Posts Tagged Philippine President
Imelda Marcos
Posted by blogtopia in Ilocos Norte on February 23, 2010

Imelda R. Marcos is the widow of former President Ferdinand Marcos, and is herself an influential political figure in the Philippines. She is sometimes referred to as the Steel Butterfly or the Iron Butterfly.
Imelda was born on July 2, 1929 in San Juan de Dios Hospital in Manila. Her parents were Vicente Orestes Lopez Romuáldez (of Spanish-Chinese-Filipino blood) and Remedios Trinidad (1902–1938), the second wife of the widowed Vicente. She is of Visayan and Tagalog descent. Her paternal ancestors, the wealthy and prominent Lopezes of Leyte, claimed to have founded the town of Tolosa, Leyte. Her own branch of the family was not political. Her father was a scholarly man more interested in music and culture than in public life. Her mother, Remedios Trinidad, a dressmaker who grew up in an orphanage in Manila, said to have been an illegitimate offspring of a friar, was from the town of Baliuag, Bulacan.
Sergio Osmeña

Sergio Osmeña
Sergio Osmeña (September 9, 1878 – October 19, 1961) was the second President of the Commonwealth of the Philippines. He was Vice President under Manuel L. Quezon, and rose to the presidency upon Quezon’s death in 1944. He was a founder of Nacionalista Party.
Osmeña is the patriarch of the prominent Osmeña family, which includes his son (former Senator Sergio Osmeña, Jr.) and his grandsons (Senators Sergio Osmeña III and John Henry Osmeña), ex-Governor (Lito Osmeña and Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña).
Ramon Magsaysay
Ramon del Fierro Magsaysay (August 31, 1907 – March 17, 1957) was the third President of the Third Republic of the Philippines from December 30, 1953 until his death in a plane crash in 1957. He was elected President under the banner of the Nacionalista Party.
Ramon Magsaysay was born in Iba, Zambales on August 31, 1907 to Exequiel Magsaysay, a blacksmith, and Perfecta del Fierro, a schoolteacher. He entered the University of the Philippines in 1927. He worked as a chauffeur to support himself as he studied engineering; later, he transferred to the Institute of Commerce at Jose Rizal College (1928-1932), where he received a baccalaureate in commerce. He then worked as automobile mechanic and shop superintendent. When World War II broke out, he joined the motor pool of the 31st Infantry Division of the Philippine army. When Bataan surrendered in 1942, Magsaysay escaped to the hills, organized the Western Luzon Guerrilla Forces, and was commissioned captain on April 5, 1942. For three years Capt. Magsaysay operated under Col. Merrill’s famed guerrilla outfit and saw action at Sawang, San Marcelino, Zambales. Magsaysay was among those instrumental in clearing the Zambales coast of the Japanese prior to the landing of American forces together with the Philippine Commonwealth troops on January 29, 1945.
Manuel Roxas
Manuel Acuña Roxas (January 1, 1892 – April 15, 1948) was the first president of the independent Republic of the Philippines. He served as president from the granting of independence in 1946 until his abrupt death in 1948. His term as Philippine president is also the shortest; 1 year 10 months and 18 days.
Manuel Roxas was born on New Years Day, January 1, 1892 in Capiz, Capiz, a city that was renamed in his honor, to Rosario Acuña. His father, Gerardo Acuna Roxas, died before he was born. Roxas had two siblings in brother Mamerto Roxas, and sister Margarita Roxas.
Manuel Roxas studied college in University of Manila, and law at the University of the Philippines College of Law, where he was a member of the college’s first ever graduating class in 1913. He placed first in the bar examinations held later that year. He was immediately drawn into politics, and began what became a lifelong career in government service as a provincial fiscal. In 1921, he was elected to the House of Representatives. The following year he was elected House Speaker.
After the Commonwealth of the Philippines was established 1935, Roxas became a member of the unicameral National Assembly, and served (1938–1941) as the Secretary of Finance in President Manuel L. Quezon’s cabinet. After the amendments to the 1935 Philippine Constitution were approved in 1941, he was elected (1941) to the Philippine Senate, but was unable to serve until 1945 because of the outbreak of World War II.
Having enrolled prior to World War II as an officer in the reserves, he was made liaison officer between the Commonwealth government and the United States Army Forces in the Far East headquarters of General Douglas MacArthur. He accompanied President Quezon to Corregidor where he supervised the destruction of Philippine currency to prevent its capture by the Japanese. When Quezon left Corregidor, Roxas went to Mindanao to direct the resistance there. It was prior to Quezon’s departure that he was made Executive Secretary and designated as successor to the presidency in case Quezon or Vice-President Sergio Osmeña were captured or killed. Roxas was captured (1942) by the Japanese invasion forces. After a period of imprisonment, he was brought to Manila and eventually signed the Constitution promulgated by the Japanese-sponsored Philippine Republic. He was made responsible for economic policy under the government of Jose P. Laurel. During this time he also served as an intelligence agent for the underground Philippine guerrilla forces. In 1944 he unsuccessfully tried to escape to Allied territory. The returning American forces arrested him as a Japanese collaborator. After the war, Gen. Douglas MacArthur cleared him and reinstated his commission as an officer of the US armed forces. This resuscitated his political career.
When the Congress of the Philippines was convened in 1945, the legislators elected in 1941 chose Roxas as Senate President. In the Philippine national elections of 1946, Roxas ran for president as the nominee of the liberal wing of the Nacionalista Party. He had the staunch support of General MacArthur. His opponent was Sergio Osmeña, who refused to campaign, saying that the Filipino people knew his reputation. However, in the April 23, 1946 election, Roxas won 54 percent of the vote, and the Liberal Party won a majority in the legislature. When the Philippines gained independence from the United States on July 4, 1946, he became the first president of the new republic.
On 1946, at the height of the last Commonwealth elections, subjected for replacing Sergio Osmeña in office, Senate President Roxas and his friends bolted from the Nacionalista Party and founded their own Liberal Party. Roxas then became the stand-bearer for presidency for the Liberal Party and Elpidio Quirino for vice-president. The Nacionalistas, on the other hand, have Osmeña for president and Senator Eulogio Rodriguez for vice-president. On April 23, 1946, Roxas and Quirino won the ticket.
On May 8, 1946, President-elect Roxas, accompanied by US High Commissioner Paul V. McNutt, enplaned for the United States to discuss with the American authorities the vital matters affecting the Philippines. On May 28, 1946, Roxas was inaugurated amidst impressive ceremonies as the last President of the Commonwealth of the Philippines. The inaugural ceremonies were held on the grounds of ruined, shell-blasted Legislative Building and were witness by towering crowds of around 200,000 people. He delineated the main policies of his administration, mainly, closer ties with the United States, adherence to the newly-created United Nations Organization, reconstruction of war-devastated country, relief for the masses, social justice to the working class, maintenance of peace and order, preservation of individual rights and liberties of the citizenry and honesty and efficiency of government office.
Roxas served as the President of the Commonwealth of the Philippines in a brief period, from his subsequent election on May 28, 1946 to July 4, 1946, the scheduled date of the proclamation of Philippine Independence. Roxas prepared the groundwork for the advent of a free and independent Philippines, assisted by the Congress (reorganized May 25, 1946), with Senator Jose Avelino as the Senate President and Congressman Eugenio Perez as the House of Representatives Speaker. On June 3, 1946, Roxas appeared for the first time before the joint session of the Congress to deliver his first state of the nation address. Among other things, he told the members of the Congress the grave problems and difficulties the Philippines are set to face and reports of his special trip to the United States–the approval for independence.
On June 21, he reappeared into another joint session of the Congress and urged the acceptance of two important laws passed by the Congress of the United States on April 30, 1946 to the Philippine lands. They are the Philippine Rehabilitation Act and the Philippine Trade Act. Both recommendations were accepted by the Congress.
Other Information
- Born : January 1, 1892
- Birthplace : Capiz (now Roxas City), Capiz
- Died : April 15, 1948 (aged 56), Clark Air Base, Angeles, Pampanga
- Birth name : Manuel Acuña Roxas
- Father : Gerardo Roxas
- Mother : Rosario Acuña
- Nationality : Filipino
- Ethnic Affiliation : Ilonggo
- Schoolos Attended :
- Capiz Elementary School (1904)
- St. Joseph’s College, Hong Kong (1905)
- Manila High School (now Araullo High School), highest honors (1909)
- Bachelor of Laws, University of the Philippines, valedictorian (1913)
- Political party : Nacionalista (1919–1945), Liberal Party (1945–1948)
- Other political affiliations : Partido Colectivista Liberal (1922), Partido Nacionalista Consolidado (1923-33), Partido Nacionalista (“Pro”) (1934), Nacionalista Coalition (Coalition Party), (1935-1937), Partido Nacionalista (1937-1941), Kalibapi (1943-1945), Partido Nacionalista (1945-1946), Liberal Party (founder) (1946-1948)
- Spouse : Trinidad de Leon
- Children:
- Gerardo Roxas
- Ruby Roxas
- Profession : Lawyer
- Religion : Roman Catholic
Positions held
Private Citizen
- Secretary and Law clerk to Chief Justice Cayetano Arellano (1913-1915)
- Law professor (1915-1916)
Government
- Municipal councilor (appointed) of Capiz (1917)
- Governor of Capiz (1919-21)
- Representative, House of Representatives (7th, 8th, 9th Legislatures), 1922-1934
- Speaker of the House )1922-1933)
- Delegate, 1934-35 Constitutional Convention
- Member, National Assembly (1935-1938)
- Secretary of Finance (Quezon cabinet), (November 26, 1938 to August 28, 1941)
- Elected Senator-at-large (November 18, 1941)
- Major (reserve) in the Philippine Army (later liaison officer with and then aide-de-camp to General Douglas MacArthur; promoted to Colonel and then Brigadier General), 1941
- Member – Preparatory Commission on Philippine Independence (1943)
- Chairman – National Economic Board
- Chairman – Bigasang Bayan (Laurel administration), 1944
- Philippine President (May 28, 1946 -April 15, 1948)
Notable Events
- Reconstruction after the war
Awards and achievements
- 1st Place, 1913 Bar Examinations
Links
Manuel Quezon
Manuel Luis Quezon y Molina (August 19, 1878 in Baler, Tayabas, Philippines – August 1, 1944 in Saranac Lake, New York, United States) was the first Filipino president of the Commonwealth of the Philippines under U.S. colonial rule in the first half of the 20th century. He is considered by most Filipinos to have been the second President of the Philippines, after Emilio Aguinaldo. He has the distinction of being the first Senate President elected to the presidency, the first president elected through a national election, and the first incumbent to secure re-election (for a partial second term, later extended, due to amendments to the 1935 Constitution). He is known as the "Father of the National Language".
His Spanish Mestizo parents were Lucio Quezon and Maria Dolores Molina. During the Philippine-American War he was an ayuda-de-campo to Emilio Aguinaldo. He rose to the rank of Major and fought in the Bataan sector during the retreat and surrender in 1901.
Jose Laurel
José Paciano Laurel y García (March 9, 1891 – November 6, 1959) was the president of the Japanese-Sponsored Republic of the Philippines during World War II, from 1943 to 1945.
Laurel was not subsequently officially recognized as a Philippine president until the administration of Diosdado Macapagal.
While a teen, Laurel was indicted for attempted murder when he almost killed a rival suitor of his girlfriend. While studying and finishing law school, he argued for and received an acquittal.
Laurel received his law degree from the University of the Philippines College of Law in 1915, where he studied under Dean George A. Malcolm, whom he would later succeed on the Supreme Court. He then obtained a Master of Laws degree from University of Santo Tomas in 1919. Laurel then attended Yale Law School, where he obtained a Doctorate of Law.
Ferdinand Marcos
Ferdinand Emmanuel Edralin Marcos (September 11, 1917 – September 28, 1989) was President of the Philippines from 1965 to 1986. He was a lawyer, member of the Philippine House of Representatives (1949-1959) and a member of the Philippine Senate (1959-1965). He was Senate President in 1963. He claimed that during World War II he had been the leader of Ang Maharlika, a guerrilla force in northern Luzon. As Philippine president and strongman, his greatest achievement was in the fields of infrastructure development and international diplomacy. However, his administration was marred by massive authoritarian corruption, despotism, nepotism, political repression, and human rights violations. He benefited from a large personality cult in the Philippines during his regime. In 1983, his government was implicated in the assassination of his primary political opponent, Benigno Aquino, Jr.. The implication caused a chain of events, including a tainted presidential election that served as the catalyst for the People Power Revolution in February 1986 that led to his removal from power and eventual exile in Hawaii. It was later alleged that he and his wife Imelda Marcos had moved billions of dollars of embezzled public funds to the United States, Switzerland, and other countries, as well as into fictitious corporations during his 20 years in power.
Emilio Aguinaldo

Emilio Aguinaldo y Famy (March 22, 1869 – February 6, 1964) was a Filipino general, politician, and independence leader. He played an instrumental role in Philippine independence during the Philippine Revolution against Spain and the Philippine-American War that resisted American occupation. He eventually pledged his allegiance to the US government.
In the Philippines, Aguinaldo is considered to be the country’s first and the youngest Philippine President.
The seventh of eight children of Crispulo Aguinaldo and Trinidad Famy, he was born into a Filipino family on March 22, 1869 in Cavite El Viejo (now Kawit), Cavite province. His father was gobernadorcillo (town head), and, as members of the Chinese Tagalog mestizo minority, they enjoyed relative wealth and power.
Elpidio Quirino
Elpidio Rivera Quirino (November 16, 1890 – February 29, 1956) was a Filipino politician, and the sixth President of the Philippines.
A lawyer by profession, Quirino entered politics when he became a representative of Ilocos Sur from 1919 to 1925. He was then elected as senator from 1925-1931. In 1934, he became a member of the Philippine independence commission that was sent to Washington, D.C., which secured the passage of Tydings-McDuffie Act to American Congress. In 1935, he was also elected to become member of the convention that will write the draft of then 1935 constitution for the newly-established Commonwealth. At the new government, he served as secretary of the interior and finance under Quezon’s cabinet.
After the war, Quirino was elected vice-president in 1946 election, consequently the second and last for the Commonwealth and first for the third republic. After the death of the incumbent president Manuel Roxas in 1948, he succeeded the presidency. In a dishonest and fraudulent 1949 presidential election, he won the president’s office under Liberal Party ticket, defeating Nacionalista vie and former president José P. Laurel as well as fellow Liberalista and former senate president José Avelino.
Diosdado Macapagal
Diosdado Pangan Macapagal (September 28, 1910 – April 21, 1997) was the 9th President of the Philippines, serving from 1961 to 1965, and the 6th Vice President of the Philippines, serving from 1957 to 1961.
Macapagal graduated from the University of the Philippines and University of Santo Tomas, after which he worked as a lawyer for the government. He first won election in 1949 to the House of Representatives, representing a district in his home province of Pampanga. In 1957 he became vice president in the administration of Carlos P. Garcia, and in 1961 he defeated Garcia’s re-election bid for the presidency.







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