READ: Apolinario Mabini’s Dedication to His Mother

Apolinario Mabini wasn’t called the Brains of the Revolution for nothing. Despite losing the function of both his legs to polio, he proved himself invaluable to the revolution and the eventual establishment of the First Philippine Republic. 

Mabini was also an educator, lawyer and writer, and one of his most famous works is the La Revolucion Filipina or The Philippine Revolution, which was both an account and critique of the revolutionary movement at the time.

In Leon Ma. Guerrero’s translation of La Revolucion Filipina into English, he describes Mabini as “(r)ighteous, perceptive and farsighted beyond the measure of his contemporaries and successors, the very embodiment of the intellectual in a revolution, he was not so intransigent as he was thought to be…”

Mabini paid tribute to his mother in the dedication of La Revolucion Filipina. In celebration of Mother’s Day, we are publishing the full text of Guerrero’s translation of the dedication here, as what appears on the Malacañang website.

“When, still a child, I told you that I wanted to acquire learning, you were overjoyed because your heart’s desire was that a son of yours should be a priest; to be a minister of God was for you the greatest honour that a man could aspire to in this world.

“Realizing that you were too poor to meet the expenses of my education, you worked as hard as you could, heedless of sun and rain, until you caught the illness that took you to your grave.

“But I was not fated to be a priest. I am, however, convinced that the true minister of God is not one who wears a cassock, but everyone who proclaims His glory by good works, of service to the greatest possible number of His creatures, and I shall endeavour to be faithful to your desires as long as I have the strength to do so.

“Now, wishing to place on your grave a wreath woven by my own hands, I dedicate this humble work to your memory; it is a poor thing, unworthy of you, yet the best so far woven by the artless hands of your son,

“The Author”