Military and Political Career
At the age of 25, he was appointed teniente mayor of his hometown and capitan municipal; positions under the Spanish colonial government in the Philippines. During this period, he was conferring in secret with other Visayan revolutionaries, in preparation for the liberation of the Philippines from Spanish rule.
On 28 October 1878, Delgado marched into Santa Barbara and took control of the municipal building. On that same day, simultaneously uprisings took place in towns across Iloilo. On 17 November 1898, Delgado was promoted to Lieutenant general. On 24 December 1898, the Spanish forces under the command of General Diego de los Rios evacuated Iloilo and the Filipino flag was raised on Christmas Day. On 28 December 1898, General Marcus P. Miller leading an American force arrived to conquer Panay. Assisted by warships from Admiral George Dewey's command, they lowered the Filipino flag and hoisted the American Stars & Stripes, signifying American control.
General Delgado encouraged the Filipino troops to revive their nationalist cause. As the military governor of the province and General-in-Chief of the army, he challenged the American forces led by General Hughes using guerrilla tactics. Eventually, leading citizens of Iloilo wrote a circular urging General Delgado to surrender for the benefit of "the victims of useless resistance."
On February 2, 1901 General Delgado formally surrendered in Jaro to the American military governor, Edmund Rice. Up to the time of his surrender, Delgado was heralded as the chief insurgent leader on the island of Panay. He was recognized by the Americans as "the ablest leader" on the island and appointed as the first Governor of Iloilo province upon the establishment of the civil government on 11 April 1901. On 3 March 1902, the first local election was held. He was elected governor of Panay and served until 1904. After his term, he returned to his hometown of Santa Barbara and served for eight years as superintendent of a leprosy sanitarium. He spent his last years as superintendent of the leper colony on the island of Culion where he died on 12 November 1918 at the age of 60. A statue was erected in his honor in the town square of Santa Barbara, Iloilo, in 1998 during the occasion of the Philippine Centennial celebrations.
Read more about this topic: Martin Teofilo Delgado
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