General Luna's Epaulets and Oplan Romanov: Echoes of Assassination Plots in Philippine Politics

MANILA, Philippines — Threats of assassination – real or imagined, said in jest or in all seriousness – are a theme that has run through Philippine politics since the dawn of the First Republic. Before the now-infamous plot, Oplan Romanov, came the real-life attack on Gen. Antonio Luna on the steps of the Convento de Cabanatuan in June 1899. The tale of the general’s last morning on Earth is now told through his only surviving personal effects, which are up for auction at Leon Gallery this Saturday, Sept. 12. These are a pair of silk and gold epaulets designed no less by his brother, the famous painter Juan Luna. Along with a hat emblem embellished with a Katipunan silver triangle, they are long-lost relics of that violent period in Filipino history. The epaulets were left for safekeeping with Luna’s longtime confidante, Florentina Arellano, a staff member of the influential La Independencia newspaper that Luna had founded. She was arguably the first Filipina journalist and left behind a dramatic written account of how the epaulets came into her possession. Luna had his fair share of warnings from the 19th-century equivalents of Princess Maui, but none were more telling than his own premonitions. On the day he was set to leave for Cabanatuan, wrote Florentina, he stopped by her Dagupan home for a quick ‘merienda.’ Despite the fine food, he lost his appetite and complained of an overwhelming sense of doom. It had all begun with a high-level altercation with fellow cabinet member Felipe Buencamino, the all-powerful head of the first Department of Education and the Department of Public Highways rolled into one. Buencamino had proposed peace talks with the Americans, to which Gen. Luna responded by lunging across the conference table with his fists. If there had been a laptop, he may very well have thrown that. Instead, the general reportedly slapped Buencamino across the face — and purportedly sealed his fate. Luna had now been summoned by telegram to Aguinaldo’s headquarters to present his side of the matter. What followed was the most infamous assassination in Philippine history, leaving the nation orphaned of its most capable and loyal general. Oplan Luna made sure of that. The Gen. Luna epaulets and a trove of 19th-century photographs including the execution of Jose Rizal and the deaths of the 13 Martyrs of Bagumbayan, are highlights of the upcoming auction.