‘Don Belong’

After the birth sesquicentennials for Jose Rizal (2011) and Andres Bonifacio (2013), it seems many of our national heroes aren’t quite getting the recognition they deserve.  Apolinario Mabini’s sesquicentennial is on July 23 (others say July 22). It should not pass unnoticed.

Earlier this week, July 7, was the 150th birth anniversary of Isabelo de los Reyes, also referred to as “Don Belong.” That nearly slipped my mind even if I had pushed for a conference at the University of the Philippines Diliman to mark this historic event. The conference has been postponed because of the shift in academic calendar, with very few students on campus right now.

There are many reasons to give more recognition to De los Reyes.  First, the most visible ones in terms of books as well as names of cities, towns and streets are Tagalog heroes, when in fact the anticolonial struggles—against the Spaniards, Americans and Japanese—involved people from elsewhere in the Philippines, like him.

The other reasons De los Reyes should be given more recognition come from what he was. He is remembered as a revolutionary against Spain, or as the father of socialism and trade unionism in the Philippines. Journalists seem to have missed out on his early career in newspapers. We anthropologists like to claim him as one of our own because of his work in Filipino folklore.  The Philippine Independent Church or the Aglipayan (a term, incidentally, that is disliked by many PIC members) honors him as one of its founders.  So do the espiritistas, notably the Union Espiritas de Filipinas, from whose ranks came the psychic surgeons.

Isabelo de los Reyes was born and raised in Vigan, Ilocos Sur.  His mother, Leona Florentino, was a poet, and although some reports say he and his father were estranged from her because of her feminist views, he followed her footsteps as a writer, including writing a book on folklore that won him a silver medal in the Philippine Exposition in Madrid in 1887, when he was 23 years old. (More on his work on folklore further on.)

He edited a newspaper, El Ilocano, as well as a Tagalog one, La Lectura Filipino.  His writings got him into trouble with authorities because of his trenchant criticism of the Spanish colonial rulers, especially the friars.

One of his grandchildren, in a post on the Internet, says Don Belong was initially a pacifist and did not join the Katipunan, but after being thrown into Bilibid Prison where there were many Katipuneros, he changed his mind and joined their ranks.

He was released from Bilibid, but exiled to Spain and imprisoned in Barcelona.  After Spain lost the Philippines, he was released from prison in Barcelona and made a counselor in the government’s Ministerio de Ultramar (Overseas Ministry), where he worked until 1901.

He then shifted his attention to fighting the Americans, who had since taken over the Philippines.  He launched a biweekly newspaper, Filipinas ante Europa, which had a fierce but somewhat cryptic editorial slogan:  “Contra Norte-America, no; contra el imperialismo, si, hasta la muerte” (Anti-American, no; anti-imperialism, yes, until death).

Socialism

During his exile in Spain, De los Reyes read the works of Karl Marx and other socialists, as well as those of anarchists like Pierre-Joseph Proudhon. When he returned to the Philippines in 1901, he brought back socialist literature and helped found the Union Obrera Democratica de Filipinas, the first labor union in the Philippines. The union was launched in February 1902, and by August was strong enough to mount a general strike demanding higher wages and better working conditions.

(A slight detour here: It is intriguing that the labor union’s founders were actually wealthy employers who, it seems, were attracted to Marxism as well.  I have wondered if there were links to some European capitalists who, also in the late 19th century and early 20th century, used a more benevolent model of granting many benefits to employees, including housing, schools and social services.)

De los Reyes was arrested, tried and sentenced to a four-month prison term.  He was later released on condition that he stop his labor-union work. Apparently, he did, but became busy with establishing the Philippine Independent Church along with other union members.  Because of his work in the labor unions, and in the new church, he was excommunicated by the Catholic Church.

Soon his involvement in politics became more mainstream. He became a councilor of the city of Manila and, later, a senator, representing the Ilocos region.

Spiritism

A less known aspect of De los Reyes was his involvement in spiritism.  While in Europe, he was attracted not just to socialism but also to the work of a French educator, Allan Kardec, who proposed that people have different capabilities because they are products of reincarnation, with accumulated talents and skills.

Kardec did not establish a religious movement, but after De los Reyes brought spiritism to the Philippines, it became almost like a religion complete with the conduct of seances and faith healing sessions. It was one of these espiritistas, Eleuterio Terte, who in the 1950s began to do psychic surgery.

To anthropologists, De los Reyes’ greatest contributions were his work in Filipino folklore. UP translated his “El folk-lore filipino,” a compilation of riddles, proverbs and other folklore from Ilocos, Zambales and Malabon which was first published in 1887. He included in it poems by his mother.

De los Reyes was actually criticized for his work in folklore because, his detractors claimed, it depicted Filipinos as superstitious and backward.  But his work later inspired others, including some of his critics, to work in folklore as well.  A second volume of “El folk-lore filipino” appeared in 1890, with contributions from Mariano Ponce on Bulacan folklore, Serrano Laktaw on Pampanga, and Pio Padragon on Tayabas (Quezon).

This second volume also included a translation of the Ilokano folk epic, “Biag ti Lam-ang” (Life of Lam-ang).

Rizal was also a folklorist, writing “Specimens of Tagal Folklore” for a British magazine in 1889, and later collecting more folk tales. He and De los Reyes did not like each other, but in the end they converged in the area of folklore. Rizal was influenced by the German anthropologist Johann Gottfried von Herder, who emphasized language and folklore as the core of Volksgeist, or national spirit. De los Reyes did not seem to have read Herder, but his work in folklore is worth reviewing as we continue our search for our national identity.

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