Project Description

Bonifacio-Portrait

Andres Bonifacio

A Filipino revolutionary hero who founded the Katipunan, a secret society which spearheaded the uprising against Spain and laid the groundwork for the first Philippine Republic.

Andres Bonifacio, was given the distinct honor of being the architect and the father of the first nationalist revolution in Asia, the Filipino Revolution of 1896. He authored the uprising against Spain who set into motion the emancipation of a people who had been colonized and abused for over 300 years.

Andres Bonifacio was born to a working class family on November 30, 1863, to his hard-working parents: his father, Santiago Bonifacio (a tailor) and his mother, Catalina de Castro (a cigarette factory worker).

By birth he was already identified with the plight of the masses. He grew up in the slums of Tondo, a district of the city of Manila outside the walled City of Intramuros (inhabited by those in power – the friars and the high government officials). Tondo was a dynamic community of workers, stevedores, small entrepreneurs, and merchants. This land of the poor, the underprivileged and the oppressed was a melting pot to all in search of a new life. From practical experience, he knew the actual conditions of the class struggle in his society.