Pantaleón Valmonte

Pantaleón Valmonte y Rufino, sometimes referred to as Pantaleón Belmonte (July 26, 1856 – September 4, 1896), was capitan municipal (mayor) of Gapan and a general during the Philippine Revolution against Spain. He is popularly known as one of the officers who led the "Cry of Nueva Ecija" on September 2, 1896, and together with General Mariano Llanera commanded 3,000 guerilla troops who captured and momentarily held the provincial capitol of Nueva Ecija in the town of Factoria (now San Isidro). He is one of the three Fathers of The Cry of Nueva Ecija, along with Mariano Llanera and Manuel Tinio.

Early life and education

Valmonte was born into an old and illustrious family at the so-called "Bahay-na-Sim," on what is now Valmonte Street in Gapan, Nueva Ecija, on July 26, 1856, the son of Basilio Valmonte and Rosa Rufino. Basilio's father, Don Bartolomé dela Cruz Valmonte, was Gapan's first capitan municipal, appointed in 1747, just 15 years after Gapan was proclaimed a local administrative unit in 1732. One of Basilio's sisters, Juana, was the original owner of the only Spanish reproduction of the image of La Divina Pastora in the Philippines, which arrived in the country through the Galleon Trade. The image is the object of an annual pilgrimage to the National Shrine of La Virgen Divina Pastora in Gapan, and is one of the patrons of the parish (the others being the Three Kings) since the 1800s, though it remained privately held in the home of the Valmontes until 1986.

According to a descendant, journalist Ramon Valmonte, the family later adopted the surname "Valmonte" for its poetic meaning, being a conjunction of the Spanish words "valle" ("valley") and "montaña" ("mountain").

Valmonte enrolled at the Universidad de Santo Tomás (UST) in 1871, before transferring to Ateneo Municipal de Manila. He was a contemporary of Philippine national hero Jose Rizal during his time at the Ateneo and might have belonged to the same class. This was because according to Pantaleon's son Joaquin, Rizal had paid the family a visit in the early years. Rizal would make a reference to Gapan's secondary patron saint, La Divina Pastora, in the chapter "A Cochero'''s Christmas Eve" of his novel El Filibusterismo

Capitan Municipal

Valmonte was appointed by Nueva Ecija Governor Antonio Diaz de Cendreras as Capitan Municipal'' (mayor) of Gapan on January 11, 1895. As a municipal head, Valmonte was able to ingratiate himself with Spanish authorities, to the extent that he named the nearby village of Manikling as San Leonardo after Diaz de Cendreras's successor and frequent house guest Leonardo Bal. Yet he was at odds with the clergy, owing to his refusal to conform to the custom of kissing the hand of the parish priest. The uprising and its attendant "Cry of Nueva Ecija" earned the province its place in the Philippine flag as one of the eight rays of the sun, each ray representing a province that revolted against Spain.

According to other accounts

Journalist, professor and family chronicler Ramon Valmonte (Pantaleon Valmonte's great-grandnephew) wrote a differing account based on the recollections of his grand-uncle Joaquin, who was mayor of Gapan during the Commonwealth period and was Pantaleon's youngest child. His account points to the fact that the short interval between Valmonte's capture, detention and execution puts into question the veracity of the three-day fighting during the "First Cry of Nueva Ecija."