| Event date: May 10, 1897 |
Displays: 4821 |
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Created: |
Aug 21, 2007 at 11:32 PM |
Modified: |
Aug 22, 2007 at 12:31 AM |
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Andrés Bonifacio, founder of the Katipunan revolutionary organization, was convicted of treason to the new republic and executed by order of fellow revolutionary Emilio Aguinaldo.
On the early morning of May 10, 1897, a group of soldiers led by General Lazaro Makapagal brought Andres and Procopio from the Maragondon jail. This was the order of General Mariano Noriel, president of the council of war that tried the Bonifacio brothers.
Makapagal had been handed a sealed letter, with strict orders to read It after reaching Mt. Nagpatong in the Maragondon mountains.
Only four soldiers were selected by the general to accompany him on this mission. When the soldiers and their two prisoners reached Mt. Nagpatong, Makapagal opened the sealed letter. It was an order from General Noriel to execute Andres and Procopio. Makapagal immediately carried out the general’s command and the Bonifacio brothers were shot. Using their bayonets and bolos (long knives), the soldiers dug a shallow grave for the two men. After covering the bodies with twigs and weeds, they hurriedly left to escape the Spanish troops who were combing the mountains of Maragondon.
The Bonifacio brothers were killed on Monday, May 10, 1897. Andres was only 34 years old.
Some twenty years passed. On March 17, 1918, Lazaro Makapagal came back to Cavite. He was accompanied by a group of government officials, two former Cavite generals, and former soldiers of the Philippine Revolution. They went to a lonely spot on a sugarcane field in the Maragondon mountains to find Andres Bonifacio’s grave. The place had changed a lot. An old and loyal servant of Bonifacio showed them the way and identified his master’s remains.
Bonifacio’s bones were placed in an urn and kept in the Legislative Building (now the National Museum). Bonifacio’s papers and personal belongings, including his revolver and bolo, were also kept here. In February 1945, during the battle to free Manila from the Japanese, the building and the remains of Andres Bonifacio were destroyed in a fire. |
