A Homage to the “Sublime Paralytic”: Apolinario Mabini & the Advent of Filipino Historical Consciousness

For some perverse reason, Apolinario Mabini, though acclaimed as the “brains of the revolution,” has remained a “sublime paralytic.” What is sublime is not his being crippled but his thought and ideals that underwrote the whole period from 1896 to 1903, when he died, a victim of cholera. This essay argues that Mabini laid the groundwork for the Malolos Congress and the first Philippine Republic. He was the Republic’s first prime minister (from January 23, 1899 to May 7, 1899) and first secretary of Foreign Relations. In the latter position, he was tasked to confront two imperial powers: the defeated Spanish authority and the U.S. military and civil officlals whose racist ideology Mabini exposed—his signal contribution. What is perhaps “sublime” or still not appreciated is Mabini’s articulation of the emergent national-class consciousness embodied in the entire revolutionary process.The Republic’s legitimacy and its ethical/moral foundation was articulated by Mabini in his letters and discourses, chiefly in the “Decalogo” included in his draft of the Republic’s Constitution; and in his memoir, La revolucion filipina, the key narrative of our national transformation. Mabini’s decisive role in thematizing the collective ethos of the anti-imperialist struggle aganst Spain and the U.S., and its radical resonance for current radical mobilization, remains to be fully recognized. This essay is an initial attempt to do that via a speculative exploration of Mabini’s historical-materialist thought and its vision of a sovereign, egalitarian, and progressive Philippines.