3 MAY

Photo art: JB

 
1897 - The treacherous operation leading to the shooting, stabbing, and seizure of Filipino revolutionary leader, Andres Bonifacio y de Castro, by the power-grabbing camp of Emilio Aguinaldo y Famy, is relayed in a letter to the former's brotherly friend and chief of Katipunan operations in Manila, Emilio Jacinto y Dizon during the Philippine Revolution against Spain; the first-hand account that comes from Col. Antonino M. Guevara sheds some light on the treachery surrounding the power grab by Aguinaldo and his Magdalo partisans and the seizure and subsequent kangaroo court martial of Bonifacio, President of the underground society-turned-revolutionary-government Kataastaasang Kagalanggalangang Katipunan nang manga Anak nang Bayan that has been struggling for liberation against Spain; on April 28 at barrio Limbon, near Indang, Cavite, Supremo Bonifacio and his brothers and men were treacherously attacked by a force led by Col. Agapito Bonzon, alias "Yntong" who was even warmly treated by the former the night before, resulting in the death of Ciriaco Bonifacio and at least one other Katipunero, and the gunshot wound to the arm and stabbing to the throat of the Supremo, and the rape of Bonifacio's wife, Gregoria de Jesus; the surviving Bonifacio brothers, who were forcibly brought to Naic and imprisoned in a desolate, cramp room and fed only twice in three days, would later be described by Gen. Santiago Alvarez as being in a very pitiful physical state  prior to their kangaroo court martial proceedings; earlier in March, the Magdalo camp moved to hurriedly conduct what would turn out to be the fraudulent and anomalous Tejeros Convention, with Aguinaldo and other 'elected' figures except Bonifacio surreptitiously taking their oath of office hidden from the rival Magdiwang faction; Bonifacio and 40 other Katipuneros will nullify the elections, said to have been marred by pre-filled ballots and which Gen. Artemio Ricarte has dubbed fraudulent, through the Acta de Tejeros even as Jacinto had reiterated that Bonifacio is still the leader of the Philippine revolution in a letter dated April 11, 1897.


Raw photo credit: Dr. Zeus Salazar's "Andres Bonifacio bilang Punong Militar"