Miguel Malvar

Biography

Miguel Malvar was a prosperous orange farmer and town captain in Batangas who became one of the revolution's steadiest soldiers — and its last general in the field. He fought Spain from 1896, led troops in the Cavite campaigns, and commanded the Republic's forces in southern Luzon through the conventional war and into the guerrilla years. After Aguinaldo's capture in March 1901, Malvar assumed leadership of what remained of the resistance, issuing manifestos as acting head of the Republic and keeping Batangas ungovernable through 1901. It took General J. Franklin Bell's reconcentration of the province — the entire rural population herded into garrisoned zones while columns burned everything outside them — to break his base of support. With his people starving and his own family in the zones, Malvar walked out of the hills and surrendered on April 16, 1902, the last Filipino general to lay down arms. He refused every American offer of office, went back to his farms, and died in 1911 — remembered in the Philippines as the man who held out longest.

Key Battles