his carabao tethered under the building. On Thursday night he retired to bed in his room and when he arose next morning the animal had disappeared. For some reason he suspected two other carreton drivers, who live by the racetrack, and he complained to the police. Corporal Hernandez immediately left with a patrol of two men and soon arrested Mariano de la Cruz and Miguel Reyes, the thieves. Later he gathered from different houses, Eulalio Garcia, Esteban Alamas, Mariano Carunes, and four women who had parts of the carabao cut up for sale and eating. They collected enough of the dead beast to make a complete animal lacking the hide and one leg. The hide was also found later, and Roman Engracia arrested for having it in his possession.

“The thieves had entered the carabao’s stall early in the morning while the owner still slept in the room above, and cooly led off the beast. They took it over to the other side of Santa Mesa and slaughtered it, selling the different parts.

“Hernandez’s complete coup in catching the thieves, receivers and consumers of the stolen animal, in so short a space of time on a thin clue, speaks well for his sagacity and ability. The whole thing took him a few hours… The robbery was very paltry too as the thieves were also carreton drivers and they stole Agapito’s sole means of livelihood—his beast of burden and breadwinner.”

If one strings all these carabao references together, it will make a worthy PhD thesis—the carabao in the Philippine-American War.

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Comments are welcome at aocampo@ateneo.edu.