The Story of Artemio Luna Ortega, the Unsung Filipino Veteran of the Spanish Civil War

The Story of Artemio Luna Ortega, the Unsung Filipino Veteran of the Spanish Civil War

A century later, the memory of the Spanish Civil War still provokes heated controversies and reevaluations.

In Spain, political parties evoke it as part of a campaign program or policy proposal. In the world of literature and art, the Spanish Civil War raised the legends of great writers and artists such as Frederico Garcia Lorca, Salvador Dali, Pablo Picasso, and María Zambrano, to name a few. The Spanish Civil War saw the heroic and macabre visions of Socialism, Anarchism, Communism, and Fascism clashing mercilessly and ruthlessly, with millions committed to these ideologies.

In this peculiar intersection of ideologies entered Artemio Luna Ortega, the Filipino veteran who found himself in the middle of the Spanish Civil War. Obviously, his name hardly rings a bell. In the Philippines, the names of the streets in Makati in particular, are derived from the notable generals of the Nationalist cause: Mola, Cabanellas, and Goded, among others. Those in honor of the Republican persuasion are rarely recognized. And so is Ortega’s story.

A Brief Exposition of the Spanish Civil War

The Spanish Civil War is often considered as the prelude to WWII. Perhaps this reputation has reduced its visibility and impact in the contemporary world. These days, it’s been rendered as a mere interwar sideshow. In actuality, the Spanish Civil War was much more than that.

To those who fought in it, they gave many reasons: Democracy vs. Fascism, Christianity vs. Bolshevism, Freedom vs. Tyranny. These were some of their motivations, and all of them are correct to a certain extent. But for those in Spain, the war had Spanish causes, in which one can view the Spanish Civil War as a culmination of a crisis that the Spanish Empire had experienced since Napoleon’s invasion of their country in 1808, exposing its weakened and decrepit condition.

From that angle, the Spanish Civil War can be described as a class of two forms of impositions built on varying modern visions of Spain.

On one hand, there were the revolutionaries, those in awe of new ideas and enthusiastic to bring them to a country deemed out of step with the rest of the continent. On the other, reactionaries, who also saw the necessity of new ideas, hoped to restore the bygone glory of a land they considered overran with foreign infiltration. These are two visions of modernity, since both agree on finding new solutions, but with differing ends. Later, as these visions experienced disappointments and failures, the tendency to treat one’s political opponents as a scourge, and even the devil, became commonplace.

The monarchy’s replacement of the Second Spanish Republic, with Manuel Azana at the helm (since there was already a first in the 1870s), represented a fleeting hope that the contradictions of Spanish society could be resolved amicably. This proved to be short-lived, as distrust and hostility reigned the landscape. By 1936, through a close election, the conditions for a widespread bloodletting, with guns to back it up, were in the air.

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Tracing Artemio Luna Ortega’s Journey 

There are only scant sources of Ortega, thus we must take those with a grain of salt. But from available sources, Artemio Ortega was born on February 27, 1901, in La Union, then a part of the Philippines, which had recently come under American occupation. His parents were Simpleana Luna and Petra Ortega.

From 1922 to 1925, he joined the Philippine Constabulary, earning the rank of corporal. In 1927, he immigrated to America. He seems to have a respectable educational background and worked as a draftsman to earn his dough.

During his tenure in Spain, he was a member of various organizations catering to engineers, one affiliated with the Unión General de Trabajadores, or the labor union of the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party. He came to Spain by joining the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, which itself a part of the International Brigades. This was also comprised of volunteers who took up arms to defend the Republican government, tracing its roots to the failed coup of the Nationalists in 1936, which led to civil war.

The International Brigades is said to have comprised of over 30 to 50 nationalities. Most of its members were Communists, or those sympathetic to them, which made them receive sponsorship from the Soviet Union itself. While their propaganda value is astounding, their effectiveness in combat varied due to discrepancies in training, equipment, and doctrine. Some, like the Fifteenth Brigade, performed remarkably, setting an example even to the regular Spanish Republican Army units.

Ortega is known to have arrived in Spain in 1937. He participated in the battles of Brunete and Jarama, both viewed as strategically inconclusive, but tactically favorable to the Republicans. From there, the evidence gets messier. Some are claiming that he was captured by the Nationalists at some point, pointing out that a certain clip of a German propaganda movie showed him in one of the few scenes. Others simply say that they have lost track.

Nevertheless, this does not malign his reputation. While we can engage in debate on who is correct and wrong over the Spanish Civil War, the trajectory of Spain can explain an objective verdict. The rapid collapse of the regime of Francisco Franco, who ruled the country from 1938 to 1975, is a testament to the capacity of his state to endure, for in only two years, liberal democracy under a constitutional monarchy was restored.

Today, Artemio Ortega and his generation seem so foreign. This was an era where mass politics meant a belief that discipline, will, and courage could win them the redistribution of resources, bread, and roses, while also shaping their society around it. They are so far removed from an era of politics dominated by lobbyists, technocrats, and managers, often at the expense of the public. The rise of populist challengers and the reaction by the establishment to them (amounting to finger-pointing and broadcasting temper tantrums) only reveals the hollowness of their positions.

It is fashionable to speak of dystopia now. But a dystopia is just a reverse utopia, after all. And the true utopians of the age, are those who seem to presume that things must stay the way they are!

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