Thursday, August 20, 2015

A more than a monument for the heroism of a Great Filipino

Posted by
Belarmino Dabalos Saguing
Rome, Italy 20 August, 2015



Andres Bonifacio Monument, Cry At Balintawak, Caloocan City (downloaded photo)


For those who passionately argue that Andres Bonifacio has suffered the double-edged sword that is martyrdom-by-history, the Bonifacio Monument likewise attests to the drawback a prominent memorial represents. The symbolism resonates: The nominal hero of the masses, the plebeian idealist, the revolutionary from Tondo, standing still in the midst of the hustle and bustle of the city—his gaze forever fixed on the length of Avenida Rizal, the old road leading back to Manila—indistinguishable in the background, unmistakable yet obscure in the pocket of Caloocan skyline that has sprung up around it.

The monument has stood for eighty years—first a solitary rise in the expanse of Caloocan, and over the years a lynchpin for the city’s landscape to form itself around. It has lent its very name to the area now dotted by establishments that had once almost furtively crept toward it, and which now threaten to tower over its Winged Victory perched forty-five feet from the ground. Glancing at the monument enveloped in the shadows cast by these new and ever-newer buildings, pedestrians and commuters circle around it, barely looking up, even as those in vehicles consider it more obstacle than landmark. The Bonifacio Monument, imposing yet graceful, thus manages to both serve as gateway and landmark to the thousands that traverse it, and yet fades into the scenery for those who’ve seen it far too often for far too long.

Nominally created on October 23, 1933 by virtue of Governor-General Frank Murphy’s Executive Order No. 452, the National Executive Committee for the Inauguration of the Andres Bonifacio Monument undertook a ceremony steeped in Filipino symbolism that would adorn every element of the day’s activities: whether the parade, or the unveiling, or the inauguration. 

As soon as the Speaker of the House Quintin Paredes arrived for the inauguration of the monument, the three women who represented the three principal islands of the archipelago came forward, accompanied by members of the Katipunan. In 1933, this meant three bent but proud men dressed in their Katipunero best—Lt. Col. Venancio de Jesus, Capt. Inocencio Peralta, and Lt. Dionisio Buensuceso. The six positioned themselves around the monument to form a triangle. The women stepped forward, escorted by designated members of Congress, to unveil the monument to the crowd that had gathered to witness this tribute to Andres Bonifacio.

The Bonifacio Monument was both valedictory of the Revolution of 1896 and pledge to future generations that independence would one day be restored. The unveiling of the monument itself was the culmination of a decades-long movement to commemorate not just the father of the revolution, but to reassert the continuing aspiration for independent nationhood of the Filipinos.

The political context of the campaign to build the monument is crucial to understanding the identity of the monument as both vindication and pledge. In 1901, the Americans passed the Sedition Act (Act No. 292), prohibiting Filipinos from advocating either independence or separation from the United States. Ahead of permitting the election of an all-Filipino lower house—the Philippine Assembly, due to take office in October 16, 1907—the Americans noticed that in the campaign for the election of assemblymen, the Philippine flag came to be prominently displayed: one such rally took place in Caloocan, rich in memories of 1896.

Alarmed American associations passed a resolution in August 23, 1907—a month redolent with memory for Filipinos—demanding the proscription of the Filipino flag. And so among the last acts of the American-dominated Philippine Commission was to ban the Philippine flag, anthem, and symbols of the Katipunan and the First Republic, on September 6, 1907.

Even if hemmed in by a thicket of legislation, Filipinos kept pursuing independence: the first efforts concentrating on symbolic actions to assert that the aspiration for nationhood had not dimmed. On June 19, 1908, Speaker Sergio Osmeña formally pledged the legislature to pursuing Philippine independence. Assemblymen would pursue legislation at home and abroad to secure a pledge of independence, while reclaiming the symbols of nationhood. And so even as members of the legislature filed bill after bill to legalize the Philippine flag, others—led by a prominent veteran of the Katipunan, Guillermo Masangkay—literally had a representative forum in which to propose that a monument be erected to Bonifacio’s memory.

By 1911, a monument (“El Grito del Revolucion,” with a generic Katipunero whose image has come to be indelibly stamped in our popular culture as the Supremo himself) was built in Caloocan (though it has since been transferred to the front of Vinzons Hall, in UP Diliman) not as a government-approved, or funded, memorial, but as a private initiative. Only a year later, in 1912, would the Rizal Monument be unveiled. The question would then shift to who would be honored in only the second national monument to be dedicated to a Filipino.

It would be Bonifacio and the effort would be pursued in a methodical manner. On February 5, 1915, the Philippine Assembly passed Act No. 2494, which appropriated funds for public works and monuments. In August 29, 1916, the United States Congress enacted the Jones Law making, Philippine independence a question of not if, but when— and replacing the American-dominated Philippine Commission with an all-Filipino Senate, which was inaugurated in October of that year. The coast was clear. On February 23, 1918, Act No. 2760 was passed, which approved the building of a memorial to Bonifacio, as well as the creation of national committee to oversee it. A year and a half later, the Philippine flag and anthem were finally legalized.

A decade spent in fierce clashes between Filipino politicians and American Governors-General would pass until, on the occasion of Bonifacio’s 66th birth anniversary in 1929, at 5:45 p.m., the cornerstone of the monument was ceremonially installed by Mrs. Aurora Quezon, the wife of the highest-ranking Filipino official at the time, Senate President Manuel L. Quezon.

“The Bonifacio Monument,” Alcazaren writes, “was intended to sit at its site specifically to commemorate the historic spark ignited there and that led to the culminating events of 1898.” Moreover, the site was a perfect counterpoint to the monument of Rizal in Luneta: The two leading figures of the Philippines’ emancipation from Spain would bracket Manila—the national man of letters down South by the sea, and the father of the Philippine revolution up North—not unlike sentries.

Caloocan used to be part of Tondo until 1815 when it became a municipality. The town’s growth surged after the completion of the Manila-Dagupan railway in 1892. It was there, in August 23, 1896, that Andres Bonifacio led the famous cry that sent the clear message of resistance to Spanish rule. For several years after, Caloocan was in the thick of the fight; first against the Spanish, then quickly against the Americans. By the turn of the century, the terror of war turned into reluctant acquiescence and Caloocan fell into the new colonizer’s sphere of influence. [...] Manila was slowly filling out and parts of the Daniel Burnham master plan for the city was taking shape. One of the main roads leading out of the city was Rizal Avenue. The avenue’s extension was to link it with the highway leading north (now known as the MacArthur Highway). A junction was formed with these two and a circumferential road known as Route 54 (now EDSA). This junction gave the opportunity for a rotunda and hence, a perfect setting for a monument, an entry statement for the city as well as an opportunity to commemorate the heroes and the events that occurred in Caloocan.

“The Bonifacio Monument,” Alcazaren writes, “was intended to sit at its site specifically to commemorate the historic spark ignited there and that led to the culminating events of 1898.” Moreover, the site was a perfect counterpoint to the monument of Rizal in Luneta: The two leading figures of the Philippines’ emancipation from Spain would bracket Manila—the national man of letters down South by the sea, and the father of the Philippine revolution up North—not unlike sentries.

Tolentino’s aesthetic would influence numerous Filipino sculptors, many of them having studied under him at the UP School of Fine Arts. One of these students was Anastacio Caedo, his star pupil, assistant, and protegé. Caedo would be Tolentino’s right-hand man in the creation of the Bonifacio Monument, the two leading a team of sculptors that toiled in a studio garden in Malate. The Bonifacio Monument was thus, expectedly, a collaborative effort that sought to realize Tolentino’s singular vision: The construction of the central column, including the base, was done by the architect Andres Luna de San Pedro (son of the ilustrado hero Juan Luna, and the chairman of the jurors that chose Tolentino’s design); the pedestal and shaft were carved in granite imported from Germany. The sculptor Francesco Riccardo Monti, Italian by birth, would likewise lend his expertise in the forging of the 23 bronze figures (cast in Italy) that served as the memorial’s central element. (Monti, too, would provide a postwar link, in terms of monuments: Monti designed the mourning angels that surmount the Quezon Monument—itself designed by Federico Ilustre, who started his career as a draftsman for Juan Nakpil.) 

If the tableaux in the Rizal monument are static and sparse, those in the Bonifacio Monument are imbued with energy and emotion. Each figure is modeled with classical perfection in composition, but charged with the fierce sentiments of a romanticist—and all of them fashioned with a realist’s careful and conscientious attention to detail. Emilio Jacinto’s face is frozen in a battle-cry right behind Bonifacio; on the other side of the obelisk are the priests Mariano Gómez, José Apolonio Burgos, and Jacinto Zamora. Caedo would serve as a model of one of the Katipuneros—the one that cradled a dead infant, with a sheet thrown over its still face. (Caedo, too, is among those considered to be the model for the UP Oblation, as he was Tolentino’s assistant during its creation.) Tolentino also modelled after Mrs. Angela Sison (wife of Senator, and later Defense Secretary, Teofilo Sison) the young woman that lay prostrate before an angry old man; Guillermo Masangkay’s role in the revolution and the realization of this monument to its nominal father would be forever immortalized as a Katipunero tearing up a cedula.
Nearly unseen unless from a considerable distance from the monument, the winged figure of Victory rises 45 feet in the air, the granite tower her pedestal. Patterned after the Winged Victory of Samothrace, the triumph it evokes only underscores the value of the tumult and the struggle and the fury that holds her up. That in the centuries of subjugation, for every mother who had held her dead child, every laborer who defiantly tore proof of Spain’s ownership, for every boy from Tondo who dared form a nation—the goddess of Victory looked on. We had won.

Nothing demonstrates this—the claiming of the Monument and the Hero for a nation once more on the threshold of independence—better than the marker at the foot of Bonifacio’s statue: cast in the same enduring bronze, but in the various codes of the Katipunan, with exhortations not in English or Spanish, but the Tagalog wielded by Bonifacio as every bit as powerful a weapon as the bolos, rifles, and handguns of the Katipuneros. Literally a codex—it is a proclamation, enduring, inscrutable except to those to whom the words were originally addressed: the Filipinos. Decoded, it is Bonifacio’s proclamation of August 28th, two days before he led the attack at San Juan del Monte—the first real battle of the Philippine revolution:




The Tagalog wielded by Bonifacio as every bit as powerful a weapon as the bolos, rifles, and handguns of the Katipuneros. It is a proclamation, enduring, inscrutable except to those to whom the words were originally addressed: the Filipinos. 

Mga maginoong namiminuno, kasapi at mga kapatid: Sa inyong lahat ipinatutungkol ang pahayag na ito. Totoong kinakailangan na sa lalong madaling panahon ay putulin natin ang walang pangalang pang-lulupig na ginagawa sa mga anak ng bayan, na ngayo’y nagtitiis ng mabibigat na parusa at pahirap sa mga bilangguan. Na sa dahilang ito’y mangyaring ipa-tanto ninyo sa lahat ng mga kapatid na sa araw ng sabado, ika-29 ng kasalukuyan, ay puputok ang panghihimagsik na pinagkasunduan natin, kaya’t kinakailangang sabaysabay na kumilos ang mga bayanbayan at sabaysabay na salakayin ang maynila. Ang sino pa mang humadlang sa banal na adhikang ito ng bayan ay ipalalagay na taksil at kalaban maliban na nga lamang kung may sakit na dinaramdam o ang katawa’y may sama at sila’y paguusigin alinsunod sa palatuntunang ating pinaiiral. — Bundok ng Kalaayan, ika-28 ng Agosto ng 1896, May Pagasa.


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Reference:
Agoncillo, Teodoro. The Revolt of the Masses. Quezon City: University of the Philippines, 1956. Print.
Alcazaren, Paulo. "Wait a Monument." Philippine Star. March 9, 2002.http://www.philstar.com/modern-living/153242/wait-monument/.
Chua, Michael Charleston. “Shouting in Bronze: The Lasting Relevance of Andres Bonifacio and His Monument in Caloocan.” Artes de las Filipinas.http://www.artesdelasfilipinas.com/archives/52/shouting-in-bronze-the-lasting-relevance-of-andres-bonifacio-and-his-monument-in-caloocan.
Guillermo E. Tolentino. Facing History. Kalipunan ng Sining at Kultura ng Pasig, Inc., 2003. Print.
Richardson, Jim. “Katipunan: Documents and Studies.” Katipunan: Documents and Studies.http://www.kasaysayan-kkk.info/.
May, Glenn Anthony. Inventing A Hero: The Posthumous Re-creation of Andres Bonifacio. Quezon City: New Day Publishers, 1997. Print.
Melendez, Christian Bernard A. “A Moment for the Monument.” National Historical Commission of the Philippines. March 22, 2013. http://nhcp.gov.ph/a-moment-for-the-monument/.
Ocampo, Ambeth R. Bonifacio’s Bolo. Manila: Anvil Publishing Inc., 1995. Print.
CCP Encyclopedia of Philippine Art, Volume IV: Philippine Visual Arts.
Programa de la Inauguracion del Monumento de Andres Bonifacio

RECOMMENDED READING AND RELATED DOCUMENTS:
Bonifacio 2013: Featuring an interactive multimedia timeline of the life, works, and achievements of Andres Bonifacio
Imprinting Andres Bonifacio: From Portrait to Peso: How well do we know Andres Bonifacio? An essay on the different artistic renditions of the Supremo through the years.
The Founding of the Katipunan: An essay on the revolutionary secret society’s history, structure, and membership, as well as a list of members who were present in Balintawak at the outbreak of the Philippine Revolution in August 1896.
Evolution of the Revolution: A series of maps tracing the progression of the Philippine Revolution from 1896 to the First Philippine Republic.
Tejeros Convention: An essay on the Tejeros Convention, and the events leading up to it, as well as a series of maps that illustrate in detail the various offensives and counter offensives launched by both Filipino and Spanish forces during the revolution.
The Trial of Andres Bonifacio: A retrospective on the trial of Andres Bonifacio as the natural progression from the events and the outcome of the Tejeros Convention.
Transcript of the Trial of Andres Bonifacio: A collection of accounts and documents related to the trial, such as the testimony of Andres Bonifacio himself.
Origin of the Symbols of our National Flag: An essay tracing the origins of the Philippine flag’s design elements.
Flags and Banners of the Colonial Era: An infographic timeline tracing the various flags and banners that have flown over the Philippine islands since 1521.
[AUDIO] Alerta! Katipunan: Listen to the march of the Katipunan.
[AUDIO] Sa Marahas Na Manga Anak Nang Bayan: Listen to Andres Bonifacio’s manifesto, as read by Mario O’Hara.



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