October 15, 1901. Return to the Philippines On his return, de los Reyes quickly set about to launching several initiatives that he already had in mind while still in Spain. On October 25, 1901, ten days after he returned to Manila, he sought authority from the Philippine Commission to publish his Defensor de Filipinas, which was refused. On October 31, he appeared before the commission, with Pedro Paterno and Pascual H. Poblete to seek permission to form a political party, the Partido Nacionalista, which was also denied. He wanted to push for a party that would push for independence within the framework of US occupation. Eventually, Poblete managed to form the Partido Nacionalista (predecessor of the Nacionalista Party), which de los Reyes joined. He was eventually named its leader. In tandem with party building, de los Reyes also set about organizing a workers' movement in the Philippines. In 1901 to 1902, Hermenegildo Cruz and other members of the Carmelo and Bauermann publishing house approached de los Reyes to seek advice in forming a cooperative store for rice and other staples. The Union Democratica de Litografos, Impresores, Encuadernadores y Otros Obreros was thus formed, which came to be known as the Union Obrera Democratica (UOD) on February 2, 1902. De los Reyes was its first president. De los Reyes took home with him works by socialists such as Karl Marx, Proudhon, Bakunin, and Errico Malatesta. Malatesta's Propaganda socialista fra contadini was particularly familiar to union organizers. The UOD was the first labor federation in the Philippines, soon being joined by neighborhood associations from Cavite, Quiapo, Santa Cruz and Sampaloc; company guilds from the San Miguel Brewery and L.R. Yangco Shipping Company; and trade associations of printers, tabaqueros, tailors, sculptors, seamen, and cooks. At its peak in 1903, the UOD's membership was estimated at twenty thousand. As conceived by de los Reyes, the UOD's aim was to "achieve the longed-for alliance between capital and labor" by bringing together workers and employers in a spirit of friendship, mutual respect, and recognized interdependence. De los Reyes also wished to enlighten the masses as a prerequisite to modern nationhood. In this end, he organized veladas instructivo-recreativas as a way to "improve themselves and learn the life of cultured peoples". He had observed that workers in Europe had clubs and cafes where they could read newspapers and discuss current events, and wished to emulate that in