One of our national Heroes

 When Nov. 30 always come the first person comes into our mind is one of our national hero Andres Bonifacio. I can still remember when I was still an elementary what we study about him. Actually I will not write anything that says about him being one of our national heroes because we already know his legacy.  I want to talk about his life with his family before he became our hero.

Andres Bonifacio was a founder and later Supremo ("supreme leader") of the Katipunan movement which sought the independence of the Philippines from Spanish colonial rule and started the Revolution. But after that being one of our heroes he was just an ordinary person who just had an ordinary life. Bonifacio was born November 30, 1863 and he was the eldest of five children. He was born and raised in Tondo Manila. His father Santiago Bonifacio was a tailor who served as a lieutenant mayor of Tondo while his mother Catalina de Castro worked at a cigarette factory. When Bonifacio was still in his young age he has no choice but to dropped out of school so he can support his siblings after both their parents died from illness.  He sold canes and paper fans he made himself and made posters for business firms. Bonifacio was also a part-time actor who performed in moro - moro plays. Not finishing his formal education, Bonifacio was self-educated. He read books about the French Revolution, biographies of the President of the United States, books about contemporary Philippine penal and civil codes, and novels such as Victor Hugo's Les Miserables, Eugene's Le Juif errant and Jose Rizal's Noli Metangere and El Filibusterismo. Aside from Tagalog and Spanish, he could speak a little English, learnt from his working for J.M. Fleming and Co. Bonifacio was married twice, first to a certain Monica who died of leprosy. He then married Gregoria de Jesus of Caloocan in 1893. They had one son who died in infancy. Bonifacio was a Fremason and a member of the Gran Oriente Español. In 1892 he joined Rizal's La Liga Filipina, an organisation which called for political reform in the colonial government of the Philippines. However, La Liga disbanded after only one meeting as Rizal was arrested and deported to Dapitan in Mindanao. Bonifacio, Apolinario Mabini and others revived La Liga in Rizal's absence and Bonifacio was active at organising local chapters in Manila. La Liga Filipina contributed moral and financial support to Propaganda Movement Filipino reformists in Spain.