ON JULY 23, 1864, Apolinario Mabini, often referred to as the “Sublime Paralytic” and known as the brains of the revolution, was born in Talaga, Tanauan, Batangas.
He began informal studies under his maternal grandfather, who was a village teacher, and his mother before attending a regular school owned by Simplicio Avelino, where he worked as a houseboy.
He later transferred to a school conducted by the Fray Valerio Malabanan. In 1881 Mabini received a scholarship to go to the Colegio de San Juan de Letran in Manila.
His studies at Letran were periodically interrupted by a chronic lack of funds.
Mabini would survive teaching Latin and then serving as a copyist in the Court of First Instance in Manila.
Mabini’s mother had wanted him to take up the priesthood, but his desire to defend the poor made him decide to take up Law instead. A year after receiving his Bachilles en Artes with highest honors and the title Professor of Latin from Letran, he moved on to the University of Santo Tomas where he received his law degree in 1894.
In 1896, Mabini contracted an illness that paralyzed his legs. When the Katipunan revolt broke out late that year, the Spanish authorities arrested him for being a member of Katipunan. Unknown to many, Mabini was not a member of Katipunan but of the reform association of Jose Rizal, the La Liga Filipina.
Mabini came to the forefront in 1898 during the Filipino revolution against Spain. In the subsequent revolution against the United States, he became known as the brains of the revolution.
On December 10, 1899, he was captured by the Americans at Cuyapo, Nueva Ecija, but was later set free. In January 1901, he was arrested the second time by the Americans and was exiled to Guam.
On May 13, 1903 Mabini died of cholera in Pandacan, Manila, at the age of 38.
