Katipunan

a secret patriotic anti-Spanish organization in the Philippines from 1892 to 1897. It was founded and led by A. Bonifacio, E. Jacinto, and other members of the revolutionary democratic wing of the Liga Filipina, a patriotic revolutionary organization formed in 1892. After the Liga Filipina disbanded in 1893, Katipunan became a broad-based organization, with a membership of about 100, 000 in 1896 (according to some estimates, 400, 000). The Katipunan’s program proclaimed the equality of all men and called for the defense of the oppressed and for mutual assistance and self-sacrifice in the interest of the homeland.

The Katipunan abandoned the ineffectual reformist tactics of the Liga Filipina and began to prepare for the armed overthrow of Spanish rule. In August 1896 an uprising broke out on Bonifacio’s appeal. The Supreme Council of the Katipunan not only directed the military operations but became the national organ of revolutionary power, with its provincial sections assuming the functions of local government in the wake of the victories of the popular forces. Led by E. Aguinaldo, the bourgeois and landowning elements that had joined the uprising opposed the Katipunan in favor of a “republican government” in order to eliminate radical plebeian elements from the leadership of the revolution. In March 1897, the Republic of the Philippines was proclaimed by the rebels, and Aguinaldo was elected its president. In an attempt to dominate the movement, the Aguinaldo group succeeded in dissolving the Katipunan. Bonifacio was falsely accused of conspiracy and executed on May 10, 1897. The revolutionaries who had led the Katipunan began to play a subordinate role in the government of the republic and were unable to prevent Aguinaldo’s capitulation to the colonialists (the Biac-na-Bató Pact of 1897).