THE clan of Cuatro Aliños honored the brothers’ courage in fighting Spanish colonial rule in Cebu 123 years ago.

The Aliño brothers—Hilario, Potenciano, Felix and Sulpicio— started the uprising against Spanish authority in Talisay, then a municipality, on April 2, 1898, the eve of the Battle of Tres Abril—the Pantaleon “Leon Kilat” Villegas-led revolt in Cebu City.

Lawyer Rex Fernandez, president of Cuatro Aliños clan, said the Aliños toward the end of the Spanish colonization were ilustrados, or the enlightened gentry.

Back then, the family had no big land holdings, but they owned a small piece of farm land.

The Aliños were educated. The father of the Cuatro Aliños was a school teacher, which was then a privileged position in the dying Spanish Cebuano society.

The brothers were in the prime of their lives at the time. Sulpicio, the youngest, was then nearing 20, while the others were in their 20s with Hilario as the eldest.

The Cuatro Aliños were also in touch with the call for nationalism and with the plight of their fellow Filipinos being near the sugar haciendas of Talisay—the friar estates.

They grew up with tira-tira (candy), sugar and little brown globules of newly cooked muscovados. With sugarcane and coconut around them, they also ate food such as biko (a sticky rice cake) and putong balanghoy.

Oppression

Talisay uprising

Short-lived glory

Brave ones