Andrés Bonifacio Andrés Bonifacio y de Castro (30 November 1863 – 10 May 1897) was a Filipino nationalist and revolutionary. He is often called the father of the Philippine Revolution. He was a founder and later Supremo (supreme leader) of the Katipunan movement which sought the independence of the Philippines from Spanish colonial rule and started the Philippine Revolution. He is considered a de facto national hero of the Philippines, and is also considered by some Filipino historians to be the first President, but officially he is not recognized as such. Bonifacio was born in Tondo, Manila, the son of Santiago Bonifacio of Taguig and Catalina de Castro, a native of Cabangan, Zambales. He was the eldest of six children. His siblings were Ciriaco, Procopio, Troadio, Esperidiona and Maxima. His father was a tailor who served as a teniente mayor of Tondo, Manila, while his mother was a mestiza born of a Spanish father and a Filipino-Chinese mother who was a supervisor at a cigarette factory. As was custom, upon baptism he was named for the saint on whose feast he was born, Andrew the Apostle. Education and early life Bonifacio learned his alphabet through his mothers sister and he was first enrolled in a private school of one Guillermo Osmeña where he learned Latin and mathematics though his normal schooling was cut short when he dropped out at about fourteen years old to support his siblings after both of their parents died of illness one year apart. Bonifacio was blessed with good hands in craftsmanship and visual arts that he made canes and paper fans, which he and his young siblings sold, and he made posters for business firms. This became their thriving family business that continued on when the men of the family, Andres, Ciriaco, Procopio and Troadio, became employed with private and government companies which provided them decent living condition. In his late teens, he worked as a mandatorio for the British trading firm Fleming and Company, where he rose to become a corregidor of tar, rattan and other goods. He later transferred to Fressell and Company, a German trading firm, where he worked as a bodeguero (storehouse keeper) where he is responsible for warehouse inventory. Bonifacio also founded a theater company with his friends, Macario Sakay and Aurelio Tolentino, where he was also a part-time actor performing in moro-moro plays. Not finishing his normal education, Bonifacio enriched his natural intelligence with self-education. He read books about the French Revolution, biographies of the Presidents of the United States, books about contemporary Philippine penal and civil codes, and novels such as Victor Hugos Les Misérables, Eugène Sues Le Juif errant and José Rizals Noli Me Tángere and El Filibusterismo. Aside from Tagalog and Spanish, he could speak and understand a little English, which he learned while working at J.M. Fleming and Co. Marriages Bonifacio was married twice: first to a certain Monica (of Palomar). She was Bonifacios neighbor in Tondo. Monica died of leprosy and they had no recorded children. In 1892 Bonifacio, a 29-year old widower, met the 18-years old Gregoria de Jesús, through his friend Teodoro Plata who was her cousin. Gregoria, also called Oriang, was the daughter of a prominent citizen and landowner from Kalookan. Gregorias parents did not agree at first to their relationship as Andres was a freemason and freemasons were then against the Catholic church. Her parents eventually gave in and Andres and Gregoria were married through a Catholic ceremony in Binondo Church on March 1893 or 1894. The couple also were married through Katipunan rites in a friends house in Sta. Cruz, Manila on the same day of their church wedding. They had one son named Andrés, born on early 1896, who died of smallpox in infancy. Bonifacios bones In 1918, the American-sponsored government of the Philippines mounted a search for Bonifacios remains in Maragondon. A group consisting of government officials, former rebels, and a man reputed to be Bonifacios servant found bones which they claimed were Bonifacios in a sugarcane field on 17 March. The bones were placed in an urn and put into the care of the National Library of the Philippines. They were housed at the Librarys headquarters in the Legislative Building in Ermita, Manila, together with some of Bonifacios papers and personal belongings. The authenticity of the bones was much disputed at the time and has been challenged as late as 2001 by Ambeth Ocampo. When Emilio Aguinaldo ran for President of the Commonwealth of the Philippines in 1935, his opponent Manuel L. Quezón (the eventual victor) invoked the memory of Bonifacio against him, the bones being the result of Bonifacios execution at Aguinaldos hands. During World War II, the Philippines was invaded by Japan in 1941. The bones were lost due to the widespread destruction and looting during the Allied capture of Manila in February 1945.
Posted on: Tue, 25 Mar 2014 07:34:43 +0000
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