Only days after the New Year of 1899, the convent of the Camiling church in western Tarlac province, Central Luzon, Philippines - otherwise solemn and nondescript - was the site of the brutal assassination of Pedro Pedroche of the dreaded Partido de Agraviados and his cohorts. Believed to be an offshoot of the friar-sponsored Guardia de Honor of the late 1800s and a counter-revolutionary group, its bloody end was said to be a grand design of General Antonio Luna and the caudillo of Tarlac, General Francisco Makabulos, for the Philippine Revolutionary Government of President Emilio Aguinaldo.

The present publication is done with the penance of a pentimento, in what may be deemed as repentant historiography. The event, together with its dramatis personae, was first written in1994. Through a rereading of documents used earlier and the advent of new ones, the writer 'repainted' many portions and in the process brought to light some original strands that were missed previously.

(From the back cover)

In his Foreword, Mayor Saklulu Enrado of Santa Ignacia says that “this monograph … is the latest addition to the welter of accounts on the celebrated topic. It proceeds from a technique unique in its dimensions that transcends those employed by the earlier local historians. Armed with support from Tarlac State University’s Center for Tarlaqueño Studies and the benevolent Eduardo Cojuangco Foundation, (ECF), the author, Dr Lino L. Dizon, spared no effort to reach down to the bottom of the whole affair, virtually from end to end, including even seemingly trivial and remotely related matters to the episode as befit the requisites of the novel technique used: micro-history. Needless to say, the enterprise required not only diligence and perseverance, but also creativity and imagination in hunting the needed materials.”

With publication assistance from the Eduardo Cojuangco Foundation