Isabelo de los Reyes

Isabelo Florentino De Los Reyes, Sr.,^[1] also known as Don Belong (July 7, 1864 – October 10, 1938), was a prominent Filipino politician, writer and labor activist in the 19th and 20th centuries. He was the founder of the Aglipayan Church, an independent Philippine national church. For his writings and activism with labor unions, he was called the Father of Filipino Socialism.

As a young man, he followed his mother's footsteps by initially turning to writing as a career; he won a prize at the age of 23 for his first book. He became a journalist, editor, and publisher in Manila, and was imprisoned in 1897 for revolutionary activities. He was deported to Spain, where he was jailed until 1898. While living and working in Madrid, he was influenced by the writings of European socialists and Marxists. Returning to the Philippines in 1901, he founded the first labor union in the country. He also was active in seeking independence from the United States. After serving in the Philippine Senate, he settled into private life and religious writing.

Early life and education

Isabelo de los Reyes was born to Elias de los Reyes and Leona Florentino in Vigan, Ilocos Sur. His mother was recognized as the first woman poet of the Philippines. Due to their troubled marriage, Elias entrusted his 6-year-old son Isabelo to the care of Don Meno Crisologo, a wealthy relative.^[2] He was a writer in the vernacular. The boy was enrolled in a grammar school attached to the local seminary run by Augustinians; their harsh discipline made him a critic of the friars all his life. In 1880 at age 16, de los Reyes went to Manila, where he finished the Bachiller en Artes at the Colegio de San Juan de Letran. After that, he studied law, history and palaeography at the Pontifical University of Santo Tomas.

Early career

In 1887, at the age of 23, de los Reyes won a silver medal at the Exposición Filipina in Madrid for his Spanish-language book entitled El folk-lore filipino (Filipino Folklore). It was the same year that the Filipino writer Jose Rizal published his first novel, Noli Me Tangere in Berlin. As a teenager, de los Reyes had been intrigued by the growing interest in the "new science" of el saber popular (folklore). Manila's Spanish newspaper La Oceania Española asked readers to contribute articles on el folk-lore and offered directions on how to collect material. Two months later de los Reyes set to work on the folklore of Ilocos, Malabon, and Zambales, and what he called el folk-lore filipino. It became one of the greatest passions of his life. By 1886, as the French were starting serious study of folklore in relation to their own native traditions, de los Reyes was already producing a manuscript for publication.

After his father died when Isabelo was 18, the young man had to earn money to supplement an allowance from his mother. He pursued his passion for writing, contributing articles to most of Manila's newspapers. In 1889 he founded El Ilocano, said to be the first newspaper written solely in a Philippine vernacular.^[2] It was short-lived but influential. He continued to write and research extensively on Philippine history and culture, and was nicknamed Don Belong.

Marriage and family

At the age of 20, de los Reyes married in the Catholic Church, despite his personal feelings about its problems. He and his wife had children, but she died of illness in 1897 while he was in Bilibid Prison.^[2]

In late December 1898 in Madrid, he married Maria Angeles Lopez Montero, daughter of a retired Spanish infantry colonel. They also married in the Catholic Church. She died in 1910 during the birth of their ninth child.^[2]

De los Reyes married a third time in 1912, to Maria Lim, an 18-year-old Chinese mestiza of Tondo. They married in the independent Aglipayan Church, which he had helped found. They also had several children, and Maria died in childbirth in 1923. Before her death, she asked that they be married according to Catholic rites, which Don Belongo arranged. He and his three wives had a total of 27 children.^[2] He survived all his wives and 12 of his children.

With his own family spanning Catholic and Aglipayan traditions, Don Belong was tolerant of religious practice among his children. Isabelo de los Reyes, Jr., a son by his second marriage, was ordained as a priest and rose to Bishop of the Aglipayan Church. Four of his daughters: Angeles, Elisa, and Elvira by his second marriage, and Crescencia by his third marriage, became nuns of the Catholic Church.^[2]

Writing and exile

As a journalist, de los Reyes almost faced the firing squad for attracting the ire of Spanish authorities in highlighting Spanish church and governmental abuses during the movement for independence. He criticized the large haciendas of the friars while so many peasants were landless. In January 1897 he was arrested and held in Bilibid Prison for his part in the revolution. During this period, the writer Jose Rizal was among those executed. A change in governors won de los Reyes a measure of leniency, and in April General Fernando Primo de Rivera ordered him deported to Spain and prison in Barcelona.^[2]

In 1898 de los Reyes was released and given a job in the Spanish government, as Counselor of the Ministry of the Colonies (Consejero del Ministerio de Ultramar), which he held until 1901.^[2] While in Madrid, he published articles critical of the United States when they occupied the Philippines. He also published a biweekly newspaper, Filipinas ante Europa, which had the editorial logo: Contra Norte-America, no; contra el imperialismo, sí, hasta la muerte! (Against the Americans, no; against Imperialism, yes, till death!) It ran for 36 issues between 25 October 1899 and 10 June 1901. After closing (probably due to trouble with the authorities), it briefly reappeared as El Defensor de Filipinas, which ran monthly from 1 July to 1 October 1901.

Don Belong was not only a journalist, as he did much religious writing during his life, starting when he was first imprisoned. He helped to translate the Bible into the Ilocano vernacular. He became one of the few convicts to translate the Scriptures.

The Philippines and politics

On July 1, 1901, the Spanish government permitted Don Belong to return to the Philippines. He brought many books with him, among which were those written by Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Victor Hugo, Pierre Joseph Proudhon, Mikhail Bakunin, and other socialists of Europe. These books inspired him to introduce socialism to the Philippines, where he became known as the first Filipino Marxist.

After returning, de los Reyes was jailed for inciting labor strikes against American business firms. Influenced by anarchism and Marxism during his imprisonment in Barcelona, in 1902 de los Reyes founded the first labor union in the country, the Unión Obrera Democrática. He wanted to protect Filipinos against what he perceived as the exploitation of labor by American capitalist institutions. In the same year, he and other UNO members launched the Philippine Independent Church, to create a national church independent of the Pope and the Catholic Church. He chose his fellow Ilocano compatriot, Gregorio Aglipay, as its first bishop.

In 1912 at the age of 48, Don Belong was elected as councilor of the city of Manila, and began his political career. Winning re-election, he served as councilor until 1919.

Beginning his campaign for the senate in 1922, in 1923, de los Reyes won a Senate seat in an election against Elpidio Quirino to represent the Ilocos region.

After his term and the death of his third wife in childbirth, Don Belong returned to private life. He dedicated the remainder of his life to religious writings for the Aglipayan Church, in which he was made an honorary bishop. He wrote many sermons and other Christian literature, including the basic materials for the Aglipayan Church.

Works

• Biblia Filipina (Philippine Bible);
• Oficio Divino (Mass-Book);
• Catequesis (Catechism);
• Plegarias (Prayers);
• Genesis Cientifico y Moderno (Scientific and Modern Genesis); and
• Calendario Aglipayano (Aglipayan Calendar).
• Ang Singsing ng Dalagang Marmol (circa 1905), a novel^[1]

He also translated into Iloko the Gospels of the New Testament and the Acts of the Apostles.^[2]

Stricken with paralysis after a stroke in 1929, Don Belong was bedridden until his death in 1938. He was survived by 15 of his 27 children.^[2]

References

1. ^ ^{a b} "Ang Singsing nang Dalagang Marmol by Isabelo De Los Reyes". Filipiniana. http://www.filipiniana.net/publication/ang-singsing-nang-dalagang-marmol/12791881683750. Retrieved 18 June 2011. 
2. ^ ^{a b c d e f g h i j} "Isabelo de los Reyes", Provincia de Iloca Sur Official Website, accessed 12 Oct 2010

External links

• Works by Isabelo de los Reyes at Project Gutenberg
• Province of Ilocos Sur, Official Website
• "Isabelo de los Reyes", Senators Profile

Persondata
Name	Reyes, Isabelo De Los
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	July 7, 1864
Place of birth
Date of death	October 10, 1938
Place of death