MANILA, Philippines?Compared to Jose Rizal, who loved to be photographed, Andres Bonifacio appeared to have been camera-shy.

Rizal left historians with a series of photographs from when he was a 14-year-old student at the Ateneo Municipal to the morning when he, at 35, was shot in Bagumbayan in 1896.

In contrast, Bonifacio left us only one faded photograph. In it the ?Hero of the Masses? is not wearing the iconographic white camisa de chino and red shorts that we always associate with him and his bolo.

The Great Plebeian is wearing a coat and a tie!

So faded is this photograph that it has been retouched and enhanced in many ways, such that other elements have been added to his image, including a carnation on his lapel.

To explain this upper middle class attire, it has been suggested that Bonifacio went to a photo studio in a camisa but rented a suit for his portrait.

It has also been suggested that the photograph was taken on his wedding day, although nobody can explain why his bride, Gregoria de Jesus, is not in the picture.

Love story

Much of Bonifacio?s early life remains to be fleshed out.

He was a widower when he began courting Gregoria ?Oryang? de Jesus of Caloocan, and the fact that his first wife, Monica, was a leper partly explains why Oryang?s parents objected to him.

We can only imagine what Oryang found so attractive in the bodeguero (warehouseman) from Tondo for her to risk her health and her parents? ire.

Six months was all it took for Oryang to fall in love with Bonifacio. But when her parents got wind of their wedding plans, the lovers were separated?Oryang was forcibly moved from the family home in Caloocan and locked up in a safehouse in Binondo.

We know of this engaging bit of history from documents in the Philippine National Archives (Manila. Varios Personales. December 1893-Enero 1894 Libro II pp. 564-567b).

?Menor de edad?

In 1893, Bonifacio was almost 30 years old, and a Mason to boot; Oryang was only 18, menor de edad, and required parental consent to marry.

We do not know how Oryang managed to get a letter, hurriedly scribbled in pencil and crying for help, to the gobernadorcillo of Binondo.

In the letter written in Tagalog and dated Oct. 6, 1893, Oryang stated her wish to marry Andres Bonifacio of Tondo and sought freedom from the house on Madrid street in Binondo, where she was being kept against her will.

Unknown to the star-crossed lovers, they were a mere five blocks from each other.

Two months later, on Dec. 6, 1893, the gobernadorcillo of Binondo ordered Cornelio Gomez, owner of the house on Madrid street, to appear in his office with Oryang.

The next day, police inspected an empty house on Madrid (Oryang had been moved back to Caloocan).

On Dec. 9, 1893, the gobernadorcillo of Caloocan issued an order to Oryang?s parents to present her to the gobernadorcillo of Binondo.

The parents reasoned that Oryang was too ill to venture out of the house. So the municipal doctor, Jose Hilario, was dispatched to examine Oryang and check if she was being held against her will.

Paper trail peters out

Hilario?s diagnosis was that Oryang was suffering from hysteria and was anemic.

In January 1894, Oryang wrote to the gobernadorcillo of Binondo, again asking to be summoned so she could marry Bonifacio without parental consent.

Whether her parents gave in we will never know because the paper trail is silent after this.

But in her autobiography, Oryang said she and Bonifacio were married in Binondo church in March 1893.

She must have been mistaken when she wrote ?Mga tala ng aking buhay? decades after the Philippine Revolution because March 1893 as the marriage date does not match her January 1894 petition to marry Bonifacio.

So did they get married in church? And later, in Katipunan rites?

The marriage records in Binondo church are negative on this.

Mysterious record

But in Casamientos 1894-1899 fol. 29v is a record of a marriage solemnized by Fr. Simon Sanchez Cantador on June 20, 1894, between Andres Cipriano, indio natural from Tondo, widower of Esperanza Francisco, and Gregoria de la Cruz, indio natural resident of Binondo, single, daughter of Felipe de la Cruz (deceased) and Gabina Cesar.

The marriage was witnessed by Espiridio Baniquit and Vicenta Zapanta.

Did Bonifacio and Oryang marry under assumed names, Andres Cipriano and Gregoria de la Cruz, to skirt parental objection and the impediment of the bride being underage?

Bonifacio is remembered each year on Nov. 30 in Manila, Caloocan and Maragondon, Cavite.

But until fresh research is undertaken to complete a narrative of his life and times, these commemorations remain hollow and without resonance to our own lives and times.