Deodato Arellano

Also known as: First Supremo of the Katipunan · First president of the Katipunan Supreme Council (Kataas-taasang Pangulo) · Buan — his Masonic name in Logia Lusong No. 185

Society

Definition

Deodato Arellano (July 26, 1844 – October 7, 1899) was a Filipino patriot, clerk, and Freemason who served as the first president of the Katipunan — the first to hold the office of Supremo. (Wikipedia — Deodato Arellano, PCEP — Deodato Arellano) A bookkeeper by training who studied at the Ateneo Municipal de Manila and worked as an assistant clerk in the Spanish military’s Maestranza de Artillería, he was the brother-in-law of Marcelo H. del Pilar through his 1877 marriage to del Pilar’s sister Hilaria, secretary of La Liga Filipina in 1892, and later the reorganized Liga’s secretary-treasurer. (Wikipedia — Deodato Arellano, Wikipedia — La Liga Filipina) The Katipunan was founded in his house at 72 Azcarraga Street, Manila, on July 7, 1892 — the night José Rizal’s exile to Dapitan was announced — with Arellano among its six founders; he headed the Supreme Council until February 1893, when Andrés Bonifacio judged him ineffective and Roman Basa replaced him. (Wikipedia — Katipunan, PCEP — Deodato Arellano)

He fought in the 1896 revolution in Bulacan as commissary officer in the brigade of his nephew by marriage, Gregorio del Pilar, and in the Philippine–American War, contracting tuberculosis in the Cordillera; he died of the disease on October 7, 1899, in Bontoc, Mountain Province, and was buried at La Trinidad, Benguet — the day disputed by some historians, amid an alternative account that he was arrested, tortured, and abandoned to die. (Wikipedia — Deodato Arellano, PCEP — Deodato Arellano) He is not the jurist Cayetano Arellano, the first Chief Justice of the Philippines, nor the architect Juan Arellano — no close kinship between Deodato and either is documented. (Wikipedia — Cayetano Arellano, Wikipedia — Juan Arellano)

Identities

Authority	Value
Wikipedia	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deodato_Arellano
Wikidata	Q1190115
DBpedia	https://dbpedia.org/page/Deodato_Arellano
ProductOntology	N/A
Wiktionary	N/A
Library of Congress Subject Headings	N/A
MeSH	N/A
NCBI Taxonomy	N/A
AGROVOC	N/A
Google Scholar	Deodato Arellano Katipunan first president Supremo 1892 Marcelo H. del Pilar La Liga Filipina secretary treasurer Bulacan
ConceptNet	N/A
OpenCyc	N/A

Also Known As

First Supremo of the Katipunan
First president of the Katipunan Supreme Council (Kataas-taasang Pangulo)
Buan — his Masonic name in Logia Lusong No. 185

Examples and Analogies

The founder who lent the revolution his house: on July 7, 1892, as news of Rizal’s banishment spread, six men — Arellano, Andrés Bonifacio, Valentín Díaz, Ladislao Diwa, José Dizon, and Teodoro Plata — founded the Katipunan under Arellano’s roof at 72 Azcarraga. (Wikipedia — Katipunan)
A bookkeeper for the nation’s first secret ledgers: the man trained in double-entry at the Ateneo and paid as a clerk in the Spanish artillery became the Liga’s secretary-treasurer — the revolution’s finances passing through the hands of a professional bookkeeper. (Wikipedia — Deodato Arellano, Wikipedia — La Liga Filipina)
Two Arellanos, two loyalties: while Deodato organized the secret society that would wage war on Spain, his contemporary (no documented relation) Cayetano Arellano accepted appointment as the first Chief Justice under American sovereignty in 1899 — the surname straddling both the revolution and the colonial state that succeeded it. (Wikipedia — Cayetano Arellano)
Verified biographical data:
Born: July 26, 1844, Maysantol, Bulakan, Bulacan, to Juan Arellano and Mamerta de la Cruz; the family adopted the surname after the 1849 surname decree (Wikipedia — Deodato Arellano, PCEP — Deodato Arellano)
Education and work: bookkeeping at the Ateneo Municipal; assistant clerk, Maestranza de Artillería; Freemason of Logia Lusong No. 185 under the name “Buan” (Wikipedia — Deodato Arellano)
Marriages: Paula Rivera (first wife, died); Hilaria Gatmaitan del Pilar, married April 22, 1877 — sister of Marcelo H. del Pilar (Wikipedia — Deodato Arellano)
La Liga Filipina: secretary of the first Supreme Council (1892); secretary-treasurer of the reorganized Liga under Domingo Franco (Wikipedia — La Liga Filipina)
Katipunan: host and founder, July 7, 1892; first president of the Supreme Council, 1892 – February 1893; succeeded by Roman Basa (Wikipedia — Katipunan, Wikipedia — Deodato Arellano)
Revolution and war: commissary officer in Gregorio del Pilar’s brigade from 1896; served in the Philippine–American War (PCEP — Deodato Arellano, Wikipedia — Deodato Arellano)
Died: October 7, 1899, Bontoc, Mountain Province, of tuberculosis; buried La Trinidad, Benguet; the day disputed by some historians (Wikipedia — Deodato Arellano, PCEP — Deodato Arellano)

Usage Scenarios

1. Tracing the Katipunan’s Founding Circle

Historians of the revolution begin at Arellano’s doorstep: the July 7, 1892 founding in his house, the first Supreme Council with Bonifacio as comptroller, Diwa as fiscal, Plata as secretary, and Díaz as treasurer, and the February 1893 succession of Roman Basa. (Wikipedia — Katipunan)

2. Connecting the Propaganda Movement to the Revolution

Students of Marcelo H. del Pilar’s circle use Arellano as the hinge: brother-in-law of the propagandist, fundraiser for the Filipino expatriates in Spain, secretary of Rizal’s Liga, and then founder of the Katipunan — one man spanning the reform and revolutionary generations. (PCEP — Deodato Arellano, Wikipedia — Deodato Arellano)

3. Sorting the Arellanos

Readers meeting the surname in three different histories — the Katipunan’s first president, the first Chief Justice, the architect of the Post Office and Metropolitan Theater — use this entry to keep the three men distinct, the shared surname reflecting the 1849 decree rather than documented kinship. (PCEP — Deodato Arellano, Wikipedia — Cayetano Arellano, Wikipedia — Juan Arellano)

Strategies

Anchor the founding to the house, not just the date: the July 7, 1892 founding is fixed at 72 Azcarraga Street; documents that place the first Supreme Council’s formation “around August 1892” or at an October 1892 meeting describe the same institution at different moments of organization — cite the meeting, not just the year. (Wikipedia — Katipunan, Wikipedia — Deodato Arellano, PCEP — Deodato Arellano)
Follow the money roles: Arellano’s offices are financial — Liga secretary-treasurer, Katipunan president as the society began collecting dues — so the paper trail of the revolution’s early finances runs through his clerk’s discipline. (Wikipedia — La Liga Filipina)
Use the family network as a map: marriage into the del Pilar family, Masonic lodge membership, and the Bulacan brigades place him in a web of propagandists and revolutionaries, explaining both his recruitment to the Katipunan and his war service under Gregorio del Pilar. (Wikipedia — Deodato Arellano, PCEP — Deodato Arellano)
Attribute the death account: the 1899 tuberculosis death at Bontoc is carried by both the standard encyclopedia and the cultural-education biography, but the article itself flags the disputed day and a torture narrative — quote the account, name the source, and let the disagreement stand. (Wikipedia — Deodato Arellano)
Distinguish the surname bearers by their fathers: Deodato, son of Juan Arellano of Bulakan; Cayetano, son of Servando Arellano, a Spanish peninsular, of Orion, Bataan; the architect Juan, son of Luis C. Arellano of Tondo — the patronymics are the fastest disambiguation. (PCEP — Deodato Arellano, Wikipedia — Cayetano Arellano, Wikipedia — Juan Arellano)

Security and Safety Measures

Secrecy of the founding circle: the Katipunan was founded “on the night of July 7, 1892” in secrecy, and the society’s survival depended on the discretion of members like Arellano, whose house doubled as the conspiracy’s first address — the reason contemporaneous documents are scarce and later reconstructions disagree. (Wikipedia — Katipunan)
The cost of exposure: the alternative account of Arellano’s end — named by Katipunan members under Spanish interrogation, then arrested, tortured, and abandoned to die — documents the personal risk borne by the society’s officers after the Katipunan’s 1896 discovery. (Wikipedia — Deodato Arellano)
For researchers: the standard compilations behind the received account are the National Historical Institute’s Filipinos in History (1995), Sol H. Gwekoh’s 1965 profile in The Manila Times, and the Dictionary of Philippine Biography — layered sources whose differences should be preserved, not flattened. (Wikipedia — Deodato Arellano)

Historical Context

Arellano was born in Bulakan in 1844, three years before Cayetano Arellano’s birth in Bataan; his family took the surname in the renaming that followed Spain’s 1849 surname decree. Trained in bookkeeping at the Ateneo Municipal and employed as a clerk in the artillery Maestranza, he married Hilaria del Pilar in 1877 and entered the reformist and Masonic world of her brother Marcelo, raising funds for the Filipino expatriates in Spain when del Pilar fled over his suspected subversive writing in Diariong Tagalog. When Rizal founded La Liga Filipina in Tondo on July 3, 1892, Arellano became secretary of its Supreme Council; four days later, with Rizal arrested and ordered exiled to Dapitan, the Katipunan was founded in Arellano’s own house. (PCEP — Deodato Arellano, Wikipedia — La Liga Filipina, Wikipedia — Katipunan)

Arellano headed the Katipunan’s first Supreme Council as Supremo, with Bonifacio as comptroller; when Bonifacio judged him ineffective, Roman Basa took the presidency in February 1893 (Basa in turn yielded to Bonifacio). After the Spanish suppressed the Liga, its conservative remnant organized as the Cuerpo de Compromisarios, pledged to continue supporting La Solidaridad, while the radicals went to war in August 1896; Arellano went to Bulacan as commissary officer to Gregorio del Pilar’s brigade. Still in the field for the Philippine–American War, he contracted tuberculosis in the Cordillera and died at Bontoc on October 7, 1899 — the year Cayetano Arellano, across the political divide, accepted the first Chief Justiceship of the American-era Supreme Court. (Wikipedia — Deodato Arellano, Wikipedia — Katipunan, Wikipedia — La Liga Filipina, Wikipedia — Cayetano Arellano)

Challenges and Controversies

When Exactly Was He Elected?

The accounts of Arellano’s elevation do not agree: the cultural-education biography has him elected first president at the July 7, 1892 founding itself; the Katipunan’s organizational history forms the first Supreme Council “around August 1892”; his own biography places the election at an October 1892 meeting. All agree he was the first president and the first Supremo, holding office until February 1893. (PCEP — Deodato Arellano, Wikipedia — Katipunan, Wikipedia — Deodato Arellano)

How Did He Die?

The received account — tuberculosis contracted in the Cordillera, death at Bontoc on October 7, 1899, burial at La Trinidad, Benguet — sits beside a darker one: that after Katipunan members named him under interrogation, he was arrested, tortured, and abandoned to die. The encyclopedia entry flags the day of death as disputed; responsible citation gives the 1899 account as primary and the torture narrative as the attributed alternative. (Wikipedia — Deodato Arellano, PCEP — Deodato Arellano)

The Three Arellanos

The shared surname routinely conflates three men: Deodato the Katipunero; Cayetano (1847–1920), the first Chief Justice of the American-era judiciary; and Juan (1888–1960), architect of the Metropolitan Theater and the Manila Central Post Office. Their standard biographies document no kinship among them — Cayetano’s father was a Spanish peninsular, the architect’s father was Luis C. Arellano, and Deodato’s family had adopted the name by decree — a product of the Clavería renaming, not a family tree. (Wikipedia — Cayetano Arellano, Wikipedia — Juan Arellano, PCEP — Deodato Arellano)

President in Name, Supremo in Whose Shadow?

Arellano holds the first presidency, but his tenure is remembered for its brevity — replaced within months as ineffective while Bonifacio, comptroller then fiscal then president, gathered the society’s real authority. The episode opens the standing question of Katipunan historiography: whether its leadership history belongs to its officeholders or to the man who came to embody the title Supremo. (Wikipedia — Deodato Arellano, Wikipedia — Katipunan)