We traditionally celebrate Bonifacio Day every 30 November. We celebrated it yesterday because President Marcos Jr. — taking a leaf from the practice of then-President Arroyo — saw it more practical to move holidays around to give the people long weekends, instead of staggered days off. In an informal survey, my friends overwhelmingly approved of this kind of approach, as it gives them time to go on short holidays with their families. Or with others, whenever applicable.

The man whose heroism we spotlighted yesterday with the usual plaudits and speeches has always been some sort of an enigma. He is supposed to be the "People's Hero," a man from the masses who, against all odds, organized a popular revolt against our Spanish colonizers.

This is as opposed to the "other" revolutionary, Aguinaldo, who was of middle-class origins and became Bonifacio's arch-nemesis in the fight for leadership of the Revolution. Leftists have concocted a tale of a "class struggle" as shown by the clash between the two, with the elite supposedly snatching the Revolution from Bonifacio through bloody murder. The truth is more complicated than that though.

That does not stop countless people from portraying themselves as the new Bonifacio, as the name carries much emotional impact. The Left has always styled itself as heirs of the populist movement that is the Kataas-taasan Kagalang-galangang Katipunan ng mga Anak ng Bayan, "Katipunan" for short, or KKK. They even go to the extent of appropriating the war standard of the KKK — a red field with the baybayin letter "k" in the middle, or variations thereof.

Many of their "legal" fronts even use permutations of the long name of the organization. Thus Anakbayan, Akbayan, Bayan Muna, Bayan, Anakpawis, in a vain attempt to paint themselves as the continuation of the Philippine Revolution, in much the same manner that Hitler tried to sell the idea that the Third Reich was the successor to the Roman Empire. We all know where that went.

It is in this wise that these left-leaning groups try to sell themselves as the champions of the masses, much like Bonifacio. So they organize the farmers, the students, the workers, marinate them in the concept of a class war and the need to overthrow the present dispensation for a socialist state, etc. The problem is that they use means that involve recruiting young people to go to the mountains and ambush soldiers and policemen and destroy the properties of businessmen who refuse to pay their co-called revolutionary taxes, among other unkind acts.

If Bonifacio were alive today, he'd decapitate them with one clean sweep of his iconic bolo, although genuine historians say that the Katipunan of old was much better equipped than to be fighting purely with knives and bamboo spears.

Unfortunately for these con artists and charlatans, the majority are now onto their scam. Their trouncing in the last polls — which saw them badly decimated in the Lower House — coupled with the massive setbacks in the fields that started during the time of President Duterte, have weakened them so much that, for the first time, there is hope of ending the longest armed insurgency in Asia.

It is hoped that the policy of the present administration of "reaching out" to the Left does not result in the resuscitation of a movement already in its death throes. It would be a shame to revive a group that has caused incalculable misery to our people, the same people who have realized that these self-declared champions of the masses are huge fakes, and who have been shouting to France Castro, and Arlene Brosas,  Raoul Manuel, Risa Hontiveros, and their ilk: "ANG FAKE-FAKE NINYO!"