Indio:Bravo//

Andres Bonifacio: The Balance of Revolution and Restraint

While a lot of historians beginning with the so-called historian Renato Constantino would pit Bonifacio with Rizal on the basis that the former was part of the lower class (masa) and the latter a part of the (upper class), this somehow obscures the real Bonifacio from us—who fought not only with brute force but with his mind as well.

Yes, I question the stereotype that Constantino and the Magdalo propagated, that Bonifacio was ‘mahirap’, uneducated, and therefore part of the lower class. We often mistake the hero as having always the bolo in hand with his face distorted to look like he was shouting at Filipinos to sound the alarm for an all-out war.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Mabini, whom a lot of us have classified as educated ‘ilustrado’ was poorer than Bonifacio, having been a houseboy and a low-wage tailor before accepting his scholarship at Colegio de San Juan de Letran. In the case of Bonifacio, yes he was born in Tondo, and yes his parents died early and he had to stop his education to support his siblings, but with sheer hardwork, he was able to work at some reputable companies like Fleming and Co., and Fressel and Co. Anu naman kung ang bayani e mayaman o mahirap? Anu ba ang ipinaglaban nila? ‘Yun lang naman ang mahalaga di ba?

That is what a feudal mindset does to a people. We define a person on the basis of his/her social class—the familiar plot/rhetoric of mayaman vs. mahirap seen in our telenovelas and even in our history. We do not define our heroes on the basis of their principles, of why they fought and why they fought the way that they did.

So let’s stop judging our heroes on the basis of social class. Marx was not yet alive then and I doubt if Bonifacio even had an inkling that he was proletariat going against a bourgeoisie. For Bonifacio, his fight was against those conquerors who brought down their heavy hands on his people’s islands. It is injustice that must be met with a just action. Marxism as a theory of history is as biased as bias can be, and has been debunked by many historians.

Here is the truth: Bonifacio did not finish school but with perseverance which he would always be seen doing, he read the following books: biographies of the presidents of the United States (he was therefore familiar with democracy even before the Americans took the Philippines), Les Miserables (Bonifacio knew the triumphs and horrors of the French Revolution), Le Juif Errant (Bonifacio knew the excesses of the Catholic Church in the Philippines), and finally his two favorite novels written by Rizal, Noli Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo (now, now, compare that to Emilio Aguinaldo who did not even read the two novels even after he collaborated with the Americans and the Japanese). Say again that Bonifacio was uneducated I would have to correct you. This is enough to bash that familiar Bonifacio statue we have unconsciously constructed in our minds.

Like the Maguindanao Massacre, who would remember the injustice done to the Bonifacio brothers? The Magdalo faction against the Magdiwang faction was a feudal fight as old as when the Spanish came to the Philippines. Did anyone remember that in the heat of battle of Filipinos against the Spanish, the one who started the revolution itself, Andres Bonifacio, died unjustly in the hands of fellow Filipinos? That ambitious Aguinaldo, whom we have honored by putting his face on our 5 peso coin was involved in this great injustice in Philippine history.

Regardless of the historical mystery surrounding the one-sided ‘trial’ that Aguinaldo’s Magdalo enacted against Bonifacio, we would still have a glimspe of Bonifacio’s ideals seen in his writings.

Did Bonifacio have a balanced view of revolution and restraint? Read him in his own words:

“Will you, perchance, be disheartened and your feeling visited by a sense of regret in dying for this cause? No! no! For there in your memory are painted the thousands upon thousands of lives snuffed out by the brutal hands of the Spaniards; the groans, the sighs and the sobs of those orphaned by cruelty; the picture of our brothers who were thrown into the horrible jails and suffering untold miseries; the interminable flow of the tears of those who were snatched from the sides of their children, wives and aged parents by being exiled to far-off places; and the unjust murder of our beloved countryman, Jose Rizal, have already opened a wound in our hearts that will never be healed. All this is sufficient to set even the coldest blood afire and to launch us into a struggle against the ignoble Spaniards who have caused us all these miseries and death…

And so, my brothers, prepare yourselves for the fight and rest assured that victory will be ours, for righteousness and the sanctity of duty are on our side. The enemy, that execrable foreigner who happened to come to these shores, is fighting only to victimize and dominate us in our land.

In all this, and in order that the sacredness and honor of our country be made complete, in order that the whole world might witness the nobility of our character, let us not emulate our enemy in this detestable conduct of the war, let us not go to battle merely in the interest of killing, but rather in defense of the liberty of our country, and thus fighting cry out at the top of our voices: Mabuhay! LONG LIVE THE SOVEREIGN PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES!”

May we remember the hero that he truly is in this Bonifacio Day.

Photo: The only known photo of Andres Bonifacio y de Castro, founder of the Katipunan and leader of the first revolution against a Western power in Asia.