Isabelo de los Reyes y Florentino, also known as Don Belong (July 7, 1864 – October 10, 1938), was a prominent Filipino patriot, politician, writer, journalist, and labor activist in the 19th and 20th centuries. He was the original founder and proclaimer of the Iglesia Filipina Independiente, the first-ever Filipino independent Christian Church in history in the form of a nationalist church, which was proclaimed in 1902. He was also the founder and first president of the first-ever labor union federation in the Philippines, the Unión Obrera Democrática. He is popularly known today as the "Father of Philippine Folklore", the "Father of the Philippine Labor Movement", and 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 modern trade union federation in the country in 1902. 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, folklore, language, politics, and religion. He had a total of 27 children with three successive wives from getting widowed each time; he survived all his wives.
Early life and education Isabelo de los Reyes was born to Leona Florentino and Elías de los Reyes in Vigan, Ilocos Sur and baptized as Roman Catholic."Isabelo de los Reyes", Senators' Profiles His mother, who was of mixed Spanish and Filipino descent and forced in marriage at the age of 14, is recognized as the first significant female poet of the Philippines for her works in both Spanish and Ilocano and is recognized as the "mother of Philippine women's literature"The History of Filipino Women's Writings , an article from Firefly - Filipino Short Stories (Tulikärpänen - filippiiniläisiä novelleja), 2001 / 2007. and a pioneer in Philippine lesbian literature.Writing Lesbian, Lesbian writing (Cruz, Jhoanna Lynn, Bulatlat News), 2005. De los Reyes may have been distantly related to Ventura de los Reyes, a creole merchant who was the first Philippine delegate to the Spanish Cortes through his father's side. He may also have been a "distant cousin" of José Rizal through a Chinese tax collector married to both Rizal's grandmother and de los Reyes' grand-aunt.
Elías and his children shunned Leona away from the family due to her progressive feminist and pro-equality ideals, which were viewed negatively under the Spanish colonial patriarchy. This left Isabelo without a mother as Elías entrusted his six-year-old son to the care of Don Marcelino Crisólogo, a wealthy relative who was also a writer in the vernacular. Crisólogo was married to Felipa Florentino, sister to Leona. Beluco, as he was called in his youth, was enrolled in a grammar school attached to the local seminary run by Augustinians (Seminario de Vigan); their harsh discipline made him a lifelong critic of friars. De los Reyes was a free spirit and chafed against seminary life. Once, he led a student strike against the friars to protest the maltreatment of students. His stay in the Vigan Seminary helped him develop a fascination for legends, music, songs, and Ilocano traditions.
In 1880 at age 16, de los Reyes went to Manila without his uncle's consent, where he finished Bachiller en Artes at the Colegio de San Juan de Letran. After that, he studied the Civil Code, Penal Code, the Mercantile Code, judicial proceedings and drafting documents, palaeography, and anthropology at the Pontifical and Royal University of Santo Tomas. It was in Santo Tomas where he first met Gregorio Aglipay.
Early career and journalism
While studying in the Colegio de San Juan de Letran, he supplemented his allowance by taking to journalism, setting type for La Oceana Española as well as writing for periodicals such as Diario de Manila, El Comercio, La Revista Popular, and La Opinion. In November 1882, his work, La expedicion de Li-Ma-Hong contra Filipinas was published in Diario de Manila and garnered him a prize.
His father Elias died in 1883, thus allowing him to visit his feminist mother Leona Florentino for the first time in around 14 years. Isabelo, who was around aged 20 at the time, reconnected ties with his mother, who was suffering from tuberculoses at the time. Leona died the following year on October 4, 1884 and was buried in Vigan Cathedral. Despite the limited time they had, Leona had made a solid impact and influence towards Isabelo, which led Isabelo to a literary career. Leona is also credited for Isabelo's progressing views towards democracy, Philippine sovereignty, and equality by the era's standards, which later on marshalled to his support for Philippine revolution, women's right to university education, and women's right to suffrage as an adult.Mojares, Resil (2006). Brains of the nation : Pedro Paterno, T.H. Pardo de Tavera, Isabelo de los Reyes, and the production of modern knowledge. Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press. ISBN 9789715504966. OCLC 76895524
Ever since he was young, de los Reyes had been intrigued by the growing interest in the "new science" of El saber popular (folklore). On March 25, 1884, Jose Felipe Del Pan wrote an article in La Oceania Filipina calling readers to contribute folklore articles, inspired by interest in the subject in the peninsula. De los Reyes was urged by del Pan to contribute and gave him books on the subject that piqued his interest. Two months later, de los Reyes submitted his articles concerning the folklore of Ilocos, Malabon, and Zambales.
In 1886, de los Reyes worked as Manila correspondent for El Eco de Panay, a newspaper in Iloilo, but was replaced by Wenceslao Retana when his reports began to appear too liberal. His reputation as an independent-minded writer was such that in 1887, La Opinion hired him as a foil for their ultra-conservative staff writer, Camilo Millan.
In 1884, de los Reyes was married to Josefa Hizon Sevilla, his first wife. Sevilla was the daughter of Gregorio Sevilla, the capitan of Malabon. Shortly after, the couple started a pawnshop, which failed. They also opened a bookstore, which similarly failed because de los Reyes "refused to sell the good ones". Eventually, they were able to build a modest fortune as a commercial agent of rice, tobacco, indigo, and other products.
In 1887, at the age of 23, del Pan compiled de los Reyes' articles and submitted them to the Exposición General de las Islas Filipinas in Madrid, where he won a silver medal. These articles would eventually become one of his most important contributions to Philippine studies, El Folk-lore Filipino. Folk-Lore was published in 1889 in two volumes. De los Reyes' interest in folklore continued. He collected materials, wrote for periodicals, and issued an open letter calling on readers to collect, publish, and organize a folklore society, which did not materialize. De los Reyes wrote Folk-Lore not just as a book for legends and fables, but eventually as "a general archive at the service of all sciences", expanding his definition of "folklore" to include "popular knowledge relevant to all sciences", including sections on religion, customs, literature, and articles on Diego Silang, millenarian revolts, and local miracles of the Virgin Mary.
During this time, Isabelo de los Reyes also propagated the literary works of his mother Leona, notably her poems. Despite Leona's many works, only 22 surviving literary contributions, as many of which were destroyed by either time or her husband, were posthumously presented at the Exposicion General de Filipinas in Madrid in 1887 three years after her death. They were again presented at the International Exposicion in Paris in 1889 and at the St. Louis International Exposition in Missouri in 1904. They were also included in the Encyclopedia Internationale des Oeuvres des Femmes (International Encyclopedia of Women's Works) in 1889. Because of these publications, Isabelo ensured that his mother's writing would be known even outside the country and preserved through time, something that was thought to be impossible for his mother, who was a vocal lesbian woman, given the patriarchal nature of the Spanish colonial era.
De los Reyes also published in rapid succession multiple works: Ilocandias (1887), Articulos Varios (1887), Las Islas Visayas en la epoca de la conquista (1889), Historia de Filipinas (1889), and the two-volume Historia de Ilocos (1890). These and other works won him a measure of recognition as a scholar. By 1889, he was listed as a corresponding or honorary member of societies such as the Imperial y Real Sociedad Geografica de Vienna, Academia Indo-China de Francia, and the Sociedad Española de Geografia Comercial.
In 1889 he founded El Ilocano, said to be the first newspaper written solely in a Philippine vernacular. De los Reyes declared that he founded El Ilocano to "serve [our] beloved pueblo Ilocos by contributing to the enlightenment of her children, defending her interests." El Iloco lasted for seven years. By 1893, de los Reyes was able to acquire his own printing press, which he set up in the basement of his house in Binondo and called Imprenta de Isabelo de los Reyes. Proud of his provincial origins, he boasted that the press parts were fabricated by Vigan artisans and he hired Ilocanos as printshop personnel.
Aside from El Ilocano, de los Reyes also published the periodicals La Lectura Popular (1890–1892), a Tagalog biweekly joint venture with Jose de Jesus, and El Minicipio Filipino (1894), a short-lived Spanish-Tagalog magazine devoted to colonial jurisprudence.
Imprisonment and exile 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. He 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. When his son, Jose, broke the news to him, de los Reyes wept unabashedly. He was permitted to attend his wife's funeral.