Andres Bonifacio – Philippine Folklife Museum Foundation ...

Andres Bonifacio

A Filipino revolutionary hero who founded the Katipunan, a secret society which spearheaded the uprising against Spain and laid the groundwork for the first Philippine Republic. Andres Bonifacio, was given the distinct honor of being the architect and the father of the first nationalist revolution in Asia, the Filipino Revolution of 1896. He authored the uprising against Spain who set into motion the emancipation of a people who had been colonized and abused for over 300 years. Andres Bonifacio was born to a working class family on November 30, 1863, to his hard-working parents: his father, Santiago Bonifacio (a tailor) and his mother, Catalina de Castro (a cigarette factory worker). By birth he was already identified with the plight of the masses. He grew up in the slums of Tondo, a district of the city of Manila outside the walled City of Intramuros (inhabited by those in power – the friars and the high government officials). Tondo was a dynamic community of workers, stevedores, small entrepreneurs, and merchants. This land of the poor, the underprivileged and the oppressed was a melting pot to all in search of a new life. From practical experience, he knew the actual conditions of the class struggle in his society. The death of his parents forced him to take over the support of his 3 brothers and 2 sisters at age 14; he was forced to drop out of school and had an urgent task to care for his family. A life of poverty and hard work strengthened his capacity for sacrifices and his tolerance for difficult challenges, but did not dampen his spirit.

Andrés Bonifacio y de Castro was born on November 30, 1863, in Tondo, Manila, and was the first of six children of Catalina de Castro, a tornatrás from Zambales, and Santiago Bonifacio, a native of Taguig. His parents named him after Saint Andrew the Apostle, the patron saint of Manila on whose feast day he was born. He was baptized on December 3, 1863 by Fr. Saturnino Buntan, parish priest of Tondo Church. He learned the alphabet from his aunt. He was enrolled in Guillermo Osmeña's private elementary school and also in Escuela Municipal de Niños on Calle Ilaya in Tondo. He reached third year in a private secondary school in Manila. Some sources assert that he was orphaned at an early age, but the existence of an 1881 record that has Bonifacio's parents listed as living in Tondo leaves this disputed. To support his family financially, Bonifacio made walking canes and paper fans which he and his young siblings sold (after they were orphaned, according to the traditional view). He also made posters for business firms, and this became their thriving family business that continued when Andrés and his brothers Ciriaco, Procopio, and Troadio, were employed with private and government companies, which provided them with decent living conditions. In his late teens, he first worked either as an agent or mandatario (messenger) for the British trading firm Fleming and Company, where he rose to become a corredor (broker) of tar, rattan and other goods. He later transferred to the German trading firm Fressell and Company, where he worked as a bodeguero (storehouse keeper) responsible for warehouse inventory. He was also a theater actor and often played the role of Bernardo Carpio, a fictional hero in Tagalog folklore. Not finishing his formal education, Bonifacio turned to self-education by reading books. 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 Hugo's Les Misérables, Eugène Sue's Le Juif errant and José Rizal's Noli Me Tángere and El filibusterismo. Aside from Tagalog and Spanish, he spoke some English due to his work in a British firm. Marriages Bonifacio's first wife, Mónica , was his neighbor in Palomar, Tondo. She died of leprosy and they had no recorded children. In 1892, Bonifacio, a 29-year-old widower, met the 18-year-old Gregoria de Jesús through his friend Teodoro Plata, who was her cousin. Gregoria, nicknamed “Oriang”, was the daughter of a prominent citizen and landowner from Caloocan. Her parents initially disapproved of their relationship for Bonifacio was a Freemason, and the movement was at odds with the Catholic Church. They eventually acquiesced, and Andrés and Gregoria were married in a Catholic ceremony at Binondo Church in March 1893 or 1894. The couple were married later that day in separate Katipunan rites at a friend's house in Santa Cruz, Manila. They had one son, Andrés, in early 1896 who died of smallpox in his infancy. Early political activism Main article: La Liga Filipina In 1892, Bonifacio became one of the founding members of José Rizal's La Liga Filipina, an organization that called for political reforms in Spain's colonial government of the Philippines. However, La Liga disbanded[42] after only one meeting, for Rizal was arrested and deported to Dapitan in the Western Mindanao region. Bonifacio, Apolinario Mabini and others revived La Liga in Rizal's absence and Bonifacio was active at organizing local chapters in Manila. He would become the chief propagandist of the revived Liga.

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