Luna likely knew the words of La Marseillaise as he was fluent in French as well as Spanish after studying chemistry at the Universidad de Barcelona in 1890 and obtaining his doctorate in chemistry at the Universidad Central de Madrid in 1893 where he published a scientific treatise on malaria. Luna is addressing a cabinet filled with collaborators like Felipe Buencamino, Pedro Paterno and Emilio Aguinaldo, who either do not understand exactly what the American invaders intend to do with the Philippines or understand them all too well and seek commercial and political accommodation. Luna may as well have used the words of this French song to warn his countrymen: “Listen to the sound in the fields, the howling of these fearsome soldiers, they are coming into our midst, to cut the throats of your sons and consorts… What! These foreign cohorts! They would make laws in our courts! What! These mercenary phalanxes would cut down our warrior sons.”īut Gen.

Antonio Luna, as the military commander of the Philippine Army, is imploring the members of the cabinet of President Emilio Aguinaldo to reject compromise and prepare to fight the invading American forces who were massacring Philippine villagers around Manila in 1899. The words of the song remind me of a scene in the movie, “Heneral Luna,” when Gen. The vile despots would have themselves be

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