“The best assessment of M. H. del Pilar alias Plaridel was made by his enemies. Spanish historians say he was the equal of Rizal in the power of his intellect, his courage and his love of country.”
PLARIDEL was only his pen name. All revolutionaries and some modern-day columnists have pen names. The purposes are the same: to evade persecution, prosecution, arrest or assassination.
His real name was Marcelo H. del Pilar. And for some strange reason, he is one national hero who needs an introduction even to journalists who claim him as their patron saint.
The best assessment of M. H. del Pilar alias Plaridel was made by his enemies. Spanish historians say he was the equal of Rizal in the power of his intellect, his courage, and his love of country. The last Spanish governor general Ramon Blanco, said that among indio “separatists” ( that’s what Spaniards called indios-filipinos who wanted independent from Spain), he was the most intelligent and the one Spaniards feared most. And with reason.
Marcel H. del Pilar was no unlettered, wild-eyed, ragtag “remontado,” with a grudge and a bolo. He was a learned man of letters with a law degree from Santo Tomas, born to the “principalia,” the native aristocracy. His father was a three-term “gobernadorcillo” of Bulacan and his mother of the clan of Gatmaitan descended from old Tagalog nobility, among those who were allowed to keep their native surnames. One of his brothers was a priest, Father Toribio, who had been implicated with Gomburza in the Cavite Mutiny of 1872 and had been exiled to Guam. He had a mighty pen and all he wanted was to use it as a journalist to save his country.
As a young man of 30, he founded, financed and wrote the first Filipino newspaper, the “Diaryong Tagalog,” devoted entirely to denouncing the abuses and maladministration of the Spanish regime and the religious corporations. His columns against the friars were wittier and more devastating that those of today’s celebrity journalists.
He was also an agitator, an “agent provocateur.” He instigated all the barangay captains of Malolos to stop paying taxes, and took the curate of Tondo to court for racism and discrimination against the indios. He also organized and led the first ever, people-power demonstration in Manila in March 1888, demanding the deportation of the archbishop of Manila and the expulsion of the friars. Eight hundred Filipino leaders signed the manifesto that M. H. del Pilar wrote.
He escaped arrest by leaving hurriedly for Barcelona to join the Propaganda Movement of the expatriate ilustrados in Spain. He headed the political section of the Asociacion Hispano-Filipina in Madrid and wrote inflammatory pamphlets in Spanish like “Friar Supremacy in the Philippines,” “Be Like the Eel,” and a defense of Rizal’s Noli against a scurrilous Spanish attack. For five years he edited and wrote La Solidaridad, the newspaper that championed the cause of Philippine autonomy.
After years of destitution, lack of funds and ill-health, Del Pilar, like Rizal, Luna, Ponce and other colleagues realized that reforms or independence could come only through a bloody revolution. In November 1895, La Solidaridad closed down, Rizal had returned to Manila and was incarcerated in Dapitan. Antonio Luna went to a war college in Belgium to prepare to fight.
Del Pilar bought a ticket to Manila, but years of hardship and malnutrition had taken their toll. On the eve of his departure, on July 4, 1896, Del Pilar had what must have been a lung hemorrhage from the advanced tuberculosis he had been suffering from and died alone in a hovel in Barcelona. He was 46.
The next month on August 26, the Revolution M. H. del Pilar had hoped to join exploded in Pinaglabana, San Juan under Bonifacio and his Katipuneros. He never did make it to the battle fields but he had done his work well.
His ideas and words reverberate through the years, in flaming the Katipunan, inspiring the armies of First Philippine Republic in the Philippine-American War, giving strength and purpose to the struggle for independence from America of the generations of Quezon and Recto and they continue to resonate in the manifestos, articles and lectures of present-day journalists. His editorials are now syndicated (in English translations) in dozens of broadsheets in Metro Manila and the provinces.
Readers of this newspaper read them every Sunday in the editorial page, courtesy of Samahang Plaridel.