Background
Licerio Geronimo was born on August 27, 1855, in Manila, Philippines. He was the oldest of six children of Graciano Geronimo and Flaviana Imaya.
Licerio Geronimo was born on August 27, 1855, in Manila, Philippines. He was the oldest of six children of Graciano Geronimo and Flaviana Imaya.
At nine Licerio Geronimo went to live on the farm with his grandfather in San Miguel, Bulacan, and at fourteen moved to Montalban to join his father, who not long afterward died. He now had to help his mother attend to their farms. He cut grass for sale and pastured carabaos, cut fuel for domestic use, gathered rattan, forest products, and hardwood for plow parts which he sold. He also devoted himself to hunting and developed to be a marksman. Licerio received no formal schooling, having learned the alphabet only from friends. Therefore, he could hardly read and write.
However, he improved himself by reading the awits and corridos while on the back of carabaos, for he had a great interest in poetry. He acquired in time enough material, with his keen memory, to enable him to participate in the duplo. It is not known how he acquired a little smattering of Spanish.
Aside from farming, Licerio Geronimo became a boatman engaged in transporting passengers and laundresses to and from Manila on the Marikina and Pasig Rivers. This improved his acquaintance with the neighboring territory to a great extent which proved useful in later years. Through his godfather, Felix Umali, he made the acquaintance of Andres Bonifacio who was then organizing a Katipunan chapter in that town. After his initiation and upon refusal of Umali to head the local organization branch because of old age, Geronimo accepted the leadership. Upon the outbreak of the Revolution in August 1896, he was summoned to Balintawak where he joined the forces of Bonifacio. He was with the force which attacked San Juan del Monte. Later he returned to his home town and recruited his own followers from that place, San Mateo, and Marikina.
Now with a small following, he participated in several engagements in cooperation with Francisco Makabulos in Novaliches, San Rafael, an area north of Manila to which he was assigned at the instance of Mariano Llanera. His operations dragged him to San Miguel and as far north as Cabanatuan. After the death of Bonifacio, at the Assembly of Mount Puray convoked by General Emilio Aguinaldo, he was named one of the major generals of the Revolutionary army. His detachment repulsed the Spanish attempt to take that citadel after six hours of fighting. His next assignment after the revolutionary headquarters was established in Biyak-na-bato was to secure supplies and munitions for the insurgents. This he attempted to accomplish by ambushing Spanish supply carriers. After the signing of the Pact of Biyak-na-bato, he retired to the farm. However, when the Milicia Territorial was formed, he accepted a position of commandant from the Spanish government.
His participation in the early part of the second stage of the Revolution is not clear. Upon the outbreak of hostilities between the American and Filipino forces in February 1899, he was called to the line and General Antonio Luna selected and appointed him commanding general of the third zone of operations including Manila and Rizal. He was the officer who gave the most trouble to the Americans from the beginning to the end in this area. The months that followed saw him actively engaged in guerrilla warfare in one of which engagements the American forces lost one of their finest soldiers in the field, General Henry Ware Lawton, in the battle of San Mateo, while disposing his troops opposite the town of San Mateo to force a crossing of the Nangka River on December 19, 1899. The encounter lasted two and a half hours and cost the Americans besides one major general, thirteen officers and men wounded, while the Filipinos sustained six men killed and a few taken prisoners.
He made running incursions into American positions in Bulakan, Rizal, and the suburbs of Manila which greatly harassed and vexed the American forces of occupation. At the mediation of friends, however, he surrendered on March 29, 1901, to Captain Henderson of the 42nd Infantry together with 22 officers and men in San Mateo.
The year following his surrender he was appointed fourth class inspector in the Philippine Constabulary on June 1, 1902. He was promoted third lieutenant and inspector on December 23, 1902, and was dismissed from the service on May 16, 1904, for having been sentenced to six months of imprisonment and a fine of one hundred pesos when a civil court convicted him on a charge of gambling.
It is recorded in his service papers that "while Lieutenant Geronimo was still in the service of the Philippine Constabulary, he had seen service in the municipalities of San Mateo, Marikina, Malabon and Novaliches, Province of Rizal. He was a valuable man to the Constabulary for running down ladrones in the aforementioned municipalities. Most of his work in the Constabulary was to detect firearm smugglers and spies during the Filipino-American War." After his dismissal, he settled down on his farm in Montalban where he remained until his death.
Licerio Geronimo was a known and recognized Filipino Revolutionary general who fought several battles both in the Philippine Revolution and in the Philippine-American War, including the battles of Montalban, San Mateo, and Marikina. He is best remembered as the opposing general to Major General Henry Ware Lawton at the Battle of San Mateo, Rizal of December 19, 1899.
Barangay Geronimo and General Licerio Geronimo Memorial National High School, General Licerio Geronimo Public Elementary School, and a street in his hometown of Sampaloc, Manila were named in his honor. A monument stands to his memory in Nangka, San Mateo. The Hilltop Rizal PNP Command in Taytay, Rizal was renamed to Camp Licerio Geronimo in 2019.
Licerio Geronimo was a member of the Katipunan, a Philippine revolutionary society founded by anti-Spanish colonialism Filipinos in Manila in 1892; its primary goal was to gain independence from Spain through a revolution.
Licerio Geronimo was married first to Francisca Reyes. After the death of his first wife, he married Cayetana Linco, by whom he had five children.
