Marcelo H. Del Pilar (1850-1896) was a Philippine revolutionary propagandist and satirist. He tried to marshal the nationalist sentiment of the enlightened Filipino ilustrados, or bourgeoisie, against Spanish imperialism.

Marcelo Del Pilar was born in Kupang, Bulacan, on Aug. 30, 1850, to cultured parents. He studied at the Colegio de San José and later at the University of Santo Tomas, where he finished his law course in 1880. Fired by a sense of justice against the abuses of the clergy, Del Pilar attacked bigotry and hypocrisy and defended in court the impoverished victims of racial discrimination. He preached the gospel of work, self-respect, and human dignity. His mastery of Tagalog, his native language, enabled him to arouse the consciousness of the masses to the need for unity and sustained resistance against the Spanish tyrants.

In 1882 Del Pilar founded the newspaper Diariong Tagalog to propagate democratic liberal ideas among the farmers...