ANDRES BONIFACIO y de CASTRO | BONIFACIO DAY 2016

Today is Bonifacio Day, commemorating the 152nd anniversary of the birth of Filipino nationalist and revolutionary leader Andres Bonifacio y de Castro in Tondo, Manila on Nov. 30, 1863.

Andres Bonifacio is often referred to as “the Father of the Philippine Revolution and Filipino Nation” for founding and leading the Kataas-taasan, Kagalang-galangang Katipunan ng mga Anak ng Bayan (more popularly called Katipunan) that fought for independence from Spanish colonial rule in the 1890s. Although Bonifacio has not been officially elevated to the level of national hero as the martyred Dr. José P. Rizal is, he is virtually a “de facto national hero of the Philippines” as he is also considered by some historians as really the first President of the Philippines by the first claim in Philippine history of an independent Filipino government through the revolutionary government he had established.

So Andres Bonifacio is not a national hero, as he is not listed in the House of Congress archives as having been selected and proclaimed expressly as such like José Rizal -- but Bonifacio’s birthday is a national public holiday to be celebrated every year “on 30 November, or the Monday nearest this day to create a long weekend,” as the official declaration of Congress goes. Then why would the birthday of Andres Bonifacio be the national holiday -- why not his day of death, as Rizal’s Day death anniversary is commemorated as a national public holiday every year on Dec. 30 exactly? This is because Bonifacio was killed by his fellow countrymen, and not executed by the foreign colonizers, nor killed in open battle for independence, many historians say.

Shame and scandal. As if somehow to efface the collective guilt that Filipinos killed Bonifacio, there is a special day for the nation to celebrate his birthday in perpetuity, whilst cowardly avoiding shameful remembrance of his death by the blind jealousy of his compatriots.

Bonifacio was killed by treacherous rival factions in a power-grab, some historians now bravely assert, as they correct and expand the terse history textbooks of at least the four immediately succeeding decades after the true release from American control after the Liberation from World War II in 1945.

The upfront-ness with history might have come earlier had the country not been in the clutches of a 14-year martial law where history books were believed expunged of some details perhaps deemed unnecessary and even disadvantageous as these might have been thought of by the dictator Ferdinand E. Marcos to be incendiary. Notice that only after the February 1986 EDSA People Power Revolution that iconoclastic details in history were released to all more freely.

Historian Renato Constantino (The Philippines: A Past Revisited, 1975) relates that the Katipunan leaders met in Tejeros, Cavite on March 22, 1897 on the pretense of settling the Magdalo and Magdiwang factions’ rivalries, but really to settle the more divisive issue of leadership of the Katipunan -- was the Manila-based Andres Bonifacio to remain Supremo, or was it time for the Cavite strongman Emilio F. Aguinaldo to take the reins from Bonifacio? Bonifacio was with and for the Magdiwang, which was headed by his brother-in-law, but Aguinaldo had the advantage of regional loyalty of both Magdalo and Magdiwang, which were both based in Cavite, Aguinaldo’s stronghold since he was from there.

Leon Ma. Guerrero (The Philippine Revolution, 1969) cites that Apolinario Mabini, legal and political adviser to Aguinaldo, revealed that at this point the Magdalo leaders “already paid little heed to his (Bonifacio’s) authority and orders.”

Bonifacio was accused of being dictatorial and monarchical (Álvarez, Santiago, The Katipunan and the Revolution: Memoirs of a General, 1992) and the splintered group at that meeting challenged an election. Although he presided over the elections (Constantino, 1975), Bonifacio was painfully shamed: he decidedly lost leadership -- the presidency of the revolutionary government that will replace the Katipunan was clearly given to Aguinaldo. Bonifacio was not even automatically elected vice-president though he had the second-largest votes next to Aguinaldo. He was given consuelo de bobo (appeasement) by being appointed as Director of the Interior but even this was withdrawn when someone said the position called for a lawyer, and Bonifacio was just a high school drop-out (Agoncillo, Teodoro, History of the Filipino People, 1990, 1960).

Historians Álvarez and Guerrero both relate protests against the fraud and cheating at the elections that Bonifacio was waylaid into participating. Gregoria de Jesús, Bonifacio’s wife, and her nephew Santiago Álvarez both alleged “that many ballots were already filled out before being distributed,” and Gregorio Masangkay, Bonifacio’s trusted ally, claimed that more ballots were prepared than voters present. Bonifacio was warned about rigged ballots before the canvass, but Bonifacio did not heed the warning, and only got very angry after his unexpected total loss of face and position.

But Bonifacio would not go away quietly.

He tried to consolidate his remaining people and form his own structure to proceed with his own plans for the revolution. Guerrero writes that Bonifacio cried treason against Aguinaldo for seeming to compromise with the Spaniards and historian Adrian Cristobal (The Tragedy of the Revolution, 2005, 1997) relates that Bonifacio was accused of stealing Katipunan funds; that his sister was the mistress of a priest and worst of all, that he was paid by the friars to bait the people to unrest and protest to bring matters to a head.

Based on an account of historian Ambeth Ocampo, the Aguinaldo group tasked to arrest him as persona non grata, paid him a friendly visit, then turned around and shot him, wounding him and his brother Procopio, and killing his other brother Ciriaco.

A half-dead Bonifacio was brought to trial in Naic, Aguinaldo’s bailiwick, where the jury was composed entirely of Aguinaldo’s men, as was the defense lawyer who entered a plea of guilty purportedly to try to mitigate the judgment, and the state witness who was made to disappear after testimony before Bonifacio could confront him.

Historians Agoncillo and Constantino, among other historians and watchers of history know as fact that there was a trial of Andres Bonifacio and his brother Procopio by the Aguinaldo camp, and that the Bonifacio brothers were found guilty and executed on May 10, 1897 in Maragondon, Cavite. Details of the power-grab in the allegedly rigged election, the frame-up and the hasty kangaroo trial that meted out the pre-decided death by execution -- these vary in historical fact and anecdotal history recently roused by fictionalized biopics that have caught the imagination and support of curious citizens.

The more prominent (and financially successful) movies about Andres Bonifacio and their actors are: Ang Paglilitis kay Andres Bonifacio (2010, Alfred Vargas); Supremo (2012, Alfred Vargas); El Presidente (2012, Cesar Montano); and Bonifacio: Ang Unang Pangulo (2014, Robin Padilla). Good to watch these on DVD or YouTube on Bonifacio Day.

- www.bworldonline.com