(updated)
November 30 — The Ghost of a Cedula and the Country We Still Fight For
November 30 — The Ghost of a Cedula and the Country We Still Fight For
Fast forward to 2025...
On Bonifacio Day, we do not simply remember a man. We remember a gesture.
A flick of the wrist. A piece of paper torn into shreds.
History tells us Andrés Bonifacio ripped his cedula in 1896 as an act of defiance — a refusal to be counted only as property of the Spanish Crown. It was the spark to a revolution, bold enough to demand a country and brave enough to imagine freedom.
But a gesture, reenacted 128 years later, still provokes an unsettling question:
Was he amused — or still angry?
It is a strange thing to watch an actor portraying Bonifacio tear that symbolic document today. The sunglasses hide the truth in his eyes, making us wonder: Was that flick a nod to the thrill of rebellion? Or was it a subtle echo of still-burning rage?
Because rage, quiet as it is, remains undeniably present.
We recognize it. We feel it.
Not toward colonizers from centuries past, but toward the inertia that haunts our present.
A country unshackled, yet somehow stuck
We are no longer bound by a foreign crown, yet millions feel the weight of something just as heavy.
Traffic immobilizes us for hours on end. Progress crawls like a jeepney caught in gridlock. Reforms take lifetimes to materialize. We switch governments yet keep the same frustrations — bureaucracy, corruption, unending promises that taste like déjà vu.
You see the cedula reenactment and wonder if Bonifacio, were he alive today, would tear something else:
A permit form? A budget allocation? A landmark bill stuck in committee?
Would he flip a table in Congress?
Would he march, uninvited, to the Palace gates?
Or would he quietly remove his sunglasses, stare at the nation he died for, and ask:
“Ito ba ang ipinaglaban ko?”
This is not nostalgia — it’s indictment
We celebrate Bonifacio not because he fought Spain.
We celebrate him because he fought stagnation.
He confronted complacency, refused politeness in the face of injustice, and demanded that the Filipino stand upright.
Perhaps that is why the tearing of a cedula still shocks us — because we know deep down that something within us still needs tearing.
Our tolerance for dysfunction.
Our casual acceptance of poverty.
Our cynicism toward nation-building.
Our learned helplessness.
We have freedoms Bonifacio never tasted, yet we move like a people forever waiting for permission.
The revolution is no longer on the battlefield
It is in our buses, our classrooms, our voting booths.
It is in the rage simmering beneath polite silence.
It is in our laughter, because humor has become our coping mechanism — our modern insurgency.
We do not need to storm the hills of Balintawak.
We need to demand more — from the leaders we elect, and from ourselves.
If Bonifacio’s ghost still walks among us today, maybe he isn’t looking for warriors with bolos.
Maybe he’s searching for citizens with backbone.
Citizens who will not only remember November 30, but live it.
The flick of a hand tore paper once.
But the revolution was never about paper.
It was about a nation deciding — finally — to move.
The question now is ours to answer:
Will we remain an audience mesmerized by gestures,
or will we stand up and finish the revolution he began?
To cap the day - 30th of November; and to cap the month - November it is, tumawa muna tayo or think deeply and see if AB (Andres Bonifacio) is worth painting and depicting or shall i say, re-imagined in our time (via meme-logy) and art.
Thanks to the artist though - "Manu Gallardo San Pedro" for sharing his talent via reddit. Follow him at his IG.
@manu_sanpedro 📸 (instagram)
Someone commented in reddit that AB is the "Cedula Bae"- possibly a Gen Zer, nevertheless, i'm looking at this art as an evolution of mindsets from different angles.
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| Andres Bonifacio In 2019 - Cedula Bae |
It's so timely, the way he flicked his fingers in tearing down to pieces the "cedula" is mezmerizing and at the same time leaving the audience or myself thinking if AB was amused? or, out of the original emotion back in Katipunan Days -- still angry as hell? (the sunglasses fashionably hid the facial expression esp the eyes!)
Or it could also be a reflection of "pagka-irita"sa nangyayari sa bansa natin ngayun? Bagal ba ng pag-usad at pag-unlad? Magkabilaan ang traffic at di natapos ang ïnconvenience" para sa kapwa ko Pinoy.
So much so with my ramblings about our government and the status of our country.
I'll leave this post to be of a happy mindset. I'm still chuckling as i gaze at this piece of art. Yep, kahit yung holster ng baril, maling side at di akma! Ang hirap bunutin ni AB kung sakali. Nyahahahahaha!
See you in December folks! Thanks for staying and following my blog.
ˆbillymacdeus
-added artist's IG page
