Apolinario Mabini

Apolinario Mabini was one of the foremost of the Philippine revolutionary heroes. He was the
"brains" of the revolution.

His wounds were of the body and of the spirit. His physical problems were perhaps most painful in the
way it seemed, even to his own eyes, to diminish his usefulness. The struggles in the fight for
independence from Spain were hurtful as well. They involved cutting the ties with Spain that, despite its
flaws, had emotional bonds that were hard to untangle. They involved an ugly and brutal war with the
United States, a country with democratic ideals, but painfully flawed racism. Now, however, in his last
years, Mabini found himself as an exile from the land he held most dear. No one tortured or mistreated
him. He taught his prison guards Spanish while they, in turn, returned the favor by teaching him English.
As prison life goes, it was not a harsh life. It was here that he wrote his chief work, La Revolución
Filipina. In it he sought to state for future generations his philosophy of life and the reasons he resisted
the rule of both Spain and the United States. Yet he longed for his homeland and the place he loved
most dear, the place he was willing to live and die for was not his to enjoy. There were American
sympathizers such as Senator George Hoar, who urged his release. However, the arguments of no less
than Elihu Root, the Secretary of War and William Howard Taft, the Governor of the Philippines, and
later President of the United States, opposed the action. Taft would write that Mabini was "the most
prominent irreconcilable among the Filipinos." He feared that the civil war would break out anew were
Mabini to return to the islands.

Mabini, therefore, remained in seclusion in Guam. Deported in 1901 he would remain there until a
few months before his death in 1903. Today Filipinos deeply admire Mabini. In those years, however, his
countrymen largely forgot him. When he returned to the Philippines people welcomed him as the
nationalist he was. However, the Philippines was turning to the ways of its American tutors. It would not
be for another fifty years that the dream of an independent nation would become a reality. In many
ways Mabini's dreams of independence seemed irrelevant. He died in poverty. While he was one of the
ilustrado class, he had risen from the peasantry from Talaga, Tanauan, Batangas. His Father was a
"cabeza de barangay" (headman and taxgather for fifty families) but uneducated. His mother had some
formal education and from her Mabini gained some rudimentary education. Mabini dedicated his
closing memoirs, La Revolución Filipina to his mother and indicated that she had aspired that he be a
priest. "Realizing that you were too poor to meet the expenses of my education," wrote Mabini, "you
worked as hard as you could, heedless of sun and rain, until you caught the illness that took you to your
grave." His grandfather, Juan Maranan, was a popular teacher. While tutoring Mabini's elder brother, his
grandfather noticed that young Apolinario learned the lesson earlier. Although impoverished he was
able to study in Manila. He began his studies at the Colegio de San Juan de Letrain in 1881 and later
received a law degree in 1894 from the University of Santo Thomas.
 During this time he supported himself in part by teaching Latin. His work as a copyist in the Court of
First Instance, however, proved even more important. It was here that he came under the influence of
Numeriano Adriano who was not only his superior but one with whom Mabini would develop a deep
friendship. It was here that Mabini first began to sense the nationalistic feelings that were spreading
among educated Filipinos. The social and political issues of the day developed a spirit to which Mabini
would dedicate his entire life. It was also during this time, around 1896, that Mabini developed polio
mellitus that was to deprive him of the use of his legs.

Mabini was a man who sought to live a principled life. The effects of war were troubling to his spirit. As
the United States would learn many years later in Viet Nam, brutality, on both sides, brought out the
worst of the human spirit. Especially troubling to Mabini were the abuses of Filipino soldier to Filipino
citizen. His decree of June 18, 1898, included provisions that would curb military abuses. He brought
those abuses that came to his attention before Aguinaldo. The general, however, ignored most of these
criminal actions. He would put in his closing remarks in La Revolución Filipina the "disgust I felt
whenever I heard of the rape of Filipinas by Filipino soldiers..... I am sure that the first instances would
not have been repeated if the commanders concerned had punished such outrages energetically and
without hesitation. How shall we get foreigners to respect our women when we ourselves set the
example of offending them?" American forces captured Mabini on December 10, 1899. Soon thereafter,
Aguinaldo met a similar fate. For awhile, Mabini lived under house arrest. Refusing to submit to
American authority, Mabini continued to write inflammatory tracts against the occupying power. The
American government exiled Mabini to Guam in 1901.

Mabini, like José Rizal, was a true Filipino nationalist and a devoted patriot. Fate would place his life as
that of a mediator between the people's will and the decisions of the first leadership of the Philippines.
His life, despite some flaws, was selfless and motivated by high ideals. He would state, "I have no other
balm to sweeten the bitterness of a harsh and melncholy life than the satisfaction given by the
conviction of having always done what I believed to be my duty. God grant that I can say the same at the
hour of my death.