You’re PINOY If…

Not to be mistaken with the Ku Klux Klan, any Filipino will tell you with pride that KKK stands for Kataastaasang Kagalanggalangang Katipunan ng mga Anak ng Bayan. More popularly known as the Katipunan, it is a secret society that planned and initiated the Philippine Revolution.

The Katipunan was founded on July 7, 1892 by Andres Bonifacio, Ladislao Diwa and Teodoro Plata. After the news of Rizal’s exile, they gathered other members of La Liga Filipina, a progressive organization created by Rizal, at a house on Calle Azcarraga (now Claro M. Recto Ave.) in Tondo, Manila. The Katipunan was forged by blood, using the ancient blood compact (Sanduguan) to sign their names using their own blood.

The Katipunan has three objectives: political, moral and civic. The political objective is to separate the Philippines from Spain. The moral objectives revolved around the teaching of good manners, hygiene, good morals, and attacking obscurantism, religious fanaticism, and weakness of character. Finaly the civic duty includes mutual assistance and the defense of the poor and the oppressed.

The Katipunan recruits its members by means of a triangular method in which an original member would take in two new members who did not know each other. Thus, original member A, for instance, would take in new members B and C. Both B and C knew A, but B and C did not know each other. This method ensures the secrecy of the Katipunan where if one of them gets caught, he or she will not be able to say who the other members are. New recruits underwent the initiation rite three at a time so that no member knew more than two other members of the society.

On early August 1896, Teodoro Patiño, a worker at a printing press got into a feud with the press foreman, Apolinio dela Cruz, who is a Katipunero. Patiño supposedly used his sister to contact a priest, who was also her confessor, to expose the secret society. This became the standard story of how the revolution broke out in 1896. However, in the 1920’s, Jose Turiano Santiago, Bonifacio’s close friend, claimed that Bonifacio himself ordered Patiño to divulge the society’s existence to hasten the Philippine revolution.

On August 24, 1896 a meeting was held where the Katipuneros present decided to start the armed and open rebellion again Spain. They tore their cedulas (residence certificates and identity papers) as proof of their defiance. This event is now known as the “Cry of Balintawak,” which actually took place not in Balintawak, but in Pugadlawin.