LUKBAN
years of warfare,” he said. He himself had been eating those roots in the past months during the American blockade. 16
The Americans were relentless in their pursuit, knowing he and his men were starving.“ They pursued us day and night without cessation, until we were demoralized,” he said. It came to a point that Lukban had to order 50,000 pesos thrown into waterfall of great depth because its couriers were exhausted. Those who still had enough strength tried to carry the remainder of the load, but these had to be abandoned later in the woods.
One of Lukban’ s deputies Claro Guevarra, who was then the captain director of the arsenal, took some 9,000 pesos to the former second-in-command Benedicto Sabater in Blanca Aurora, one of the villages in the hills of San Jorge, north of Catbalogan where their group retreated. There Lukban ordered his men to strip themselves of their uniforms and remain incognito, and to hide their firearms, ammunition and powder in the caves or mountains, until they could find a center for their operations similar to that of Biak-na-bato. In this search, he could not take his entire column to avoid a mutiny due to hunger.
Finally, after many days of walking, Lukban found a place called Buan at the foot of Mt. Jurao which was within the jurisdiction of the town of Paranas, an interior pueblo. With him were two small boys and a hunter who served as guide. All this time, they ate nothing but ubod( bamboo pith) and some kind of palms. 17
Food would not have been a problem had the people heeded his earlier calls to plant rice and tubers instead of abaca, which was exchanged for rice. But with the blockade, no rice was available to be exchanged with abaca. When the hostilities broke out, there was no rice stored. Luckily, they had sufficient sweet potatoes in Buan, the only food available. In the meantime, some of his key officers were leaving him.
On the 4 th of February, Claro Guevarra and a second lieutenant of the infantry Florentino Peñaranda arrived and reported about the dispersion of the company under the command of Calbayog garrison commander Francisco Rafael because of hunger. The next day, he ordered Rafael to report to Buan because they had sufficient sweet potatoes to fend off their hunger. Instead, he received a letter from Captain Abcede that his second-in-command Francisco Lobato and his men had surrendered to the Americans with their arms in Catbalogan and Calbayog.
Lukban was hurt and depressed. His forces were scattered and demoralized because of treachery. There were stories circulating about him fleeing to Camarines, taking with him all the funds of the revolutionary army, and that he was an impostor who only wanted to
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