Why Andres Bonifacio is not our National Hero

        Andres Bonifacio fell asleep prior to The Cry of Pugad Lawin.

    If you ever wondered why the revolutionary Bonifacio is not our national hero, then wonder no more.

     The so-called Cry of Balintawak was renamed in 1968 to the Cry of Pugad Lawin solely because Andres Bonifacio screwed up, big time. According to multiple members in the Katipunan during the early 1900s, that fateful night in August 26, 1896 in Balintawak was usurped three days earlier in Pugad Lawin because Andres Bonifacio mistook the dry run in the latter as the actual event, depleting the numbers once the former finally happened.

      This was because a weary Bonifacio, exhausted from planning and mapping out the revolution, ended up falling asleep during the dry run of the revolution in Pugad Lawin, and woke up thinking it was already the real thing. Because Bonifacio’s actions were so convincing, in no small part due to

Ninoy and FM

       Marcos was protecting Ninoy.

    Everyone knows that Ninoy Aquino and Ferdinand Marcos were rivals, a competition that culminated in the assassination of the former and the deposition of the latter. Yet research by the managing editor of Filipinas magazine Gemma Nemenzo asserts that the two politicians were actually close friends.

     Ninoy in fact benefited from Marcos’ protection, and was only killed when he came home because Marcos’ ill-health and consequential inability to control his people weakened this benefit.

Macapagal's Autobiography Prediction

       Diosdado Macapagal’s autobiography predicted his daughter’s rise to power.

    Diosdado Macapagal was known for bringing land reform to the Philippines, and for pursuing anti-graft and-corruption reforms that were rendered useless by a non-cooperative congress. His daughter Gloria however doesn’t enjoy the same kind of reputation. Interestingly, the senior Macapagal did predict that Gloria would also become president many decades later. In his autobiography, which was also a criticism of Marcos’

20 Peso Bill's Secret

        The person on the old 20peso bill is not Manual Quezon.

       Take a look at historical photos of the second Philippine President, and you’ll see that he doesn’t exactly look like the person on the old 1993 20 Philippine Peso bill. Very odd, when you consider that the portrait on older (and the newest) 20 Peso bills look more similar to the famous historical figure. Why? If you look closer at the eyes and eyebrows, you’ll see that they’re exact copies of each other, except flipped. Any portrait artist will tell you that no one has exactly the same eye shape for both sides. Turns out while the master printing plate was being built, the artist was too busy and decided to duplicate the left eye

Our National Hero's Real Final Words

      Jose Rizal’s real final words.

     Everyone knows Rizal took a page from Jesus Christ, saying as his last words “consummatum est” (“It is finished” in Latin). Yet that’s not the whole story. The British author of Rizal: Philippine Nationalist and Martyr Austin Coates wrote: “With a normal pulse, Rizal quietly uttered ‘Consummatum est, o tempora o mores! Quo usque tandem abutere, cives, patientia nostra!’”. In other words, Rizal also quoted the famous orator Cicero: “It is finished. O the times, o the morals! How long shall you abuse our patience, citizens!” Coates later commented that the complete final words of Jose Rizal signalled his despair over how his fellow Filipinos lacked passion for the revolutionary cause.

Reference:

http://8list.ph/site/articles/8-things-about-philippine-history-you-may-not-know-189 

Lapu-lapu and Foreigners

      Lapu-lapu defeated Magellan with foreign help.

    Everyone knows about the Mactan ruler defeating the Spanish explorer despite the superior technology of the Europeans. Lost in history is the contribution of visiting Chinese, as recorded by Antonio Pigafetta, who chronicled the Magellan expedition’s circumnavigation of the world:

“When we reached land, [the natives] had formed in three divisions to the number of more than one thousand five hundred persons. When they saw us, they charged down upon us with exceeding loud cries… The musketeers and crossbow-men shot from a distance for about a half-hour, but uselessly. We were told that

The World Famous Filipino Dwarf

      A Filipino dwarf became a famous figure in 19th-century Britain.

    Don Santiago de los Santos, a Filipino dwarf, became part of a traveling show in England between the late 1820s and the early 1830s. He was, indeed, a local celebrity in that part of the world. So, how did he end up in England?

     Popular journals from the late Georgian and Victorian eras had documented his story, although they might have exaggerated some of the details to sell more copies. Anyways, the existing documents suggest that Don Santiago de los Santos was born in 1786 to poor parents. The 1836 edition of the Mirror of Literature, Amusement and Instruction (Volume 28) went on to say that he is “….a native of the Spanish settlement of Manila; in one of the forests of which, it seems, he was exposed to death in his infancy, on account of his diminutive size. He, was, however, miraculously saved by the Viceroy, who, happening to be hunting in that quarter, humanely ordered him to be t