Publicizing Independence: The Filipino Ilustrado Isabelo de los Reyes and the “Iglesia Filipina Independiente” in a Colonial Public Sphere

Abstract

ABSTRACT On August 3, 1902, Isabelo de los Reyes y Florentino (1864–1938) proclaimed the establishment of an independent Philippine church, the Iglesia Filipina Independiente (IFI). Some of its activists (and later de los Reyes himself) soon began to publish two periodicals that served as the church’s official organs, containing important documents such as its constitution and pastoral letters. In this article I argue that these publications were of central importance to the IFI in its early years. They gave it a public voice, allowing it to bring its own concerns and interpretations of events to the Philippine public sphere. In doing so, the writers, especially de los Reyes, engaged in debates with other contemporary periodicals such as the Dominican friars’ Libertas and Pedro A. Paterno’s La Patria. At the same time, and in addition to these local concerns, these early IFI publications were essential to presenting the new Filipino national church as part of a global Christian community and to establishing the first contacts with other independent Catholic movements in Asia and beyond.