the imagination, for they had been reared under the Spanish colonial
system and imitativeness has ever been pointed out as a cardinal trait
in the Filipino character. No quarter was to be asked or given, and
the most sacred ties, even of consanguinity, were to be disregarded
in the general slaughter. To the inquiry of a curious neophyte as to
how the Spaniards were to be distinguished from the other Europeans,
in order to avoid international complications, dark Andres replied that
in case of doubt they should proceed with due caution but should take
good care that they made no mistakes about letting any of the Castilas
escape their vengeance. The higher officials of the government were to
be taken alive as hostages, while the friars were to be reserved for
a special holocaust on Bagumbayan Field, where over their incinerated
remains a heaven-kissing monument would be erected.

This Katipunan seems to have been an outgrowth from Spanish
freemasonry, introduced into the Philippines by a Spaniard named
Morayta and Marcelo H. del Pilar, a native of Bulacan Province who was
the practical leader of the Filipinos in Spain, but who died there in
1896 just as he was setting out for Hongkong to mature his plans for a
general uprising to expel the friar orders. There had been some masonic
societies in the islands for some time, but the membership had been
limited to Peninsulars, and they played no part in the politics of the
time. But about 1888 Filipinos began to be admitted into some of them,
and later, chiefly through the exertions of Pilar, lodges exclusively
for them were instituted. These soon began to display great activity,
especially in the transcendental matter of collections, so that their
existence became a source of care to the government and a nightmare to
the religious orders. From them, and with a perversion of the idea in
Rizal's still-born Liga, it was an easy transition to the Katipunan,
which was to put aside all pretense of reconciliation with Spain,