THE FIRST PHILIPPINE PRESIDENT

By Felizar Mortillero

I'm one of the legion of believers that Gat Andres de Castro Bonifacio was the first President of the Philippines. After he became Supreme Leader of the Katipunan, he established a government called "Republika ng Katagalugan", this does not mean that he was regionalistic. He simply wanted all of the Filipinos regardless of tribal lineage or ethnicity be called as Tagalogs, because for him "Filipinos" were Spaniards born in the Philippines.

His government had a President, with him as one, had a cabinet, had a constitution, had an official seal, but these proofs and evidences as can be seen from official records of such government and the Katipunan were downplayed and was not given credence by the historians related to the so-called "First President" of the Philippines, Emilio Famy Aguinaldo.

Is it not that Andres Bonifacio was elected Supreme Leader of the Katipunan the way Emilio Aguinaldo was elected? Why is it that Aguinaldo is being considered a Philippine President when he was not elected at large by the people of the Philippines? If Aguinaldo is being considered as President of the Revolutionary Philippine Government, then there is no reason for the historians to consider Andres Bonifacio as President and the first as such in the annals of history of the Philippines.

Declaring Andres Bonifacio as the first President of the Philippines would mean correction of Philippine History and would further mean a service of justice to him who fought for the independence of the Philippines and died under his former allies turned political rivals who were only after their political futures nothing more, nothing less.