Marcelo Hilario Del Pilar Facts

Marcelo H. Del Pilar (1850-1896) was a Philippine revolutionary

propagandist and satirist. He tried to marshal the nationalist sentiment
of the enlightened Filipino ilustrados, or bourgeoisie, against Spanish
imperialism.
Marcelo Del Pilar was born in Kupang, Bulacan, on Aug. 30, 1850, to cultured
parents. He studied at the Colegio de San José and later at the University of
Santo Tomas, where he finished his law course in 1880. Fired by a sense of
justice against the abuses of the clergy, Del Pilar attacked bigotry and hypocrisy
and defended in court the impoverished victims of racial discrimination. He
preached the gospel of work, self-respect, and human dignity. His mastery of
Tagalog, his native language, enabled him to arouse the consciousness of the
masses to the need for unity and sustained resistance against the Spanish
tyrants.
In 1882 Del Pilar founded the newspaper Diariong Tagalog to propagate
democratic liberal ideas among the farmers and peasants. In 1888 he defended
José Rizal's polemical writings by issuing a pamphlet against a priest's attack,
exhibiting his deadly wit and savage ridicule of clerical follies.
In 1888, fleeing from clerical persecution, Del Pilar went to Spain, leaving his
family behind. In December 1889 he succeeded Graciano Lopez Jaena as editor
of the Filipino reformist periodical La solidaridadin Madrid. He promoted the
objectives of the paper by contacting liberal Spaniards who would side with the
Filipino cause. Under Del Pilar, 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 Cortes, or Parliament.
Del Pilar's difficulties increased when the money to support the paper was
exhausted and there still appeared no sign of any immediate response from the
Spanish ruling class. Before he died of tuberculosis caused by hunger and
enormous privation, Del Pilar rejected the assimilationist stand and began
planning an armed revolt. He vigorously affirmed this conviction: "Insurrection is
the last remedy, especially when the people have acquired the belief that
peaceful means to secure the remedies for evils prove futile." This idea inspired
Andres Bonifacio's Katipunan, a secret revolutionary organization. Del Pilar died
in Barcelona on July 4, 1896.
Del Pilar's militant and progressive outlook derived from the classic
Enlightenment tradition of the French philosophes and the scientific empiricism
of the European bourgeoisie. Part of this outlook was transmitted by
Freemasonry, to which Del Pilar subscribed.

Further Reading on Marcelo Hilario Del Pilar

An important source of information about Del Pilar is Magno S.
Gatmaitan, Marcelo H. del Pilar, 1850-1896: A Documented Biography (1966).

Additional Biography Sources

Gatmaitan, Magno, The life and writings of Marcelo Hilario del Pilar, Manila:
Historical Conservation Society; Los Angeles, Calif.; Philippine Expressions Corp.
distributor, 1987.
Encyclopedia of World Biography. Copyright 2010 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved