The story said that American prisoners were offered commissions in the Filipino army and that three had accepted. The four reporters were expelled from the Philippines as soon as their stories were printed. U.S. Navy Lieutenant J.C. Gilmore, whose release was forced by American cavalry pursuing Aguinaldo into the mountains, insisted that he had received "considerable treatment" and that he was no more starved than were his captors. Otis responded to publication of two articles concerning this by ordering the "capture" of the two authors, and that they be "investigated", therefore questioning their loyalty. When F.A. Blake of the International Committee of the Red Cross arrived at Aguinaldo's request, Otis kept him confined to Manila. Otis' staff told him about all of the violations of international humanitarian law made by Filipino soldiers. Blake slipped away from an escort and ventured into the field. Blake never made it past American lines, but even within their territory, he saw burned-out villages and "horribly mutilated bodies, with stomachs slit open and occasionally decapitated." Blake waited to report on his findings until he returned to San Francisco, where he told one reporter that "American soldiers are determined to kill every Filipino in sight." Estimates of the Filipino forces vary between 80,000 and 100,000, with tens of thousands of auxiliaries. Most of the forces were armed only with bolo knives, bows and arrows, spears and other primitive weapons, which were vastly inferior to the guns and other weapons of the American forces. A fairly rigid caste system existed in the Philippines during the Spanish colonial era. The goal, or end-state, sought by the First Philippine Republic was a sovereign, independent, stable nation led by an oligarchy composed of members of the educated class (known as the "ilustrado" class). Local chieftains, landowners, businessmen and "cabezas de barangay" were the "principales" who controlled local politics. The war was at its peak when "ilustrados", "principales", and peasants were unified in opposition to annexation by the United States. The peasants, who represented the majority of the fighting forces, had interests different from their "ilustrado" leaders and the "principales" of their villages. Coupled with the ethnic and geographic fragmentation, aligning the interests of people from different social castes was a daunting task. The challenge for Aguinaldo and his generals was to sustain unified Filipino public opposition; this was the revolutionaries' strategic center of gravity.