Mabini checked all the boxes for a revolutionary leader. Up from poverty, educated locally, handicapped, so even more challenges to overcome and steadfast. The revolution in the Philippines was ultimately unsuccessful but is a vital backdrop to the independence that eventually came. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelists.
The printing on the stamp is pretty good. Showing him sitting reminds those that remember him of his handicap without making fun of him for it. It is such an important part of the story. That someone could rise from poverty in a poor colony of a far off place and be educated solely in the Philippines and rise to Prime Minister is unusual. Then this courageous man has the fortitude to resign when he feels his new country disrespected. Definitely a majestic story worth remembering.
Todays stamp is issue A170, a 30 Sentiminoes stamp issued by the Republic of the Philippines on July 23rd, 1964. The stamp was part of a three stamp issue in various denominations celebrating the century of the birth of Apolinario Mabini, the independence leader and first Prime Minister. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents used.
Apolinario Mabini was born in Tanauan in the then Spanish colony of The Philippines in 1864. His father was a peddler in the town market. Being very lucky and literate he received a scholarship to university where he excelled in legal studies. He supported himself during his studies by teaching children. After graduation he did not practice law but instead began working on the legal ramifications of independence from Spain. He joined La Liga Filipina that was a moderate group that sought independence by peaceful means. The group gradually became more radical as members were arrested by Spanish authorities. Mabini at the time was being racked with polio to the extent that he lost the use of both his legs. He used his convalescence to write pamphlets that described a basis for in independent Philippines. The pamphlets came to the positive attention of the Field Marshal of the independence movement Emilio Aguinaldo, later Philippines first dictator. He had Mabini brought to him which involved hundreds of men voluntarily taking turns carrying his hammock. Mabini was found impressive and later appointed Prime Minister when Aguinaldo declared himself dictator. Mabini was at one point arrested with fellow revolutionaries but was released instead of shot because of his condition. America would later not underestimate him this way.
Mabini’s job as Prime Minister was to negotiate with the Americans. America had played a big part in the end of Philippine’s Spanish colonial status and sought to then claim it as a colony for itself. Mabini tried to convince the Americans to leave or at least stop fighting Aguinaldo’s army. The Americans flatly refused this and required Philippines to take a loyalty oath to America to end the fighting. Mabini refused and resigned his position to fight the Americans. The Americans then arrested him and sent him into exile in Guam. Aguinaldo was shortly after defeated, captured and then took the pledge to the USA. A few years later Mabini was allowed to return to the Philippines after also taking an oath but by then he was sick and was shortly to die of cholera at age 39 in 1905.
For a long period, Mabini’s reputation was besmirched in The Philippines by the rumor that his handicap was the result of syphilis. This was apparently started by rivals within the independence movement at the time of Mabini’s quick rise to power. 75 years after his death, Mabini’s remains were exhumed and it was determined that his handicap was the result of polio rather that syphilis. At the time there was a popular novel that had Mabini as a character being sexually decadent. When the truth came out it was rewritten with Mabini being decadent and drunk with a liver ailment. Also untrue. Not one of the Philippines finer literary moments.
Well my drink is empty and so I will pour another to toast Mabini and all he achieved during his short challenging life. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.