FAIR

ABOUT THE WORK

Isabelo de los Reyes, an intense life The figure of the Ilocano Isabelo de los Reyes deserves to be told in a film. He began his career as a journalist and, although he practiced literature, politics, ethnography and history, he was fundamentally a journalist throughout his life. From the age of 16 when he arrived in Manila, he wrote for the most important newspapers: Diario de Manila, El Comercio, La Oceanía Española, etc. In fact, his first books are compilations of his literary and journalistic works. He deserves credit for leading the first purely Filipino newspaper, El Ilocano (1889-1896) launched under his initiative and with the participation of Filipino writers mostly. It was published bilingually every 15 days with parallel columns in Spanish and Ilocano. It was not printed in Ilocos, but in Sta. Cruz, Manila, and having most of its subscribers in the northern provinces, it was printed the day before the mailing boat departed to Ilocos from Manila. Other important newspapers, impregnated with nationalist and socialist ideology were Filipinas ante Europa, El grito del pueblo and La redención del obrero, all published during the American period. Although he went on to publish a historical novel in Tagalog in 1905, a defining aspect of De los Reyes’ writings is the vindication of the provinces as integral to Philippine culture, especially his native Ilocos, but also the Bisayas Islands. As a trade unionist, he was a founder of the Philippine Democratic Labor Union in 1902; his religiosity prompted him to found around the same time the Iglesia Independiente Filipina, which lasts to this day. In his very hectic life, he still had time to marry three times and have 27 children. Ilocanadas is a collection of short stories in which the imaginative element is less important than the folkloric ingredient, with romantic overtones: the themes of his stories are marriage, jealousy, female psychology, history - as in “La Virgen de Antipolo” -, local customs, etc. Despite the title, only two stories have an Ilocan theme: “Los adoradores de Cil-Li” [The admirors of Cil-Li], which deals with the love affairs of four men competing for the heart of a beautiful Ilocano woman, and the historical story “La esclavitud ilocana” [The Ilocano slavery], set in pre- Hispanic Ilocos. All these literary works were printed in the first newspaper of Iloilo, El Eco de Panay, founded in 1887, and in the same printing press of the newspaper, the first one in Panay, saw the light in 1888. It is extraordinarily rare. The first volume of El Folk-lore Filipino was awarded a prize at the Philippine Exposition in Madrid in 1887 and is divided into three major chapters and several appendices. The most valuable part of this book are the first two chapters, which he devotes to Ilocano culture, explaining pre-Hispanic beliefs, oral literature, babaylans, superstitions, belief in elves, religious devotions and Ilocano customs in weddings, feasts, births, baptisms, and dances, among the many other topics he touches on. The third chapter is a study of Filipino women. After some notes on Filipino words and sayings, two brief chapters are added in appendix about the folklore of Zambales and Malabon. It is a work that, in the opinion of the severe Retana, gave just fame to its author, who had more talent as an ethnographer and observer of society than as a historian.