Proceedings of the first Independence congress : held in the city of Manila, Philippine islands, February 22-26, 1930 / Published under the direction of Dean maximo M. Kalaw, executive secretary, University of the Philippines.

140 INDEPENDENCE CONGRESS PROCEEDINGS

After four years of most arduous secret propaganda, the
Spanish government discovered the existence of the Katipunan.
Arrests, detentions, confiscations, including shootings were
resumed. The Katipuneros under the leadership of Bonifacio and Jacinto were thus obliged to launch, sooner than 4
they had planned, the revolution. The revolt at once spread
throughout nine provinces. Battles between the Spanish forces
and those of the Katipuneros were frequent. The die was
cast,-there was no more room for retreat. Andres Bonifacio
was called to Cavite by the revolutionists of the province and
there, in full assembly, Emilio Aguinaldo was elected to succeed him as leader and commander of the forces. After some
important battles in which he demonstrated rare fearlessness,
Aguinaldo lodged himself in the mountains of Biak-na-Bato,
where he accepted a treaty of peace with Spain in which the
revolutionary chiefs promised to leave the country in exchange
for pecuniary considerations and the promise of introducing
certain reforms in the government.
Andres Bonifacio will be remembered in our history as a
man, who out of obscurity was able to lead the masses to
obtain through force of arms the liberty of his country and
the introduction into Philippine society of certain principles
and rules of justice and morality. He was the forerunner in
the Philippines of economic and social democracy, and likewise.
of that ideal brotherhood which now constitutes the disturbing
dream of the international proletariat. A man of action more
than of reflection, he possessed all the necessary and important
qualities that prepared him for the immense task that weighed
upon his shoulders. Rizal and Del Pilar were too cautious
and considerate to lead the country to an immediate revolution.
It needed a firm and resolute character who would not stop at
obstacles of any kind,-and such was Bonifacio.
It must be said for the sake of the truth, that the money
received by the revolutionary chiefs from the Spaniards resulted
for the good of the revolution; that the Pact of Biak-na-Bato
was a happy truce, because once the revolutionary chiefs were
assembled in Hongkong for some time, they conserved and
strengthened not only the revolutionary spirit, but also discipline and loyalty to their chief, and because, when hostilities