from Antonio Barrientos

Dear Ms. Araneta:I am from Talisay Batangas ( a coastal town just below Tagaytay City) and I first heard the story of Sakay (he was known only as Sakay during that time-possibly no one was telling the people that Gen. Sakay was a revoluionary, a freedom fighter) from my mother who also heard the story from her mother who during the time of Gen. Macario Sakay was only a teenager. According to my mother, she was told by my grandmother that Gen. Macario Sakay and his fellow revolutionaries used to passed the river where my grandmother and other women were washing clothes. As I recall it right, the women according to my grandmother's account were terrified and extremely afraid because news were circulating (possibly American propaganda) that Gen. Sakay was a tulisan whose group were known to abduct women and extort from people wherever they passed. But based on my grandmother's account, nothing really happened everytime the General pass by. It seemed the group of Gen. Macario Sakay was ostracized by the people because the latter loss in the propaganda war (press releases) but their honor untainted. I think this account that I heard from my mother as a young boy (I am now 55 -years old, born in 1953), was a credible evidence that Gen. Macario Sakay was an honorable man, and a true hero. He was indeed vindicated and History is rewritten.
Yours truly,
Antonio Barrientos
Winnipeg, Manitoba Canada