He was executed in Bagumbayan with twelve others on 11 January 1897, their noble batch is often mistaken for the 13 Martyrs of Cavite who met their death also in Bagumbayan in 1872, earlier by two decades and a hofalf. Like many of the patriotic Filipino youth of the 19th century, he answered the call of the Motherland and joined the anti-colonial revolution against Spain.
Domingo Franco was born in Capiz in 1856 and was sent to the Ateneo Municipal in Intramuros where he graduated with a “perito mercantil” certificate, perito means expert; he was a chartered accountant. Domingo Franco was also a Notario, a Notary, so he must have read law at the University of Santo Tomas. He married a Pandacan landowner’s daughter, they lived in Nagtahan then a residential community of the burgeoning native middle class. He went into the tobacco leaf business, a lucrative enterprise even if it was a monopoly of the colonial government.
Information is scanty about Domingo Franco’s revolutionary activities, but there is mention of him in biographical notes of other eminent Filipinos like Edilberto Evangelista of Santa Cruz, Manila whom Jose Rizal encouraged to study engineering in Ghent, Belgium. Evangelista wanted to study medicine, but due to family misfortunes, the young man had to go into business and that was how he and Domingo Franco met. The latter invested 10,000 pesos ( a fortune in those days) in Evangelista because the young man was a reliable supplier of tobacco leaves. As soon as he had earned enough, Evangelista went to Spain to study, suffered deprivations just to get a diploma and return to the Philippines. Engineer Evangelista joined the anti-colonial revolution, designed and constructed impregnable trenches for the revolutionary army. Lamentably, he was killed during the Battle of Zapote (1897), our first victory where Gen. Emilio Aguinaldo defeated Governor-General C. Polavieja’s forces.
Domingo Franco had his share of anti-Spanish political activities with Crisostomo Mariano, a co-alumnus of the UST, founder of the Caja de Jesus, Maria y Jose. Its religious name was meant to befuddle the enemy; in truth it was a scholarship fund for indigent students which evolved into a Caja de Propaganda that raised funds for the fortnightly political newspaper “La Solidaridad”.
It was not surprising that a patriotic businessman like Domingo Franco should join the La Liga Filipina established by Jose Rizal in Tondo on 3 July 1892. Like Rizal, he believed that Filipinos should help and protect each other, promote education, agriculture, and foment economic activities for the benefit of the Philippines. He became a mason like many of his contemporaries and when he was arrested and imprisoned in Old Bilibid, he assured his distraught wife that he was never a traitor to his beloved country. The Spanish colonial authorities thought otherwise, so Domingo Franco was executed in Bagumbayan, the killing fields of those dark days.