Marcelo Hilario Del Pilar

Background

Marcelo Del Pilar was born in Cupang (now Barangay San Nicolas), Bulacan, Philippines, on August 30, 1850, to cultured parents.

Education

He studied at the Colegio de San José and later at the University of Santo Tomas, where he finished his law course in 1880.

Career

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 solidaridad in Madrid. He promoted the objectives of the paper by contacting liberal Spaniards who would side with the Filipino cause. 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. Del Pilar died in Barcelona on July 4, 1896.

Achievements

• Del Pilar expanded his anti-friar movement from Malolos to Manila and later became known as one of the leaders of the Reform Movement in Spain. His ideas inspired Andres Bonifacio's Katipunan, a secret revolutionary organization.

Politics

He tried to marshal the nationalist sentiment of the enlightened Filipino ilustrados, or bourgeoisie, against Spanish imperialism. 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.

Under Del Pilar, as editor, the aims of the the Filipino reformist periodical La solidaridad 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.

Views

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.

Quotations: "Insurrection is the last remedy, especially when the people have acquired the belief that peaceful means to secure the remedies for evils prove futile. "

Connections

Father:

Julian Hilario del Pilar

Mother:

Blasa Gatmaitan