The Filipino nation honors Andres Bonifacio as the “Father of the Philippine Revolution.”
On Nov. 30, 1863, Andres Bonifacio was born in a town dotted with rice fields in Tondo, Manila, to a poor couple — boatman Santiago and Catalina de Castro, a mestiza born of a Spanish father and a Filipino-Chinese mother who worked as a maestra in a cigarette factory in Meisic (“Maintsik”), which is today’s Chinatown.
The proud parents named the boy Andres after St. Andrew the Apostle, the patron saint of Manila. When both parents died in 1881 due to tuberculosis, Andres gave up his studies to work full time, first as a bodeguero (warehouse keeper), then as clerk .
Although Andres Bonifacio never finished high school, he was very smart, knew Spanish, and spoke a little English, as he read foreign novels, about the French revolution, politics, law, and religion. He learned that the common tao had rights, and that freedom was a valuable thing to have.
Bonifacio read the novels Noli Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo written by Jose Rizal who founded La Liga Filipina. Andres then joined La Liga, a peaceful group that did not believe in violence, and worked hard to spread its teachings of charity and brotherhood.
But the Spaniards considered La Liga as dangerous, and had Rizal arrested, and exiled to Dapitan.
When Bonifacio learned that Rizal had been exiled, he knew in his heart that the days of peaceful reform were over. He believed it would take no less than an armed revolution to free the Philippines from Spanish rule.
In his essay What the Filipinos Should Know, Bonifacio wrote in Tagalog: “Reason tells us that we cannot expect anything but more sufferings, more treachery, more insults, and more slavery. Reason tells us not to fritter away time for the promised prosperity that will never come….Reason teaches us to rely on ourselves and not to depend on others for our living. Reason tells us to be united…that we may have the strength to combat the evils in our country.”
On the night of July 7, 1892, the same day he heard that Rizal had been exiled, Bonifacio met secretly with his two friends Ladislao Diwa and Teodoro Plata, formed the first triangle of a secret society which bore the initials K.K.K.
The three letters stood for Kataas-taasan Kagalang-galang na Katipunan ng mga Anak nang Bayan, or Katipunan, for short.
Bonifacio met with other Katipunan leaders in a place called Pugadlawin on Aug. 23, 1896. They tore up their cedulas (residence tax papers), and cried “Long Live the Philippines!” They vowed to fight the Spaniards down to the last man.
In December 1896, Bonifacio was invited by the Katipuneros of Cavite to come to the town of Imus, to settle a dispute, between two rival Katipunan councils in Cavite: the Magdalo, of which Aguinaldo was a member, and the Magdiwang council, headed by Mariano Alvarez, a relative of Bonifacio’s wife, Gregoria de Jesus.
Later , after the Tejeros Convention, Emilio Aguinaldo became president of the new revolutionary government. He was sworn into office along with other elected officials, most of whom were Cavitenos.
Bonifacio was not present. Bonifacio refused to recognize Aguinaldo’s government, as he thought he was still the Supremo of the Katipunan government.
On April 26, 1897, Bonifacio was arrested by two loyal officers of Aguinaldo, and was tried by the military court in Maragondon, Cavite, charged with treason and trying to overthrow the new president and his government.
The Bonifacio brothers were killed on Monday, May 10, 1897. Andres was only 34 years old.(Excerpts from the writings of History Prof. Dr. Isagani R. Medina, UP Diliman, Quezon City).
Happy fiesta, Amlan!
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