Biography
Marcelo H. del Pilar was born on August 30, 1850 in Cupang, Bulacán, Bulacan. His parents were Don Julián H. del Pilar, an excellent Tagalog grammarian, speaker, and poet, and Doña Blasa Gatmaitán, familiarly known as Blasica. Don Julian was three times gobernadorcillo of the pueblo of Bulacan and afterwards oficial de mesa of the alcalde mayor of the province. The name of the family was Hilario; but pursuant to a decree of Claveria's, in 1849, the surname of the grandmother, Del Pilar, had to be added. His oldest brother, Toribio, was a priest. Del Pilar married his cousin Marciana (Tsanay). The couple had seven children (of which five died in infancy).
Del Pilar learned his first letters from his paternal uncle Alejo del Pilar. Because his family was highly cultured, it was not long before he played the piano, violin, and flute. He began his studies in the school of José Flores; he then passed to the Colegio de San José, and then to the Universidad de Santo Tomás. A disagreement with the parish priest of San Miguel, Manila, concerning baptismal fees, in 1870, caused a regrettable break of eight years in the fourth year in the study of his profession, jurisprudence. Out of school, he worked as oficial de mesa in Pampanga and Quiapo. He finished his law course in 1880. After finishing law, he worked for the Manila Royal Audiencia.
When the uprising in Cavite took place, del Pilar was living with the Filipino priest, Mariano Sevilla, who was one of those exiled to the Marianas in the aftermath. Though he was active in discussions with his friends who favored change through education like Mariano Ponce, Pedro Serrano Laktaw, Numeriano Adriano, and Apolinario Mabini, he escaped persecution in 1872.
Del Pilar was an indefatigable writer. His fluency in both Spanish and Tagalog enabled him to compose a series of anti-friar pamphlets in Tagalog. He wrote Dasalan at Tocsohan (Prayerbook and Teasing Game), a satire on the friars' hypocrisy, licentiousness and cupidity, which consists of parodies of the Sign of the Cross, the Act of Contrition, the Lord's Prayer, the Hail Mary, and the catechism. He also wrote pamphlets that characterized the friars as exploitative and repressive, such as La Soberanía Monacal en Filipinas (Monastic Sovereignty in the Philippines), Ang Cadaquilaan ng Dios (God's Goodness), and La Frailocracia Filipina (Frailocracy in the Philippines). The long poem Sagót ng España sa Hibíc ng Filipinas (The Response of Spain to the Pleas of the Philippines) was an answer to Hermenegildo Flores' Hibíc ng Filipinas sa Inang España (The Plea of the Philippines to Mother Spain), which portrayed the exploitation of indios (natives) under the friars. His Caiigat Cayó (Be Like the Eel) is also well-known. In it he defended Rizal's Noli Me Tangere, and attacked the friars as traffickers in religion, deteriorating Jesus' religion, etc. As a parodist, del Pilar was at his best at Pasióng Dapat Ipag-alab nang Puso nang Tauong Babasa (Passion That Should Inflame the Heart of the Reader), where he uses popular 'sacramental' forms for his anti-friar attacks. In short poems such as Dupluhan, del Pilar gave an inflammatory content to the form of the duplo.
In 1885, del Pilar urged the cabezas de barangay of Malolos to resist the government order giving the friars blanket authority to decide whose names were to be deleted from the list of taxpayers. He instigated the gobernadorcillo of Malolos, Manuel Crisóstomo, to denounce in 1887 the parish priest who opposed government prohibition against the exposure of bodies in the churches. In the same year, he denounced the curate of Binondo church for consigning indios to poor seats while assigning the pleasant ones to Spanish mestizos.
Del Pilar's most spectacular plan occurred on March 1, 1888. Assisted by Doroteo Cortés and José A. Ramos, the demonstrators presented to the civil governor of Manila a manifesto entitled "¡Viva España! ¡Viva la Reina! ¡Viva el Ejército! ¡Fuera los Frailes!" (Long live Spain! Long live the King! Long live the Army! Away with the Friars!). This document, which had been signed by most of the native officials of Manila and neighboring towns, was written by del Pilar. It accused the archbishop of Manila and the friars of disobedience and treason and demanded the friars' expulsion from the Philippines.
Not much later, Emilio Terrero was succeeded by the more decisive Valeriano Wéyler as governor general of the Philippines. Warned, del Pilar left Manila for Spain on October 28, 1888, stopping in Hong Kong, where he spent some time in the company of a group of Filipinos led by José María Basa. Before his departure, he organized Caja de Jesús, María y José intended to provide scholarship grants to poor but intelligent children and the Comité de Propaganda, which functioned to collect funds to support the propaganda work and constitute liaison between the propagandists in Spain and those in the Philippines.
Del Pilar arrived in Spain on January 1, 1889, leaving his family behind. He headed the political section of the Asociación Hispano-Filipina de Madrid (Hispanic Filipino Association of Madrid) founded by Filipino ilustrados and Spanish sympathizers, the purpose of which was to agitate for reforms from Spain. He succeeded Graciano López Jaena as editor of La Solidaridad on December 15, 1889. He promoted the objectives of the paper by contacting liberal Spaniards who would side with the Filipino cause. Under his editorship, the aims of the newspaper were expanded to include removal of the friars and the secularization of the parishes; active Filipino participation in the affairs of the government; freedom of speech, of the press, and of assembly; wider social and political freedoms; equality before the law; assimilation; and representation in the Spanish Parliament.
After years of publication from 1889 to 1895, La Solidaridad had begun to run out of funds. Its last issue appeared on November 15, 1895. Months before the revolution, del Pilar circulated in Manila and neighboring provinces his political works entitled La Patria (The Homeland) and Ministerio de la Republica Filipina (Ministry of the Philippine Republic) in preparation for his return to personally lead a revolution. In Barcelona he was overtaken by the increasing bad health of the past year or more, and after several months of illness, he died on July 4, 1896, just one year and eleven months before the declaration of independence from Spain by Emilio Aguinaldo. His remains were brought back to the Philippines in 1920.
Father of Philippine Masonry
Considered the Father of Philippine Masonry, del Pilar spearheaded the secret organization of masonic lodges in the Philippines as a means of strengthening the Propaganda Movement. He became a freemason in 1889 and became a close friend of Miguel Morayta Sagrario, a professor at the Universidad Central de Madrid and Grand Master of Masons of the Grande Oriente Español.
Organized in his memory, the Samahang Plaridel is a fellowship of journalists and other communicators that aims to propagate Marcelo H. del Pilar’s ideals. This fellowship fosters within its capacity, mutual help, cooperation, and assistance among its members; dedicated to the journalistic standards of accuracy and truth, and in promoting these standards in the practice of journalism.
Plaridel is the chosen patron saint of today’s journalists, as his life and works prized freedom of thought and opinion most highly, loving independence above any material gain. Plaridel’s ideology of truth, fairness and impartiality is anchored on democratic principles, as these are the bastions of a society acceptable to all Filipinos.
The building that houses the Polytechnic University of the Philippines Graduate School is named after him.
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