May 1 Labor Day was made into law in 1913 but its first actual celebration was held in this country in 1903 by more than a hundred thousand workers who marched to Malacanang to demand better working conditions. Their slogans included “down with U.S. imperialism.”

Just as the American interventionists were claiming the defeat of the Filipino “insurgents” with the capture of Aguinaldo and other leaders, the workers, true to their nature as the class vanguard, had risen to continue the struggle not just for economic reasons but for Philippine sovereignty as well. Isabelo de los Reyes, an ilustrado who learned his socialism in street fighting and as a prisoner in Montjuich Castle in Barcelona (where Rizal was briefly detained before he was sent back to the Philippines for trial and execution) played a leading role in organizing the workers, first through the printers union and the Union Obrero Democratica, the country’s first labor federation that organized the 1903 May 1 march to Malacanang. Isabelo de los Reyes is acknowledged as the “Father of Philippine Labor.”

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