Is Bonifacio a better hero than Jose Rizal?

Tomorrow is the 146th birth anniversary of Gat Andres Bonifacio, founder and Supremo of the Katipunan and the prime mover of the revolution against Spain's 377 years of subjugating our country and people. He was a victim of betrayal by Gen. Emilio Aguinaldo, and made second fiddle to the illustrado, Dr. Jose Rizal, who was sponsored by the Americans to be declared our national hero.

The debate on who should be a better hero for us started even when the two were still alive. Bonifacio was a co-founder of La Liga Filipina, which was Rizal's platform for propaganda in seeking peaceful reforms. Rizal was essentially a peaceful reformist. Bonifacio was a passionate warrior and revolutionary. Rizal was like his own creation, Crisostomo Ibarra, educated in Spain and coming home to build schools so as to bring enlightenment to the native Indios. Bonifacio was like Rizal's characterization of Elias, the filibuster and rebel, and who did not believe that the oppressors would ever accept peaceful reforms. Rizal was like Abraham Lincoln, and Bonifacio was more akin to George Washington.

Both Ibarra and Elias hated the Spanish government personified by the arrogant, haughty, and corrupt Capitan Tiago. They also abhorred Padre Damaso, who was always clad in a white cassock but whose character was like “a catacomb of stench and decay,” scheming and greedy, lustful, and full of deceit. Damaso represented the Church at that era, manned by priests who were too filled with imperfections to the point of monopolizing the seven cardinal sins. Of course, there were few good priests like Padre Florentino who loved the poor, not like Padre Salve who loved to ravish poor women. Rizal created all those characters like Sisa, symbol of the ravished women, Crispin and Basilio, symbols of the oppressed and the exploited.

There are Filipinos who believe that it should be Bonifacio who should be honored as our national hero because Rizal was all theories and no action. But the pro-Rizal adherents counter that Bonifacio was all action without enough thoughts and philosophy. It was Rizal, in fact, who inspired Bonifacio, who read “Noli Me Tangere” and “El Filibusterismo” and translated them into a revolution. Rizal was a pacifist, a conciliator and a man of reason and negotiation. Bonifacio was not content with words. He wanted to gain freedom through a bloody revolution. That was why the Americans did not like Bonifacio. He was not a good copy, lacking in a college degree, he was impatient, impulsive, and hot-headed. Rizal was cool, a doctor, novelist, and a lover of women, wine and song.

That is why today Dr. Jose Rizal's statue dominates Luneta, now called Rizal Park, our national hero clad in European attire, nice to show off to tourists, dignitaries, diplomats, and academicians. Bonifacio whose statue is clad in peasants' clothing, and holding a bolo was relegated to Caloocan and in front of the Post Office, where tourists seldom go. But the masses continue to hold Bonifacio in high esteem because the poor can identify with him. He was poor, an orphan who supported his many brothers and sisters by the toil of his hands. In contrast, Rizal was the mother's spoiled favorite son, adored by his many sisters, and served by his father and elder brother Paciano, who opted to work as farmer to support Rizal's vast travels to Europe.

Bonifacio was surreptitiously killed in a mountain jungle in Cavite, together with his two brothers, by the treacherous Magdalo faction of the Katipunan. Rizal was dramatically assassinated by the combined forces of the government and the Church in a dramatic scene in Luneta. To me, both of them should be national heroes. Rizal, like Ibarra, representing the intellect and wisdom, and Bonifacio, like Elias, representing passion and action. [email protected]