ARCADIO N. DEL ROSARIO (1846-1923) Eloquent Advocate of The ...

ARCADIO N. DEL ROSARIO
(1846-1923)
Eloquent Advocate of
The Separation of the Church and State
Lawyer, diplomat and framer of the Malolos Constitution, Arcadio del Rosario y Narciso
was born on November 13, 1846 in Pandacan. He was the son of Bonifacio del Rosario and
Severina Narciso. He studied at the Colegio Real de San Jose and the University of Santo
Tomas, where he obtained his law degree.
Del Rosario served as sub director of internal revenue and, later, as notary public for the
provinces of Pampanga and Tarlac. A mason, he was initiated into the brotherhood in February
1892 and joined the Compromisarios, a group headed by Numeriano Adriano, which sought
political reforms from the colonial government, just before the outbreak of the 1896 Revolution.
He joined the revolutionary cause in1897 as one of the Filipino exiles, who composed the Hong
Kong Committee. The latter served as a government-in-exile for Aguinaldo and his followers
after the Pact of Biak-na-Bato.
Dissension rose within the group following Commodore George Dewey’s victory over the
Spanish fleet in the Battle of Manila Bay. It split into two factions, one favoring the annexation
of the Philippines to the United States, the other that of independence. Del Rosario and some of
his fellow exiles like Jose Ma. Basa, Gracio Gonzaga, Doroteo Cortes, and Maximo Cortes and
his wife Eustaquia, offered their money to the U.S. In a letter dated 6 May 1898, Rounseville
Wildeman, the American consul at Hong Kong, endorsed their statement of support to the
United States to his superiors.
In a decree issued August 1898, he was named member of the Revolutionary Committee.
The following month, he was named head of the office “General Driection” under the Treasury
Department headed by Mariano Trias, of the Revolutionary government. He was “Special
Commissioner” by December of the same year. As head of the Registry Division of the Treasury
department, he ordered the Provincial Chief of Infanta in January 1899 to turn over the
collected taxes and funds to the “Central Treasury”.
Upon his return to the Philippines, Del Rosario was named peace commissioner of the
revolutionary government. His job was to establish peace in the Central Luzon area. Later, he
became a member of the notarial board of the short-lived Universidad Literaria de Filipinas,
which was created in 1898. As a delegate to the Malolos Congress, Del Rosario was active
during the deliberations on the proposed constitution. He advocated woman’s suffrage and
other political rights and vigorously opposed the provision allowing the union of the church and
state, as advocated by Felipe Calderon.
In his defense of the church-state union, Calderon argued that all countries had state
religions; that the separation of the Church and state was utopian in concept and was
impractical; that the Filipino clergy need not be feared because they had demonstrated their
unwavering patriotism, that the Catholic Church was the only bond between the Tagalogs and
other linguistic groups, and that the separation of church and state was suicidal. In response,
Del Rosario said that it was not the clergy that he was wary about but the papacy, which had
influenced temporal matters such as state policies not just in the Philippines but in many other
countries in the course of history. He then enumerated 12 reasons why he considered having a
state religion repugnant.

The bitter debate over the church-state union took much of the time of the Malolos
Congress, with the issue remaining unresolved for more than a month. Battle lines were drawn,
with the radicals, led by Antonio Luna, favoring the separation of church and state, and the
conservatives, led by Calderon, seeking the union of the two entities. A stalemate ensued during
the initial vote. It was resolved, however, when Pedro Paterno changed his original position and
later voted for separation. The Congress adopted Del Rosario’s amendment under Title III of
the constitution, which states: “The State shall recognize freedom and equality of all cults as well
as the separation of Church and State.”
This provision has since been adopted by subsequent Philippine constitutions, including
that of 1987.
In August 1898, Aguinaldo named him member of the Revolutionary Committee based
there. In 1899, Del Rosario rejoined the Hong Kong Committee, which had been renamed the
Hong Kong Revolutionary Committee, to campaign for international recognition of the fledgling
Philippine republic. The committee served as a listening post and propaganda agency for the
revolutionary government, aside from functioning as its procurement office for the acquisition
of arms and other supplies for the Filipino forces now fighting the Americans. It also conducted
diplomatic negotiations with foreign governments and vigorously opposed the signing and
ratification of the Treaty of Paris by the US Senate.
After the fall of the republic, Del Rosario returned to Manila. He was appointed justice of
the peace in his native Pandacan and as sub-director of the rentas internas. He authored books
on Spanish laws still in force under American rules and taught law at the Escuela de Derecho
and the Liceo de Manila.
References:
Del Rosario was married to Florencia Zamora. He died on September 13, 1923.
Galang, Zoilo M. Encyclopedia of the Philippines Volume III. Manila: Philippine Book
Company, 1950.
Kalaw, Teodoro M. Philippine Masonry. Translated into English by Frederick H. Stevens &
Antonio Amechazurra. Manila: McCulough Printing, 1956.
_______________. The Philippine Revolution. Mandaluyong, Rizal: Jorge B. Vargas
Filipiniana Foundation, 1969.
Malolos Congress. Manila: Philippine Historical Committee, 1964.
Minutes of the Katipunan. Manila: National Historical Institute, 1978.
NHI File [Sources cited: Dr. Jaime del Rosario, Del Rosario’s son, and La Vanguardia (Sept.
14, 1923)].
Taylor, John R.M. The Philippine Insurrection Against the United States Volumes 1 and 3. Pasay
City: Eugenio Lopez Foundation, 1970.