SUMMARY OF THE MOVIE EL PRESIDENTE

The movie entitled El Presidente started with the captured of Emilio Aguinaldo in Palanan Isabela then it flashback during the time when he was appointed as Cabeza de Barangay in their hometown Kawit. Aguinaldo turned out to be an effective and wellrespected cabeza. He eventually moved on to the post of capitan municipal in 1895 which was the highest civilian post possible for a native. Aguinaldo married Hilaria del Rosario in 1896. They had live children: Miguel, Carmen, Emilio Jr., Maria, and Cristina. Unknown to his family and the municipal and the church authorities, Aguinaldo, who had become a Mason, joined the Katipunan and was inducted in the secret society by Andres Bonifacio, the Supremo himself. Aside from his duties in the local government, he also organized the Katipunan chapter in his hometown. Aguinaldo chose as his Katipunan name Magdalo in honor of St. Mary Magdalene, patron saint of Kawit. An able local official, Aguinaldo was well-loved by his constituents and was respected by the Spanish officials in the town including the parish priest. Thus, according to his memoirs, Aguinaldo was able to recruit many of his townmates into the Katipunan without raising the suspicion of the colonial authorities. When the Philippine Revolution broke out in late August 1896, Aguinaldo mobilized the Katipuneros in his province and captured his hometown Kawit, then Imus, then Bacoor-a string of victories that made the enemies move from Manila to Cavite. However, Cavite was led by two factions of the Katipunan-the older group Magdiwang under Mariano Alvarez, and Magdalo under Baldomero Aguinaldo and eventually Emilio Aguinaldo. To forge unity Andres Bonifacio was invited to Cavite to mediate between the two factions. Unfortunately he was believed to have favored Magdiwang because his wife Gregoria de Jesus was a relative of Mariano Alvarez. In March 1897 the two groups met at Tejeros to elect a Revolutionary Government that would replace the existing Katipunan. Aguinaldo was elected president in absentia as he was in the battlefield and Supremo Andres Bonifacio was elected secretary of the interior. Conflict was not resolved by this election; Bonifacio set up his own government and challenged the legitimacy of that headed by Aguinaldo. Bonifacio was captured, tried for treason, and executed on 10 May 1897 in the Maragondon Range. By then the enemy had concentrated their military efforts in Cavite and regained territory from the revolutionaries. Aguinaldo was forced to move to Batangas and eventually northward to a cave in Biak-na-Bato, Bulacan which became the site of an uneasy peace brokered by Pedro A. Paterno and signed in the late December 1897. Under this treaty Aguinaldo, accompanied by other leaders in the revolution, agreed to lay down their arms and go into exile in Hong Kong. Aguinaldo left the Philippines with a partial payment of P400,000 and never received the balance.

Aguinaldo left Hong Kong for Singapore to avoid a lawsuit regarding disposition of the Biak-na-Bato money he had deposited in two Hong Kong banks. He was contacted in Singapore by the United States consul and convinced into returning to Manila to resume the unfinished revolution as an ally of the U.S. that was at war with Spain. Aguinaldo arrived in the Philippines in May 1898, organized the dictatorial government, and proclaimed Philippine independence from Spain on 12 June 1898. The Aguinaldo government was unable to take Manila and thus established the capital in Malolos, Bulacan. On 4 February 1899 the Filipino- American war broke out. When the enemy started taking the Filipino territory slowly and steadily, Aguinaldo moved up north to Palanan, Isabela where he was captured on 23 March 1901. Aguinaldo returned to civilian life and spent most of his time with the Veteranos de la Revolucion. His wife Hilaria died in 1921 and Aguinaldo remarried in 1930. No children resulted from his union with Maria Agoncillo. Aguinaldo tried to reenter national politics and ran for the presidency of the Philippine Commonwealth but lost to Manuel Luis Quezon. He died at the age of 95 at the Veterans Memorial Hospital in Quezon City on 6 February 1 964.

REACTION/CONCLUSION
History has not been kind to Emilio Aguinaldo. Responsibility for the execution of Katipunan Supremo Andres Bonifacio and his brother Procopio is laid at his door. And the accusing finger of history, likewise points to him in the still unsolved assassination of Gen. Antonio Luna. His military victories are glossed over and more emphasis is placed on his defeats particularly his failure to take Manila when he could 'and should have. Aguinaldo is also blamed for his trust in the United States that took up where Spain left off as colonizer. Perhaps, the generally negative image of Aguinaldo can be explained by the fact that this generation studies history from hindsight. It sees the maze from the top, it studies the sequence of events, and judges the people who made that history from the viewpoint of the present. While most people aspire and wish for a long life, in Aguinaldo's case longevity was both a blessing and a curse. There is an ancient Chinese curse that translates "May you live in interesting times." By living long and well Aguinaldo managed to outlive all his enemies. He saw the Philippines develop from the early days of the Katipunan, through the Philippine Revolution, the Filipino-American war, the American military and civil occupation of the Philippines, the Commonwealth of the Philippines, the Japanese Occupation, and the recognition of Philippine independence on 4 July 1946, an independence he proclaimed much earlier on 12 June 1898. During this long life Aguinaldo committed many blunders, mostly political, that gave a checkered texture to an otherwise boring career. The Philippine Centennial of 1998 gave Filipinos an opportunity to see him in his proper context, to see Aguinaldo at his zenith.

The Aguinaldo of the Japanese period, is not the same as the Aguinaldo who joined the Katipunan in 1895. The Aguinaldo who ran against Manuel Luis Quezon and Gregorio Aglipay in the elections for the Commonwealth government is not the same Aguinaldo who, at twenty-nine, became the president of the short-lived First Republic of the Philippines. Aguinaldo had to live down his complicity in the deaths of Andres Bonifacio and Antonio Luna. He had to live down the fact that his government, all through four phases from 1897 to 1901, was unable to take control of the entire archipelago and establish itself firmly to gain the recognition of other nations. Aguinaldo, like the history of the Philippines which he shaped, is a tale of unfulfilled promise. Aguinaldo the college dropout was thrust into the national stage. He led his country in a revolution against Spain and a war against the United States of America, and became the youngest president of the Philippines at twenty-nine. Aguinaldo's short-lived government tried to survive in between wars. Aguinaldo, with some of the best minds of that generation, tried to establish a government that was not given the chance to prove itself, either for better or for worse. Perhaps, the lesson that this generation can learn from the life and career of the President of the First Republic is that unfulfilled promises are like coins with two races: one can either harp on the frustration of unfulfilled promise, or continue to hope in the mere existence of promise. Emilio Aguinaldo may have failed in many ways as chief executive, but he left the generations after him with a history of -unfulfilled promise. While we cannot change the past, the real challenge is not to be discouraged by history but to take it by the horns, learn from it, and use it to make sense of the present and utilize it to confront the uncertain future. The story of the Aguinaldo administration, particularly its dark side, sounds uncomfortably contemporaneous and leads the ignorant into saying that history repeats itself. History does not repeat itself-we repeat history. How Filipinos will cope with Aguinaldo's unfulfilled promise is the challenge for all of us.