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(c) Wikipedia
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Just like most Filipinos, my previous knowledge about Marcelo was limited to grade school textbook information that I had largely forgotten over the years.
However, I do have memories from my childhood that recently re-surfaced as I started checking on the story of his nephew Gregorio who is featured in a movie. It eventually led me to Marcelo.
I remember accompanying my grandmother (who was an invited guest) to Barasoain Church during its centennial celebration. I seem to recall visiting a small museum where Marcelo’s family tree was displayed, and it included my grandmother’s lineage. It is only now that I have come to understand my family’s connection with Marcelo.
One of the “lolos” that I would see during past reunions seems to have written a published biography book on Marcelo. As a child, I was told that Lolo Magno survived a bolo attack from a Japanese soldier. I never knew that he had direct knowledge about Marcelo.
Then, I read Marcelo's letter to a woman named Josefa. I decided to ask my aunt if my deceased grandmother’s mother was named Josefa.
She answered, “Can’t remember. I guess so because Josefa is also her name. She just doesn’t use it. So probably she was named after her mom.”
Marcelo gave an advice to his niece Josefa and to women in Bulacan. He highlighted the importance of virtue in women as well as their pursuit of education. He asked his niece to study the Spanish language diligently.
“The vagaries of life, which Providence in its most inscrutable design has alloted to me, had taken me away from that beautiful land where I have left behind the treasures of my life without even giving me a chance to say goodbye to the people I cherish and appreciate. In this letter to you, I shall try to make amends for my precipitate flight, by sending through you this my humble message to the young women of Bulacán. I feel convinced that you have been chosen, and on you depends the regeneration, the rebirth of our town. For there is no doubt of the strength and scope of a women’s influence on the family. Daughter, sister, wife, or mother — a woman offers the balm of solace that makes endurable the rigors of everyday life. More than that, she is the element that guides men to paths of virtue and courage or to the pitfalls of wrongdoing and cowardice…”
Click on the link to read the whole letter...
https://filipinoscribbles.wordpress.com/2010/12/05/marcelo-h-del-pilars-letter-to-his-niece-josefa-gatmaitan/
Upon further reading, I learned that Marcelo led a lonely existence in exile and died in extreme poverty.
“Del Pilar's last years in Spain saw his descent into extreme poverty. He often missed his meals and during winter, he kept himself warm by smoking discarded cigarette butts he picked up in the streets. Suffering from tuberculosis, del Pilar decided to return to the Philippines. His illness worsened that he had to cancel his journey.[52] He was taken to the Hospital de la Santa Cruz (Hospital Civil) in Barcelona. Del Pilar died there on July 4, 1896, a few days before the Cry of Pugad Lawin (Cry of Balintawak).[53] He was buried the following day in a borrowed grave at the Cementerio del Sub-Oeste (Southwest Cemetery).”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcelo_H._del_Pilar
In his letters, he would often talk about how much he missed his family.
"Month after month, day after day, for eight endless years, the thought of returning to his dear ones was del Pilar’s permanent obsession, dream, hope, and pain. Of all the sufferings he had to go through, this was the only one that made the “warrior” shed tears like a boy, and put his soul in a trance of madness and insanity. His 104 surviving letters to the family attest to this painful situation…"
https://filipinoscribbles.wordpress.com/2010/08/30/marcelo-h-del-pilar-a-broken-dad-till-the-end/
Marcelo was a freemason and was anti-friar during his time. What caught my attention, however, was the information that he was documented to have retracted his views prior to his death.
The UST History Society noted on its Facebook page:
“His relationship with the Catholic Church is one of the unsettled issues of Philippine history, besides the retraction of Rizal. Del Pilar joined the Masons in Spain but shortly before his death, received the last sacraments of the Catholic Church according to the late Fr. Fidel Villarroel, O.P. who studied the details of Del Pilar’s relationship with the Church and death. His research on this topic was published as a journal article in the September 1996 issue of Unitas, and eventually as a monograph titled “Marcelo H. Del Pilar: His Religious Conversions.”
All told, history becomes real when stories touch on a personal level.
It is interesting to see movies like “Goyo” and “Heneral Luna” bring our textbook heroes to the big screen.
Although these movies are expensive to make, they fill a valuable educational need in helping Filipinos understand Philippine history and learn from it. It is also a breath of air amidst the suffocating stench of mediocre or vulgar Philippine entertainment alternatives.
A popular Filipino saying goes, “Ang hindi lumingon sa pinanggalingan ay hindi makararating sa paroroonan.” (A person who fails to look back to where he came from will not reach his destination.)
It is certainly not a bad idea to retrace the stories surrounding our nation’s birth so that we may find the right trajectory towards the future.
