Ananías Diokno

He was born in Taal, Batangas, Philippines on January 22, 1860, to Ángel Diokno and María Andrea Noblejas y Sauza. There are no records regarding his boyhood and early career.[2]

Bust of Gen. Diokno from the National Historical Commission

In 1895, Diokno, along with Felipe Agoncillo, were prosecuted by civil and ecclesiastical authorities for obstruction of functions of the government. On August 29, 1896, Don Fernando Parga y Torriero, military governor of Cavite, had Diokno and other revolutionaries arrested and brought to immediate trial. Prominent citizens who fled to Indang, Cavite established the Regional Government of Batangas with Miguel Malvar as commanding general and Diokno as secretary of war.[3]

At the resume of revolution after the Pact of Biak-na-Bato, he was commissioned by Central Revolutionary Government of Emilio Aguinaldo to lead an expedition to the Visayas to attack the Spanish stronghold there and to forge cooperative stance between the Visayan rebel forces. The Battalion Malaya was organized, a force made up of 750 men divided into six companies and a battery consisting of two cannons. He was made commanding general of the battalion. He and his forces first went to Mindoro, then to Marinduque, and to the Bicol region to organize local revolutionary governments in the area and facilitated elections. Juan Miranda was elected president and Second Lieutenant Jose Karingal was left to organize collection of taxes.[4] He and his forces were aboard three of the five initial vessels under the control of Aguinaldo's government, Taaleño, Bulusan and Purisima Concepcion, which were actually captured or donated Spanish ships converted into gunboats with 8 or 9 cm guns.[5][6]

In August 1898, the Spanish colonial government in Capiz under Governor Juan Herrero surrendered to Diokno.[7] Aguinaldo, upon recommendation of Apolinario Mabini, appointed Diokno civil and military governor of Cápiz. Later, he received the immediate surrender of Spanish forces in Panay. Strong Spanish presence in Samar, however, caused Diokno to retreat.[8]

Many rebels saw Diokno, governor of Capiz under the Aguinaldo government, as a foreigner in Visayan government which already had Roque Lopez as president of the Republic of Visayas. This, with American forces occupying every Visayan island it passes through, caused Diokno to retreat to the mountains of Capiz and conduct guerrilla warfare.[2] On March 18, 1901, Captain Peter Murray of the 18th US Infantry and First Lieutenant Frank Bolles of the 6th US Infantry, with corresponding detachments, located and ambushed Diokno's forces at Barrio Dalipdan, Capiz. Diokno was wounded and captured, two of his men were killed in action. He was imprisoned thereafter.[8]

In 1916, he was offered to be Director of Agriculture under the administration of Francis Burton Harrison but he refused. He died at his farm in Pampanga on November 2, 1922, eight months and a week after the birth of his grandson Sen. Jose W. Diokno.[2][8]

The great-great grandfather of Ananías Diokno is Felix Berenguer de Marquina y Fitzgerald, the governor-general and namesake of Marikina City. Because of the Irish ancestry of Berenguer de Marquina in the noble Fitzgerald clan, he descends from Norman French or English, and European nobles such as Saint Begga of Belgium, who is Diokno's ancestor by forty-four degrees. St. Begga is the great-great grandmother of King Charlemagne and daughter-in-law to St. Arnulf of Metz, France. Diokno through the Fitzgerald clan also descends from William Boleyn, who is the grandfather of Elizabeth I of England, making the English queen a cousin of Diokno's English ancestor. Berenguer de Marquina had an illegitimate Chinese mestiza daughter from Cagsawa, Albay who married a Spanish-Mexican public servant surnamed Sauza, whose daughter eventually moved north and settled in Taal, Batangas marrying a member of the Tagalog Noblejas clan. Their daughter María Andrea Noblejas y Sauza, who descended from Berenguer de Marquina, became part of the Diokno family by marrying Ángel Diokno. Because of the Fitzgerald clan, the line at least starting Ananías Diokno y Noblejas can trace its roots to nobles, public servants, soldiers, and saints from the first century A.D.[9][10]