The First Meeting of Tejeros
On March 22, 1897, the
Magdiwang and Magdalo councils
met once more, this time at the
friar estate house in Tejeros, a
barrio of San Francisco de
Malabon. This convention proved
even stormier than the Imus
meeting and, as in Imus, the
declared objective of the meeting
was not even discussed.
According to Jacinto Lumbreras, a
Magdiwang and first presiding
officer of the Tejeros convention,
the meeting had been called to
adopt measure for the defense of
Cavite. Again this subject was not
discussed, and instead, the
assembled leaders, including the
Magdiwangs, decided to elect the
officers of the revolutionary
government, thus
unceremoniously discarding the
Supreme Council of the Katipunan
under whose standard the people
had been fighting and would
continue to fight.
Bonifacio presided, though
reluctantly, over the election.
Beforehand, he secured the
unanimous pledge of the assembly
to abide by the majority decision.
The results were:
President Emilio Aguinaldo
Vice-President Mariano Trias
Captain-General Artemio Ricarte
Emiliano Riego de
Director of War
Dios
Director of the
Andres Bonifacio
Interior
Emilio Aguinaldo had been
awarded the highest prize of the
Revolution on his own birth
anniversary, although he was not
present, being busy at a military
The Second Meeting at Tejeros
Aguinaldo, who was at Pasong
Santol, a barrio of Dasmariñas,
was notified the following day of
his election to the Presidency. At
first, he refused to leave his men
who were preparing to fight the
enemy, but his elder brother,
Crispulo Aguinaldo, persuaded
him to take the oath of office,
promising to take his place and
would not allow the enemy to
overrun the place without dying in
its defense. Aguinaldo then
acceded to his brother's request
and proceeded to Santa Cruz del
Malabon (now Tanza), where he
and the others elected the
previous day, with the exception of
Bonifacio, took their oath of office.
Meanwhile, Bonifacio and his men,
numbering forty-five, again met at
the estate-house of Tejeros on
March 23. All of them felt bad
about the results of the previous
day's proceedings, for they
believed that anomalies were
committed during the balloting.
Convinced that the election held
was invalid, they drew up a
document, now called the Acta de
Tejeros, in which they gave their
reasons for not adopting the
results of the convention held the
previous day. From Tejeros,
Bonifacio and his men proceeded
to Naik in order to be as far as
possible from Magdalo men who,
they thought, were responsible for
the commission of anomalies
during the Tejeros election.
Aguinaldo, wanting to bring back
Bonifacio to the fold, sent a
delegation to him to persuade him
to cooperate with the newly
constituted government. But
Bonifacio refused to return to the
revolutionary fold headed by
Aguinaldo.
front in Pasong Santol, a barrio of
Imus. As for Bonifacio, the death-
blow to the Katipunan and his
election as a mere Director of the
Interior showed clearly that he had
been maneuvered out of power. It
must have been a bitter pill to
swallow, especially since even the
Magdiwangs who were supposed
to be his supporters did not vote
for him either for President or
Vice-President.
But another insult was yet to
follow. Evidently, the Caviteño elite
could not accept an "uneducated"
man, and a non-Caviteño at that,
even for the minor post of Director
of the Interior. Daniel Tirona
protested Bonifacio's election
saying that the post should not be
occupied by a person without a
lawyer's diploma. He suggested a
Caviteño lawyer, Jose del Rosario
for the position.
This was clearly an intended
insult. It naturally infuriated
Bonifacio who thereupon hotly
declared: "I, as chairman of this
assembly and as President of
the Supreme Council of the
Katipunan, as all of you do not
deny, declare this assembly
dissolved, and I annul all that
has been approved and
resolved."
The Naik Military Agreement
Bonifacio's anger over what he
considered an irregular election
and the insult heaped on him by
Daniel Tirona, a Magdalo, rankled
for long. At Naik, they drew up
another document in which they
resolved to establish a
government independent of, and
separate from, that established at
Tejeros. An army was to be
organized "by persuasion or force"
and a military commander of their
own choice was to take command
of it.
Among the forty-one men who
signed it were Bonifacio, Artemio
Ricarte, Pio del Pilar and Severino
de las Alas. The documentposed
a potential danger to the cause of
the Revolution, for it meant a
definite split in the ranks of the
revolutionists and an almost
certain defeat in the face of a
united and well-armed enemy.