Faustino Villarruel

Background

Faustino Villarruel was born on April 23, 1841, in Manila, Philippines. He was the son of Alejandro Villarruel and Manuela Gomara.

Education

Faustino Villarruel studied at the Colegio de San Juan de Letran. During his student years, he was a tiple, that means the soprano voice of a boy.

Career

After graduating from the Colegio de San Juan de Letran, Faustino Villarruel engaged himself in the buying and selling of rice and sugar in Cabanatuan, Nueva Ecija. His business venture did not succeed, however, and he was forced to sell the lands he had acquired.

Then Villarruel moved to Manila, where he secured employment in the office of a Spanish lawyer. And after an apprenticeship for years, he opened a notarial office on Calle Jolo, now Juan Luna Street. After some time, he was again engaged in general merchandising, now dealing in firewood, rattan, rice and copra. Later, he acquired, about 1882, a warehouse on Murrallon, now Muelle de la Industria, just across the Pasig River opposite Fort Santiago. His business prospered and he soon acquired three sailboats, which plied the waters to Tayabas, Marinduque, the Bikol region, and to the south. He also accepted consignment jobs.

Soon after the first masonic lodges were established in Manila, he was initiated, adopting the masonic name Ilaw. Later, he founded Lodge Patria, of which he became the venerable master, having attained grade 18. This lodge was later reconstituted and renamed Walana in May 1893. He traveled north and south, initiating members and founding lodges. The masonic triangle Vanguardia, Artigas stated (post), was formed in Hong Kong through the effort of Jose Ma. Basa. This post was placed under Lodge Walana until it became converted into a lodge, Villarruel and Basa converting these two points into centers for the diffusion of propaganda literature. It was mainly due to his initiative and work, that the Gran Consejo Regional, the first central masonic organization in the archipelago, came to be established in 1893. For this purpose, his house on Asuncion Street became a center of masonic activity and propaganda. Another product of his ingenuity was the founding of a lodge for women, named La Semilla, to which his daughter, Rosario, the first Filipina woman mason, initiated on July 18, 1893, belonged.

Villarruel was also among the active organizers of the Comite de Conspromisarios, the members of which pledged themselves to finance the propaganda work, carried on by M. H. del Pilar and others abroad. Together with Ambrosio Flores, he traveled in the provinces, soliciting contributions for Rizal, the definite purpose of which not being given. Rizal then was an exile in Dapitan.

A few days soon after the betrayal of the Katipunan, Villarruel was arrested in his house before midnight on August 21, 1896, and thrown into Fort Santiago, where later other suspects were imprisoned. Together with twelve other Filipinos, he was shot shortly after sunrise on January 11, 1897, on the Bagumbayan field, where Rizal had fallen twelve days before this. He told his daughter, who visited him a day before, not to shed tears so long as there was a Filipino, left in the country, to defend the cause.

Achievements

• Faustino Villarruel was known as a tireless mason and a true apostle of masonry who held Masonic meetings in his home. He was also recognized as the founder of such masonic lodges as Walana Lodge and Patria Lodge. He is remembered as one of the "Thirteen Martyrs of Bagumbayan."

Connections

Faustino Villarruel was married to Maria Navarrete.

Father:

Alejandro Villarruel

Mother:

Manuela Gomara

Wife:

Maria Navarrete

References

• Dictionary of Philippine Biography A book by E. Arsenio Manuel.
  1970