Apolinario Mabini y Maranan
(July 23, 1864 – May 13, 1903) was a Filipino revolutionary leader, educator, lawyer, and statesman who
served first as a legal and constitutional adviser to the Revolutionary Government, and then as the
first Prime Minister of the Philippines upon the establishment of the First Philippine Republic. He is
regarded as the "utak ng himagsikan" or "brain of the revolution".
Two of his works, El Verdadero Decalogo (The True Decalogue, June 24, 1898), and Programa
Constitucional dela Republica Filipina (The Constitutional Program of the Philippine Republic, 1898)
became instrumental in the drafting of what would eventually be known as the Malolos Constitution.
Mabini performed all his revolutionary and governmental activities despite having lost the use of both his
legs to polio] shortly before the Philippine Revolution of 1896.
Mabini's role in Philippine history saw him confronting first Spanish colonial rule in the opening days of the
Philippine Revolution, and then American colonial rule in the days of the Philippine–American War. The
latter saw Mabini captured and exiled to Guam by American colonial authorities, allowed to return only two
months before his eventual death in May 1903.
Early life and education
Apolinario Mabini was born on July 23, 1864 in Barangay Talaga in Tanauan, Batangas. He was the
second of eight children of Dionisia Maranan y Magpantay, a vendor in the Tanauan market, and Inocencio
Leon Mabini y Lira, an illiterate peasant.
In 1881 Mabini received a scholarship to go to the Colegio de San Juan de Letran in Manila. An anecdote
about his stay there says that a professor there decided to pick on him because his shabby clothing clearly
showed he was poor. Mabini amazed the professor by answering a series of very difficult questions with
ease. His studies at Letran were periodically interrupted by a chronic lack of funds, and he earned money
for his board and lodging by teaching children.[5]
Law Studies
Mabini's mother had wanted him to enter the priesthood, but his desire to defend the poor made him decide
to study law instead. A year after receiving his Bachiller en Artes with highest honors and the title Professor
of Latin from Letran, he moved on to the University of Santo Tomas, where he received his law degree in
1894.
Polio and eventual paralysis
Mabini was struck by polio in 1895, and the disease gradually incapacitated him until January 1896, when
he finally lost the use of both his legs.
1896 Revolution and Arrest
When the plans of the Katipunan were discovered by Spanish authorities, and the first active phase of the
1896 Philippine Revolution began in earnest, Mabini, still ill, was arrested along with numerous other
members of La Liga Filipina.
Thirteen patriots arrested in Cavite were tried and eventually executed, earning them the title of "Thirteen
Martyrs of Cavite." Jose Rizal himself was accused of being party to the revolution, and would eventually
be executed in December that year.
When the Spanish authorities saw that Mabini was paralyzed, however, they decided to release him. [11][12]
Adviser to the Revolutionary Government
Sent to the hospital after his arrest, Mabini remained in ill health for a considerable time. He was seeking
the curative properties of the hot springs in Los Baños, Laguna in 1898 when Emilio Aguinaldo sent for him,
asking him to serve as advisor to the revolution.
During this convalescent period, Mabini wrote the pamphlets "El Verdadero Decálogo" and "Ordenanzas de
la Revolución." Aguinaldo was impressed by these works and by Mabini's role as a leading figure in La Liga
Filipina, and made arrangements for Mabini to be brought from Los Baños to Kawit, Cavite. It took
hundreds of men taking turns carrying his hammock to portage Mabini to Kawit.
He continued to serve as the chief adviser for General Aguinaldo after the Philippine Declaration of
Independence on June 12. He drafted decrees and edited the constitution for the First Philippine Republic,
including the framework of the revolutionary government which was implemented in Malolos in 1899.
Apolinario Mabini (1864-1903) was a Filipino political philosopher and architect of the Philippine
revolution. He formulated the principles of a democratic popular government, endowing the
historical struggles of the Filipino people with a coherent ideological orientation.
In May 1898 Emilio Aguinaldo summoned Mabini to act as his adviser. Mabini formulated the famous
decree of June 18, which reorganized the local government under Filipino control. His policy throughout the
struggle can be epitomized by a statement in that decree: "The first duty of the government is to interpret
the popular will faithfully. "Mabini was also instrumental in supervising the proper administration of justice,
the election of delegates to the revolutionary congress, and the establishment of the mechanism of the
revolutionary government itself.
When the revolutionary congress was convoked in Barasoain, Malolos, Bulacan, on Sept. 15, 1898, Mabini
found himself opposed to the plans of the wealthy bourgeoisie to draft a constitution. He believed that,
given the emergency conditions of war, the function of the congress was simply to advise the president and
not to draft a constitution. Defeated by the majority, Mabini then submitted his own constitutional plan,
based on the Statutes of Universal Masonry. It was rejected in favor of a composite draft submitted by
Felipe G. Calderon, which became the basis of the Malolos Constitution of the first Philippine Republic.
Mabini's conflict with the conspiracy of property owners and the landlord class in the congress led to his
eclipse in 1899 as Aguinaldo's trusted adviser—the only competent thinker and theoretician in the
Aguinaldo Cabinet. Mabini succeeded in exposing the vicious opportunism of the Paterno-Buencamino
clique, who were trying to gain control over, and to profit from, the financial transactions of the revolutionary
government. When the Aguinaldo camp fled from the advancing American forces, Mabini was captured on
Dec. 10, 1899. Still refusing to swear an oath of allegiance to the U.S. government and continuing to
support the insurgents in their ideological struggle, he was deported to Guam in 1901. He died on May 13,
1903.
Mabini's chief work, La Revolution Filipina, a reasoned analysis and cogent argument concerning the
ideological implications of the revolution against Spain and the resistance to the American invaders, reveals
the progressive and democratic impulse behind his thinking. He always tried to mediate between the
people's will and the decisions of their leaders. He was a selfless and dedicated patriot.
Emilio Aguinaldo y Famy March 22, 1869 – February 6, 1964) was a Filipino revolutionary, politician,
and military leader who is officially recognized as the first and the youngest President of the
Philippines (1899–1901) and the first president of a constitutional republic in Asia. He led Philippine forces
first against Spain in the latter part of the Philippine Revolution (1896–1898), then in the Spanish–American
War (1898), and finally against the United States during the Philippine–American War (1899–1901).
In 1935, Aguinaldo ran unsuccessfully for president of the Philippine Commonwealth against Manuel
Quezon. He was also one of the Filipino historical figures to be recommended as a national hero of the
Philippines.
Early life and career
Emilio Famy Aguinaldo Sr. was born on March 22, 1869 in Cavite el Viejo (present-day Kawit),
in Cavite Province, to Carlos Jamir Aguinaldo and Trinidad Famy-Aguinaldo, a Tagalog-ilocano Chinese
mestizo couple that had eight children, the seventh of whom was Emilio Sr. The Aguinaldo family was quite
well-to-do, as his father, Carlos J. Aguinaldo, was the community's appointed gobernadorcillo (municipal
governor) in the Spanish colonial administration and his grandparents Eugenio K. Aguinaldo and Maria
Jamir-Aguinaldo. He studied at Colegio de San Juan de Letran but could not finish his studies because of
an outbreak of cholera in 1882.
He became the "Cabeza de Barangay" in 1895 when the Maura Law called for the reorganization of local
governments was enacted. At the age of 25, Aguinaldo became Cavite el Viejo's first gobernadorcillo
capitan municipal (municipal governor-captain) while he was on a business trip in Mindoro.
Synopsis
Revolutionary leader Emilio Aguinaldo was born on March 22, 1869, in Kawit, Cavite, Philippines. In 1898,
he achieved independence of the Philippines from Spain and was elected the first president of the new
republic under the Malolos Congress. He also led the Philippine-American War against U.S. resistance to
Philippine independence. Aguinaldo died of a heart attack on February 6, 1964, in Quezon City,
Philippines.
Early Life
Emilio Aguinaldo was born on March 22, 1869, in Kawit, Cavite, Philippines. Nicknamed Miong, Aguinaldo
was the seventh of eight children. His parents were of Chinese and Tagalog descent. His father, Carlos,
died when Aguinaldo was just nine years old. Widowed, his mother, Trinidad, sent him to attend public
school in Manila.
Having had to cut his studies short at the Colegio de San Juan de Letran due to a cholera
outbreak, Aguinaldo returned home to Kawit, where he developed a growing awareness of Filipino
frustration with Spanish colonial rule.
While serving as the head of barter in Manila, he joined the Pilar Lodge chapter of the Freemasonry in
1895. The Freemasonry was a government- and church-banned resistance group. It was through his role
as municipal captain of this fraternity that Aguinaldo met Andres Bonifacio, a key figure in the fight to
overthrow Spanish rule.
Independence From Spain
Eager to fight for the cause of Philippine independence, in 1895 Aguinaldo took up with a secret society of
revolutionaries headed by fellow lodge member Andres Bonifacio. When a rival faction executed Bonifacio
in 1897, Aguinaldo assumed total leadership of the revolution against Spain.
By December 1897, Aguinaldo had managed to reach the Truce of Biak-na-Bato with Spain. He and his
rebels agreed to a surrendering of arms and accepted exile to Hong Kong in exchange for amnesty,
indemnity and liberal reform. However, neither side kept up their end of the bargain. The Spanish
government did not deliver in full all that was promised, and the rebels did not truly surrender arms. In fact,
Aguinaldo's revolutionaries used some of Spain's financial compensation to purchase additional arms for
the resistance. From Hong Kong, Aguinaldo also made arrangements to assist Americans fighting against
Spain in the Spanish-American War. As neither peace nor independence had been achieved, in 1898
Aguinaldo returned to the Philippines to resume his rebellion against Spanish rule.
Back in Cavite, Aguinaldo forcibly set up a provisional dictatorship. After meeting with the Malolos
Congress and drafting a constitution for a new republic, on June 12, 1898, Aguinaldo at last declared
Philippine independence. Announced from his hometown of Kawit, Aguinaldo's proclamation put an end to
four centuries of Philippine oppression under Spanish Colonial rule. In January of the following year,
dressed in a white suit at Barasoain Church in Malolos City, Aguinaldo was sworn in as the first president of
the new, self-governed Philippine republic.