On this day, Jacobo Zobel y Zangróniz, great-great grandfather of Ayala Corporation Chairman Emeritus Jaime Zobel de Ayala, was ordered arrested by Jose Malcampo, then the Spanish governor general in the Philippines.

A vocal critic of the worsening sociopolitical situation in the colony, he was suspected of being an active revolutionary and a supporter of the 1872 Cavite mutiny. Jacobo was the first of the Zobel line to be born in the Philippines. He was one of the first from Manila to become a Mason, which became attractive to many Filipinos for its liberal ideals.

Since his father was a German by birth, he was also suspected of being a German spy. Zobel was arrested and incarcerated for about six months, after several allegedy incriminating papers had surfaced. Bogged by the question of jurisdiction, his trial was eventually abandoned and the Spanish government absolved him of all charges.

Source:
Manila Times, 22 March 1968, p. 30A;
Eduardo Lachica, Ayala: The Philippines’ Oldest Business House [Makati: Filipinas Foundation, 1984], pp. 67–68