At Bonifacio rites, some students think he fought Japanese, Americans

MILITANT groups who gathered Saturday at Manila’s Liwasang Bonifacio salute the Supremo with mock bolos inscribed with modern-day grievances. ARNOLD ALMACEN

It was a crowd-drawer as always, but not everyone who attended Saturday’s program in Caloocan City in honor of Andres Bonifacio had a very accurate knowledge of the man.

When asked whom Bonifacio had fought, Jessica, a 15-year-old senior at Bagong Barrio National High School, replied: “The Japanese. Am I correct?”

MANILA Mayor Joseph Estrada arrives in style for the Bonifacio Day rites on Saturday just outside City Hall. ARNOLD ALMACEN

Given the same quiz by the Inquirer, her schoolmate, 15-year-old Jelifer, wondered: “The Americans? What I know is that he was against the Americans.”

A tentative Arlene, 16, answered: “The Spaniards? Am I right? I’m not sure.”

But to be fair, the other fourth-year students—who were offered incentives by their teacher  to attend the rites and were eager to take “selfie” shots at the event—correctly described the revolutionary leader as “the hero of the Katipunan” and the one “who tore up the cedula.”

They were part of the crowd who showed up for the rites marking the 150th birth anniversary of the Supremo at the Bonifacio Monument in Caloocan, which had President Aquino as guest of honor.

Their answers may give the country’s educators and historians an idea of how much the younger generation knows about the 19th century patriot, whose life and legacy have been the subject of countless books, artworks, movies, plays and, lately, even a telenovela.

In a parallel event in Manila, Bonifacio’s birthplace, tributes flowed for the city’s famous son from the Tondo district.

“We who have benefited from the freedom brought about by his supreme sacrifice must keep his legacy alive,” Mayor Joseph Estrada said in a speech at Bonifacio Shrine near City Hall, where he and Vice President Jejomar Binay led wreath-laying rites.

Estrada expressed his support for council resolutions calling on the government to recognize Bonifacio as “First President of the Tagalog Republic” and the inclusion of a subject about his life, works and heroism in the curriculum of Manila-based colleges and universities.

The mayor said Bonifacio “symbolized the soul of a suffering people (but) strove earnestly to improve their condition by all means and at all cost.”

“In launching the 1896 Philippine Revolution, Bonifacio and his katipuneros hoped that the poor masses would improve their lot upon attainment of independence from the Spanish colonizers,” he said.

Also in Manila on Friday, the Bonifacio 150 Committee, a group led by the Linangan ng Kulturang Pilipino, opened an art exhibit at Bahay Nakpil in Quiapo featuring the drawings of children who participated in art workshops conducted by the group in various schools.

Instead of opening the exhibit with a usual ribbon-cutting ceremony, organizers had a mock chain broken to signify the act of liberation from enslavement and ignorance.

Julie L. Po, visual artist and convener of the Bonifacio 150 Committee, said the hero’s struggle for change continued to resonate to this day, with many Filipinos still mired in poverty and the nation appalled by corruption scandals involving its political leaders.

“Something is wrong and the people are crying for change,” the Bonifacio 150 Committee said in a statement.