Apolinario Mabini y Maranan

Apolinario Mabini y Maranan
(Tagalog: [apolɪˈnaɾ.jo maˈbinɪ], July 23, 1864 – May 13, 1903) was a

Filipino revolutionary leader, educator, lawyer, and statesman who served first as a legal and
constitutional adviser to the Revolutionary Government, and then as the first Prime Minister of the
Philippines upon the establishment of the First Philippine Republic. He is regarded as the "utak ng
himagsikan" or "brain of the revolution" and is also considered as a national hero in the Philippines.
Mabini's work and thoughts on the government shaped the Philippines' fight for independence over
the next century.
Two of his works, El Verdadero Decálogo (The True Decalogue, June 24, 1898) and Programa
Constitucional de la República Filipina (The Constitutional Program of the Philippine Republic,
1898), became instrumental in the drafting of what would eventually be known as the Malolos
Constitution.
Mabini performed all his revolutionary and governmental activities despite having lost the use of both
his legs to polio shortly before the Philippine Revolution of 1896.
Mabini's role in Philippine history saw him confronting first Spanish colonial rule in the opening days
of the Philippine Revolution, and then American colonial rule in the days of the Philippine–American
War. The latter saw Mabini captured and exiled to Guam by American colonial authorities, allowed to
return only two months before his eventual death in May 1903.
Apolinario Mabini was born on July 23, 1864, in Barangay Talaga in Tanauan, Batangas. He was the
second of eight children of Dionisia Maranan y Magpantay, a vendor in the Tanauan market, and
Inocencio Leon Mabini y Lira, an illiterate peasant.
Apolinario Mabini attended the historical school of Father Valerio Malabanan located in Lipa.[7] Being
poor, Apolinario Mabini was able to get educated due to the Malabanan school's matriculation of
students based on their academic merit rather than ability of the parents to pay. He would meet
future leader Miguel Malvar while studying in Lipa.
In 1881, Mabini received a scholarship from Colegio de San Juan de Letran in Manila. An anecdote
about his stay there says that a professor there decided to pick on him because his shabby clothing
clearly showed he was poor. Mabini amazed the professor by answering a series of very difficult
questions with ease. His studies at Letran were periodically interrupted by a chronic lack of funds,
and he earned money for his board and lodging by teaching children.
Law Studies[edit]
Mabini's mother had wanted him to enter the priesthood, but his desire to defend the poor made him
decide to study law instead. A year after receiving his Bachiller en Artes with highest honors and the
title Professor of Latin from Letran, he moved on to University of Santo Tomas, where he received
his law degree in 1894.
Comparing Mabini's generation of Filipino intellectuals to the previous one of Jose Rizal and the
other members of the propagandists movement, Journalist and National Artist of the Philippines for
Literature Nick Joaquin describes Mabini's generation as the next iteration in the evolution of Filipino
intellectual development:
Europe had been a necessary catalyst for the generation of Rizal. By the time of Mabini, the
Filipino intellectual had advanced beyond the need for enlightenment abroad[....] The very
point of Mabini’s accomplishment is that all his schooling, all his training, was done right here
in his own country. The argument of Rizal’s generation was that Filipinos were not yet ready
for self-government because they had too little education and could not aspire for more in
their own country. The evidence of Mabini’s generation was that it could handle the affairs of
government with only the education it had acquired locally. It no longer needed Europe; it
had imbibed all it needed of Europe.
Mabini joined the Guild of Lawyers after graduation, but he did not choose to practice law in a
professional capacity. He did not set up his own law office, and instead continued to work in the
office of a notary public.
Instead, Mabini put his knowledge of law to much use during the days of the Philippine
Revolution and the Filipino-American war. Joaquin notes that all his contributions to Philippine
history somehow involved the law:
"His was a legal mind. He was interested in law as an idea, as an ideal whenever he appears
in our history he is arguing a question of legality."
Not long after his return, Mabini died of cholera in Manila on May 13, 1903, at the age of 38.

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Apolinario Mabini y Maranan

(Tagalog: [apolɪˈnaɾ.jo maˈbinɪ], July 23, 1864 – May 13, 1903) was a

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