"Looking back at Bonifacio: And how his aspiration ever resonates up to present"
The celebration of bonifacio's birth had been always "significant". Ranging from offering flowers at Liwasang Bonifacio, Monumento in Caloocan, to the protests in Mendiola, it means rememberance of a servant-hero who lived and died for the cause of a country that ever continues in its struggle.
It may sound idealistic in expressing in this note, but in recognising Bonifacio and his personifying the aspirations of the common folk means to outrightly carry his unfinished task of seeking truth from facts, and to truly build a nation as it tries to cut bonds that barred its way to freedom not just for their home but also for themselves.
However, it is expecting that this occasion meant for the order to repeat their message of unity. Especially in a time of extrajudicial acts, of increasing taxes, of tolerating landlordism and the unequal treaties with big-power countries, the order, in its ever-repeating appeal to unite an citing heroes for examples, fails to reach the hearts and minds of the common folks who, like Bonifacio, been tired of foolishness, half-truths, phraseologies, and oppressions that forces them a different direction towards justice and freedom.
And in thinking that the order continues to repeat the message of "following Bonifacio's example of heroism", an actually-existing reality shows a different interpretation: that instead of following the message coming from a repressive order, that the people, especially those who taketh time to relect on the legacy of Andres Bonifacio and his legacy of awakening Filipino consciousness, rather chose to resist especially in this ever-continuing past.
Up to this present, this ever-continuing past of poverty, social injustice, corruption, self-interests, and other social ills has continue to plague Filipino society and thus forcing people to taketh the path of protest. And for sure the order been trying its "best" to amelioriate but either not enough if not outrightly treated as a political gimmick for politicos past and present- like the ever-existing problem at Hacienda Luisita, Looc, Lapanday, and other landlord-held lands that failed to be redistributed to the landless folks. And these landless folks were clamouring the same appeal as those who joined the Katipunan- for land, bread, and justice not just freedom for their country alone.
And like Bonifacio and other heroes known and nameless, this kind of protest has been a part of anever prevailing resistance that meant sacrifice, courage, and selflessness in order to attain a lofty goal such as an independent nation, an emancipated people, and a vibrant society that is, different from what the order thath promoted (and still acting its contrary, of its semifeudal, semicolonial fact).
That be it from the pro-people bills and down-to-earth alternative measures from concerned legislators, the recent protests at Mendiola calling for national and social justice, down to the posting of graffitis in the Underpass and at the walls of Manila (that led to arrest of some Graffitos by the authorities), these and other various forms of mass action and social resistance would say that the Filipino, especially the dispossessed and the oppressed, will assert real social change by any means necessary.
To cut this note short, hope that people cannot stop at merely commemorating the memory of Andres Bonifacio and the Katipunan if not outrightly dismissing it as any other holiday. And to think that the order has been doing that way regardless of all its statements, to do so would be merely just to continue those past mistakes.
But, by following Bonifacio's example as well as those of other heroes like Rizal and Luna, of learning their lessons, would say that the country will be on its right direction, to its chartered future.