Provenance: The estate of the esteemed scholar and director of the Philippine National Library, Epifanio de los Santos

Literature: Epifanio de los Santos, “Andrés Bonifacio” [English version], Philippine Review (Revista Filipina), III:1–2 (January–February 1918). “The Mysterious KKK Papers Narrowly Escaping Destruction No Less Than 13 Times, Katipunan Documents Hold Key to History of Revolution”, Sunday Times Magazine, August 24, 1947. Facsimile of the original letter in Adrian E. Cristobal, “The Tragedy of the Revolution” (Makati City: Studio 5 Publishing Inc., 1997), 146–7. Jim Richardson, “Light of Liberty: Documents and Studies on the Katipunan, 1892-1897”, Ateneo de Manila University Press, 2013.

ABOUT THE WORK

Scholar Jim Richardson says about this letter: “Writing here, Bonifacio does not know whether Jacinto has received his previous letter, dated April 16, and so he repeats (adding more detail) the key points he had relayed already: that much of the liberated territory in Cavite had now been retaken by the Spaniards; that a number of Magdalo leaders had surrendered; and that the decisions of the Tejeros convention had been nullified. “Bonifacio also tells Jacinto that he is currently camped outside the town of Indang with about 1,000 troops, and is only delaying his departure from Cavite because he is waiting for his emissary Antonino Guevara to return from the north and report back to him on what Jacinto and Nakpil thought about his plans for mounting an offensive in Laguna. Bonifacio had dispatched Guevara northwards a week or so earlier, bearing his letter to Emilio Jacinto dated April 16 and with instructions to meet both Jacinto and Nakpil and sound out their views on the military situation. In his brief memoir — which he tellingly dedicates to Emilio Aguinaldo — Guevara mentions neither this particular mission nor, in fact, the names of Bonifacio, Jacinto, and Nakpil at all, a silence which, as O.D. Corpuz sadly notes, “reflects one of the tragedies of the Revolution". “On April 24, the day that Bonifacio wrote to Nakpil from Indang saying he was anxiously awaiting the outcome of the critical discussions Guevara was supposed to have in the north, Guevara was actually (according to the chronology of his memoir) in or around Indang himself, and had been there for two days. Even if he was not in the immediate vicinity of Bonifacio’s headquarters, he could surely have sent a messenger to convey his crucial news, and Bonifacio, his troops and followers could then have decided to move off either northward to the provinces of Manila and Morong or eastward into Laguna. Instead, they waited a while longer, and for Bonifacio, those additional days of waiting were to mean death". Andres Bonifacio would be ordered arrested by Emilio Aguinaldo on April 27, 1897 in a bloody confrontation that would leave him and his brothers either wounded or dead. Bonifacio would be tried and then sentenced to death. Despite a public commutation of his sentence, Aguinaldo would send secret orders to dispose of the Supremo in the mountains of Marogondon. Thus, these letters would be the very last communications from Andres Bonifacio before he would be killed on May 10, 1897, revealing his mindset and providing important information on his last days and the brotherhood of the Katipunan that he had founded with blood, sweat, and tears. Bonifacio would not perish at the hands of the Spanish, like José Rizal, but in the greatest travesties of Philippine history, at the hands of his countrymen.