Martin Teofilo Delgado

Filipino Freedom Fighter, Census Bureau Supervisor, Governor

The U.S. Census Bureau has always highlighted American diversity through 

its decennial snapshots of the population. As the United States grew and 

the population became more diverse, the Census Bureau’s workforce 

adapted to represent the country’s people and needs. As immigration from 

non-European countries increased in the 19th century, the Census Bureau 

tried to hire enumerators who spoke the same language and lived in the 

same neighborhoods as the people they counted. Others were hired to 

help with operations in Washington, DC. From the first surges of Chinese 

immigration into California in the 19th century, immigrants of Asian and 

Pacific Islander heritage have long contributed to the Census Bureau’s 

mission, both at headquarters and in the field.

Born on November 11, 1858, in Santa Barbara, Iloilo, Martin Teofilo 

Delgado y Bermejo was the second son of Jacinto Delgado and Gabriela Bermejo, two members of local 

aristocratic families. As a young boy, Martin attended the Santa Barbara Parochial School before enrolling 

as a student at the Seminario de San Vincente Ferrer in Jaro and, later, transferring to the Ateneo 

Municipal de Manila. After earning his teaching degree, Martin taught at the public school in his 

hometown. Earning the respect of his neighbors and the Spanish colonial authorities, then 25-year-old 

Martin received an appointment to serve as the teniente mayor of his hometown and capitán municipal.

Beginning on August 24, 1898, in Manila, the Philippine 

Revolution lasted for a little over 3 years, with various provinces 

joining in at different times. On October 28, 1898, the people of 

the Iloilo Province revolted against Spanish authorities. As part 

of the uprising, Martin led a small force of volunteers and seized

Santa Barbara’s municipal building and, a little more than a 

month later, he earned a promotion to lieutenant general. With 

his new position, Martin led a series of military campaigns 

against the Spanish forces, eventually forcing the troops under

General Diego de los Rios, the last Spanish governor-general of 

the Philippines, to surrender and evacuate Iloilo on December 

24, 1898.

Four days after General Rios’s troops surrendered and evacuated 

the Philippines, U.S. Brigadier General Marcus P. Miller arrived in 

Iloilo and, with Admiral George Dewey’s warships supporting his efforts, prepared to occupy Iloilo City. 

With Miller’s impressive show of force, the commencement of hostilities between American forces and 

Philippine revolutionaries (February 4, 1899), and the fall of Fort San Pedro (February 11, 1899), Martin 

withdrew his military forces from Iloilo City and began conducting a nearly 2-year guerilla campaign against 

the American forces occupying the Iloilo Province. Despite an impressive military campaign in the province, 

Martin headed the pleas of Iloilo’s leading citizens and surrendered to Edmund Rice, the American military 

governor, on February 2, 1901. While military leaders typically punished insurrectionist leaders, U.S. 

government officials described Martin as “the ablest leader” of the people in his community and appointed 

him as the Province of Iloilo’s first governor under U.S. government’s administration of the Philippines on 

April 11, 1901.

Martin Teofilo Delgado

From the 1903 Census of the Philippines. 

General Martín Teófilo Delgado marching into 

Jaro (Iloilo) on February 2, 1901, ahead of 30 

officers and 140 men before surrendering to 

Brigadier General Edmund Rice, U.S. military 

governor of Panay, and Brigadier General

Robert P. Hughes, regional commander of the 

U.S. occupying forces.

Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
HB-24-0001

With passage of the Philippine Organic Act of 1902 (July 1902), 

U.S. government officials determined the Philippines would be 

governed in part by a representational Philippine Assembly but

needed a census to do so. Additionally, the Organic Act 

stipulated that the census would not be conducted until the 

cessation of hostilities, and that the Assembly could only be 

formed if there was peace for 2 years after the census was 

completed. Accordingly, the 1903 Census of the Philippine 

Islands had major implications for the governance of the 

islands. 

Because of this idea of a new government coupled with 

widespread illiteracy and mistrust of the American 

government, the Census Bureau to determine that the

provincial governors should be the district supervisors of the census. Although some of the governors were 

relics of the old Spanish system of cronyism, Martin won his local election to continue serving as Iloilo’s 

governor on March 3, 1902, and was thus prepared to serve as a census supervisor. In December 1902, 

Martin spent 2 weeks in Manila going over the district maps and learning how to conduct the census. In 

mid-January, all the governor-supervisors collected their materials in Manila and then distributed them to 

their enumerators and special agents—who passed on their training to the local presidentes (mayors). On 

March 2, 1903, the Philippine census began. Martin successfully spearheaded the count of 410,315 people

in the Province of Iloilo.

Martin continued to serve as the province’s governor until March 1904. 

After serving as Iloilo’s first elected-governor, Martin returned to his 

hometown of Santa Bárbara and served as the town’s fifth municipal 

president. In addition to his political career, Martin was married twice: 

first to Carmen Barra of Cabanatuan and then to Lucia Hisole and 

fathered four children. However, only his son from his second marriage, 

Jacinto Hisole Delgado, survived into adulthood and eventually became

a municipal mayor of Santa Bárbara. 

Martin made a series of political enemies during his time as Santa 

Barbara’s municipal president. This affected the course of Martin’s life 

because these enemies spread a rumor that Martin had leprosy while he 

was in Hong Kong being treated for a minor skin condition. When 

Martin attempted to return home to Iloilo, his ship was forced to drop 

him off at the Culion Leper Colony in Palawan. Exiled from his home, 

Martin served as the superintendent of a leprosy sanatorium until his 

death on November 12, 1918, at the age of 60.

Despite the tragic end of Martin’s life, he left an incredible legacy of service and sacrifice to both the 

Philippians and the employees of the U.S. Census Bureau. To honor Martin’s legacy as a freedom fighter 

and politician, the local government erected a statue of Martin in the main square of Santa Bárbara as part 

of the centennial celebration of the Philippine declaration of independence in 1998. Furthermore, in 2019, 

Spanish artist Gines Serran-Pagan designed an equestrian statue of Martin which stands in front of the Casa 

de Emperador at the Iloílo Business Park. The people of the Philippines and the U.S. Census Bureau remain 

grateful for his service.

Presidentes of the Towns of Jaro and La Paz, with 

the Governor-Supervisor Delgado (bottom-center)

of the Province of Iloilo (Visayans), c. 1903.

From the 1903 Census of the Philippines. 

Modern Statue of Martin Delgado located in 

the public plaza of Stata Bárbara in the Iloilo 

Province of the Philippines.

Courtesy of the National Historical Commission of the 

Philippines.