Apolinario Mabini y Maranán (Tagalog: [apolɪˈnaɾ.jo maˈbinɪ]; July 23, 1864 – May 13, 1903) was a Filipino revolutionary leader, educator, lawyer, and statesman who served first as a legal and constitutional adviser to the Revolutionary Government, and then as the first Prime Minister of the Philippines upon the establishment of the First Philippine Republic. He is regarded as the "utak ng himagsikan" or "brain of the revolution" and is also considered as a national hero in the Philippines. Mabini's work and thoughts on the government shaped the Philippines' fight for independence over the next century.
Two of his works, El Verdadero Decálogo (The True Decalogue, June 24, 1898) and Programa Constitucional de la República Filipina (The Constitutional Program of the Philippine Republic, 1898), became instrumental in the drafting of what would eventually be known as the Malolos Constitution.
Mabini performed all his revolutionary and governmental activities despite having lost the use of both his legs to polio shortly before the Philippine Revolution of 1896.
Mabini's role in Philippine history saw him confronting first Spanish colonial rule in the opening days of the Philippine Revolution, and then American colonial rule in the days of the Philippine–American War. The latter saw Mabini captured and exiled to Guam by American colonial authorities, allowed to return only two months before his eventual death in May 1903.
Apolinario Mabini was born on July 23, 1864, in Barrio Talaga in Tanauan, Batangas. He was the second of eight children of Dionisia Maranan y Magpantay, a vendor in the Tanauan market, and Inocencio Leon Mabini y Lira, an illiterate peasant.
Apolinario Mabini attended the historical school of Father Valerio Malabanan located in Lipa. Being poor, Apolinario Mabini was able to get educated due to the Malabanan school's matriculation of students based on their academic merit rather than ability of the parents to pay. He would meet future leader Miguel Malvar while studying in Lipa.
In 1881, Mabini received a scholarship from Colegio de San Juan de Letran in Manila. An anecdote about his stay there says that a professor there decided to pick on him because his shabby clothing clearly showed he was poor. Mabini amazed the professor by answering a series of very difficult questions with ease. His studies at Letran were periodically interrupted by a chronic lack of funds, and he earned money for his board and lodging by teaching children.
Mabini's mother had wanted him to enter the priesthood, but his desire to defend the poor made him decide to study law instead. A year after receiving his Bachiller en Artes with highest honors and the title Professor of Latin from Letran, he moved on to University of Santo Tomas in 1888, where he received his law degree in 1894.
Comparing Mabini's generation of Filipino intellectuals to the previous one of Jose Rizal and the other members of the propagandists movement, journalist and National Artist of the Philippines for Literature Nick Joaquin describes Mabini's generation as the next iteration in the evolution of Filipino intellectual development:Europe had been a necessary catalyst for the generation of Rizal. By the time of Mabini, the Filipino intellectual had advanced beyond the need for enlightenment abroad[....] The very point of Mabini's accomplishment is that all his schooling, all his training, was done right here in his own country. The argument of Rizal's generation was that Filipinos were not yet ready for self-government because they had too little education and could not aspire for more in their own country. The evidence of Mabini's generation was that it could handle the affairs of government with only the education it had acquired locally. It no longer needed Europe; it had imbibed all it needed of Europe.Mabini joined the Guild of Lawyers after graduation, but he did not choose to practice law in a professional capacity. He did not set up his own law office, and instead continued to work in the office of a notary public.
Instead, Mabini put his knowledge of law to much use during the days of the Philippine Revolution and the Filipino-American war. Joaquin notes that all his contributions to Philippine history somehow involved the law: "His was a legal mind. He was interested in law as an idea, as an ideal[...] whenever he appears in our history he is arguing a question of legality."
Mabini joined the fraternity of Freemasonry in September 1892, affiliating with lodge Balagtas, and taking on the name "Katabay".
The following year, Mabini became a member of La Liga Filipina, which was being resuscitated after the arrest of its founder José Rizal in 1892. Mabini was made secretary of its new Supreme Council. This was Mabini's first time to join an explicitly patriotic organization.
Mabini, whose advocacies favored the reformist movement, pushed for the organization to continue its goals of supporting La Solidaridad and the reforms it advocated.
When more revolutionary members of the Liga indicated that they did not think the reform movement was getting results and wanted to more openly support revolution, La Liga Filipina split into two factions: the moderate Cuerpo de Compromisarios, which wanted simply to continue to support the revolution, and the explicitly revolutionary Katipunan. Mabini joined the Cuerpo de Compromisarios.
When José Rizal, part of the "La Liga Filipina", was executed in December that year, however, he changed his mind and gave the revolution his wholehearted support.
Mabini was struck by polio in 1895, and the disease gradually incapacitated him until January 1896, when he finally lost the use of both his legs.
When the plans of the Katipunan were discovered by Spanish authorities, and the first active phase of the 1896 Philippine Revolution began in earnest, Mabini, still ill, was arrested along with numerous other members of La Liga Filipina.
Thirteen patriots, later known as the "Thirteen Martyrs of Cavite", were arrested in Cavite, tried and eventually executed. José Rizal himself was accused of being party to the revolution, and would eventually be executed in December that year. When the Spanish authorities saw that Mabini was paralyzed, however, they decided to release him.