Roots of "Independence" Day

To the Katipunan, Independence was both political freedom and the liberation of the people from exploitation. These are objectives that have yet to be realized - which is why it can be said that the Katipunan-led revolution is indeed an unfinished revolution. These facts are left out in the government-sponsored celebrations of Philippine "independence."

By Alexander Martin Remollino
Bulatlat.com

As in previous years, the government-sponsored celebration of "Independence" Day could have qualified as an international contender for pomp and grandeur without substance.

There were the usual reenactments of the flag-raising ceremony led by Gen. Emilio Aguinaldo in Kawit, Cavite on June 12, 1898. There were the usual speeches calling on the descendants of the 1896 revolutionaries to keep alive in their hearts and minds the fire of love for freedom which drove many a young man and woman more than a hundred years ago to shed blood on the field of battle.

But the mention of the struggle for freedom was  nothing more than lip service. There was no discourse on the historical roots of the revolutionary movement that fought the 1896 Revolution which led to the attainment of independence from Spanish colonial rule in 1898. Thus, in the orations that resounded during the celebration of the 105th year of the declaration of Philippine independence from Spanish colonialism, the freedom our forebears fought for was projected as a mere abstract, a form with no substance.

This is one reason not a few people find it quite hard to relate to the Revolution of 1896 - which even high government officials call an "unfinished revolution."

Historically speaking, the underground revolutionary association, Kataas-taasan, Kagalang-galangang Katipunan ng mga Anak ng Bayan, or Katipunan for short, which Andres Bonifacio and a number of friends and associates founded in 1892, could be considered a child of the Reform Movement led by Jose Rizal, Graciano Lopez Jaena, and Marcelo del Pilar. (Marcelo del Pilar would later shelve leadership of the reformist campaign in favor of support for the revolutionary struggle.)

Bonifacio was an active organizer of Rizal's La Liga Filipina. It was a civic society whose aims were the unification of the Philippine archipelago, mutual protection, defense against violence and injustice, education, and the study and application of reforms.

Bonifacio exerted efforts to organize chapters of the society in various districts of Manila. However, with the exile of Rizal to Dapitan in July 1892, he came to the conclusion that the Reform Movement had reached a dead end and the only way to effect changes in the plight of the people, severely oppressed by Spanish colonialism, was to take the path of revolutionary struggle.

On July 7, Bonifacio met with Valentin Diaz, Teodoro Plata, Deodato Arellano, and a few others in a house in Azcarraga and led the founding of the Katipunan.

Bonifacio, aside from being a founder of the Katipunan, was, together with Emilio Jacinto, one of its chief ideologues.

Katipunan ideology

It was clear to the people that Spanish colonialism was a main cause of their misery. The Katipunan aspired for separation from Spain and was thus a nationalist movement. During this revolutionary period, the nationalist movement was the climax of three centuries of revolts staged by the Filipinos against Spanish colonial rule, serfdom, oppression and religious bigotry.

The writings of Bonifacio and Jacinto, in particular Bonifacio's poem "Pag-ibig sa Tinubuang Bayan" and the code of conduct he wrote for the Katipunan, "Katungkulang Gagawin ng mga Anak ng Bayan"; and Jacinto's poem "A la Patria," as well as his "Pahayag" and "Kartilya ng Katipunan," a code of conduct he wrote to supplement the one by Bonifacio but which the latter later adopted as the organization's rules in lieu of his own, highlight the nobility of fighting for freedom and against oppression.

The Katipunan derived several of the other elements of its ideology from the anti-feudal and egalitarian principles of the French Revolution. Which was probably inevitable since both Bonifacio and Jacinto were greatly inspired by it, as were the reformist  leaders whose activities they closely followed.

It was clear to Bonifacio that the struggle for independence should have an anti-feudal component. He was well aware that the feudal agrarian system of his time was an imposition of Spanish colonialism. Thus, in his poem "Katapusang Hibik ng Pilipinas," he denounced the mandatory payment of tributes to Spanish friars, who then owned the largest land estates in the Philippines. In the last part of the poem, Bonifacio laid down the rationale for waging a struggle for separation from Spain.

Both Bonifacio and Jacinto were influenced by Rizal and del Pilar, who wrote voluminously on the concepts of democratic government and the rights of man - concepts which provided bases for the reforms they campaigned for. They had both read Rizal's two novels (Noli Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo), and they were avid readers of del Pilar's articles in La Solidaridad, the paper of the Madrid-based Propaganda Movement.

Not only that, Bonifacio and Jacinto both read quite widely on the history of the French Revolution.

The equality of all human beings was a main element in the Katipunan ideology. In the pieces Bonifacio and Jacinto wrote for the Katipunan, particularly the "Katungkulang Gagawin ng mga Anak ng Bayan," the "Kartilya ng Katipunan," and Jacinto's collection of essays Liwanag at Dilim, stressed that all humans should be treated equally, regardless of station in life, color of skin, and gender.

Aside from these, the principles of democratic government are well expounded in Jacinto's "Ang Bayan at ang mga Gobyerno," one of the essays contained in Liwanag at Dilim, which points out that the government has the responsibility to serve the people, and should it fail in this regard the people have the right to rebel.

The ideas in these pieces resemble the principles of egalite and fraternite - the main battlecries of the French Revolution.

Interestingly, the Katipunan ideology had a vision of a society where the wealth of the land is equitably shared by all. In his essay "Ang Dapat Mabatid ng mga Tagalog," Bonifacio called attention to that part of Philippine history where wealth was a "common patrimony." The same essay denounces the Spanish colonizers for destroying that ancient way of life.

Left out

The Katipunan drew much of its membership from the common people - the peasantry and the working people - and had an ideological perspective that was based on their felt needs. It was a movement that aimed for both national and social liberation. While it had no concrete theory and program for social justice and its ideology was more inspired by the liberal democratic ideas of the French Revolution, it had the elements of aspiration for a society where the wealth of the nation is distributed equitably among the people. It was clear to Bonifacio and Jacinto, its main ideologues, that national liberation was a first step in the attainment of that goal, since they knew it was the Spanish colonizers who imposed an order characterized by social injustice upon the land.

Independence, then, to the Katipunan, was both political freedom and the liberation of the people from exploitation. These are objectives that have yet to be realized - which is why it can be said that the Katipunan revolution is indeed an unfinished revolution.

These facts are left out in the government-sponsored celebrations of Philippine "independence." Bulatlat.com

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