Isabelo de los Reyes

Isabelo de los Reyes y Florentino, 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 original 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, de los Reyes followed his mother's footsteps by initially turning to writing as a career; his works were part of the 1887 Exposicion General de las Islas Filipinas in Madrid. He later became a journalist, editor, and publisher in Manila, and was imprisoned in 1897 for revolutionary activities. He was deported to the Kingdom of Spain, where he was jailed for his activities 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, de los Reyes 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 in the 1920s, he settled into private life and religious writing. de los Reyes wrote on diverse topics in history, folk-lore, language, politics, and religion. He had a total of 27 children with three successive wives; he survived all his wives and 12 of his children.

As the Philippine Revolution of 1896 began, multiple personalities suspected of being a part of it were arrested by the Spanish government. One of these people was de los Reyes, who at the time, openly advocated reforms, and if necessary, "take up arms against the tyrants". de los Reyes was arrested on February 12, 1897, and taken to Bilibid Prison.

De los Reyes was charged with membership in La Liga Filipina, the political organization organized by Rizal, as well as being knowledgeable of the Katipunan, however, he denied all of this. de los Reyes, however, sold types to Emilio Jacinto for the Katipunan's printing press, and he later claimed that he made a financial contribution to the Liga. de los Reyes also claimed that while he declined when Julio Nakpil asked him to join the Liga, he offered to give Nakpil a thousand pesos to purchase revolvers from someone on board the steamer Salvadora, and that he offered his services as a soldier.

In Bilibid, de los Reyes wrote his Memorial sobre la revolution, which initially was the Memoria de agravios de los Filipinos. The document was addressed to the Governor-General, Fernando Primo de Rivera and was meant to gain sympathy for the rebels. His Memoria pointed out that the friars sowed the seeds of colonial revolt in the Philippines. de los Reyes' wife, Josefa, died while he was in prison.

de los Reyes was pardoned on May 17, the King's birthday, but was arrested again shortly after complaining about the injustice of his arrest and reminding the governor-general of the Memoria that he sent. de los Reyes was deported aboard the SS Alicante in June 1897, and was interred at the Montjuïc Castle in Barcelona for six months, before being released as part of the terms of the Pact of Biak-na-Bato.

During his time in Montjuïc, de los Reyes was acquainted with anarchists, syndicalists, and other extremists, who shaped him. A sympathetic guard supplied him with anarchist books and newspapers. de los Reyes also met Ramon Sempau, a Spanish poet-journalist who left an impression in de los Reyes.

After his release in 1898, de los Reyes was barred from leaving Spain and became a drifter in Barcelona. It was during this time that he came to know radicals such as Francisco Ferrer, Alejandro Lerroux, and others. He began reading the works of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, Mikhail Bakunin, and other socialist thinkers. He also joined protest actions and was imprisoned for a short time by police authorities. He was released and was forced to relocate from Barcelona to Madrid.

During his time in Madrid, he was taken in by Doña Justa Jugo Vidal and met with other Filipinos to discuss the Philippine situation. He also met Señorita Maria Angeles Lopez Montero and married her on Christmas Eve in 1898.[4] He was also commissioned to translate the Bible to Iloko. de los Reyes later said that this work was "one way by which [he] could contribute to the liberalization of dogmatic religion."

At the onset of the Spanish–American War, de los Reyes was employed as Counselor of the Ministry of the Colonies (Consejero del Ministerio de Ultramar), which he held until 1901. In this capacity, de los Reyes helped rally Filipino support against the Americans, thinking that this would create conditions favorable to the Philippines. He believed that once the Americans were repelled, they would be granted autonomy, and should Spain renege, then the already armed Filipinos could take matters to their own hands. He had received assurances from the governor-general Basilio Augustin regarding autonomy, and together with other Filipinos in Spain, offered to return to the Philippines to organize militias to fight the Americans.

De los Reyes wrote anti-American articles for La Correspondencia de Epaña and other papers. On November 10, 1898, as Spain's loss of the Philippines became imminent, he and Dominador Gomez published 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 86 issues between October 25, 1899 and June 10, 1901. After closing, it briefly reappeared as El Defensor de Filipinas, which ran monthly from July 1 to October 1, 1901.

After Aguinaldo's surrender, de los Reyes was repatriated to Manila on July 1, 1901. Given guarantees by the American consul in Barcelona that he will in no way molested upon his arrival in the Philippines, he left Spain on September 14 aboard the steamer Montevideo. De los Reyes arrived in Manila on October 15, 1901.

De los Reyes took home with him works by socialists such as Karl Marx, Proudhon, Bakunin, and Errico Malatesta. Malatesta's Propaganda socialista fra contadini was particularly familiar to union organizers. The UOD(The Democratic Workers' Union) was the first labor federation in the Philippines, soon being joined by neighborhood associations from Cavite, Quiapo, Santa Cruz and Sampaloc; company guilds from the San Miguel Brewery and L.R. Yangco Shipping Company; and trade associations of printers, tabaqueros, tailors, sculptors, seamen, and cooks. At its peak in 1903, the UOD's membership was estimated at around twenty thousand.

As conceived by de los Reyes, the UOD's aim was to "achieve the longed-for alliance between capital and labor" by bringing together workers and employers in a spirit of friendship, mutual respect, and recognized interdependence. de los Reyes also wished to enlighten the masses as a prerequisite to modern nationhood. In this end, he organized veladas instructivo-recreativas as a way to "improve themselves and learn the life of cultured peoples". He had observed that workers in Europe had clubs and cafes where they could read newspapers and discuss current events, and wished to emulate that in the Philippines. de los Reyes also published the UOD's official organ, La Redencion del Obrero.

De los Reyes spent this time mediating in labor disputes and other union-organizing activities. The press at this time called him a "Malay Lerroux" and compared him to Spanish labor leader Pablo Iglesias. On August 16, 1902, he was arrested on the trumped-up charge that he gave orders to assassinate scabs in a strike at the Commercial Tobacco Factory. De los Reyes was eventually released on January 30, 1903 by Governor William Howard Taft, stating that the statute "was not in line with current American thinking on the subject". While in prison, de los Reyes tendered his resignation from the UOD on September 14 and was replaced by Dominador Gomez.

After resigning from the UOD, de los Reyes tried to patch up internal rivalries within the organization but ultimately failed. The UOD was dissolved and in its place was the Union del Trabajo de Filipinas, headed by writer Lope K. Santos. After this, de los Reyes focused on his Redencion del Obrero while contributing to papers like El Comercio, Grito del Pueblo, and others. He took up causes such as labor rights, universal suffrage, the exclusion of Chinese immigrant labor, and parity of Filipinos and Americans in the civil service