Luis Enciso Villareal

Background

Luis Enciso Villareal was born on August 25, 1846, in Daraga, Albay, Philippines. He was the oldest among the four children of Francisco Villareal and Maria Espinas.

Education

Luis Enciso Villareal learned his first letters in the town school and later studied in the seminary of Nueva Caceres (now Naga) where he obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree.

Career

After graduating, Luis Enciso Villareal obtained an appointment as an official in the justice of the peace court of Albay presided over by Sr. Faced. When judge Feced was transferred to Bacolor, Pampanga, Villareal followed him there in the same capacity, and up to Tarlac, Tarlac, where he saw innocent citizens being persecuted by the parish curate. Having taken a hand in the release of these people, he was marked as a filibuster.

Resigning his position he settled in the town of his wife, in Arayat, Pampanga, where he earlier married. He engaged himself in farming, planted cacao and coffee, and traded in sugar and palay. He subsequently learned tailoring by himself by unsewing a suit that he ordered from Manila, and after several trials, he daringly set up a tailoring shop in Arayat, the first of its kind in that town. Wishing to send his children to better schools in Manila, he moved to the city in 1889, ordered a French manual of cutting from Paris, and in the same year established his shop on Legaspi Street, then on San Fernando Street, on the Escolta where the Brias Bldg. now stands, and lastly at Plaza Moraga. It must have been running on a profitable basis for he employed no less than twenty helpers at a time. It is very probable that he made wide acquaintances from the upper and lower class of Manila society in his shop.

He was initiated into masonry in February 1892, pertaining to the Taliba Lodge, in which he became venerable succeeding Jose Dizon. Later he was named representative to the Gran Consejo Regional. He must have joined, as a contributing member, La Propaganda, at an earlier date, and when this body was reorganized, he continued his subscription to the Cuerpo de Compromisarios. Favored by fortune, he won the first prize in the lottery draw of May 1895, and in the following July, he sailed for Japan with an avowed political mission and to visit his son, Antonio, then in Tokyo. Upon his return in August 1896, he was immediately placed under arrest two weeks after his arrival, and together with many others, was shot after sunrise on January 11, 1897.

Achievements

• Luis Enciso Villareal was a known Filipino tailor. He was particularly known for establishing a tailoring shop in Arayat, the first of its kind in that town. The advertisement for his shop was the only one appearing in one of the best cultural magazines being published during this period, namely La Ilustracion Filipina.
  
  He is especially remembered as a true patriot who was a member of the Propaganda Movement and one of the "Thirteen Martyrs of Bagumbayan."

Connections

Luis Enciso Villareal was married to Francisca Ochangco y Medina. The marriage produced six children.

Father:

Francisco Villareal

Mother:

Maria Espinas

Wife:

Francisca Ochangco y Medina

References

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