Saturday, March 24, 2012

24 MARCH

 1897 - Filipino revolutionary and patriot Gen. Artemio Ricarte y Garcia reluctantly takes his oath of office in a clandestine ceremony after being elected the General-in-Chief of the Revolutionary Army under a new body designed to replace the underground-movement-turned-revolutionary-body  Kataas-taasang, Kagalang-galangang Katipunan ng mga Anak ng Bayan (KKK) during the anomalous Tejeros Convention two days earlier, seven months into the Philippine Revolution against Spain; Ricarte has initially refused to take the oath because he believes the elections were marred by fraud and because he thinks he is not qualified to hold the job; the convention proved to be scandalous and was  declared invalid and fraudulent by Andres C. Bonifacio, the Supremo of the original revolutionary body, Katipunan; Bonifacio earlier agreed to chair the convention despite the fact that the Katipunan was already a revolutionary body in his patriotic bid to unite the warring Magdiwang and Magdalo factions of the KKK in Cavite province, and despite prior reports that the Imus crowd in the province wanted only men from their pueblos to be elected and that pre-filled ballots carrying Magdalo names were distributed; Bonifacio ended up being insulted by Daniel Tirona who scandalously disrespects the balloting by questioning the Supremo's credentials and asking the crowd to elect another man in his place;  along with Ricarte, Emilio F. Aguinaldo and Mariano Trias take their oath in a ceremony kept hidden from the Magdiwang, with the controversial Tirona as one of the witnesses, and with Bonifacio not having been invited.


Photo credit: http://www.getdomainpics.com/keyword/artemio%20ricarte/

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