Marcelo H. del Pilar

Marcelo Hilario del Pilar y Gatmaitan (August 30, 1850 – July 4, 1896), was a Filipino revolutionary leader of the Philippine Revolution and one of the leading Ilustrado (Knowledgeable) propagandist of the Philippine War of Independence.

Marcelo H. del Pilar was born in Cupang (now Barangay San Nicolas, Bulacan, Bulacan, on August 30, 1850, to cultured parents Julián del Pilar and Blasa Gatmaytan. He studied at the Colegio de San José and later at the University of Santo Tomas, where he finished his law course in 1880. In 1882, del Pilar founded the newspaper Diariong Tagalog to propagate democratic liberal ideas among the farmers and peasants. In 1888, he defended Jose Rizal's polemical writings by issuing a pamphlet against a priest's attack, exhibiting his deadly wit and savage ridicule of clerical follies. In 1888, fleeing from clerical persecution, del Pilar went to Spain, leaving his family behind. In December 1889, he succeeded Graciano López Jaena as editor of the Filipino reformist periodical La Solidaridad in Madrid. He promoted the objectives of the paper by contacting liberal Spaniards who would side with the Filipino cause.

Del Pilar's militant and progressive outlook derived from the classic Enlightenment tradition of the French philosophes and the scientific empiricism of the European bourgeoisie. He died of tuberculosis in abject poverty in Barcelona, Spain, on July 4, 1896 at the age of 46.

References

• Zaide, Gregorio F. (1984). Philippine History and Government. National Bookstore Printing Press. 
• Villarroel, Fidel, (1997). Marcelo H. del Pilar, his religious conversions. Manila : University of Santo Tomas Pub. House.