Isabelo de Los Reyes - Writing and Exile

Writing and Exile

As a journalist, de los Reyes almost faced the firing squad for attracting the ire of Spanish authorities in highlighting Spanish church and governmental abuses during the movement for independence. He criticized the large haciendas of the friars while so many peasants were landless. In January 1897 he was arrested and held in Bilibid Prison for his part in the revolution. During this period, the writer Jose Rizal was among those executed. A change in governors won de los Reyes a measure of leniency, and in April General Fernando Primo de Rivera ordered him deported to Spain and prison in Barcelona.

In 1898 de los Reyes was released and given a job in the Spanish government, as Counselor of the Ministry of the Colonies (Consejero del Ministerio de Ultramar), which he held until 1901. While in Madrid, he published articles critical of the United States when they occupied the Philippines. He also published a biweekly newspaper, Filipinas ante Europa, which had the editorial logo: Contra Norte-America, no; contra el imperialismo, sí, hasta la muerte! (Against the Americans, no; against Imperialism, yes, till death!) It ran for 36 issues between 25 October 1899 and 10 June 1901. After closing (probably due to trouble with the authorities), it briefly reappeared as El Defensor de Filipinas, which ran monthly from 1 July to 1 October 1901.

Don Belong was not only a journalist, as he did much religious writing during his life, starting when he was first imprisoned. He helped to translate the Bible into the Ilocano vernacular. He became one of the few convicts to translate the Scriptures.