From Tobias Fornier, we were driven, together with the other students, 22 kms. to the next town of Hamtic where we made a 15-min. stopover at Gen. Leandro Fullon National Shrine in front of the municipal hall and near the Church of St. Monica. Gen. Fullon, born in this coastal town on March 13, 1877, was a young student at the Colegio de San Juan de Letran in Manila, when the Philippine Revolution broke out in 1896.
The equestrian statue of Gen. Leandro Fullon
He was made the commanding officer of the Visayan revolutionary forces by Gen. Emilio Aguinaldo and was sent, on September 6, 1898, with 140 officers and 350 men, to liberate Panay Island. On November 22, Fullon’s forces captured San Jose de Buenavista where he set up a revolutionary provincial government.
Narration of the life and times of Gen. Fullon
During the Philippine-American War, he also fought the Americans, together with Gen. Martin Delgado, but was forced to surrender, together with his officers, on March 22, 1901. When the Province of Antique was created by virtue of Act No. 114, Fullon was appointed, on April 15, 1901, as the province’s civil governor and served until his death on October 16, 1904.
Burial plaque
His life-size statue, designed by National Artist Napoleon Abueva, was unveiled on March 13, 2004 by the National Historical Commission during the occasion of his 137th birth anniversary. On October 16, Fullon’s 100th death anniversary, his remains were transferred, from La Paz Cemetery in Hamtic, to the base of the monument.
Hamtic Municipal Hall
Church of St. Monica
My visit to the general’s shrine was made more memorable by the fact that he was a distant relative, our common ancestor, both on our mother’s side, being Wo Sing Lok (or Sin Lok) from Amoy (old name for Xiamen, an island located in the southern part of Fujian Province at the mouth of Jiulong “nine dragon” River in China) who arrived in the Philippines and permanently settled at “Parian,” (now Molo) in Iloilo City. In 1780, Sing Lok was christened as Agustin Locsin when he married Cecilia Sayson, a mestiza daughter of an Ilongga and a sangley (local Chinaman), who were both devout Catholics. The Locsin clan began from this union.
How To Get There: Hamtic is located 7 kms. from San Jose de Buenavista.