Franz Villafuerte, grandson of Gen. Leon Villafuerte, said he would like to research more abour his Lolo Leon. He also told my brother, Toto Cruz, that they have a photo of his Lolo Leon in their living room, so I wonder if it is the same one that is on the cover of my Mother's book (HEROES & VILLAINS) , that famous group picture of Gen. Macario Sakay and his officers, Villafuerte included. Well-groomed and dressed in crisp white "cerradas", did they know they were posing for posterity?
Considering how the post-Aguinaldo revolutionary guerrillas were being hunted and killed by the Americans, the Bringandage Act of 1903 punished them with death and/or life imprisonment with hard labor. It is heartening to know that Franz's elders did not conceal their blood ties with Gen. Leon Villafuerte even if he had joined Sakay who was branded an outlaw or "bandolero" by the American colonial government.
Gen. Leon Villafuerte was a follower of loyal "magdiwang" Gen. Luciano San Miguel who never stopped fighting, not even after the uneasy truce declared at Biak na Bato, nor after President Emilio Aguinaldo was captured in Palanan , Isabela, in 1901. When Gen. San Miguel was killed in battle in 1903, many of his men joined Macario Sakay, among them Leon Villafuerte.#
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