During the
Spanish colonization of the Philippines, secular priest
Pedro Pelaez retells the story of
Apolinario de la Cruz, a native who got executed by the Spaniards for founding a sect due to him being rejected for priesthood because of his race, to his student, Jose Burgos, and fellow secular priest Mariano Gomez. The trio fights the attempts by the friars from the religious orders led by Fr. Mosqueda to take over parishes administered by predominantly Filipino secular priests. Pelaez later dies in the
1863 Manila earthquake, while Burgos finishes his studies for the priesthood. In 1869, Burgos is a teacher at the
University of Santo Tomas and develops a close relationship with his students,
Felipe Buencamino and
Paciano Mercado. They rejoice at the arrival of the liberal Governor-General,
Carlos Maria de la Torre, and Felipe and Paciano form a student association. However, they are disillusioned when Felipe is arrested, and Dela Torre tells Burgos to tone down his liberal advocacies in exchange for Buencamino's freedom. In 1871, de la Torre is replaced by the repressive
Rafael Izquierdo, who asks the friars about Burgos' activities. He also lifts tax exemptions for native soldiers at
Fort San Felipe, prompting a
failed mutiny the following year by Sergeant Fernando La Madrid, who had been paid to launch the rebellion by a group of radicalised Filipino elites through their intermediary, Francisco Zaldua. Gomez, Burgos and another priest,
Jacinto Zamora, are arrested for their alleged involvement in the mutiny and are subjected to a hurried
court-martial during which they are subjected to numerous judicial injustices. In contrast, the real instigators of the mutiny (excluding Zaldua) are sentenced to exile. During the trial, Zamora suffers a nervous breakdown after a written invitation he made to a card game is misconstrued to be a letter about an arms delivery, while Gomez and Burgos denounce the trial as a sham as Zaldua, bearing signs of torture, falsely implicates Burgos in the mutiny. The three priests, along with Zaldua, are convicted and sentenced to death by
garrote. After witnessing the course of the trial, Fr. Mosqueda realises that they have been used by the Spanish government to absolve itself of responsibility and voices regret at how history will blame them for their impending deaths. Izquierdo requests that
Manila Archbishop Gregorio Meliton Martinez strip the
cassocks of the priests for their crimes, but the latter refuses, believing in their innocence and insisting that they will die as priests, and restores their cassocks, which had been confiscated during their arrest. Paciano, along with his brother Pepe, Felipe, and others, witness the execution at
Bagumbayan. Zaldua is scorned by the crowd as a traitor as he is being executed. A catatonic Zamora is lifted to the scaffold, followed by a nonchalant Gomez, while Burgos, after accepting an apology from his executioner, protests his innocence as he is killed. The crowd kneels in grief over their execution as Archbishop Martinez lets the church bells toll for their deaths. In an epilogue, an adult Pepe, also known as
Jose Rizal, is shown dedicating his second novel,
El Filibusterismo, to the three priests, and is
executed in 1896 at the same place where they died, while a former servant of Fr. Mosqueda, who witnessed the execution of the three priests, joins the
Katipunan in their
fight for independence against the Spaniards. ==Cast==