The Hong Kong Junta was an organization formed as a revolutionary government in exile by Filipino revolutionaries after the signing of the Pact of Biak-na-Bato (hereafter termed Pact) on December 15, 1897. It was headed by Emilio Aguinaldo and included high-level figures in the Philippine revolution against Spanish rule who accompanied Aguinaldo into exile in the Crown Colony of Hong Kong from the Philippines.
Establishment
Filipinos with anti-Spanish sympathies had fled to Hong Kong since the 1872 Cavite mutiny as British law protected political refugees.
The pact of Biak-na-Bato was signed on December 15, 1897. As part of this pact, Emilio Aguinaldo, then leader of the Philippine Revolution, agreed to leave the Philippines. On December 27, 1897, Aguinaldo and a number of ranking revolutionary officers boarded the steamship Uranus at Sual, Pangasinan on Lingayen Gulf. On January 2, 1898, the first banking day after arrival in Hong Kong, Aguinaldo deposited $MXN400,000 which had been received from the Spanish government under the terms of the concluded Pact, into an account with the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank under the name Aguinaldo and Company; further routine banking transactions followed. Aguinaldo established a strict budget for the exiles in Hong Kong and enforced a frugal existence.
Financial turmoil and the repudiation of the pact
Revolutionaries left behind in the Philippines were dissatisfied with the arrangement which had exiles in Hong Kong enjoying funds made available in the Pact while they were left behind with no money, and negotiated an arrangement with the Spaniards for the second installment of those funds, amounting to another $MXN400,000, to be paid to them for distribution to needy insurgents in the Philippines. This was done, and the funds divided among insurgent leaders left behind in Biak-na-Bato. Pedro Paterno, who had been instrumental in negotiating the Pact, informed Aguinaldo of this once it had been done.
Aguinaldo called a meeting and revealed information which he had received from Paterno and Miguel Primo de Rivera, nephew of the Spanish Governor General in the Philippines, that the Spanish would not provide additional funds "so long as there was any revolt in the Philippines and the society of the Katipunan was not dissolved ...". He then announced that Isabelo Artacho, who had been left behind in Biak-na-Bato as director of commerce, was resigning and demanding reimbursement of expenses. This had the effect of uniting the exiles to repudiate the Pact and renew the revolution, and they replaced the officials of the provisional government formed at Biak-na-Bato with members of the exiled group. The exiles voted to approve Aratcho's resignation but to deny him reimbursement. Artacho, having journeyed from the Philippines, arrived in Hong Kong and filed suit against Aguinaldo and Company. This resulted in the issuance of an injunction "to restrain the defendant [Aguinaldo] and each of them from dealing with or parting with the possession...$400,000, or any part thereof." Aguinaldo viewed this as preposterous and suspected that Aratcho had been put up to this by the Spanish Captain General in the Philippines in order to tie their funds up in litigation. After discussing the situation with Filipe Agoncillo and leaving some signed checks with Vito Belarmino, whom he named as his surrogate, Aguinaldo withdrew $MXN50,000 and, using assumed names, secretly left Hong Kong for Singapore along with his secretary and two aides, Colonel Gregorio del Pilar and Lieutenant J. Leyba.
American involvement in the Philippines
The United States Asiatic Squadron, commanded by George Dewey, having been ordered to Hong Kong by then Assistant Secretary of the Navy Theodore Roosevelt, had arrived there on 17 February 1898 and had been directed to prepare for war with Spain.
In Singapore, a businessman who had lived in the Philippines, Howard. W. Bray, sought out Aguinaldo and facilitated a meeting with meeting with U.S. Consul E. Spencer Pratt. In the meeting, conducted late at night in a public house with Bray and Leyba acting as interpreters, Pratt informed Aguinaldo that the U.S. was now at war with Spain, inquired about the revolution, and opined, "As long as the Spanish have failed to fulfill their obligations under the Treaty of Biaknabato, you have the right to resume the revolution." and "Now is the time for you to strike. Ally yourselves with America and you will surely defeat the Spanish."