ABOUT US . . .

This site was made and conceptualized in honor of one of the greatest Filipino national hero, GENERAL MATEO NORIEL LUGA, who might have been the only general in the Philippine history who is not of Filipino-Spanish-Chinese descent and who does not belong to the middle class Filipino, but from the Ibanag Tribe. He never changed his name when the Spaniards colonized each towns and segregated those they considered insurrectos by changing their names. He resisted foreign domination and instead slipped from the Spanish forces and organized pocket rebellions. He did not run away from battle, but instead fought his own war against the colonizers from his native land, in the Cagayan Valley, until he reached Cebu and as far as Mindanao. He rose from the ranks as the leader of the Ibanag tribe, the biggest tribe in the entire Cagayan Valley, to become a general after engaging countless of encounters against the Spaniards from his hometown in Ugad, Tumauini, Isabela, in Cagayan Valley to Manila, the Visayas and as far as Mindanao.

He was sent to Visayas, a land foreign from his culture, by then General Emilio Aguinaldo as a military adviser to the Revolutionary Governmetn in Cebu. When his family was taken hostage during the American-Filipino War to force him to surrender, he slipped into enemy territory, rescued his love ones and returned fighting an honorable warfare sending Admiral Lawton with his fleet of navy running away from battle despite superiority in force.

He lived as a farmer, in peace with his family after the Fil-Am War and continued his idealism for the independence of our country. He died a poor man on his way to Isabela with the Philippine Flag in his coffin surrounded by his comrade in arms escorting him to his tomb. He never made it to Tumanuini, Isabela where he wanted to return, but was burried somewhere in Paco, Manila. To date, his remains could not be located and his exploits have not been publicized in Philippine history books, a sad truth about Philippine history.

This site was made in honor of General Mateo Noriel Luga and his descendants, who continued the struggle to protect the freedom, independence and ideals of this nation that he helped defend; to continue the idealism he imparted, for his memory and deeds to live in the hearts and minds of those after him . . . General Mateo Noriel Luga . . . (click here to know more about him and his descendants) .