Heroes of the Philippines

Andrés Bonifacio y de Castro (November 30, 1863 -

May 10, 1897), hero, was a Filipino revolutionary leader and founder in
1892 of the revolutionary secret society Katipunan, germ of the future
Filipino revolutionary army. Opposed frontally to the Spanish
government, Andrés Bonifacio carried out the Philippine Revolution,
the first revolution in Asia against a European government.
Born into a poor family in Manila in
1863, he was one of the leaders of
the Katipunan. Of radical
expositions and supporter of the
armed action against the Spaniards,
Boniface inflamed the indigenous
masses and incited his followers to
initiate a violent rebellion against the
"kastila" (Spaniards in Tagalog).
On August 25, the first armed
conflicts took place. When the
revolutionaries made an election for
the nascent republic in Tejeros,
Cavite, Emilio Aguinaldo was elected
president, while Boniface was
appointed director of the Interior.
Bonifacio and his followers, known
as the "Magdiwang", faced the other
major faction, the "Magdalos", led by
Aguinaldo, who launched a smear
campaign against Bonifacio,
deeming him unfit for the job.
 Boniface responded by challenging the legality of the election and rejecting
the results of the election. These events led to a skirmish, in which Andrés'
brother, Procopio Bonifacio was wounded.
Given these facts, Boniface and his followers escaped from the site, but
both he and his brother were captured.
Both were submitted to a council of war, in which they were considered
guilty of sedition and treason, and condemned to death. They were executed,
under an administrative order, by the forces of Aguinaldo on May 10, 1897,
in the forest of Monte Buntis de Cavite.

José Protasio Rizal

Mercado and Alonso
Realonda, better known as
José Rizal (Calambá, June 19, 1861-
Manila, December 30, 1896), was a
doctor (became an ophthalmologist in
Madrid), writer, painter, linguist and
Philippine politician . He is considered
the national hero of the Philippines
and was founder in 1892 of the
Philippine League.
At the instigation of the religious
orders (that is, Dominicans and
Franciscans), Rizal was accused of
illicit association with other
revolutionaries. Convicted for
sedition, he was sentenced to be shot
in the Bagumbayan (now Rizal Park),
Manila. On the eve of his execution, he
wrote a poem entitled My Last
Goodbye, as well as a letter to his close friend and German collaborator
Fernando Blumentritt, in which he affirmed: Dear brother, when you receive
this letter I will have already died; tomorrow at 7 o'clock I will be executed,
although I am not guilty of rebellion.
Benigno Simeón "Ninoy"
Aquino, Jr.
(November 27, 1932 - Manila, August 21,
1983) was a Filipino journalist and
politician.
He was the son of Benigno S. Aquino, Sr.
and Aurora Aquino. It belonged to an
influential family of the island of Luzon. His
grandfather, Servillano Aquino, had been
general in the revolutionary army of Emilio
Aguinaldo.
He worked first as a journalist, a profession
for which he was assigned as a war
correspondent in Korea at the age of 17.
Due to his merits as a journalist, he was
awarded the "Legion of Honor" by President Elpidio Quirino.
Upon his return to the Philippines he began his political activities in the
Liberal Party. He was mayor at 22, vice governor at 27 and governor of his
province, Tarlac, at 29. In the decade of the 60 was a minister in the
governments of Carlos P. García and Diosdado Macapagal. The arrival of the
dictator Ferdinand Marcos took him to the opposition. Persecuted for his
ideas, he was sentenced to death in 1977, but the sentence was not executed.
In May 1980, he was allowed to go into exile in the United States, from where
he returned to his country three years later, despite threats from various
paramilitary groups. He was killed as soon as he got off the plane at the
Manila International Airport, which is now named after him, but to date the
authorship has not been clarified. His widow, Corazon Aquino, was his
political heir, and after an intensification of the popular rejection of President
Marcos' regime, generated after this assassination, he finally won in the
elections held in 1986, replacing the dictator Marcos as president.
The son of Benigno and Corazon, Benigno Aquino III (also known as
"Noynoy" Aquino), was elected President of the Philippines in 2010,
continuing the family dynasty.