Favorite Philippine Hero

Apolinario Mabini (1864- 1893), 38 years old

Apolinario Mabini y Maranan was born on July 22 or 23, 1864 in Talaga, Tanauwan, Batangas, about 70 km (43.5 miles) south of Manila.  His parents were very poor; father Inocencio Mabini was a peasant farmer, and mother Dionisia Maranan supplemented their farm income as a vendor at the local market.  Apolinario was the second of their eight children.

As a child, Apolinario was remarkably clever and studious.  Despite his family's poverty, the boy studied at a school in Tanawan under the tutelage of Simplicio Avelino, working as a houseboy and tailor's assistant to earn his room and board.

Two of his works, El Verdadero Decalogo (The True Decalogue, June 24, 1898), and Programa Constitucional dela Republica 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.

At the age of 17, in 1881, Mabini won a partial scholarship to Manila's Colegio de San Juan de Letran.  He once again had to work all through school, teaching Latin to younger students at three different schools in the area.  Apolinario earned his Bachelors degree and official recognition as a Professor of Latin in 1887, and went on to study law at the University of Santo Tomas. 

Apolinario Mabini went into the legal profession in order to defend poor people.  He himself had faced discrimination from fellow students and professors, who picked on him for his shabby clothing before they realized how brilliant he was.  It took him six years to complete his law degree, since he worked long hours as a law clerk and a court transcriptionist in addition to his studies.  Mabini earned his law degree in 1894, at the age of thirty.

Establishing the New Government:

Mabini was able to talk Aguinaldo out of ruling the Philippines as an autocrat.  On July 23, 1898, under Mabini's influence, the new president modified his plans, establishing a revolutionary government with an assembly rather than a dictatorship.  Apolinario Mabini's power of persuasion over Aguinaldo was so strong that his detractors called him the "Dark Chamber of the President," while his admirers named him "the Sublime Paralytic."

Because his personal life and morality were difficult to attack, Mabini's enemies in the new government resorted to a whispering campaign to slander him.  Jealous of his immense power, they started a rumor that his paralysis was due to syphilis, rather than polio.  The fact that syphilis does not cause paraplegia did nothing to clear Mabini's name.  Despite these petty attacks, however, Mabini continued to work toward fashioning a better country.

Mabini wrote most of Aguinaldo's presidential decrees.  He also molded policy on the organization of the provinces, the judicial system, and the police, as well as property registration, and military regulations.  Aguinaldo appointed him to the Cabinet as Secretary of Foreign Affairs and President of the Council of Secretaries.  Mabini also exercised significant influence over the drafting of the first constitution for the Philippine Republic.

"Brains of the Revolution”

Because of his role as advisor during the formation of the revolutionary government, and his contributions as statesman thereafter, Mabini is often referred to as the "Brains of the Revolution", a historical moniker he sometimes shares with Emilio Jacinto, who served in a similar capacity for the earlier revolutionary movement, the Katipunan.

"Mabini is a highly educated young man who, unfortunately, is paralyzed. He has a classical education, a very flexible, imaginative mind, and Mabini's views were more comprehensive than any of the Filipinos that I have met. His idea was a dream of a Malay confederacy. Not the Luzon or the Philippine Archipelago, but I mean of that blood. He is a dreamy man, but a very firm character and of very high accomplishments. As said, unfortunately, he is paralyzed. He is a young man, and would undoubtedly be of great use in the future of those islands if it were not for his affliction." -By former Military Governor of the Philippines, Gen. Arthur MacArthur, describing Mabini before the US Senate's Lodge Committee of 1902. 

At War Again:

On January 2, 1899, Mabini was appointed prime minister and foreign minister of the new government.  He began negotiations with the United States on March 6, over the Philippines' fate now that the US had defeated Spain.  The two sides were already engaged in hostilities, but had not declared war on one another.  Mabini sought to negotiate autonomy for the Philippines, as well as a ceasefire.  US negotiators refused the ceasefire condition, or a proposed armistice.  In frustration, Mabini threw his support behind the war effort, and on May 7, he resigned from Aguinaldo's government.

Aguinaldo declared war on the United States on June 2, 1899.  The revolutionary government at Cavite had to flee; once again Mabini was carried in a hammock, this time to Nueva Ecija, 192 km (119 miles) to the north.  He  was captured by the Americans on December 10, 1899, and was made a prisoner of war in Manila until the following September. 

On January 5, 1901, Mabini published a scathing newspaper article titled "El Simil de Alejandro" (The Resemblance of Alejandro), which stated that "Man, whether or not he wishes, will work and strive for those rights with which Nature has endowed him, because these rights are the only ones which can satisfy the demands of his own being.  To tell a man to be quiet when a necessity not fulfilled is shaking all the fibers of his being is tantamount to asking a hungry man to be filled while taking the food which he needs."  The Americans immediately re-arrested him, and when he refused to swear fealty to the US, sent him into exile in Guam.


During his long exile, Apolinario Mabini wrote La Revolucion Filipina, a memoirs.  Worn down and sickly, fearing that he would die in exile, Mabini finally agreed to take the oath of allegiance to the US. 

Final Days

On February 26, 1903, Mabini returned to the Philippines.  American officials offered him a plush government position as a reward for agreeing to take the fealty oath, but Mabini refused.  He released the following statement: "After two long years I am returning, so to speak, completely disoriented and, what is worse, almost overcome by disease and sufferings.  Nevertheless, I hope, after some time of rest and study, still to be of some use, unless I have returned to the Islands for the sold purpose of dying."

Sadly, his words were prophetic.  Mabini continued to speak and write in support of Philippine independence over the next several months.  He fell ill with cholera, which was rampant in the country after years of war, and died on May 13, 1903.  Apolinario Mabini was only 38 years old.

My chosen hero is Apolinario Mabini

My chosen hero is Apolinario Mabini because of all his works during his significant years in the Philippines. Along with those great heroes, he's one of the people who stand out trying to make a move to regain the reputation of our country. I am truly amazed of how he was taught by his parents despite of poverty and brokenness. 

Apolinario Mabini has enough guts and confidence for he has established a new government. His persuasive skills gives an amour to his works. He even persuaded he's co-revolutionist to ponder on things and not to decide aggressively. He made things smoothly just to prove others that violence is not the key to commit freedom.

Just like any other typical teenager in his teenage days, Mabini studied hard for his degree. Because he is financially unstable, he worked while studying. It was truly a pride of a Filipino to pursue studies through hardships and that was proven by Apolinario Mabini during his days and he even got a Law degree. 

Both Mabini and I had experienced polio illness. When I was 4, I've experienced polio. For the next three months from the time I was diagnosed polio, I cannot walk. Most of the time, I am just sitting and carried by my parents and Lola. But my life never ended there, I got medical treatments and just like Apolinario Mabini, he never stopped what he's doing. I, too, never stopped doing things I was fond of. When the day comes that I can fully stand in my own feet again, I continued what I have done. I became a youth active in our barangay and a cathechist during Flores De Mayo.  

Apolinario Mabini inspired me to do things beyond limits and I've realized during those days that whatever you do, never do it for yourself only. Do it for the sake of others, and do it for self-fulfillment. That was the reason why I chose Apolinario Mabini as my hero.