IN THE history volume named A QUESTION OF HEROES, author Nick Joaquin contends that despite Luna's personal failings, mainly his cruelty and arrogance, his principles was truly nationalistic. Transcending his ugly aspect, his views has now been judged, according to Joaquin, as the righteous ideals, adhering to putting above else the newly birthed independent land's welfare. This is in stark contrast with Aguinaldo and men like Pedro Paterno, who figuratively sold our independence and the "fight" for it for thirty pieces of silver just to save their hide, or to retain collaborationist powers under the new colonial master. For true historians or chroniclers like Joaquin and the novelist Sionil Jose, men like Aguinaldo & Paterno represents the worst traitors against the people. No wonder Aguinaldo masterminded Luna's assassination and Bonifacio's execution.
For Joaquin there's two, even three sides, to history. He wrote that instead of extolling Bonifacio as a champion of the masses, a genuine martyr - we need to learned too about his little-known conceit of wanting to spearhead a political mass that aspires to govern the land, when he's very ill-prepared, he retreated to Cavite after the failed uprising and wants to be treated as royalty, and he in fact sordidly lost the Katipunan revolution. Whereas Aguinaldo achieved a real victory against the Spanish and if he was resolute enough to kill all of them, including the hated frailes, he could've achieved consummate liberty for the land.
An "intrigue" surrounding Luna's life was wisely absented from this biopic - either from ignorance or in deference to the powers that be. Its the tale of Luna's safekeeping of the "Philippine Treasury" - in short the taxes and other moneys collected from the people which has to be carried away to where the fledgling and fleeing government finds a safe but temporary harbor. This treasure was told to have been left secretly in the safekeeping of Isidra Co Huang Co, rumored to be Luna's paramour. Isidra is a Chinese mestiza and very deft with money. She never married but it was told she borne a child that when you put A and B together, logically is fathered by Luna. Isidra, after Luna's death, has not returned the money to the proper authorities - for who is the proper authority anyhow at that time, a new colonial master that slaughters 200,000+ Filipinos, or the Filipino traitors who were under house arrest? Isidra's skill in using the lost treasury as capital enabled her to owned several hundreds of hectares of farmlands, soon converted into a sugar hacienda.
If the real story and all parts of it are revealed, Luna's short life is truly storied....