LUKBAN
code, that can be arranged so long as the petition was accompanied by the signatures of 10 citizens of that town.
The president then introduced to the audience Dr. Pardo de Tavera, the president of the Federal party, who addressed them. The session then adjourned. 17
Lukban’ s response
Two weeks later, on April 19, Lukban assembled the representatives of the towns of the island and there formally denounced the Federal party and its ends, demanding that they should be given“ liberty or death, independence or extermination.” Nothing much has been recorded of this event, but his enemies opined that he must have come up with something like a manifesto where, as usual, there were no dissenting opinions from the audience. 18
In the next two months, calls to surrender were renewed in a bid to end the conflict. As in previous calls, Lukban remained steadfast in his refusal, despite the urging of some of his own people to do so. 19 They assured him that the Americans could go anywhere where he could do; that their ability as marksmen had been shown by the casualties of his people, that it was useless to resist, and that the resistance would lead to the complete destruction of the property of the island. It was in vain that the men and members of the Federal party wrote that Aguinaldo had been taken, that Luzon had been pacified, and that the cessation of hostilities elsewhere would permit the concentration of a large force in Samar.
He answered that he was ready to die but not to surrender. If indeed Aguinaldo was a prisoner, he would have informed him of it. News of the conditions in Luzon should reach him through agents of the government which he represented and not through agents of the Americans. He told them that he believed that they were lying about Luzon and Aguinaldo. It was intended to entrap him into surrendering himself. 20
When Gen. Hughes assumed command of the operations in Samar, first in his agenda was Lukban’ s surrender. Like the others of similar persuasion, Hughes told Lukban through emissaries that to continue fighting was futile and would only cause further suffering of combatants as well as civilians. But he soon discovered that his adversary was made of sterner stuff because even when he used Lukban’ s own brother to persuade him to surrender, he did not have much luck. Instead, it seemed to even harden Lukban’ s stance. Now the world’ s attention was focused on Samar. The democrats back in the US drew their inspiration
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