Andrés Bonifacio y de Castro (November 30, 1863 – May 10, 1897) was a Filipino nationalist, revolutionary leader, and the first president of the Philippine archipelago which he preferred naming "Bansa ng Katagalugan" or Tagalog Republic instead of Philippines due to its origin was derived from the Spaniards. He is often called "the Father of the Philippine Revolution and Filipino Nation". He was a founder and later Supremo ("supreme leader") of the Kataas-taasan, Kagalang-galangang Katipunan ng mga Anak ng Bayan or simply and more popularly called Katipunan, a movement which sought the independence of the Philippines from Spanish colonial rule and started the Philippine Revolution. He is considered a de facto national hero of the Philippines,[4] and is also considered by some Filipino historians to be the first President of the Philippines (through the revolutionary government he established), but officially he is not recognized as such
Andres Bonifacio was born in Tondo, Manila, the son of Santiago Bonifacio, a native of Taguig, and Catalina de Castro, a native of Iba, Zambales. He was the eldest of six children. His siblings were Ciriaco, Procopio, Troadio, Esperidiona and Maxima. His father was a tailor who served in the colonial government as a teniente mayor of Tondo, Manila, while his mother was a supervisor at a cigarette factory in Manila and was a mestiza born of a Spanish father and a Filipino-Chinese mother. As was custom, upon baptism he was named for the saint on whose feast he was born, Andrew the Apostle.
Bonifacio learned his alphabet in 10 years through his mother's sister and he was first enrolled in a private school of one Guillermo Osmeña where he learned Latin and mathematics though his normal schooling was cut short when he dropped out at about fourteen years old to support his siblings after both of their parents died of illnesses one year apart.
Bonifacio was blessed with good hands in craftsmanship and visual arts that he made canes and paper fans, which he and his young siblings sold, and he made posters for business firms. This became their thriving family business that continued on when the men of the family, Andres, Ciriaco, Procopio and Troadio, became employed with private and government companies which provided them decent living condition.
In his late teens, he worked as a mandatorio for the British trading firm Fleming and Company, where he rose to become a corregidor of tar, rattan and other goods. He later transferred to Fressell and Company, a German trading firm, where he worked as a bodeguero (storehouse keeper) where he is responsible for warehouse inventory. Bonifacio also founded a theater company with his friends, Macario Sakay and Aurelio Tolentino, where he was also a part-time actor performing in moro-moro plays.
Not finishing his normal education, Bonifacio enriched his natural intelligence with self-education. He read books about the French Revolution, biographies of the Presidents of the United States, books about contemporary Philippine penal and civil codes, and novels such as Victor Hugo's Les Misérables, Eugène Sue's Le Juif errant and José Rizal's Noli Me Tángere and El Filibusterismo. Aside from Tagalog and Spanish, he could speak and understand English, which he learned while working at J.M. Fleming and Co.
Bonifacio was married twice: first to a certain Monica of Palomar. She was Bonifacio's neighbor in Tondo. Monica died of leprosy and they had no recorded children.
In 1892 Bonifacio, a 29-year-old widower, met the 18-year-old Gregoria de Jesús, through his friend Teodoro Plata who was her cousin. Gregoria, also called Oriang, was the daughter of a prominent citizen and landowner from Caloocan. Gregoria's parents did not agree at first to their relationship as Andres was a freemason and freemasons were then considered enemies of the Catholic church. Her parents eventually gave in and Andrés and Gregoria were married through a Catholic ceremony in Binondo Church in March 1893 or 1894. The couple also were married through Katipunan rites in a friend's house in Sta. Cruz, Manila on the same day of their church wedding.
They had one son named Andrés, Jr., born on early 1896, who died of smallpox in infancy.
In 1918, the American colonial government of the Philippines mounted a search for Bonifacio's remains in Maragondon. A group consisting of government officials, former rebels, and a man reputed to be Bonifacio's servant found bones which they claimed were Bonifacio's in a sugarcane field on March 17. The bones were placed in an urn and put into the care of the National Library of the Philippines. They were housed at the Library's headquarters in the Legislative Building in Ermita, Manila, together with some of Bonifacio's papers and personal belongings. The authenticity of the bones was much disputed at the time and has been challenged as late as 2001 by Ambeth Ocampo. When Emilio Aguinaldo ran for President of the Commonwealth of the Philippines in 1935, his opponent Manuel L. Quezon (the eventual victor) invoked the memory of Bonifacio against him, the bones being the result of Bonifacio's execution at Aguinaldo's hands. During World War II, the Philippines was invaded by Japan in December 1941. The bones were lost due to the widespread destruction and looting during the Allied capture of Manila in February 1945
