Maragondon

Maragondon played a significant role in the Philippine revolution. Although the town belonged to the jurisdiction of the Magdiwang Council, its brave sons like the three Riego de Dios brothers ( Emiliano, Vicente and Mariano), Esteban Infante, Crisostomo Riel, Vicente Somoza and Antero C. Reyes proved their unflinching loyalty to the Aguinaldo government.

All of them stuck to the revolution headed by Gen. Emilio Aguinaldo. Emiliano and Mariano Riego de Dios became top ranking generals; Vicente, a colonel, commanded the revolutionary troops as signed at Noveleta, the Magdiwang headquarters. Gen. Emiliano Riego de Dios was one of the three provincial governors of Cavite under the revolutionary government; and Mariano became the Taong Aguila (Eagle man) who saved Aguinaldo from certain death (threat?) in the battle of Naic. Gen. Mariano Riego de Dios, Colonel Crisostomo Riel and Colonel Esteban Infante were members of the council of war that tried and convicted the Bonifacio brothers (Andres and Procopio) of sedition and treason against the duly established the revolutionary government of Aguinaldo, which moved there in the summer of 1897.

The Bonifacio brothers were sentenced to death by the council of war owing to their supposed counter revolutionary activities. Mariano Riego de Dios and Esteban Infante believed that the sentence was quiet harsh and abstained from signing the death verdict. Aguinaldo agreed with them and ordered commutation of the sentence from death to banishment to the mountain of Pico de Loro in Maragondon. Before this would happen, a few of the generals, including Gen. Mariano Noriel, the chairman of military court, and Gen. Pio del Pilar, had convincted Aguinaldo to withdraw the commutation sentence and carry out the original verdict.

ANOTHER VIEW--from the Veterans of the Magdiwang Faction of Maragondon, Cavite-- handed down few generations: Historic records failed to indicate that Bonifacio had a MOCK trial. He was ordered to be executed as he was hunted long before the said TRIAL at the Reyes Residence. The MOCKERY: His named Defender, Gen. Noriel, acted as his Prosecutor during the Mock Trial. At the time, Treason was allegedly a crime under the laws framed by the KKK under the leadership of Bonifacio, as the President of the Philippines. Here, Aguinaldo and the Magdalo Faction would be found guilty of Treason. Nonetheless, the Aguinaldo government, in the absence of an established legal document of any locally framed law by the Magdalo faction, in the MOCK TRIAL, they found that the Bonifacio brothers were guilty of Treason.

Without the benefit of the alleged Aguinaldo commutation, the seriously wounded Andrés Bonifacio was carried in a cradle across the River through the Riel Property by the river, now partly housing the contested Pob. 1B Barangay Hall and squatters area, while Procopio was required to walk to cross the river and march to the Execution location in Mt. Nagpatong, owned by Don Jose Reyes (Piping), brother of one-time Maragondon Governadorcillo Don Eduardo Reyes (Capitan Nining). Don Piping heard only one shot and was satisfied to find only one fallen Bonifacio to be buried in his land. To his disappointment, he was later informed that there were two brothers executed and Don Piping later surmised and concluded that the shot heard was for the missing Procopio while Andrés expired after multiple stabs by the executioner Macapagal.

The Magdiwang faction had for years maintained that Andrés was the First President of the country per his role as a founding father of the Katipunan and later on its president, while Aguinaldo was the First president of the First Philippine Republic. They maintained that Andrés Bonifacio was intelligent and highly educated, truly informed although lacking in certificates or diplomas for schooled individuals. Unfortunately, he was invited by cousin-in-law Gen. Mariano Alvarez to come to Cavite to try to unite the feuding Magdalo and the Magdiwang Factions to be better combatants for the cause of the KKK, ultimately to be executed by landed and highly aristocratic Cavite leaders who coveted his leadership of the organization, especially the members of the Aguinaldo Government that organized the trial, which they called a sham and a mock one.

Historic records also failed to indicate that A. Bonifacio was the Supremo, the President of the Revolutionary Government that was recognized by the provinces that revolted against Spain. Thus, historic records also did not reflect that the Aguinaldo Government was not duly constituted at the time of the Bonifacio execution. At the time, some historical records from sources outside of Cavite indicated that the Revolutionary Government under Bonifacio had laws that could find the Aguinaldo movement treasonous. As it were, the Cavite movement with impunity superseded the National Movement that the Supremo had started.

Per the viewpoints of the descendants of the Magdiwang faction and those who view Bonifacio as the first president of the republic, the Filipino people, who failed to recognize the historic events surrounding the death of a true national hero, suffered from an unfortunate repeat of history during the 2001 EDSA Revolution when Gloria Macapagal Arroyo assumed the presidency. Although with failure of due process, and with seeming complicity, the GMA Presidency was blessed by no less than Cardinal Sin. Similarly, the Aguinaldo (nom de guerre Magdalo) Presidency was blessed by Rev. Father Villafranca. Ironically, later, in Maragondon, the Magdalo faction would turn against the Roman Catholic Church and convert a Roman Catholic Chapel built on a borrowed and never returned private lot in 1900 just two years later as part of the Philippine Independent Church.