(Philippine National Capital)
Bamban as Revolutionary Capital
It was on June 6, 1899, when President Emilio Aguinaldo made an unanticipated proclamation transferring his 'capital' in this small, hilly town of Bamban which served then, and until now, as the porter of Tarlac province. It should then be clarified, though, that what was proclaimed on June 6 as the Headquarters of Emilio Aguinaldo the then Captain-General of the Philippines was not the town of Tarlac, but that of Bamban. In this proclamation, President Aguinaldo also assumed the command of all military operations, a function vacated by General Luna his former rival.
It was from John R.M. Taylor’s 1906 ‘The Philippine Insurrection against the United States’, when he wrote: Before the death of Luna he had gone through Benguet Province to find a new site for the capital which would be fit for a continued defense; but Aguinaldo preferred Tarlac, and proclaimed it the capital of the republic on June 6 (italics mine). From this, it is evident that, at least from this much-quoted authority who was very close to the event, what was proclaimed on June 6 was, in all purposes, the capital (and not only a temporary headquarter) and, investigating now on the date of the actual document, he was referring to Bamban (Tarlac) and not the capital town of Tarlac. Thus from the time beginning on June 6, 1899 Aguinaldo moved out from the then town of Cabanatuan in Nueva Ecija and relocated in Bamban most likely on that particular day. In fact, Teodoro Kalaw was precise that the Revolutionary Government moved to Tarlac only on June 21 (probably referring to the Tarlac town) as noted from his book ‘The Philippine Revolution’.
