Emilio Jacinto (Emilio Dizon Jacinto)—also known in the Katipunan as Pinkian and Dimas-Ilaw—wrote Liwanag at Dilim out of the same revolutionary world that made him, the “Brains of the Katipunan”. This is how Nicanor G. Tiongson’s sketches his life as a poet in the CCP Encyclopedia: Tondo-born essayist and poet (15 December 1875–6 April 1899) who joined the Katipunan in 1893, served as Bonifacio’s counsellor, worked in its printing shop and library, edited the lone 1896 issue of Kalayaan, fought in Laguna, and died in Majayjay at twenty-four (Tiongson 2020). If we keep that political biography in view, mutya [pearl] in Liwanag at Dilim reads less like a decorative flourish and more like a compressed statement of what Jacinto thought revolution had to rebuild: the ethical basis of collective life.

In Liwanag at Dilim, mutya appears only once, but it functions as a conceptual culmination of the essay’s moral and political argument. Jacinto writes: “At upang mapagkilalang magaling na ang pag-ibig ay siya ngang susi at mutya ng kapayapaan at ligaya, ikaw na bumabasa nitong magugulong talata” [“And so that it may be understood that true love is indeed the key and jewel of peace and happiness, you who read these tangled lines”]. The placement of this phrase is deliberate. Rather than introducing a new idea, mutya represents the value toward which the entire essay has been moving: a non-deceptive, inward, and collective principle that can ground ethical life and political order.

The force of mutya depends on the opposition Jacinto establishes at the very opening of the essay between ningning and liwanag. “Ang bubog kung tinatamaan ng nag-aapoy na sikat ng araw ay nagniningning; ngunit sumusugat sa kamay ng nagaganyak na dumampot. Ang ningning ay maraya” [“When shards of glass are struck by the burning rays of the sun, they glitter; yet they wound the hand of the one tempted to pick them up. Brilliance is deceptive.”] (Ang Ningning at ang Liwanag). Here, brilliance is not just superficial but actively dangerous: it attracts, deceives, and wounds. Liwanag, by contrast, enables discernment. It allows the eye to “mapagwari ang buong katunayan ng mga bagay-bagay” [“The whole truth of things is deceptive”]. This initial epistemological distinction structures the essay’s critique of power and authority. What dazzles—rank, wealth, religious display, political spectacle—cannot be trusted as a guide to truth or justice.

Against deceptive brilliance, Jacinto consistently privileges what is plain, ethical, and legible through conduct. “Ang kagalingan at ang pag-ibig na dalisay ay hubad, mahinhin, at maliwanag na napapatanaw sa paningin” [“Goodness and pure love are unclothed, modest, and plainly visible to the eye”]. This line anticipates the later naming of love as mutya. The value that matters most does not announce itself through ornament; it is recognized through action and careful restraint. When pag-ibig is finally named the mutya, it is not aestheticized as sentiment or metaphorical jewel. Rather, mutya designates true value or the inner treasure that resists spectacle and cannot be counterfeited by outward signs.

This point is reinforced when Jacinto immediately tests love through concrete ethical limits: “Mapagnanakawan mo kaya, mapagdadayaan o matatampalasan ang iyong ina’t mga kapatid? Hindi nga, sapagkat sila’y iyong iniibig…” [“Could you steal from, deceive, or abuse your own mother and siblings? No—because you love them…”]. Love is verified negatively, by what it refuses to do. It forbids exploitation, violence, and deceit. In this sense, mutya functions diagnostically by distinguishing genuine ethical life from its imitations. Jacinto is explicit that cruelty and greed often “nag-aanyong pag-ibig,” [“seemingly shaped by love”] dressing themselves in moral or religious language to legitimize domination.

The political implications of mutya become explicit when Jacinto links love to unity, and unity to collective strength: “Ang pagkakaisa na siya niyang kauna-unahang nagiging bunga ay siyang lakas at kabuhayan” [“Unity, which is its very first fruit, becomes strength and sustenance”]. Love is not private feeling but a social force that enables a people to act as one. Here Jacinto’s moral vocabulary opens directly onto political theory. As Johaina K. Crisostomo has shown, Liwanag at Dilim is grounded not simply in Enlightenment moralism but in a vernacularized form of Late nineteenth century scholastic political thought, particularly the idea that legitimate authority arises only from a morally unified people oriented toward the common good (Crisostomo 2021, 259–264). Without this moral bond, a population remains a mere multitude, vulnerable to coercion and deception.

Within this framework, mutya is the metaphor for the affective and ethical condition that allows the katawang-bayan to exist at all. Crisostomo notes that Jacinto consistently treats unity (pagkakaisa) as the source of political strength, while disunity opens the way for tyranny, clerical abuse, and false sovereignty (Crisostomo 2021, 266–268). Love, as mutya, binds individuals into a moral body capable of consent, sacrifice, and resistance. It is thus inseparable from Jacinto’s arguments about freedom (kalayaan) and equality (pagkakapantay), which he understands as gifts of natural law rather than privileges granted by rulers (Crisostomo 2021, 272–279).

Read this way, mutya also clarifies Jacinto’s sustained attack on “palalong ningning”—the pomp of rulers, the glitter of wealth, the splendor of false religiosity. In scholastic political theology, power detached from the common good is illegitimate, no matter how magnificent its appearance. Jacinto’s critique mirrors this position: authority that relies on display rather than love and justice is, by definition, corrupt (Crisostomo 2021, 268–271). Mutya, as value that does not glitter, stands in direct opposition to such authority.

The mutya in Liwanag at Dilim names the non-deceptive core of value: love as practiced solidarity. It is the ethical principle that allows liwanag to triumph over ningning, unity over fragmentation, and moral authority over spectacle. By calling love the susi at mutya ng kapayapaan at ligaya [“key and pearl of peace and joy”], Jacinto identifies the inner treasure without which freedom, equality, and a just bayan [nation] cannot endure. Read beside Jacinto’s revolutionary career (as printer, organiser, and combatant) and beside Crisostomo’s account of the scholastic scaffolding of his political theology, mutya is not a lyrical ornament but a civic diagnostic: it marks the difference between ethical community and its counterfeits (Tiongson 2020).

References

Almario, Virgilio S., ed. 2013. Panitikan ng rebolusyon(g 1896): Isang paglingon at katipunan ng mga akda nina Bonifacio at Jacinto. 3rd ed. Manila: Aklat ng Bayan.

Crisostomo, Johaina K. 2021. “The Scholastic Foundations of Emilio Jacinto’s Liwanag at Dilim (Light and Darkness), c. 1896.” Philippine Studies: Historical and Ethnographic Viewpoints 69 (2): 255–283.

Jacinto, Emilio. 1896. Liwanag at Dilim. In Kartilya ng Katipunan at mga Akda, various editions. Manila.

Tiongson, Nicanor G. 2020. “Jacinto, Emilio.” CCP Encyclopedia of Philippine Art Digital Edition. Cultural Center of the Philippines. Published November 18, 2020. Accessed December 16, 2025.