The three civilian members of the commission arrived in Manila on March 4, 1899, a month after the Battle of Manila which had begun armed conflict between U.S. forces and Filipino forces under Emilio Aguinaldo. General Otis viewed the arrival of his fellow commission members as an intrusion and boycotted commission meetings. The commission spent a month meeting with Ilustrados who had deserted Aguinaldo's Malolos Republic government and studying the Malolos Constitution and other documents of Aguinaldo's revolutionary government. Meanwhile, with U.S. forces under Otis advancing northwards from Manila, the seat of Aguinaldo's revolutionary government had been moved from Malolos to new headquarters in San Isidro, Nueva Ecija. When Malolos fell at the end of March, it was moved further north to San Fernando, Pampanga.