Bonifacio's Death

In the last couple of days, after finishing reading Stephen Jay Gould's The Lying Stones Of Marrakech, I picked up this small book, almost like a booklet, The Tragedy Of The Revolution by Adrian Cristobal. I am a big fan of history but recently I haven't been reading Philippine history due to lack of books accessible enough to me with living outside the country. I have in my shelves here a few books I picked up in one of my visits to PowerBooks during one of my vacations. All in all there are exactly six small books comprising what I call my Filipinana section. Three of them are about Andres Bonifacio the Katipunan Supremo; the other two Bonifacio books are by Ambeth Ocampo. I quickly finished Cristobal's book and while reading it, it made me realize that I really need to go back to reading more about Philippine history since the book showed that I am grossly ignorant of a lot of the details in the most important episodes of the history of our people. I knew that Bonifacio was killed by fellow Filipinos but I never knew more than that. He was portrayed as an unfortunate casualty of the revolution, his death was brought upon by his own short temper in the Tejeros Convention. While reading Cristobal's book, I felt angry about the circumstances surrounding the hero's death. In sweeping the historical narrative into a cohesive whole historians seemed to have sanitized the past such that we forget that the people involved are individuals not without their own (good and/or evil) motives and convictions. In the second book i am reading now by Ocampo, there is the excerpt of the memoir of Gregoria De Jesus, Bonifacio's widow, narrating about her two-weeks search for the remains of her husband without getting any meaningful help from people who could have easily shown her the exact spot. According to Cristobal, Bonifacio fell victim to a conspiracy by the Magdalo faction to remove him so that the Katipunan would be under the new revolutionary government that they were to form. Cristobal provided good arguments in this view, in that it was not necessary to kill Bonifacio in order to achieve their aim. I am now going to trying to read additional documents that can shed more light into what he called the tragedy of the revolution.

Did Rizal Retract?

Rizal was not Catholic. At least for most of his adult life. He was most probably a deist like most freethinkers of his time. Sabi ng Katolikong Simbahan si Rizal daw ay nag-retract ngunit walang matibay na prueba ang Simbahan. Maliban sa testimonya ng pari, ang "ebidensiya" ng Simbahan ay isang sulat daw na pinirmahan ni Rizal nung araw bago siya pinatay. Yung dokumentong ito ay "nawala" daw kasama na rin ng dokumento ng di umano'y Katolikong kasal ni Rizal kay Josephine. Hindi maipakita ng Katolikong Simbahan ang dokumentong sinasabi kahit na mailang ulit na hiningi ng pamilya ni Rizal. "Natagpuan" lang ang mga mahahalagang dokumentong ito noong 1935, o 39 na taon matapos ma-firing squad si Rizal. As suggested already, the Catholic Church should submit the supposed retraction letter to an independent forensic investigating body, for example, the FBI, to settle once and for all the issue that the retraction letter is not a fabrication but the Church has not been frorthcoming in this regard.

Rizal No Retracto

I found a gem of a blog. I am sure I will be back for more.

Book on Japanese Occupation in Ilo-ilo

I just finished reading this book by Jose Maria Lacambra, Rising Sun Blinking: A Young Boy's Memoirs Of The Japanese Occupation In The Philippines published by Sinag-Tala Publishers. The copyright says that it's published in 1994. I picked it up in one of those numberless visits to Powerbooks' Filipiniana section but I kept on putting it down after starting to read it a couple of times. A few days ago, I ran out of light and small books to read on my commutes to and from the office so I picked it up again and at last I was able to finish it. I found it a good book overall and at only PHP100.00, it's a steal. Google only managed to give me 2 links to it when I turned to the web to see if it has caught the fancy of somebody else and posted some more info about it or the author online. The book is a light read and is only 250 pages but it did manage to capture some of the characteristics and traits of the Pinoys. I give it a four out of five stars and recommend it to all Pinoys most specially to Ilonggos and Guimaras islanders.