Orders and circulars were issued covering matters such as building trenches and fortifications, equipping every male aged 15 to 50 with bows and arrows (as well as bolo knives and goloks, though officers wielded European swords), enticing Filipino soldiers in the Spanish colonial army to defect, collecting empty cartridges for refilling, prohibiting unplanned sorties, inventories of captured arms and ammunition, fundraising, purchasing of arms and supplies abroad, unification of military commands, and exhorting the rich to provide aid to the soldiers.[2][3]
The Filipino forces sometimes used improvised artillery weapons made of water pipes reinforced with bamboo or timber, which can only fire once or twice.[23]
During the 1896 uprising against Spanish colonial rule the 1898 Philippine Revolution and the Spanish–American War, Filipino freedom fighters (especially the Katipunan) sought assistance from the Japanese government. The Katipunan sent a delegate to the Emperor of Japan to solicit funds and military arms in May 1896.[24][25] Although the Meiji government of Japan was unwilling and unable to provide any official support, Japanese supporters of Philippine independence in the Pan-Asian movement raised funds and sent weapons on the privately charted Nunobiki Maru unfortunately, the ship sank before it reach to Philippine shores.[26]