The Philippine Revolution (1896-1898) was a time of political struggle that resulted to the secession of the Philippines from the Spanish Empire. On August 23, 1896 also known as the Eve of St. Bartolomew, patriots in Manila called a meeting to address the discovery of the Katipunan by colonial authorities. The Katipunan was a secessionist movement founded by radical members of La Liga Filipina, which was in turn the Manila chapter of the Propaganda Movement. The Madrid chapter, which was the newspaper La Solidaridad, had failed in Europe and had run out of funding. Patriots of the Katipunan, known as katipuneros, converged in the Pugad Lawin. The meeting concluded that the revolution that they have planned for years would begin and tore their cedulas (community tax certificates) in defiance of Spanish rule. This event would be known as the Cry of Pugadlawin. At first, the patriots suffered a catastrophic defeat and was dispersed in less than a week. In the meantime in Cavite, katipuneros led by Emilio Aguinaldo would win victories and push the Spanish as far as Bacoor. Emilio Aguinaldo was the gobernadorcillo (town mayor) of Cavite El Viejo and used his influence to secure arms from the nearby arsenal of Fort San Felipe. By 1897, the war would end in a stalemate with the signing of the Peace of Biak-Na-Bato, according to which revolutionary leaders would sail for Hong Kong in self exile. In 1898, Emilio Aguinaldo returned to the Philippines with the United States Navy and set up the First Philippine Republic and Philippine Republican Army. While the U.S. Navy prevented reinforcements Spanish reinforcements, the Filipino army had taken most of the archipelago except Intramuros, Manila. On June 12, 1898, the Philippine Republic declared the independence of the entire archipelago from Spanish rule.
When the revolution began in 1896, the Spanish Empire had ruled the Philippines for over thee centuries. During the Conquista, European missionaries and immigrants steadily flowed to the colony. The inhabitants of the archipelago were Christianized and integrated into colonial society. The conquista was rather a period of slow economic growth and the colony spent its early years in constant warfare, not only quelling indigenous rebellions but also invasions by the Dutch, British and Chinese. The longest indigenous rebellion was that of Dagahoy which lasted more than a hundred years. In the late 1700s, Governor-General Basco introduced economic reforms and opened the islands to world trade. Almost overnight, Creoles, Chinese Mestizos and Indios in the islands amassed tremendous wealth and the Philippines became one of the most affluent societies in the Far East. This new breed of business and intellectual leaders became the colony's Middle Class. Jose Rizal's Noli Me Tangere provides a vivid picture of the affluence of colonial society at the time.
In 1789, the French Revolution began changing the political landscape of Europe as it ended absolute monarchy in France. The power passed from king to people through representation in the parliament. People in other European countries began asking for the same representation in parliament. In the Philippines, this ideal spread in the colony through the writings of creole writers as Luis Varela Rodriguez who called himself "Conde Filipino". This was the first instance that a colonist called himself a Filipino rather than a Spanish subject. With the rising economic and political stability in the Philippines, the Middle Class began demanding that the churches in the Philippines be nationalized through a process known as Secularization. In this process, the control of Philippine parishes were to be passed from the religious orders to the secular priests, particularly Philippine-born priests. The religious orders, or friars, reacted and a political struggle between the friars and secular priests commenced.
