What else can be said about Andres Bonifacio? A lot of books have been written about him; his life has been dissected even though the remains of his missing body have not been seen to-date. And that's actually one of the strongest reasons why his story has to be heard, repeated and become better popularly known to those who have been dismissive of what he has
Mario O'Hara's indie film on what took place during the military tribunal hearings before he was sentenced to death by the nascent Philippine Revolutionary Government officers and men has to be included as part of the syllabus in school, preferably in elementary grades. I've always wondered why there were questionable gaps on what happened during the Philippine Revolution that claimed independence from Spain when Emilio Aguinaldo suddenly took reins of leadership of the revolution. What happened during these critical moments exactly? Where did Emilio Jacinto and the rest of Bonifacio's loyal followers land and go after their founder-leader was killed by the very forces who made up the ranks of the Revolution?
The movie's a depressing depiction on how to maltreat a country's national hero; Andres Bonifacio was the founder and the leader of the Katipunan, a secret organization that became the main force behind the Philippine Revolution before the Americans showed up to snatch and cut-short the independence that freedom fighters fought for hundreds of years and that gained a tsunami-like force in the Philippine archipelago in 1898. And it was restored back in 1946 after World War II when the Americans decided that it's high time to recognize Philippine independence after the country was literally raped and shoved to down to its knees in a war that could have been avoided if the Philippines was not then a commonwealth of the USA.
You can also deduced from the film why up to these days, Philippine elites (at least those who are mis-educated, un-enlightened ones) look down on those who didn't get enough schooling just like Andres Bonifacio. And these same elites make it very difficult to provide for totally free quality education from elementary to college all over the Philippines - they just want to make sure they're in their comfortable positions while the rest of the docile-looking masses remain ignorant, disadvantaged, mis-understood, and perpetually incapable of seizing opportunities around them. They're very similar to those elites who thought Andres Bonifacio didn't belong to their own kind of people. And we don't wonder why we still have similar problems that persist to these days.
Can our national leaders, for once, meet-up and declare to make Andres Bonifacio officially the 'First President of the Philippines,' instead of Emilio Aguinaldo? This is just like correcting entries in the official version of Philippine history, and for once, we'll be capable of accepting our mistakes and correcting them at the same time. Please! This will go a long way in helping heal the festering national wounds that linger up to these days...
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