forty thousand of Filipinos, who were at different places surrounding the platform, witnessed the execution of the Filipino priest and saw Saldua (the artilleryman who testified for the conviction of the priest). When Gomez's confessor, a Recollect friar, exhorted him loudly to accept his fate, he replied: "Father, I know that not a leaf falls to the ground but by the will of God. Since He wills that I should die here, His holy will be done." Nonetheless, Dr. Trinidad Hermenegildo Pardo de Tavera, a Filipino scholar and researcher, informed the world of the Filipino side of the controversy. According to him, it was a mere mutiny by the laborers of the cavite arsenal for their dissatisfaction from the abolition of their privileges due to the orders of General Izquierdo on January 20, 1872. About 200 men, including soldiers, laborers, and residents of Cavite, headed by Sergeant Lamadrid, assassinated all Spanish officers in sight, including the commanding officer. But then, Gen. Izquierdo, along with the friars, exaggerated the event to alarm the Spanish Government in order to delay installing reforms for the native Filipinos. Such reforms included the establishment of a school of arts and trades, which aimed to improve the education of Filipinos but would mean that the friars would lose their power in the government. Gen. Izquierdo took advantage of the event to instill fear in the minds of native Filipinos. Unfortunately, the Spanish Government in Spain relied on the report of Gen. Izquierdo and made no more attempts to investigate the issue. They believed that the said movement was indeed a big and well-planned conspiracy to dissolute the Spanish Sovereignty in the Philippines. Cavite mutiny The so-called Cavite Mutiny of workers in the arsenal of the naval shipyard over a pay reduction produced a witness willing to implicate the three priests, each of whom was summarily tried and sentenced to death by garrote on February 17, 1872. The bodies of the three priests were buried in a common, unmarked grave in the Paco Cemetery, in keeping with the practice of burying enemies of the state. Notably, in the archives of Spain, there is no record of how Izquierdo, a liberal, could have been influenced to authorize these executions. Gregorio Meliton Martinez, the Archbishop of Manila, refused to defrock the priests, as they did not break any canon law. He ordered the bells of every church to be