WHEN PEOPLE RIDE the LRT (Light Rail Transit) to Monumento station or drive along the roundabout in Grace Park in Caloocan, they often ignore a masterpiece which is right there in front of their eyes: the Bonifacio Monument, designed by National Artist Guillermo Tolentino.
Towering at a height of 45 meters, Monumento (as it is popularly known) pays tribute to the hero of the Katipunan, Andrés Bonifacio, the main figure in the sculpture. Depicting the Philippines’ resistance to Spanish rule at the end of the 19th century, this memorial was completed to celebrate Mr. Bonifacio’s 66th birth anniversary in 1929.
The sculpture’s pedestal and shaft are covered in granite from Germany, according to the Presidential Museum and Library (http://malacanang.gov.ph/7054-the-andres-bonifacio-monument). At the top is the winged figure of Victory, inspired by the Greek sculpture the Winged Victory of Samothrace. At the lower part of the monument are human-sized Italian bronze cast figures depicting the Philippine revolution.
Only the occasional tourist or student working on a project brave the traffic at the roundabout to take a closer look at the beautifully intricate work of the master sculptor which few people today see.
At the right side of the monument are Katipuneros with their bolos (knives) out, standing among the casualties of the war. On the left are figures depicting the cruelty of the Spanish colonizers. At the back of the monument are the Gomburza — the three martyred Filipino priests Mariano Gomez, José Burgos, and Jacinto Zamora — whose execution moved Filipino hero Jose Rizal to write his novels Noli Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo, which in turn inspired Bonifacio and the other founders of the revolutionary organization Katipunan.
Front and center is Andres Bonifacio holding aloft a bolo and a revolver. With him are the Katipuneros, with one raising a flag.
Completed in three years the total cost of the monument was P125,000 — equivalent to P38.5 million in today’s money — the monument is designed to face Tondo in Manila, which is Bonifacio’s birthplace.
To find the best design for the monument, a contest was announced and 13 artists responded, submitting their work under aliases. The winner was a professor at the University of the Philippines (UP) Fine Arts whose alias was “Batang Elias” (Elias was the protagonist of Rizal’s novels) Guillermo Tolentino.
Born on July 24, 1890 in Malolos, Bulacan (seven years before Bonifacio’s murder by his erstwhile allies in the revolutionary government), Tolentino was trained in classical sculpture, earning a degree in fine arts in 1915 at the University of the Philippines (UP).
He went on to pursue further studies in the United States where he graduated from New York University with honors in 1921, and Europe, where he studied in Regge Istituto di Belle Arti in 1922, then returned to the Philippines.
Aside from creating the Bonifacio Monument, he also sculpted UP Diliman’s monument (better known as the Oblation), the bronze figure of President Quezon at the Quezon Memorial, the marble statue of Ramon Magsaysay at the GSIS (Government Service Insurance System) Building, and many others. He was proclaimed a National Artist of the Philippines for the Visual Arts in 1973.
Andres Bonifacio died at the age of 34. Guillermo Tolentino was five years older when he designed the monument honoring the hero on what would have been his 66th birthday. Eighty-six years after it was built, the monument still stands today, facing the birthplace of a hero, 118 years after he died so Filipinos in the future — those passersby who ignore his monument — would live free. — Jasmine Agnes T. Cruz
