Early Life of Emilio Aguinaldo

Emilio Aguinaldo was born on March 22, 1869, in Kawit, Cavite,

Philippines. Nicknamed Miong, Aguinaldo was the seventh of eight
children. His parents were of Chinese and Tagalog descent. His father,
Carlos, died when Aguinaldo was just nine years old. Widowed, his
mother, Trinidad, sent him to attend public school in Manila.

Having had to cut his studies short at the Colegio de San Juan de Letran
due to a cholera outbreak, Aguinaldo returned home to Kawit, where he
developed a growing awareness of Filipino frustration with Spanish
colonial rule.

While serving as the head of barter in Manila, he joined the Pilar Lodge
chapter of the Freemasonry in 1895. The Freemasonry was a
government- and church-banned resistance group. It was through his
role as municipal captain of this fraternity that Aguinaldo met Andres
Bonifacio, a key figure in the fight to overthrow Spanish rule.