MAHARLIKA HEROES vs Spanish Colonial Era
Reading from these you might be able to draw some inspiration from their
brave actions. These were taken from the internet at different websites:

GOMBURZA
For his courageous defense of the cause of Filipino priesthood, Father Burgos
earned for himself the name "Champion of the Cause of the Filipino Clergy"
but incurred the hatred of the Spanish friars. Thus, when the Cavite mutiny
broke out in 1872, the Spanish authorities arrested him together with Father Gomes
and Father Zamora, charging them of having incited the revolution. After a
mock trial at Fort Santiago on February 15, 1872, they were sentenced to die by
means of the garrote, a Spanish strangulation by an iron collar tightened by a
screw. On February 17, 1872, they were executed in Bagumbayan, now the
Luneta. The three martyred priests were collectively called the GOMBURZA.

Cavite Mutiny 1872
(Jan. 20, 1872), brief uprising of 200 Filipino troops and workers at the
Cavite arsenal, which became the excuse for Spanish repression of the embryonic
Philippine nationalist movement. Ironically, the harsh reaction of the Spanish
authorities served ultimately to promote the nationalist cause.

La Liga Filipina
La Liga Filipina was a peaceful group that did not believe in violence. But
the Spanish government thought it was dangerous. They had Rizal secretly arrested and
set away, or exiled, to Dapitan, a lonely island in the South.
When Bonifacio learned that Rizal had been exiled, he knew in his
heart that the days of peaceful reform were over. He believed it would take no
less than an armed revolution to free the Philippines from Spanish rule. Unlike Rizal
and other people in the reform movement, Bonifacio believed that the Philippines
should be totally separated from Spain.

Andres Bonifacio
In his essay "What the Filipinos Should Know," Bonifacio wrote in
Tagalog: "Reason tells us that we cannot expect anything but more sufferings,
more treachery, more insults, and more slavery. Reason tells us not to fritter
away time for the promised prosperity that will never come.
Reason teaches us to rely on ourselves and not to depend on others for
our living. Reason tells us to be united; that we may have the strength to combat
the evils in our country."
Bonifacio also wrote about how the Filipinos were tortured by the
Spaniards. They were bound, kicked, and hit with gun butts. They were
electrocuted and hung upside down like cattle.
He said that Filipino prisoners were "thrown into the sea, shot, poisoned."
For Bonifacio, it was time to take action. On the night of July 7, 1892 the same day he
heard that Rizal had been exiled Bonifacio met secretly with his friends at a house on Azcarraga
Street (now Claro M. Recto) in Tondo. Together with his two friends Ladislao Diwa and Teodoro
Plata, he formed the first triangle of a secret society which bore the initials K.K.K. The three letters
stood for Kataastaasan Kagalang-galang na Katipunan ng mga Anak ng Bayan, or Katipunan, for short.

Jose Rizal
There is a bit of controversy about Jose Rizal:
Most of you think that Jose Rizal was for the independence of the
Philippines. Sad to say he was not. In this quote he states his feelings about the
planned revolution.
"From the very beginning, when I first had notice of what was being planned,
I opposed it, fought it and demonstrated its absolute impossibility....
I did even more. When later, against my advice, the movement materialized, of
my own accord I offered not alone my good offices, but my very life and even
my name, to be used in whatever way might seem best, toward stifling the
rebellion; for, convinced of the ills which it would bring, I considered myself
fortunate if, at any sacrifice, I could prevent such useless missfortunes ....I
have written also (and I repeat my words) that reforms, to be beneficial, must
come from the above and those which come from below are irregularly gained and
uncertain.
Holding these ideas, I cannot do less than condemn and I do condemn this
uprising - as absurd, savage and plotted behind my back - which dishonors us
Filipinos and discredits those that could plead our cause. I abhor its criminal
methods and disclaim all part in it, pitying from the bottom of my heart the
unwary that have been deceived in to taking part in it."*

*From "The Hero of the Filipinos" by Charles Edward Russell & E.B. Rodriguez
1923, p.291

More on Jose Rizal
In full, JOSE PROTACIO RIZAL MERCADO Y ALONSO REALONDA
(born 19 June 1861, Calamba, Philippines- died 30 December 1896, Manila, Philippines), patriot,
physician and man of letters whose life and literary works were an inspiration to
the Philippine nationalist movement. Rizal was the son of a prosperous landowner and sugar planter of
Chinese-Filipino descent on the island of Luzon. His mother, Teodora Alonso, one of the
most highly educated women in the Philippines at that time, exerted a powerful
influence on his intellectual development.
He was educated at the Ateneo de Manila and the University of Santo Tomas in
Manila. In 1882, he went to study medicine and liberal arts at the University
of Madrid. A brilliant student, he soon became the leader of the small
community of Filipino students in Spain and committed himself to the reform of
Spanish rule in his home country, though he never advocated Philippine independence.
The chief enemy of reform, in his eyes, was not Spain, which was going
through a profound revolution, but the Franciscan, Augustinian and Dominican friars
who held the country in political and economic paralysis.
Rizal continued his medical studies in Paris and Heidelberg. In 1886, he
published his first novel in Spanish, Noli Me Tangere, a passionate exposure of
the evils of the friars rule, comparable in its effect to Harriet Beecher
Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin. A sequel, El Filibusterismo, 1891, established his
reputation as the leading spokesman of the Philippine reform movement. He annotated
an edition in 1890 on Antonio Morga's Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas, which
showed that the native people of the Philippines had a long history before the
coming of the Spaniards.

He became the leader of the Propaganda Movement, contributing numerous
articles to its newspaper, La Solidaridad, published in Barcelona. Rizal's political
program, as expressed in the newspaper, included integration of the
Philippines as a province of Spain, representation in the Cortes (the Spanish
parliament), the replacement of the Spanish friars by the Filipino priests, freedom of
assembly and expression, and equality of Filipinos and Spaniards before the
law. Against the advice of his parents and friends, Rizal returned to the
Philippines in 1892. He found a nonviolent reform society, La Liga Filipina, in
Manila, and was deported to Dapitan, in northwest Mindanao, an island south of the
Philippines. He remained in exile for four years, doing scientific research and
founding a school and hospital. In 1896, the Katipunan, a nationalist secret
society, launched a revolt against Spain. Although he had no connections with
that organization or any part in the insurrection, Rizal was arrested and
tried for sedition by the military. Found guilty, he was publicly executed by a
firing squad in Manila. His martyrdom convinced Filipinos that there was no
alternative to independence from Spain. On the eve of his execution, while
confined in Fort Santiago, Rizal wrote Mi Ultimo Adios ("My Last Farewell"), a
masterpiece of 19th-century Spanish verse.
Text provided by the Philippine Embassy in Vienna

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