431 Pio Valenzuela’s alternate versions of this trip are available in at least three forms, each new version producing a pall upon the next—and a pox upon history! His first calumnies occur in the official Spanish documents collected in The Trial of Rizal by Horacio De La Costa. Next follow his twin, confusing testimonials appended to the yet-to-be-satisfactorily-annotated Minutes of the Katipunan: to wit, Appendix A, The Memoirs of Pio Valenzuela by Luis Serrano; and Appendix W, Testimony of Pio Valenzuela in the Trial of Vicente Sotto. A fourth version, The Memoirs of Pio Valenzuela, by Arturo Valenzuela, is a rehash of Appendix A, with minor postwar additions. Why so many versions? God knows, only Hudas not say. (Estrella Espejo, ditto)
432 Ah, but the reader must understand the beauty of this document—how Raymundo fixes the historical facts! In Dr. Pio Valenzuela’s Memoirs, he cites his false shipboard name, Procopio Bonifacio, but Raymundo’s revelation of Dr. Valenzuela’s “occupation” as a book dealer is original; no other source betrays this detail! (Estrella Espejo, ditto)
433 One of the diarist’s favorite phrases, a Chabacano weapon, meaning: You talk too much! Get it, Estrella—tu un daldalera. (Trans. Note)
434 Dr. Valenzuela’s otherwise nondescript memoirs corroborate Raymundo’s detail—the ship’s name was Venus. (Estrella Espejo, ditto)
435 May I address the gossipmongers among us? Josephine Bracken, the “plump, handsome foreigner,” was most likely Irish-Chinese. The other two women on the boat, mentioned also in Dr. Pio Valenzuela’s memoirs, were Doña Narcisa Rizal-Lopez, sister of the hero, and her daughter Angelica Lopez-Abreu, who later became a katipunera, at age thirteen! (Estrella Espejo, ditto)
436 El dolor de mis dolores, I take it. Raymundo gets quite lyrical here, very Rizalian, when talking about his old pains. (Trans. Note)
437 That Josephine Bracken was the adoptive (or foster) daughter of blind, allegedly syphilitic Mr. Taufer, a patient who had traveled from Hong Kong to Dapitan upon hearing of the famed Filipino eye surgeon of the tropics, is well documented. The griefs of her youth remain mysterious. (Estrella Espejo, ditto)
438 Horacio De La Costa states in the Trial of Rizal: “The key testimony in favor of the prosecution’s case [against Rizal] was that of Dr. Pio Valenzuela. Now considered one of our heroes, Valenzuela does not come off well in [this trial’s] pages.” It’s not clear if Dr. Pio Valenzuela’s sins were intentional. Did it occur to him that his visit would have fatal effects? Who knows? The Spanish judges cited two damning scenes that convicted Rizal: the novelist’s return in 1892, when he organized La Liga Filipina (see Entry #24), and the visit of the revolutionaries to Dapitan in July 1896 (see the historic entries that follow). In fact, in analyzing Dr. Pio Valenzuela’s life, one learns this honored revolutionary had never even joined a single revolutionary battle. He sought amnesty with Governor Blanco at the outbreak of hostilities, completely muddled his testimony about Rizal, and did not join the war against Americans on his return from exile in North Africa in April 1899 (he preferred to remain in jail rather than pledge allegiance to America; other prisoners pledged allegiance, left jail, and promptly joined the revolution anyway). His biographer notes he was “disheartened” by the assassinations of Andres Bonifacio and Antonio Luna—a sentiment commendable in hindsight, but then by that time no one was alive to dispute it. What distinguishes Valenzuela is that he was one of the first to take up pen and write—which was easy, since he didn’t have much to recall. Raymundo Mata’s testimony, on the other hand, provides a compelling counter-memoir. Too bad it arrives so late. (Estrella Espejo, ditto)
Entry #31
June [1896]
As we passed by the Panay coast—Capiz, Iloilo, Antique—I thought again of that mystifying pair, the Visayan divers from Australia who had disappeared after their good deed.
Perhaps I was infected with that melancholy that seems to graze one like a rash among a ship’s moving shadows. Those pearl divers now rose with a mythic heft, tanned and muscular angels of freedom—with that ragged eyeful of coconut hair439 that happens to Filipinos who’ve been too long in the sun.
Who knows, I thought, I might see them when we all go to war, after the doctor-novelist-hero-ophthalmologist gives the green light to our plans, after our mission in Dapitan.
When will we three meet again?
Maybe not.
Passing by Capiz, the third or fourth day of that journey—did it last only a week?—I recalled our moment of farewell, etched in my brain. The pair had a kind of flatfooted stance by my door, as if, pearl divers, they had just begun learning again to walk on land. I wondered how they were, the hard-working sailors who had gone back to organize triangles of mutineers on their far-off island.
Now there it was, their island, scratched against the dark shore.
So the ship’s cook, a friendly sort, told me.
The shell of Capiz.
Try as I might, it meant nothing to me.
The random quality of our islands in the moonlight betrays our brotherhood’s tenuous pledge.
And yet, one day, I hoped, when we saw each other again, we’d note the marks of our union.
Past Dumaguete, we squeezed through the perilous straits of Siquijor, that sea of witchcraft and dolphins. Mermaids swam there, wrecking boats with impunity. Never proceed under the habagat, or you were destined for death, or at least some form of dislocation. That curve toward open sea, before you sighted Mindanao, was enough to drive you insane—it was as if finally you were lost, amid the endless algae and barracuda, as witless about your destination as the loony flying fish.
In this way, the late, slow arrival of the prow-like shores of Zamboanga had about it the false horizon of destiny.
We approached with anxiety—even Dr. Pio had a fit of nerves, muttering to
