Tagalog Republic

Tagalog Republic (Filipino: Republika ng Katagalugan) is a term used to refer to two revolutionary governments involved in the Philippine Revolution against Spain and the Philippine–American War. Both were connected to the Katipunan revolutionary movement.

Etymology

The term Tagalog refers to both an ethno-linguistic group in the Philippines and their language. Katagalugan may refer to the historical Tagalog regions in the island of Luzon, part of the Philippine islands.

However, the Katipunan secret society extended the meaning of these terms to all natives in the Philippine islands. The society's primer explains its use of Tagalog in a footnote:

Sa salitáng tagalog katutura’y ang lahát nang tumubo sa Sangkapuluáng itó; sa makatuid, bisaya man, iloko man, kapangpangan man, etc., ay tagalog din. (The word tagalog means all those born in this archipelago; therefore, though visayan, ilocano, pampango, etc. they are all tagalogs.)

The revolutionary Carlos Ronquillo wrote in his memoirs:

Ang tagalog o lalong malinaw, ang tawag na "tagalog" ay waláng ibáng kahulugán kundi ‘tagailog’ na sa tuwirang paghuhulo ay taong maibigang manirá sa tabíng ilog, bagay na 'di maikakaila na siyáng talagáng hilig ng tanang anák ng Pilipinas, saa’t saán mang pulo at bayan. (Tagalog or, stated more clearly, the name "tagalog" has no other meaning but "tagailog" which, traced directly to its root, refers to those who prefer to settle along rivers, truly a trait, it cannot be denied, of all those born in the Philippines, in whatever island or town.)

In this respect, Katagalugan may be translated as the "Tagalog nation."

Andrés Bonifacio, a founding member of the Katipunan and later its supreme head (Supremo), promoted the use of Katagalugan for the Philippine nation. The term "Filipino" was then reserved for Spaniards born in the islands. By eschewing "Filipino" and "Filipinas" which had colonial roots, Bonifacio and his cohorts "sought to form a national identity."

Bonifacio

Sovereign Tagalog Nation
Haring Bayang Katagalugan
Unrecognized state
1896–1897
One of several variations of Katipunan flags
Anthem Marangál na Dalit ng̃ Katagalugan ("Honorable Hymn of the Tagalog Nation")
Capital		Not specified
Government		Republic
President		Andrés Bonifacio
Historical era		Philippine Revolution
•	Established	August 24, 1896
•	Disestablished	May 10, 1897
Currency		Peso
Preceded by Succeeded by Spanish East Indies Spanish East Indies Republic of Biak-na-Bato

In 1896, the Philippine Revolution broke out after the discovery of the Katipunan by the authorities. Prior to the outbreak of hostilities, the Katipunan had become an open revolutionary government. The American historian John R. M. Taylor, custodian of the Philippine Insurgent Records, wrote:

The Katipunan came out from the cover of secret designs, threw off the cloak of any other purpose, and stood openly for the independence of the Philippines. Bonifacio turned his lodges into battalions, his grandmasters into captains, and the supreme council of the Katipunan into the insurgent government of the Philippines.

Several Filipino historians concur. According to Gregorio Zaide:

The Katipunan was more than a secret revolutionary society; it was, withal, a Government. It was the intention of Bonifacio to have the Katipunan govern the whole Philippines after the overthrow of Spanish rule.

Likewise, Renato Constantino and others wrote that the Katipunan served as a shadow government.

Influenced by Freemasonry, the Katipunan had been organized with "its own laws, bureaucratic structure and elective leadership". For each province it involved, the Supreme Council coordinated provincial councils which were in charge of "public administration and military affairs on the supra-municipal or quasi-provincial level" and local councils, in charge of affairs "on the district or barrio level".

In the last days of August, the Katipunan members met in Caloocan and decided to start their revolt (the event was later called the "Cry of Balintawak" or "Cry of Pugad Lawin"; the exact location and date are disputed). A day after the Cry, the Supreme Council of the Katipunan held elections, with the following results:

Position	Name
President / Supremo	Andrés Bonifacio
Secretary of War	Teodoro Plata
Secretary of State	Emilio Jacinto
Secretary of the Interior	Aguedo del Rosario
Secretary of Justice	Briccio Pantas
Secretary of Finance	Enrique Pacheco

The above was divulged to the Spanish by the Katipunan member Pío Valenzuela while in captivity. Teodoro Agoncillo thus wrote:

Immediately before the outbreak of the revolution, therefore, Bonifacio organized the Katipunan into a government revolving around a ‘cabinet’ composed of men of his confidence.

Milagros C. Guererro and others have described Bonifacio as "effectively" the commander-in-chief of the revolutionaries. They assert:

As commander-in-chief, Bonifacio supervised the planning of military strategies and the preparation of orders, manifests and decrees, adjudicated offenses against the nation, as well as mediated in political disputes. He directed generals and positioned troops in the fronts. On the basis of command responsibility, all victories and defeats all over the archipelago during his term of office should be attributed to Bonifacio.

"Presidente" Bonifacio in La Ilustración Española y Americana, February 8, 1897

One name for Bonifacio's concept of the Philippine nation-state appears in surviving Katipunan documents: Haring Bayang Katagalugan ("Sovereign Nation of Katagalugan", or "Sovereign Tagalog Nation") - sometimes shortened into Haring Bayan ("Sovereign Nation"). Bayan may be rendered as "nation" or "people". Bonifacio is named as the president of the "Tagalog Republic" in an issue of the Spanish periodical La Ilustración Española y Americana published in February 1897 ("Andrés Bonifacio - Titulado "Presidente" de la República Tagala"). Another name for Bonifacio's government was Repúblika ng Katagalugan (another form of "Tagalog Republic") as evidenced by a picture of a rebel seal published in the same periodical the next month.

Official letters and one appointment paper of Bonifacio addressed to Emilio Jacinto reveal Bonifacio's various titles and designations, as follows:

• President of the Supreme Council
• Supreme President
• President of the Sovereign Nation of Katagalugan / Sovereign Tagalog Nation
• President of the Sovereign Nation, Founder of the Katipunan, Initiator of the Revolution
• Office of the Supreme President, Government of the Revolution

An 1897 power struggle in Cavite led to command of the revolution shifting to Emilio Aguinaldo at the Tejeros Convention, where a new government was formed. Bonifacio was executed after he refused to recognize the new government. The Aguinaldo-headed Philippine Republic (Spanish: República Filipina), usually considered the "First Philippine Republic", was formally established in 1899, after a succession of revolutionary and dictatorial governments (e.g. the Tejeros government, the Biak-na-Bato Republic) also headed by Aguinaldo.

Sakay's Republic

Republic of Katagalugan
Repúbliká ng̃ Katagalugan
Unrecognized state
1902–1906
Flag of the Republic of Katagalugan
Capital		Not specified
Government		Republic
President		Macario Sakay
Vice President		Francisco Carreón
Historical era		Philippine–American War
•	Declaration of Independence	May 6, 1902
•	Capture of Macario Sakay	July 14, 1906
Preceded by Succeeded by United States Military Government of the Philippine Islands First Philippine Republic Insular Government of the Philippine Islands

After Aguinaldo and his men were captured by the US forces in 1901, General Macario Sakay, a veteran Katipunan member, established in 1902. while his own Republika ng Katagalugan (Tagalog: Repúbliká ng̃ Katagalugan) in the mountains of Dimasalang (today, the province of Rizal), and held the presidency with Francisco Carreón as vice president. In April 1904, Sakay issued a manifesto declaring Filipino right to self-determination at a time when support for independence was considered a crime by the American colonial government.

Position	Name
President	Macario Sakay
Vice President	Francisco Carreón
Minister of War	Domingo Moriones
Minister of the Government	Alejandro Santiago
Minister of State	Nicolás Rivera

The republic ended in 1906 when Sakay and his leading followers were arrested by American authorities and the following year executed for banditry. Some of its survivors escaped to Japan to be joined with Artemio Ricarte, an exiled Katipunan veteran, and later returned to support the Second Philippine Republic, a client state of Japan, during World War II.

See also

• Republic of Biak-na-Bato
• List of Unofficial Presidents of the Philippines