The legacy of EDSA, the man

MANILA, Philippines — As the Philippines marks the 32nd anniversary of the 1986 EDSA people power revolution, some may wonder what else the man behind the highway contributed to Philippine history.

Few know that Epifanio de los Santos, a historian and a librarian, had in his collection a trove of valuable documents about another revolution – the Philippine Revolution a century before EDSA. They may affirm or alter certain long-held entries in history books.

Coincidentally, as the country ponders on the significance of EDSA, a popular art gallery is putting under the hammer priceless letters of “Father of the Philippine Revolution” Andres Bonifacio that were part of the collection of De los Santos.

De los Santos, who would have been 147 years old this year, had a Filipiniana collection that was reportedly rated by foreign scholars as “the best in the world.” 

Of the 115 printed matter and 213 documents in the collection dealing with the Philippine revolution, Leon Gallery has unearthed exceedingly rare and historically important Bonifacio documents, consisting of three extraordinary letters to the revolutionary’s best friend Emilio Jacinto.

“Three of the documents were written after the tumultuous Tejeros Convention, which unseated Bonifacio and installed his nemesis (Emilio) Aguinaldo as president,” says Leon Gallery’s Jaime Ponce de Leon.  “All were created in the very last weeks, if not days, before Bonifacio’s arrest, trial and subsequent liquidation.”

According to accounts quoting historian Gregorio Zaide, there are documents and printed matter in De los Santos’ collection that cannot be found elsewhere, not even in the Filipiniana Division of The National Library nor in any library the world over, the Library of Congress of the United States included.

In one of the letters, Bonifacio tells Jacinto for the first time about the Tejeros Convention.

The Tejeros Convention took place barely a month before on March 22, 1897 – the country’s first election, and also its first “snap” election, intended to settle the growing dispute between the forces of Andres Bonifacio and the rising Cavite strongman, Emilio Aguinaldo.

Bonifacio suffered a humiliating defeat as Aguinaldo was elected president and his own qualifications to sit as secretary of the interior were questioned. Bonifacio stormed out of the meeting and declared the results illegal.

Bonifacio would be ordered arrested by 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, there were reportedly secret orders to dispose of the Supremo in the mountains of Marogondon.

Thus, according to Leon Gallery, these Bonifacio letters from the collection of EDSA the man would be the very last communications from Bonifacio before he was 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.”

Thanks to scholars and historians like Epifanio de los Santos, after whom the 23.8-kilometer highway EDSA was named, Filipinos have documents to learn the lessons of the past. Yes, lest we repeat them.