Can We Take Bonifacio’s, Aguinaldo’s, and Mabini’s Readings of Philippine Colonial History Seriously?

By Dr. Paul Arvisu Dumol

The title of this article refers to three texts: Bonifacio's manifesto published in March 1896 in Kalayaan, the Katipunan's newspaper; the Proclamation of Independence of June 12, 1898, which I have linked to Aguinaldo in the title of this article only because it is popularly associated with him (we know that its author is the lawyer, Ambrosio Rianzares Bautista); and Mabini's Ordenanzas de la revolución published in April 1898. The title alludes to two claims, one made implicitly by all three, the other explicitly by Bonifacio and Mabini: that Spain had not conquered the indigenous peoples of the Philippines and that relations between them and Spain were ruled by a pact. There is a third claim which complements the two: that Spain broke the pact. My title refers to this claim as well. Can we take the three claims seriously?  

There are obstacles to this in each of the three documents. In the case of Bonifacio's manifesto, the claim that Sikatuna and Legazpi made a blood compact that applied to all the native peoples of the Philippines is simply not true. In the case of Mabini, a modern Filipino would probably question his claim that Spain and the Philippine peoples had an offensive and defensive alliance and even more the claim that this alliance was accomplished with "the most perfect solidarity of perspectives and interests." In the case of the Proclamation of Independence, its implicit claim that the Philippine peoples were never conquered would probably baffle the ordinary Filipino.  

Footnotes (Page 1)

1. Revised version of a paper read at the Seventh International Conference on Philippine Studies ("Changing Landscapes, Humanscapes, and Mindscapes in a Globalizing World") organized by the International Institute for Asian Studies at Leiden, the Netherlands. June 16-19, 2004.  

   I quote from the Spanish translation ("Lo que deben saber y entender los indios") by Juan Caro y Mora in W. E. Retana's Archivo del bibliófilo filipino (Madrid: Viuda de M. Minuesa de los Ríos, 1897), vol. 3, 144-48. The purported Tagalog original in Agoncillo and Epistola's edition of Bonifacio's writings ("Ang dapat mabatid ng mga tagalog" in The Writings and Trial of Andres Bonifacio, collected and translated with notes by Teodoro A. Agoncillo with the collaboration of S. V. Epistola [Manila: n.p., 1963], 68-69) is obviously not what Caro translated (compare the opening lines of the two versions), although the two versions are similar for the most part. Forced to choose between the two, I opt for Caro's translation: there are no cogent reasons to deny Caro had seen the Kalayaan issue (whose other articles were also translated by him), whereas we have no evidence that the version edited by Agoncillo and Epistola was actually the one published in Kalayaan.  

2. I quote from the facsimile reproduction of the original ("Acta de proclamación de independencia del pueblo Filipino") in June 12, 1898 and Related Documents (Manila: National Historical Commission, 1972), 19-40.  

3. I quote from "Ordenanzas de la revolución" in La Revolución filipina (con otros documentos de la época) by Apolinario Mabini (Manila: Bureau of Printing, 1931), vol. 1, 108-109.  

4. Cf. Cesar Adib Majul, Mabini and the Philippine Revolution (1960; reprint, Quezon City: University of the Philippines Press, 1996), 262-65, citing texts from Marcelo H. del Pilar, Bonifacio, Felipe Agoncillo, and Mabini, and John N. Schumacher, Propaganda Movement: 1880-1895 (1973; revised edition, Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press, 1997), 228-30, citing other texts from del Pilar, Rizal, Pedro Paterno, and Emilio Aguinaldo. To all these we may add Rizal's letter to Blumentritt of November 14-18, 1888, London (no. 84 in Cartas entre Rizal y el Profesor Fernando Blumentritt, part 2 [Manila: Comisión Nacional del Centenario de José Rizal, 1961], 384-95), chap. 31 of Rizal's Filibusterismo (pp. 239-40 of the first edition), and an essay, "Cómo se engaña a la patria," attributed erroneously to Rizal by the 1961 Centennial Edition but probably by del Pilar, published in La Solidaridad (May 15, 1889) which refers to the union between Filipinos and Spain, almost certainly an allusion to a pact between the two. 

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