Katipunan

DOCUMENTS OF THE Katipunan
HOME Andres Bonifacio Notice of appointment, April 15, 1897 Source: Photograph of the original document in Teodoro A. Agoncillo, The Revolt of the Masses: the story of Bonifacio and the Katipunan (Quezon City: University of the Philippines, 1956), p.187.([1]) .
Introduction Bonifacio and many leaders of the Magdiwang council of the Katipunan in Cavite refused to recognise the revolutionary government established at the Tejeros convention on March 22, 1897. The convention, they declared, had been so tarnished by dishonesty and intrigue that its outcome lacked any legitimacy. Thereafter, as this and other documents show, Bonifacio continued to act as if he, and not Emilio Aguinaldo (who had been elected President at Tejeros), still led the revolution and the emergent nation. This document appoints Emilio Jacinto as Commander of the Army in the Northern District of Manila ("Pangulong hukbo sa dakong Hilagaan ng Maynila"). Revolutionists who did acknowledge the authority of the government established at Tejeros, needless to say, would regard Bonifacio’s action in making such appointments as at best unauthorized and invalid, and at worst treasonous. High-level appointments in the revolutionary army, they would insist, were now a matter for Aguinaldo himself as the newly elected President, or possibly for his Director of War and General-in-Chief. As indicated in the transcription below, Bonifacio penned Jacinto’s name and military title on a printed form that was designed to be used for making a series of appointments, civil as well as military. The form affirms Bonifacio’s authority for making such appointments in various ways. Beneath his name at the top of the form is printed the title “President of the Sovereign Nation of Katagalugan”, and then, as if to emphasize his unique status, “Founder of the K. K. Katipunan of the Sons of the People and Initiator of the Revolution”. The main text makes it known that the appointment has been made by the “Supreme Presidency of the Sovereign Nation”, and the seal at the foot of the document bears the legend “Sovereign Nation of Katagalugan – Supreme Congress”. No less significantly, Bonifacio decrees that the rank bestowed upon Jacinto be recognized and respected by all subjects of the “Revolutionary Government”. Bonifacio had employed some of these appellations even before the Tejeros convention. He had been using the title “President of the Sovereign Nation” (“Pangulo ng Haring bayan”), for example, at least as early as December 1896, and had been affixing the “Supreme Congress” (“Kataastaasang Kapulungan”) seal to his communications at least since February 1897. No documents have yet been found to indicate who belonged to this body, or indeed to confirm that it ever met, but presumably it was the body whose establishment Santiago Alvarez reports as having been agreed at an assembly of Magdiwang and Magdalo leaders held in Imus at the end of December 1896. Although that assembly had failed to agree on the formation of a unified revolutionary government, it did decide, says Alvarez, to appoint Bonifacio to head a “legislative committee” or “congress” (“Lupung Tagapagbatas” or “Kapulungan”) and authorize him to appoint as its members “some people known to be worthy” (“ilang mga taong kilalang karapat-dapat”).([2]) Two of the terms used on this appointment form, however, are not known to appear on any earlier document, and therefore may well have been adopted by Bonifacio in the aftermath of the Tejeros convention and as an explicit challenge to its outcome. The first apparent innovation is the term “Supreme Presidency” (“Kataastaasang Panguluhan”). Although obviously very similar to Bonifacio’s long-standing title within the Katipunan – “Supreme President” (“Kataastaasang Pangulo”), the shift to the word “Presidency” seems to suggest an executive wing of government, a presidential office, rather than solely the president as an individual. The term “Presidency” (Panguluhan) was also being used at this time by both the Magdiwang and Magdalo councils in Cavite, and the designation “Supreme Presidency” would therefore make more explicit the subordination of such localized, zonal executives to the central executive, in other words to Bonifacio and his office. Secondly and more plainly, the reference in the document to a “Revolutionary Government” (“Pamahalaan nang Panghihimagsik”) signals Bonifacio’s wish to affirm at this critical juncture that a legitimate government did exist in the Sovereign Nation of Katagalugan. This was not – any longer – the Supreme Council that had governed the Katipunan, for the Katipunan was a body to which only initiates or kapatid belonged. This was a body, like any other national government, whose authority should be acknowledged and obeyed by each and every citizen. And most emphatically, of course, it was not the government just recently constituted at Tejeros.
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M. ANDRES BONIFACIO MAYPAGASA PANGULO NANG HARING BAYANG KATAGALUGAN, MAYTAYO NANG K. K. KATIPUNAN NANG MANGA ANAK NANG BAYAN AT UNANG NAG GALAW NANG PANGHIHIMAGSIK

SA PAGKAKILALA sa tapat na paglilingkod at pag-

tatangol sa Bayang tinubuan ni M. Emilio Jacinto

Pingkian itong Kataastaasang Panguluhan sa pag-

ganap nang kaniyang kapangyarihang tungkol, minarapat

na inihalal ang nasabing kapatid sa katungkulang Pang-

ulong hukbo sa dakong Hilagaan

ng Maynila.

Upang mapagkilala at sundin sa buong sakop nang

Pamahalaan nang Panghihimagsik at gamitin sa kaniya

ang nararapat sa pitagan aking iginawad itong Katunayan

dito sa Kataastaasang Panguluhan nang Haring Bayan

ngayong ika 15 nang Abril nang 1897.

[1] Filipiniana.net has posted an image of the document (and what appears to be the envelope in which it was sent to Jacinto) at:- http://www.filipiniana.net/read_content.jsp?filename=PRR004000012&keyword=katipunan&searchKey=

[2] Santiago V. Alvarez, The Katipunan and the Revolution: the memoirs of a general, translated by Paula Carolina S. Malay (Manila: Ateneo de Manila University Press, 1992), p.306.