[Published as “Bagbabalik-tanaw sa pilosopiya ng rebolusyon ni Andres Bonifacio,” 1994. Translated by Ma.

Crisanta Nelmida. In Katipunan: Isang pambansang kilusan. Edited by Ferdinand C. Llanes. Quezon City: Trinitas
Publishing, Inc. The English version appeared in R. Gripaldo’s Filipino philosophy: Traditional approach. Part I.
Section 1. Manila: De La Salle University Press, 2000 and 2004. This paper is a slightly revised version (2015).]

REFLECTIONS ON BONIFACIO’S PHILOSOPHY OF REVOLUTION1

Rolando M. Gripaldo

This paper tries to elucidate on the significant implications of Bonifacio’s

idea of revolution.

It is widely known that Bonifacio was in favor of a bloody revolution, although before he
founded the Katipunan, he joined La Liga Filipina. It could be that Bonifacio had nurtured faith
in the peaceful evolutionary progress of the nation which the Liga desired. When Rizal was
arrested, imprisoned at Fort Santiago, and exiled to Dapitan, Bonifacio was convinced that the
solution to the nation’s problems was not reforms but a violent revolution. It took ten years—
more or less—before reformists like Graciano Lopez Jaena, Marcelo H. del Pilar, and Antonio
Luna realized that independence through an armed revolution was the ultimate solution to the
people’s woes. It was possible that Bonifacio originally held the view of launching the revolution
first before instituting reforms. He might have simply given the benefit of the doubt to peaceful
means in achieving the nation’s progress. When the way of peace failed, he was convinced that
the only option left was revolution. Although he continued being a member of the Liga after
Rizal’s deportation to Dapitan in support for the continued operation of La Solidaridad in Spain,
Bonifacio had already founded the Katipunan on 7 July 1892.
Bonifacio’s philosophy of revolution (see Agoncillo and Guerrero 1983:156 and 164) can
be gleaned from his manifesto, “Ang dapat mabatid ng mga Tagalog,” which appeared in the
Katipunan newspaper, Kalayaan.

II

Reflection, in one sense, is meditation that brings about profound insights on an idea,
event, person, or place. Let me share with you some of my reflections on Bonifacio’s philosophy
of revolution.
First of all, Bonifacio sought the separation of the Philippines from Spain in view of a
breach of contract. The contract aspect is not new, but the basis of such a contract was something
original. Western philosophers like Stephen Junius Brutus, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and
Jean Jacques Rousseau spoke about a contract between the people and the government, between
or among the subjects themselves, or between God and the people with or without the monarch,
with the context of the social milieu being that of a homogeneous racial group. Bonifacio’s social
milieu is distinct in that it is composed of two racially different groups. In Bonifacio’s case, the
contract is not between the government and the governed, but between the colonizer, as
represented by the explorers, and the colonized (see Schumacher 1997: 229-30). If one ponders

1
on this added dimension of two peoples, one can appreciate the profound significance of the
nature of the contract: it is not simply a social contract, or an agreement defining the social and
political relations that bind society or the government and the governed, but it is a blood
contract—not the secondary societal relations as basis, but the primary kinship or family
relations—as if the two races were blood brothers. That is why the hurt or wound of betrayal is
mortally intense or deep when the contract is breached. For Bonifacio, the breach cried, “We are
no longer brothers. We are not one family anymore.”
Secondly, for a revolutionist to succeed it is important for him to assume the role of an
active agitator. To agitate politically is to arouse in the people a political interest in something, to
stir or prepare them to pursue a political course of action. It is fundamental to agitate the Tagalog
tribe first before expanding the area of agitation to other tribes. That is why the article, “Ang
dapat mabatid ng mga Tagalog,” is in my view specifically addressed to the Tagalogs and not to
all inhabitants of the archipelago. The initial thrust of Bonifacio was to create a core of
revolutionists among the Tagalogs. Teodoro Agoncillo interprets that “Mabatid” was addressed
by Bonifacio to all the people of the Philippines. His translation of the article, for instance, is
entitled “What the Filipinos should know,” instead of “What the Tagalogs should know.” To my
mind, Bonifacio was aware that there existed tribes in the country other than the Tagalog. In the
same article, Bonifacio mentioned the blood compact between Miguel Lopez de Legazpi and
Datu Si Katuna of Bohol. Moreover, there were two Bisayan Katipuneros—Candido Iban and
Francisco del Castillo—who returned from Australia in 1895, and who financed the acquisition
of the printing press for the Katipunan. They spread the Katipunan doctrines in Kalibo (now in
Aklan). In addition, Valentin Diaz, an early member of the Katipunan, was an Ilokano (see
Agoncillo 1990: 146).
In other words, Bonifacio’s knowledge of the existence of various tribes in the
Philippines and his implicit intention to spread his philosophy of revolution to the whole Filipino
people do not legitimize the view that Bonifacio immediately addressed his message to the entire
nation since as a practical agitator and revolutionist, he might have thought—and quite
logically—that it was wiser to work within his tribe, the Tagalogs, first. This attitude does not
negate Bonifacio’s consciousness of nationhood. From 1892, the founding of the Katipunan, to
mid-March 1896, the appearance of Kalayaan, there were only 300 Katipunan members. By 19
August 1896 when the Katipunan was discovered, there were already an estimated 30,000
members. Although we cannot trace all the names that made up this number, it is highly probable
that non-Tagalog migrants who lived in Tondo and nearby places became members of the
Katipunan. It must have been within this period that Emilio Jacinto expanded the meaning of the
term “Tagalog” to refer to all inhabitants of the Philippines. Jacinto explained this in a footnote
to his later work, “To those who want to affiliate with this association,” otherwise entitled,
“Association of the sons of the people,” which served as the “norm of conduct” for those
interested to become Katipunan members. By 31 October 1896 Emilio Aguinaldo used the terms
“Filipino” and “Filipinos” in his first manifesto. For him the revolution had assumed a national,
rather than a tribal, character (see Gripaldo 1999: 33-46; see also Agoncillo and Epistola 1963:
68-69; Ileto 1979: 102-107).2
Thirdly, it appears to me that Bonifacio was an ilustrado. This term is used to refer
primarily to an “intellectual.” Since most intellectuals of his time were formally educated, and
many of them even studied abroad, the term connotes a relatively moneyed educated individual.
The connotation is discriminatory. The denotation simply points to an intellectual, or a learned
person. An intellectual is one who has acquired a good education. Such kind of education,

2
however, may be obtained formally or informally. Although an intellectual is an educated
person, it does not follow that one who has obtained an education or earned an educational
degree is necessarily an intellectual. To be educated means to have a critical mind, to be able to
logically reason out, to be highly informed about important matters in life, to be responsible, and
to be able to stand up for his rights, among other things.
Bonifacio obtained his education informally. Although the view that Bonifacio was an
ilustrado has been expressed by John Schumacher and others, it runs counter, however, to the
idea of Agoncillo that Bonifacio was a plebeian,2 that is, an ordinary common man who had not
risen from the ranks to become an intellectual. Bonifacio indeed had plebeian beginnings but he
had become an ilustrado. Here is what Schumacher (1982: 449-50; see Guerrero 1981: 245-46;
Fast and Richardson 1979: 67-74; and Quibuyen 1999: 36-38) said of Bonifacio and the
Katipunan:

More recently, Richardson and Fast, though not giving any extended
treatment to the war against the Americans. . . show, conclusively to my mind,
that [the Katipunan’s] membership was essentially middle-class. Indeed it was to
a large extent ilustrado, if one is to understand that term in its primary sense of an
educated man. . . . Bonifacio himself, I would add, can be considered ilustrado,
even if a self-made one, in spite of his lack of higher formal education. Anyone
who was reading Victor Hugo’s Les miserables, Carlyle’s History of the French
Revolution, and the Lives of the American Presidents in Spanish, among other
books, was clearly an educated man by the standards of Manila in the 1890s,
undoubtedly much better read in modern thought than many of the more affluent
students who frequented the colleges and university in Manila for social prestige
rather than out of interest in education.

To consider Bonifacio as an ilustrado fits in well with my interpretation of his philosophy

of revolution as a profound intellectual political work.
Fourthly, it can easily be noticed that if the initial membership of the Katipunan is
ilustrado, it is difficult to perceive how it can be viewed as an illustration of a “history from
below” as Reynaldo Ileto put it in his book, Pasyon and revolution.3 Since the initial Katipunan
membership is middle class or even lower middle class, it appropriately illustrates a “history
from the middle”—we may perhaps call this as the “Middle Tradition”4 (Ileto 1979: passim). It
neither illustrates a “history from above” (“Great Tradition”), most of whose members refused to
financially support, and even spurned, the revolution, nor a “history from below” (“Little
Tradition”), whose recruitment and support came later although they eventually constituted the
base of the revolution. Jose Rizal in “The Philippines a century hence” explicitly made the
distinction between the failed uprisings and insurrections of the past and the possible successful
future revolution. He said that previous uprisings were more or less localized but the future
revolution would be national in scope since it would be based on national popular causes, the
woes and frustrations of the entire nation. To quote Rizal (Alzona 1972a: 152):

All the petty insurrections that had broken out in the Philippines had been
the work of a few fanatics and discontented military men who, in order to attain
their ends, had to resort to deceit and trickery or avail themselves of the
subordination of their subalterns. Thus they all fell. None of the insurrections was

3
 popular in character nor based on the necessity of the whole nation nor did it
struggle for the laws of humanity or of justice. Thus the insurrections did not
leave behind them indelible mementos; on the contrary, the people, their wounds
healed, realizing that they have been deceived, applauded the downfall of those
who had disturbed their peace! But, if the movement springs from the people
themselves and adopts for its cause their sufferings?

Bonifacio’s philosophy of revolution, although addressed to the Tagalogs, was intended

to be national in scope because it was the entire nation that was afflicted. In fact the message
contains references to what happened to the nation itself under the tutelage of the friars and the
Spanish colonial government after the blood compact in Bohol and not to the Tagalogs alone,
although the Tagalogs were mostly the ones directly affected. In this sense, it was popular
national revolution that Bonifacio advocated based on the people’s sufferings.
Fifthly, one important difficulty of a revolutionist is how to intensify the agitational work
in order to ensure a rapid recruitment for membership in the revolutionary movement. Of course,
during the time of Bonifacio, one can safely assume that the people lived in misery, exploitation,
and suffering. To convince someone to join the revolutionary movement, it is necessary for the
revolutionist to provide a revolutionary framework, a better and persuasive alternative to the
people’s misery. The alternative that Bonifacio offered was the restoration or redemption of the
Lost Paradise, i.e., the pre-Spanish better times, where there was abundance and high literacy,
where people enjoyed a happy and carefree life.
Aware of three avenues that could lead to a successful revolutionary agitation, Bonifacio
made full use of them. He recognized that revolutionary ideas of the intellectual elite were
agitationally important. His message to the Tagalogs, for instance, contains influences he derived
from Rizal’s works as in “The indolence of the Filipino” and “The Philippines a century hence,”
among other writings. Bonifacio also explored the religious experience of the masses, especially
the people’s experience of the pasyon during the Holy Week, by presenting the alternative future
society as the paradise lost that would have to be regained. In Ileto’s (1979: 5-16, 317) view,
such a revolution would appear to the masses as a restoration of a “lost eden, the recovery of
which demanded the people’s participation in the pasyon of [the] Mother Country.” And finally,
Bonifacio took into consideration the people’s economic, social, and political travails in life in
terms of Spanish and monastic oppression.
Lastly, in the context of agitational work, a revolutionist may twist a historical fact or
deliberately mistranslate a literary work in order to suit the purposes of agitation. Bonifacio’s
philosophy of revolution does not provide any hindrance to it. In fact Bonifacio implicitly
considered the agitational aspect as consistent with his revolutionary philosophy. Although
Agoncillo believed Bonifacio was a bad poet, more so because of the latter’s “poor handling” of
the translation of Rizal’s “Mi ultimo adios,” I rather found the inaccuracies and
misinterpretations therein as deliberate, that is, for agitational reasons rather than the result of
literary inadequacy. In deliberately mistranslating “tu” to “they” (or “kanilang”), Bonifacio made
it direct, or explicit and concrete—the one meaningful to the suffering people—that the
redemption of the Motherland would redound to the redemption of the afflicted from their woes
(“kanilang makita ang kalayaan mong ikagiginhawa [nila]”). The original simply pronounces the
redemption of the Motherland with the redemption of the afflicted as indirect, or implicit and
abstract.

4
 III

In conclusion, I would say (1) that Bonifacio’s philosophy of revolution is distinctly

original in that Bonifacio was the first to formulate a philosophy of revolution based on the
standpoint of two racially different contracting peoples; (2) that Bonifacio’s message on the
revolution was national in intention but tribal in the initial implementation because he, as a
Tagalog, had to create primarily a revolutionary core among the Tagalogs first; (3) that his
philosophy of revolution as a profound intellectual work fits in well with the interpretation that
Bonifacio was an ilustrado or intellectual; (4) that the Katipunan as a revolutionary society or
movement is more of an illustration of a history from the middle rather than a history from above
or a history from below since the middle class ran the movement and subsequently directed the
revolution; (5) that Bonifacio used as revolutionary framework the pasyon idea of a lost paradise
prior to colonization to be recovered by his generation; and (6) that Bonifacio implicitly
considered his agitational work, at whatever costs and means, including deliberate
mistranslations, as consistent with his revolutionary philosophy.

NOTES

1. Slightly revised, this chapter was delivered during the Katipunan National Conference
in observance of the Centennial Year of the Founding of the Katipunan on 28-30 November
1992 at the Mariano Marcos State University, Batac, Ilocos Norte. It is sponsored by the
National Historical Institute and the Asosasyon ng mga Dalubhasang may Hilig at Interes sa
Kasaysayan ng Pilipinas, Ink.
2. Aguinaldo had two manifestoes issued with the same date. Epifanio de los Santos, in
his book The revolutionists (1973: 168-71), places Jacinto’s norm of conduct or the “Association
of the S(ons) of the P(eople)” ahead of the Cartilla or “Rules of the Association of the Sons of
the People.” The suggestion is that logically the former was written ahead of the latter.
The night (28 November 1992) before I presented this paper to the conference, I had a
lengthy discussion with Dr. Isagani Medina of the University of the Philippines History
Department on the evolution of the term “Filipino” from the insulares (Spaniards born in the
Philippines) to Aguinaldo’s use of it in 1896 which refers to all the people born in the
Philippines. From “Spaniards born in the Philippines,” the term “Filipino” was later used in 1888
by Jose Rizal and the reformists to refer to the natives (both urbanized like himself and the ethnic
like the Igorots), including the Chinese mestizos, of the Philippines (see Quibuyen 1998: 94-95).
Logically, Bonifacio—like Aguinaldo—could have used the term “Filipino” to refer to the
natives of the Philippines if originally he had not been thinking of addressing his manifesto to the
Tagalogs alone. He had read several of Rizal’s works as published in La Solidaridad, where the
word “Filipino” or “Filipinos” was used. The Filipino colony in Madrid resented being called
“indio” since this connoted inferiority while being Filipino was to be equal to the peninsulares
(Spaniards born in Spain who stayed or worked in the Islands), or even to Spaniards who had not
gone to the Philippines. This assertion of equality was a major step forward since originally the
peninsulares showed “their contempt” for the insulares by calling them Filipinos (Agoncillo and
Guerrero 1983: 139-40; Constantino 1970:114-19, 136-39).
After his second trip to Europe via the United States and upon witnessing the American
Indians at the Paris Exposition, Rizal founded the “Indios Bravos,” saying that Filipinos should
not resent being called “indios,” but should be proud of it like the American Indians. The creoles

5
or insulares called themselves and their brown-skinned compatriots as Filipinos in that both were
natives, or natural-born inhabitants, of the Philippines. In El filibusterismo, the Spanish ruling
elite called everyone “outside their class—whether native, creole, or mestizo—as Filipinos”
(Quibuyen 1998:83). In 1898 Governor General Basilio Agustin called the natives “Filipinos” in
his desire to enlist their aid and loyalty against the Americans.
Bonifacio used the terms “Katagalugan” and “Tagalogs” in his Manifesto, but the former
can be translated as “the Tagalog region” or “the Tagalog people.” Rizal and later Mabini used
the term “Filipinos” to refer to all inhabitants of the Philippines. Scott (1994:6) cited Spanish
sources where the early Spanish writers refer to the natives as “Philipinos” or “Filipinos” before
they were later called “indios.” In view of the appearance of Jim Richardson’s The light of
liberty: Documents and studies on the Katipunan, 1892-1897 (2013), then, I think, a second
critical look at Bonifacio’s “Katagalugan” should be written.
3. The book is a collection of various examples of this “history from below.”
4. A parallel example of this tradition was the bloodless revolution of England in 1832
where the reform of parliamentary representation transferred “political power from the gentry to
the middle class” (see Ebenstein 1966:385). Traditionally, the reformists were classified as
belonging to the upper middle class and the early Katipuneros to the lower middle class, but if
we exclude the peninsulares in Philippine society, the reformists clearly belonged to the Filipino
upper class and the original Katipunan group of Bonifacio belonged to the middle class proper.
See in this connection Quibuyen (1998:37).

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__________ and S. V. Epistola. 1963. The writings and trial of Andres Bonifacio. Manila:
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__________ and Milagros Guerrero. 1983. History of the Filipino people, 5th ed., 18th printing.
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