On This Day - June 21, 1884 - Jose P. Rizal completed his medical course in Madrid, Spain, with the rating “Fair”

On This Day - June 21, 1884 - Jose P. Rizal completed his medical course in Madrid, Spain, with the rating “Fair”

He was awarded the degree of Licentiate in Medicine by the Universidad Central de Madrid. The next academic year (1884–1885) he studied and passed all subjects leading to the degree of Doctor of Medicine. “Due to the fact, however, that he did not pay the corresponding fees, he was not awarded his Doctor’s diploma”*

Rizal also finished his studies in Philosophy and Letters, with higher grades. He was awarded the degree of Licentiate in Philosophy and Letters by the Universidad Central de Madrid on June 19, 1885 (his 24th birthday), with the rating of “Excellent with a scholarship.”
At long last, Rizal completed his studies in both Medicine and Philosophy and Letters. He was ready then to face the world and lead the fight for his country’s redemption. He was determined to see more of Europe before returning home, and acquire more medical lore in the clinics of Europe’s eminent physicians.

As to recall, Rizal, found the atmosphere at the University of Santo Tomas suffocating to his sensitive spirit. He was unhappy at this Dominican institution of high learning because (1) the Dominican professors were hostile to him, (2) the Filipino students were racially discriminated, and (3) the method of instruction was obsolete and repressive.

In his novel, El Filibusterismo, he described how the Filipino students were humiliated and insulted by their Dominican professors and how backward was the method of instruction, especially in the teaching of natural sciences. He related in Chapter XIII of this novel, entitled “The Class in Physics,” that this science subject was taught without laboratory experiments. The microscope and other laboratory apparatus were kept inside the showcases to be seen by visitors, but the students could not even touch them.

After finishing the fourth year of his medical course at the University of Santo Tomas, Rizal decided to study in Spain. At that time, he could no longer endure the rampant bigotry, discrimination, and hostility in that school. His uncle, Antonio Rivera, Leonor Rivera’s father, encouraged him to go abroad. Both Paciano and Saturnina, whom he contacted secretly, were of similar opinion.

For the first time, Rizal did not seek his parents’ permission to go abroad, because he knew that they, especially his mother, would disapprove his plan. Thus, the Spanish authorities knew nothing of his decision to go abroad in order to finish his medical studies in Spain, where the professors were more tolerant and understanding than those of the University of Santo Tomas.
Later on, Rizal then asked his parents’ blessings and unknown to the Spanish authorities, Rizal left Manila on May 3, 1882. Rizal’s departure for Spain was kept secret in order to avoid detection by the colonial officials and the friars. Only Uncle Antonio Rivera, Paciano, and his sisters, and some close friends knew that Rizal would leave for Spain. Paciano gave him 700 pesos. Saturnina later gave him a diamond ring, which helped him very much during his days of poverty in Europe.

He went to Spain where he completed his university studies, improved his knowledge of languages and arts, and further developed his God-given talents for greater service to the fatherland. At that time, the government in Spain was a constitutional monarchy, under which the Spanish people enjoyed individual liberties, including freedom of speech and freedom of the press.

On November 3, 1882, Rizal enrolled in the Universidad Central de Madrid in two courses – Medicine and Philosophy and Letters. Aside from his heavy studies in the university, he studied painting and sculpture in the Academy of San Carlos, took lessons in French, German, and English under a private instructor and assiduously practiced fencing and shooting in the Hall of Arms of Sanz y Carbonell. His thirst for knowledge was unlimited. He attended operas and concerts to improve his knowledge of music; he visited the art galleries and museums and read books on all subjects under the sun, including military engineering, in order to broaden his cultural background.

He strictly budgeted his money and time. He lived frugally and never wasted time. His spare hours were devoted to attending lectures, operas, religious fiestas; and reading at home or at the libraries. A favorite pastime of Rizal in Madrid was reading. He stayed at home and read voraciously until midnight. Since early childhood, he liked to read. Due to lack of funds, several times Rizal earned little money by working as a private tutor to rich students.

After completing his studies in Madrid, Rizal went to Paris and Germany in order to specialize in ophthalmology. He particularly chose this branch of medicine because he wanted to cure his mother’s eye. When Rizal returned to the Philippines, he established a medical clinic in Calamba. His first exploit as a physician in his land was the successful operation on his mother’s sightless eyes. With surgical skill acquired in the best eye clinics in Europe, he removed a double cataract from Doña Teodora’s eyes. News of the successful operation spread far and wide. To the masses, the restoration of the sight of Rizal’s mother was a miracle. Patients from Manila and the provinces flocked to Calamba. Rizal, who came to be called “Doctor Uliman” because he came from Germany, was busy attending to his lucrative medical practice. His professional fees were reasonable, even gratis to the poor.


Sources and References:
1. Gregorio F. Zaide, Jose Rizal, Life, Works, and Writings, Far Eastern University, Department of History, 1957, pp. 53–54, 66–67, 102
2. Gregorio F. Zaide, Sonia M. Zaide, History of the Republic of the Philippines, Metro Manila, 1983, 1987, p. 219
*Dr. Jose F. Bantug, “Rizal, The Physician,” The Journal of History, Manila Vol. V, Nos. 1–3, p. 49

On This Day - June 20, 1899 - Japanese vessel Nonubiki Maru left Nagasaki for the Philippines loaded with war supplies purchased by Mariano Ponce

 

On June 20, 1899, the Japanese vessel Nonubiki Maru left Nagasaki for the Philippines loaded with 10,000 rifles, 6,000,000 rounds of ammunition, and other war supplies purchased by Mariano Ponce.

(Mariano Ponce)

Ponce with the aid of the Chinese revolutionary leader Dr. Sun Yat-sen, in his mission to Japan, obtained sufficient support from the Japanese military and a few Japanese politicians to enter into agreement to purchase arms and ammunition in the Spring of 1899. At the same time, arrangements were made for "retired" Japanese officers to go to the Philippines as advisors to the Filipino army against the Americans. These officers actually served with the Filipino forces but the attempt to ship arms to the islands was a complete failure.

The Nunobiki Maru carrying the rifles and ammunition, and other military supplies was sunk in a typhoon, and a second attempt was stymied by the threat of the effective American blockade.

After the second shipment attempt failed, Ponce gave the arms to Sun who believed that if his revolution in China was to succeed, aiding the Philippines in return would be made easier. Sun would later be credited with the founding of Republic of China and the collapse of dynastic China.

The Japanese contributed little to the Filipinos in its war against the Americans. The Japanese officers arrived at a time when regular warfare was proving impossible, and no substantial shipments of weapons ever arrived. The Japanese government, not willing to alienate the Americans, gave no formal support to Aguinaldo's government or the nationalist cause.

References:

1. The United States Army in the Philippines, 1898-1902, John Morgan Gates, 1937
2. Pambansang Komisyong Pangkasaysayan
3. Research School for Southeast Asian Studies, Xiamen University

 

On This Day - June 19, 1861 - Dr. Jose P. Rizal, was born in Calamba, Laguna

On June 19, 1861, Jose Protacio Rizal Mercado y Alonzo Realonda, Philippines National Hero, was born in Calamba, Laguna to Francisco Engracio Rizal Mercado y Alejandro and Teodora Morales Alonzo Realonda y Quintos both of Chinese descent. Jose was the seventh of eleven children, Jose was baptized by Father Rufino Collantes on June 22, 1861, with Father Pedro Casanas as his godfather. Jose’s siblings were: Saturnina, Paciano, Narcisa, Olimpia, Lucia, Maria, Concepcion, Josefa, Trinidad and Soledad.

	(Dr. Jose P. Rizal)

Early on, Jose manifested exceptional intelligence. He learned the alphabet at the age of three from his mother and was trained to do outdoor activities like riding horses. Father Leoncio Lopez influenced him to exude character that held high respect for the rights of others. At the age of nine, his parents sent him to study Biñan in the school of Don Justiniano Aquino Cruz, who, after a few months, reported to his parents that he had nothing more to learn in school. Jose excelled in academics and in physical activities.

Jose was allowed to study in Manila at the prodding of his brother, Paciano. By this time, he was already using the second family name, Rizal, in order to avoid complications in his studies, which the Mercado family name used by his brother Paciano could bring on him. His brother Paciano had earned the ire of the Spanish friars because of his relationship with Father Jose Burgos. Jose passed the entrance examinations at Colegio de San Juan de Letran owned by the Dominicans but he chose to study at Ateneo Municipal after learning that Dominican friars in Calamba were pursuing a court case against his mother. In 1872, he was admitted at the Ateneo through the help of Dr. Manuel Xeres Burgos, a nephew of Fr. Jose Burgos, and a close friend of Paciano. Burgos was able to convince Father Magin Fernando to admit Rizal at Ateneo.

On March 14, 1877, Jose obtained his Bachelor of Arts degree at Ateneo Municipal with high honors for excelling in academics. It was during his student days in Ateneo that his extreme giftedness in poetry, writing, painting and sculpture became known. One of the masterpieces he did at Ateneo was a sculpture of the statue of the sacred heart of Jesus and some of his literary works have won prizes like: Felicitacion, Por La Educacion Recibe Lustre la Patria, Un Recuerdo a mi pueblo, and El heroismo de colon.

In 1878, Jose studied Medicine, and Philosophy and Letters at the University of Santo Tomas and at the same time pursued a course in surveying at the Ateneo. Alongside with his academic studies at UST, Rizal actively participated in literary activities. He won first prize for his poem "A La Juventud Filipina" (To the Filipino Youth) in the literary contest sponsored by the Liceo Literario Artistico. Because he was a native, he experienced discrimination like when his entry "The Council of the Gods" which many spectators adjudged winner was awarded second to a work of a Spaniard.

In 1882, Jose sailed to Spain where he hoped to have better education and training, with the help of Paciano, his uncle Antonio Rivera and his friend Chenggoy (Jose Cecilio). It was Antonio Rivera who helped secure passage ticket for him to board the ship that would bring him to Singapore where he would take another ship to Spain.

(Left to right: Jose Rizal, Marcel del Pilar, and Mariano Ponce)

In 1884, he finished his licentiate in Medicine and his licentiate in Philosophy and Letters, also at the Central University of Madrid on June 19, 1885. By then, he was already deeply involved in the propaganda movement, together with Mariano Ponce, Graciano Lopez Jaena, Marcelo del Pilar among other patriotic Filipino students in Europe. He wrote articles for reforms in the La Solidaridad newspaper.

One who had wielded influence among his countrymen abroad; Rizal’s speeches in gatherings of Filipino students were considered a gem. His speech, honoring Juan Luna and Felix R. Hidalgo, who both won the top prizes for their respective paintings during the Art Exposicion in Madrid in June 1884, saying: "Juan Luna and Felix R. Hidalgo are glories of Spain in the Philippines ..." was published in La Solidaridad.

Wanting to become an expert in the medical field, he trained under known specialists in Europe, like under Dr. Louis de Wecker, a famous ophthalmologist in Paris. He acquainted himself with other doctors like Otto Bayer, and Hans Meyer in Heidelberg, Germany. Alongside with his trainings and busy activities in the campaign for reforms was his pursuit in literature. He translated Schiller’s William Tell and Andersen’s Fairy Tales to Tagalog. He joined prestigious scientific societies in Europe.

Rizal’s committed campaign for reforms in the Philippines led him to write his two novels: the Noli Me Tangere, and El Filibusterismo. His first novel, partly written while he was staying in the home of a Protestant Minister, Pastor Karl Ullmer, in Wilhelmsfeld town in Heidelberg, Germany, was published in March 1887 through the financial assistance of his friend, Dr. Maximo Viola. His friend loaned him P300 to print the first 2000 copies. Both of his novels portrayed the pathetic situation of the Filipinos in the hands of the Spanish authorities and the influential Religious corporations. Copies of the novels were smuggled into the country since the Spanish authorities banned them.

	(Maximo Viola)

In May 1887, Rizal and Viola toured several cities in Europe before they separated. Viola returned to Spain and Rizal passed by Italy on his way back to the Philippines. He arrived in Manila on August 5, 1887. Several days later, Rizal performed an operation on the eyes of her mother. Word spread about his expertise that patients started coming in but Rizal did not only concentrate in treating his patients. He initiated sports like sipa, arnis, and fencing in the hope of weaning his townspeople, who dubbed him as Dr. Uleman (German) since he came from Germany, from gambling and other vices. Used to having outdoor activities, he explored the fields, hills, and mountains. He hoisted a banner on Mt. Makiling.

Since the publication of his first novel, Rizal's life in the Philippines became different. The Spanish friars who declared Noli me Tangere, impious, heretic, scandalous to the Catholic Church and injurious to the government, hated him. Thus, the liberal-minded Spanish Governor-General Emilio Terrero, concerned for his safety advised him to leave.

On February 3, 1888, Rizal left Manila. He sailed to Hong Kong, where he met Jose Ma. Basa. From Macao, he sailed to Japan, the United States, and in England. In Japan, the Spanish government offered Rizal a job as interpreter but he chose to be on his own. After staying for almost two months in Japan where he learned about Japanese arts, language and culture, he sailed to America. He left Japan on February 28, 1888 aboard the SS Belgic. He arrived in San Francisco on April 18, 1888, lodged at the Palace Hotel and then took a transcontinental train to the US East Coast via Chicago and the Niagara Falls in Lake Ontario. He stayed at the Fifth Avenue Hotel in New York for a while and sailed for England aboard the SS City of Rome, arriving at the Liverpool on May 24, 1888.

	(Leonor Rivera)
	(Beautiful Japanese, O-sei-san)
	(Frenchwoman Nellie Bousted one of Rizal's love)

During his travels in different countries, Rizal was romantically linked with different women. Among these ladies were: O-sei-san, a beautiful Japanese girl of noble descent, who became his faithful guide and interpreter; Gertrude “Tottie” Beckett, daughter of his landlord in England; and Nellie Bousted, a French whom he met in Paris; Susanne Jacoby of Belgium and Consuelo Ortiga of Madrid. Among the Filipinas he was romantically involved with were: Leonora Valenzuela of Intramuros, Leonor Rivera of Tarlac and Segunda Katigbak of Batangas.

He Spoke Spanish, French, German, English, Dutch, Greek, Latin and Tagalog. He had knowledge of Ilocano, Visayan, Russian, Sanskrit, Arabic, Swedish, Hebrew, Malayan, Chinese, Japanese, Portuguese and Italian.

While in London, Rizal copied Antonio Morga’s Sucesos de las Islas Filipina, published in 1609, which he planned to annotate. It was during this work that he became acquainted with Dr. Reinhold Rost, a librarian and editor of Trubner’s Record. Rizal busied himself with other works while in England, he wrote the "Vision of Father Rodriguez" and "Letter to the Young Women of Malolos", both published in 1889.

In 1889, Rizal was in Paris where he published Morga's book with his annotations, founded Indios Bravos and witnessed the International Exposition. On January 18, 1890, he moved to Belgium where he became close with Jose Albert and Jose Alejandrino. Later, Albert would receive honor for his contributions in the medical field while Alejandrino would be remembered for fighting during the revolution against Spain and America. In Belgium, Rizal lived in poverty. The printing of his second novel, El Filibusterismo, a sequel of Noli Me Tangere, was stopped because of financial constraints until Valentin Ventura, a rich compatriot, came to his aid. Thus the book came out of the press on September 18, 1891.

Depressing news reached him from home. His sweetheart Leonor Rivera married Engineer Kipping; his folks were ejected en masse from Calamba; and the Spanish officials who were sympathetic to the reform movement turned hostile. He took his vacation at Biarritz at the invitation of the Bousteds. While there, Nellie Bousted proved to be a balm for his wounded feelings. Later, he left for Paris then went to Marseilles and boarded the SS Melbourne for Hong Kong. With his dwindling funds, he received money for his passage ticket sent to him by Jose Ma. Basa, a rich Filipino merchant who was living in exile in the British colony.

He arrived in Hong Kong on November 20, 1891. There, his family, ejected from their lands in Calamba, joined him through the financial help extended by his compatriots led by Jose Anacleto Ramos (Ishikawa). He practiced medicine to earn a living and at the same time, continued to support the campaign for reforms and to look for ways that could better the lives of the Filipinos. He proposed that a Filipino colony to accommodate Filipinos ousted from their lands in the Philippines be established. With funding from his friends, he went to Borneo aboard the SS Memnon. The British authorities were already agreeable to a 950-year lease of the proposed colony in Borneo but the Spanish Governor General Emilio Despujol refused to allow the Filipinos to migrate in North Borneo.

On June 26, 1892, he arrived in Manila with his sister Lucia aboard the SS Don Juan. Few days after, on July 3, he founded the Liga Filipina in the house of Doroteo Ongjunco on Ilaya Street in Tondo, Manila. The association was aimed to unite the Filipinos and for them to help each other in times of need, and to encourage them to be educated and trained in agriculture. The association was, however, short lived for after a few days of its founding, Rizal was arrested on flimsy charges. One of which was the leaflet entitled Pobres Frailes, a sarcastic allusion to the friars found on his baggage when he arrived from Hong Kong.

	(Eulogio Despujol)

Governor General Despujol published in the Gazette the reasons for his arrest and copies were forwarded to the Spanish Embassy in Hong Kong for circulation. The British Consul commented on the strange reasons for his arrest. The editor of the Hong Kong Telegraph devoted an entire column of the newspaper on the sad news of his detention.

On July 17, 1892, Rizal was deported to Dapitan under the watchful eye of Ricardo Carnicero, the military commandant of Dapitan. One who never allowed time to be spent idly, Rizal busied himself with activities that were also beneficial to others. He established a clinic, a school, and constructed a water system. He bought tracts of land from his lottery winning and developed it into a farm. Loneliness impelled him to write Mi Retiro but reflected the strength of his spirit when he composed the hymn "Talisay".

He corresponded unceasingly with Ferdinand Blumentritt and other scientists he met abroad. He gathered specimens of plants and insects and sent them to his scientists friends abroad. His fame as an eye specialist lured patients to visit him in Dapitan. Among the most important was Engineer George Tauffer, who arrived with his foster daughter, Josephine Bracken. Soon, Josephine became his wife. Having inspired the revolutionary spirit of the Filipinos, Rizal was visited by Pio Valenzuela, an aid of Bonifacio to get his word about an armed uprising against the Spaniards. He was also offered help for his escape but he refused.

On July 31, 1896, Rizal sailed to Manila with Josephine, his sister Narcisa and other relatives after the Spanish government took his offer as doctor for the Spanish soldiers fighting against the rebel forces of Jose Marti in Cuba. Upon reaching Manila, Rizal was informed that his boat to Cuba had already sailed, thus, he was transferred to the Castilla then anchored in Cavite until another boat, the Isla de Panay took him to Singapore. There, Pedro Roxas urged him to leave the boat, assuring him his safety in the British Territory but he refused.

On September 30, 1896, while the Isla de Panay was sailing through the Middle East, the ship captain received orders of Rizal’s arrest on charges that he had a hand in the revolution that was already raging in the Philippines. Thus, Rizal arrived in Barcelona as a prisoner and was briefly detained at the Montjuich Penitentiary. The following day, he was shipped back to the Philippines on the boat Colon. His friends tried to rescue him by court proceedings. While the boat was in Singapore, Dr. Antonio Ma. Regidor and some British lawyers who, through Lord Hugh Fort, filed writ of habeas corpus in the Supreme Court of the Straits Settlements for his release on the ground that he was illegally detained. But Judge Lionel Cox ruled that the Colon was a troopship flying the Spanish Flag and that he was a Spanish subject. Therefore his case was not under British jurisdiction.

On November 3, 1896, the famous prisoner arrived in Manila and was imprisoned at Fort Santiago. On November 26, he was tried by the military court on the charges of rebellion, sedition and illegal organization of societies presided by Judge Advocate Enrique Alcocer at the Cuartel de España. Rizal’s defense counsel was Lieutenant Luis Taviel de Andrade, whose efforts to save him failed. He was meted the death penalty.

(Execution of Dr. Jose Rizal at Bagumbayan (A reproduction of an original photo taken during the execution of Dr. Jose Rizal))

On the eve prior to his execution, Rizal wrote the poem, Mi Ultimo Adios, which he hid in the alcohol burner. Hours before his execution, he gave to his sister, Trinidad, the alcohol burner and the book of Thomas Kempis, Imitation of Christ, to his wife. Presumably he retracted masonry; married Josephine Bracken before a priest, with guards as witnesses, and wrote letters to Professor Blumentritt, to his brother Paciano; and to his beloved parents.

On December 30, 1896, he was marched out of Fort Santiago toward Bagumbayan Field. With him were Fathers March and Villaclara and his legal counsel, Luis Taviel de Andrade. Before he was shot, he handed his belt to his nephew, Mauricio. The Spanish doctor, Ruiz y Castillo, felt his pulse and found it normal. Rizal faced the Filipino soldiers of the firing squad guarded by the Spanish soldiers. Volleys were fired. He fell but with a great effort, he turned his back and fell facing his executioners.

Two years after, on August 17, 1898, his sisters exhumed his remains buried at the Paco Cemetery and kept it at their residence in Binondo before it was finally rested at the monument in his honor at Luneta, now Rizal Park.

References:
(Bantug, Asuncion Lopez. Lolo Jose An Intimate Portrait of Rizal. 1982. Coates, Austin. Rizal Philippine Nationalist and Martyr. Manila: Solidaridad Pub. House, 1992.
Eminent Filipinos. Manila: National Historical Commission. 1970
Fernandez, Jose Baron. Jose Rizal Filipino Doctor and Patriot. Manila: Rex Printing Co., 1980.
Zaide, Gregorio. Great Filipinos in History. Manila: Verde Bookstore, 1970.) all via The Philippine Historical Commission

On This Day - June 18, 1898 - Aguinaldo signed the decree establishing the Dictatorial Government

SA BAYANG PILIPINAS:

Tinalaga ng Dios na malagay aco sa isang luclucang naquiquilala cong di matatabanan ng catutubo cong lacas, nguni, yayamang di aco macalabag sa calooban ng Dios at di macaiuas sa manga catungculang ipinapapasan ng sariling puri at pag-ibig sa bayan, mula sa luclucang ito'y binabati quita iniirog cong bayan.

Ipinatanghal co sa sangcalibutan na ang pinagtutuyo nang boo cong buhay, ang hilagang tinutungo ng lahat cong nasa at pagsisicap ay di iba cundi ang iyong casarinlan, pagea't binubuo nang aquing isip na iya'y siya mong laguing hinahangad, palibhasa'y ang casarinla'y siya nating tunay na pagcatubos sa caalipnan at capusungan, ang lubos na pagcasauli ng naualay na Kalayaan at siya ring paquiquihalobilo sa cabilugan ng mga bayang timaua.

Di nalilingid sa aquin na ang unang catunculan ng isang mamamahala ay ang mamulot at magtipon ng lahat na hinahangad ng bayan; dahil dito'y baga ma't sa pagalinsunod co sa di caraniuang gaui ng digma ay napilitan acong magcana ng Gobierno Dictatorial na nacalilicom ng boong capangyarihan sa tauong bayan at sandatahan, ay uala acong laguing pinapacay cundi ang agapayanan at saclolohan ng mga tauong lalong quinaaalang-alanganan sa baua't cabayanan (provincia) at napagquilalang mapagcacatiualaan ayon sa ugaling ipinaquita, upan ding, cung maquilala co na ang tunay na quinacailangan ng baua't isa ay macapaglathala ng mga lalong mabisang paraan ng yao'y matacpan at malagyan ng tapal alinsunod sa hinahangad ng calahatan.

Napag-aaninao co rin ang mahigpit na pagcacailangang magtayo sa baua't bayan ng matibay at matatag na cahusayan, mistulang cuta ng capanatagan ng bayan at nacaisaisang paraan upang mapagtibay ang pag-cacaisang loob na quinacailangan sa pagbabangon ng Repuiblica ng pamamahalang sarili ng bayan at paghuhusay ng ano mang sigalot na mangyari tungcol sa mga taga ibang bayan.

Alang-alang sa mga pasubaling ito ay ipinag-uutos co itong mga susunod:

Unang Pangcat. Pag-totoosin at pagcacayamcayaman ng mga naninira sa baua't bayang quinalalaguian ng mga sandatahang castila ang lalong mabuting gauing paraan upang malusob at malipol sila alinsunod sa lacas at cayang magagamit, at ang mga mabihag sa laban ay bibiguian ng pitagan at asal na lalong naaayos sa pag-ibig sa capua tauo at sa inuugali ng mga bayang may pinagaralan.

Icalaua. Pag-naagao ang bayan sa cuco ng mga castila, ay ang mga mamamayang matangi, dahil sa liuanag ng caisipan, pagcatao at cabaitan maguing sa loob ng bayan maguing sa mga nayon ay magpipisan sa isang daquilang Kapulungan at dito pipiliin at ihahalal ang pagcaisahan ng marami na maguing Puno sa bayan at maguing Pangulo, sa baua't nayon, at dito sa ngalang nayo'y cabilang ang loob ng bayan. Macahaharap sa Kapulungang ito at maihahalal naman ang sino mang magtaglay ng mga casangcapang nasasabi sa itaas, cun mapagquilalang may pag-ibig sa casarinlan ng Pilipinas at may dalauang pu at isang taong singcad.

Icat-lo. Sa naturang Kapulunga'y maghahalal din ng pagcaisahan ng marami na tat-long catiuala: isa ang sa pangangalaga at cahusayan sa loob, isa ang sa catuiran at tandaang bayan at isa ang sa yaman at pag-aari. Ang catiuala sa pangangalaga at cahusayan sa loob ay siyang tutulong sa Puno sa paglalagay ng sandatahang sa dapat palaguiin baua't bayan sa bilang na nababagay sa pinagcucunan ng isa't isa, upang mapanatag sa catahimican at cahusayan at mailaya ang mga capoocan sa ano mang icasisira ng lacas ng catauan.

Ang catiuala sa catuiran at tandaang bayan ang tutulong sa Puno sa pag-babangon ng mga sulat-usap o hatulan, sa pagdadala ng mga librong tandaan ng mga iniaanac, namamatay at casundo sa pag-aasaua, pati ng talaan ng lahat na namamayan.

At ang catiuala sa Yaman at Pag-aari nang tutulong sa Puno sa paniningil ng ambagan, pangangasiua ng salapi ng bayan, pag-dadala ng mga librong tandaan ng mga hayop, bahay at lupain at sa lahat na dapat gawin upang mapasulong ang lahat na hanapbuhay ng tauo.

Icapat. Ang Punong Presidente pati nang mga Pangulo at ng mga nasabing catiuala ang magbubuo sa mga Kapulungang bayan na mangangalaga sa ganap na catuparan ng mga cautusaing umiiral at sa mga sariling pag-aari ng baua't bayan. Ang Pangulo sa baua't bayan ang siyang pangalauang Presidente ng Kapulungan at ang cagauad nito ay ang catiuala sa catuiran.

Ang mga Pangulo ang catiuala ng Puno sa pamamahala sa loob ng canicanilang nasasacop.

Icalima. Pag naitanong ng mga Punong bayan ang caisipan ng canicanilang Kapulungan ay mangagcacatipon at maghahalal ng pagcaisahan nang maraming maguing Punong cabayanan at tatlong casanguni ucol sa tatlong tungcol na nasabi na.

Ang Punong Kabayanan na siyang Presidente, ang Punong bayan sa loob ng cabayanan na pangalauang Presidente at ang manga naturang casanguni ang mag bubuo ng Sanguniang cabayanan na mangangalaga sa catuparan ng manga pacana nitong Gobierno o Pamunuan sa boong nasasacop niya at sa manga pag aari ng boong cabayanan, at tuloy maghahamong dito rin sa Pamunuan ng manga pacanang nauucol sa cagalingan ng lahat.

Icaanim. Ang manga naturang Puno'y mag hahalal din nang pagcaisahan ng maraming tatlong Tagatayo sa baua't cabayanan ng Maynila at Kavite; dalaua sa baua't cabayanang cun tauagui'y de termino o pinaca-malaqui sa cautusang castila; at isa sa iba't iba pang cabayanan nitong Sangcapuloan.

Ang manga naturang Tagatayo ang mangangalaga sa mga pag-aaring ucol sa lahat nitong Kapuluan, at sa sariling pag aari nang canicanilang cabayanan at siyang mag bubuo ng Kapisanang taga pagbangon (Congreso Revolucionario) na cusang maghahamong dito sa Pamunuan ng manga pacanang dapat, upang manatili ang cahusayan sa loob at ang capanatagan sa labas nitong Kapuluan, at didinguin sa lahat ng usap na mabigat at ucol sa calahatan, cun ang pasiyang dapat ay mangyayaring ipagtiguiltiguil.

Icapito. Ang sino mang ma-atangan nang catungculan sa paraang nabibilin sa manga nangungunang Pangkat ay di macagagamit ng capangyarihan cundi mapagtibay muna nitong Pamunuan, na cusang mag gagauad ng catibayan cung maquita ang mga casulatan sa paghahalal.

Quiquilalanin ang calagayan ng mga Tagatayo cun maiharap nila ang casulatan sa paghahalal.

Icaualo. Ang manga Punong sandatahan na ihalal nitong Pamunuan sa baua't cabayanan ay di macapaquiquialam sa pamamahala sa loob nito, at ualang ibang magagaua cundi ang huminging tulong sa lahat nilang cailangan sa manga Punong cabayanan at Punong bayan na di macapagcacait cun may tunay na cadahilanan.

Gayon ma'y cun ang cabayana'y pagbalaang sirain o mapasoc ng manga caauay ay malilicom ng lalong Punong sandatahan ang boong capangyarihan ng Punong cabayanan, hangang macaraan ang panganib.

Icasiam. Maghahalal ang Pamunuan sa baua't cabayanan ng isang tanging sugo na may capangyarihang macapagtayo ng cahusayang nabibilin sa cautusang ito alinsunod sa manga tagobiling ipadala sa caniya nito ring Pamunoan. Talagang sugo na may sariling capangyarihan ang manga Punong sandatahan na macapagligtas sa manga bayan sa sacupan nang castila.

Ang nasabing sugo ang mangunguna at mangangasiua sa unang Kapulungang dapat gauin sa baua't bayan at cabayanan.

Icasampu. Pagcatayo nang cahusayang nabibilin sa cautusang ito ay mauaualang bagsic ang manga naunang paghahalal sa ano mang catungculang bayan, cahit saan nagbuhat at ano man ang dahilan, at gayon din ang mga pacanang masalansang dito.

Lagda sa Kavite ng 18 ng Junio ng taong 1898.
EMILIO AGUINALDO

Source: The laws of the first Philippine Republic (the laws of Malolos) 1898-1899. Compiled & edited by Sulpicio Guevara, Manila : National Historical Commission, 1972.

On This Day - June 17, 1877 - Manuel Tinio was born to become the youngest General in the Katipunan

 

GENERAL MANUEL TINIO - YOUNGEST GENERAL IN THE KATIPUNAN

Manuel Tinio was born to Silveria on June 17, 1877 in Licab, a barrio of Aliaga that became an independent municipality in 1890. He was the only son and had two sisters, the eldest, Maximiana, married Valentin de Castro of Licab and Catalina, the youngest, married Clemente Gatchalian Hernandez of Malolos, Bulacan. Manuel was his mother's favorite, his father having died when Manuel was twelve.

When the Philippine-American War broke out on Feb. 4, 1899, General Manuel Tinio, military governor of the Ilocos provinces and commanding general of all Filipino forces in Northern Luzon,
had 1,904 men (the "Tinio Brigade" ),
consisting of 68 officers,
1,106 riflemen,
200 sandatahanes or bolomen,
284 armorers,
37 medics,
22 telegraphers,
80 cavalrymen,
105 artillerymen
and 2 Spanish engineers.

He distributed them along the more than 270-kilometer coast from Tagudin, Ilocos Sur Province to Bangui, Ilocos Norte Province.

Two American reporters, Sargent and Wilcox, described the coastal trenches in Cabugao, Ilocos Sur Province: "On the shore at Salomague, there is a fortification about five feet high and one hundred fifty feet long. This barricade is built of sticks arranged in two rows and filled in between with sand and coral stones. Its walls are about four feet thick, and it is built in the form of a crescent with the concave part toward the sea.

By April 1899, Tinio had built 640 defensive trenches from La Union Province to Ilocos Norte Province. They were designed by Gen. Jose "Pepe" Alejandrino, a Belgian-educated engineer from Pampanga Province.

In November 1899, General Tinio, who was based in Vigan, Ilocos Sur Province, was ordered to go down south to Pangasinan Province to block the Americans pursuing Aguinaldo and his party who were retreating northward. His deputy, Gen. Benito Natividad, stayed on as post commander in Vigan with a few officers and 50 riflemen.

After losing to the Americans at San Jacinto (November 11) and Pozorrubio (November 15), General Tinio withdrew to La Union Province to continue protecting Aguinaldo's retreat. He engaged and delayed the Americans in Rosario, Sto. Tomas , and Aringay. This gave Aguinaldo's retreating party enough time to reach Candon, Ilocos Sur Province, on November 21, from where Aguinaldo decided to move east to the mountains in the interior.

On November 23, Aguinaldo reached the highland town of Angaki (now Quirino), Ilocos Sur Province, and stayed there until the end of the month. Tinio withdrew his forces to Tagudin, Ilocos Sur Province, and later moved on to San Quintin, Abra Province.

On November 26, the warships U.S.S. Oregon, U.S.S. Samar, and U.S.S. Callao bombarded Caoayan, Ilocos Sur Provinceand, unopposed, landed 201 volunteer infantrymen and marines led by Lt. Col. James Parker.

The Americans proceeded to occupy the adjacent town of Vigan, the provincial capital. The post commander, Gen. Benito Natividad, and his men, had evacuated the town at the onset of the shelling of Caoayan.

Brig. Gen. Samuel BM Young, who was chasing Aguinaldo and Tinio relentlessly; reached Candon on November 28. He learned that Aguinaldo was at Angaki, 25 kms. away to the southeast, while Tinio was up north some 40 kms. away. Young realized immediately that General Tinio's purpose in taking his forces to the north was to lead the Americans away from following Aguinaldo. Forthwith, he sent Lt. Col. Robert Howze's battalion to Concepcion, Ilocos Sur Province, to resume the pursuit of Aguinaldo, while the bigger part of his force marched towards the north in an attempt to destroy the Tinio Brigade, the last remaining army of the Republic.

On November 29, Tinio was positioned about 20 kilometers south of Vigan at Tangadan Pass, located between Narvacan, Ilocos Sur Province, and San Quintin, Abra Province.

Not too far south of Tinio was Tirad Pass, Concepcion, where General Gregorio del Pilar was killed a few days later on December 2 while trying to block the American pursuit of Aguinaldo.

On November 30, Aguinaldo and his party left Angaki for Cervantes, Ilocos Sur Province. As the latter offered good conditions for defense and an abundance of food, Aguinaldo planned to stay there for a long time and defend himself.

On December 2, on the same day that Del Pilar died at Tirad Pass, Aguinaldo fled from Cervantes. He and his entourage endured the long, difficult trek over the Cordillera mountain range, until they descended on the Cagayan Valley on May 28,1900. Aguinaldo finally established himself at Palanan, Isabela Province, on September 6, 1900.

On December 4, at 2:00 a.m., Tinio's men, estimated to number 800, sneaked into Vigan under cover of darkness and attacked Company B, 33rd Infantry Regiment of US Volunteers (USV), which consisted of 153 soldiers. Severe street fighting ensued and continued for four hours until the Filipinos were driven out.

The Annual Reports of the United States War Department 1903, in its summary of major engagements in the Philippines, listed 8 Americans killed and 3 wounded, and 100 Filipinos killed at Vigan. A separate report added that 32 Filipinos and 84 rifles were captured.

Four US soldiers earned the Medal of Honor for heroism at Vigan. They were: Lt. Col. Webb Cook Hayes (son of former US Pres. Rutherford Hayes), Lt. Col. James Parker, Pvt. James McConnell and Pvt. Joseph Epps. General Young ordered a general assault upon Tangadan Pass in the afternoon of the same day of the Vigan attack. Companies F, G and H of the 34th Infantry Regiment, USV, engaged the Filipinos for 3 hours. In the dark of night, they were able to climb an adjacent hill without being noticed. Realizing that their position had now become indefensible, the Filipinos withdrew, leaving 35 dead. Thirteen Americans were wounded.

General Tinio and his men returned to San Quintin, Abra Province.

The following day, December 5, the Americans attacked San Quintin and Bangued in succession. Tinio withdrew to Dingras, Ilocos Norte Province then proceeded to Solsona, Ilocos Norte Province. He spent the next couple of months in the mountains of Solsona, where he began fortifying the peak of Mt. Bimmauya, northwest of Cabugao, Ilocos Sur Province.

The Americans at Vigan were soon reinforced by 160 men shipped from San Fabian, Pangasinan Province.

Lt. Col. James Parker (LEFT) proceeded north from Vigan past Cabugao and reached Batac, Ilocos Norte Province on December 7. The U.S.S. Wheeling landed more marines and army troops farther north in Laoag and Bangui on December 10. On December 17, United States troops captured the Cabugao and Sinait trenches and had Tinio's men, under Capt. Francisco Celedonio, on the run.

In the middle of the night on December 20, Celedonio sneaked back into Cabugao with a commando unit, abducted and bayoneted to death Presidente Municipal Basilio Noriega and his son-in-law, Benigno Sison y Suller, an innocent bystander. Noriega had been falsely accused as being a pro-American sajonista (Saxonist or pro-Anglo-Saxon). He was in fact condemned without trial by tiktiks (informers) who held personal grudges against him. His son-in-law unfortunately happened to be there and was a witness to the kaut (abduction).

Their bodies were found the following morning in the wooded area north of the church, each marked on the forehead "traidor de la patria" (traitor to the country). Ironically, Benigno's family of Sisons and Sullers and their Azcueta-Serrano wives and in-laws were the wealthiest and biggest contributors to the revolutionary movement in Cabugao.

On This Day - June 16, 2020 - Eduardo "Danding" Cojuangco Jr, died of heart failure and pneumonia

 

Today in Philippine history, June 16, 2020, Eduardo "Danding" Cojuangco Jr, died of heart failure and pneumonia

On Tuesday, June 16, 2020, Beer Tycoon Eduardo "Danding" Cojuangco Jr., who led San Miguel Corporation (SMC), a food and beverage empire that produced San Miguel beer, died of heart failure and pneumonia at the St. Luke's Medical Center. Cojuangco served as chairman and chief executive officer of SMC for decades. He was 85.

(Eduardo "Danding" Cojuangco Jr. with Former First Lady Imelda Marcos on June 19, 2011)

Cojuangco had a net worth of $1.1 billion, according to Forbes' list of the world's billionaires, with interests in cement-manufacturing, orchards, a stud farm and Australian wineries, aside from SMC. SMC, one of Southeast Asia's largest conglomerates, with a workforce of more than 28,000 people, has ventured into fuel and oil, power and infrastructure.

Aside from business, Cojuangco delved into politics and sports, and owned three teams in the Philippine Basketball Association namely: San Miguel Beermen, Barangay Ginebra San Miguel, and Magnolia Hotshots.

But Cojuangco had also been mired in controversy.

He fled from the Philippines when President Ferdinand Marcos was overthrown by an army-backed "people power" revolt in 1986. During his years in exile, he was known to have traveled to the United States and Australia, where he bred thoroughbred racehorses.

Cojuangco had been linked to the 1983 assassination of former Sen. Benigno Aquino Jr., but the allegation has never been proven and Aquino's family later said he was not involved. The killing of Aquino while in military custody at Manila's international airport sparked street protests that culminated in a failed coup and the 1986 uprising that toppled Marcos.

Cojuangco had also been accused of involvement in the misuse of large amounts of coconut levy funds during the Marcos years that were intended to develop the country's coconut industry. He has denied any wrongdoing and has never been convicted amid allegations of illegally amassing wealth during the Marcos era.

In the 1960s, Cojuangco served as governor of Tarlac, the base of the Cojuangco clan, which has interests in sugarcane plantations. After returning to the Philippines following Marcos's downfall, he ran for president in 1992 under the Nationalist People's Coalition but lost, although the political party he founded has remained an influential political bloc.

Cojuangco backed the successful presidential bid of Joseph Estrada in 1998, the year he regained the chairmanship of San Miguel.

Cojuanco was born on June 10, 1935 in Paniqui, Tarlac. He was the eldest child of Eduardo C. Cojuangco Sr. and Josephine B. Murphy. His mother, the daughter of an Irish-Canadian U.S. Army volunteer who married a Filipina woman, was born and raised in Baguio. His father Eduardo Sr., the son of Melecio Cojuangco, was of Chinese descent.

Cojuangco was educated at Lafayette College in Pennsylvaia. Besides English and standard Tagalog, he also spoke the Filipino regional dialects of Ilocano and Kapampangan, which are the native languages of Tarlac province.

He was married to Soledad "Gretchen" Oppen-Cojuangco of Negros Occidental. They had four children: Margarita "Tina" Cojuangco Barrera, Luisa "Lisa" Cojuangco-Cruz, Carlos "Charlie" Cojuangco and Marcos "Mark" Cojuangco.

Charlie is the current Representative of Tarlac's 1st District, while Mark once served as Pangasinan Congressman.

As of 2018, he lived with his partner, 1996 Binibining Pilipinas Universe winner Aileen "Leng" Damiles. They had two daughters.

Source:

• Philippine beer tycoon allied with late dictator dies at 85, June 17, 2020, Mainichi Japan
• Wikipedia

 

On This Day - June 15, 1945 - Miriam Defensor Santiago was born in the city of Iloilo.

On June 15, 1945, Miriam Defensor Santiago, a public servant, a judge and legal scholar, and an outstanding Philippine senator, was born in the city of Iloilo.

(Senator Miriam Defensor Santiago)

Miriam learned to take charge early in life. As a precocious child and the eldest of seven, she was running the household well before she was out of grade school. Her mother was a career woman who eschewed housework, so responsibility for the daily marketing, for supervising the family's untrained village maids, and for organizing her younger brothers and sisters to do their chores devolved upon her.

She also saw to it that the Defensor brood arrived promptly and well-scrubbed for weekly catechism classes and Catholic mass. Discipline was her mother's watchword, and young Miriam came to accept her authoritarian, achievement-oriented environment as "the natural working of the universe".

The Defensor family enjoyed high status but little wealth. Her father, Benjamin Defensor, was a lawyer and trial judge; her mother, Dimpna Palma, was a locally prominent educator. They circulated socially among Iloilo's elite, but the family budget had to be managed carefully to make ends meet, and, until Miriam was nine years old, the family occupied a modest house with a nipa (palm frond) roof. Miriam's playmates were equally poor; together they fashioned homemade toys from sardine cans and bottle caps and played happily in the sand. "We enjoyed the luxury of filth", Miriam says looking back.

Miriam Defensor was enrolled in the kindergarten of Lincoln School, later called Lincoln College, the private school where her mother was dean. She quickly demonstrated her insistence on fair play. When her kindergarten teacher's niece teased her one day by repeatedly erasing her work from the blackboard, Miriam lost patience, grabbed the girl's hair, and wrestled her to the floor. "My teacher never forgave me", she says, explaining why she graduated only sixth in her kindergarten class—one of the few times in her school career when she was not first.

Miriam continued in Lincoln until her mother quarreled with the school president and resigned. At grade five, therefore, Miriam entered La Paz Public Elementary School. There she took her turn minding the canteen at recess time. Students who did so were permitted to select one food item in lieu of pay; this delighted Miriam, who had no money to buy school snacks. As her reward she always chose banana cake, "because for me," she says, "it was the height of luxury."

Defensor was a voracious reader and, unable to afford books of her own, became a frequent patron of the United States Information Service (USIS) library in downtown Iloilo. Her deepest childhood anxiety, she says, was that "the world's book supply would run out and I would, in my middle age, have nothing left to read."

She also excelled at writing and, in the fifth and sixth grades, was student editor of the elementary school newspaper. When she entered Iloilo National High in 1957, she immediately bested all others in the examination to be editor of its paper, The Ilonggo. She held this post for all four high school years. The literary pages were also filled with her work, and as a freshman she won a school-wide spelling contest.

Defensor's precocious talents made her an instant high school celebrity. This was probably a good thing, she thinks, since it permitted her to stand out without arousing the jealousy of her friends— "it habituated them to the things I would do later". The latter included graduating as valedictorian and receiving the "All-Around-Girl Award".

Her mother had long since instilled in Miriam a drive to fill every moment with worthy activity. This drive propelled her into a life of super- achievement. But alongside her brilliance in school, and her diligent management of household and siblings, MIriam Defensor began to develop a deep spiritual life. This she did quite on her own, since neither parent was devout, and her father had virtually abandoned the Roman Catholic Church in anger over the high-handed behavior of some Spanish priests.

At Lincoln MIriam had been inspired by the serene voices and ethereal personalities of the teaching nuns. For a while she yearned to be one herself, but she remembers her father telling her, you wouldn't be serving God very much that way." She abandoned the idea but in high school began a lifelong habit of going to mass daily; she had, as she says, "the gift of faith."

In 1961, at age sixteen, Defensor entered the University of the Philippines, Iloilo campus (UP Visayas). Here she began to prepare for the study of law, since her father had advised her that she would never be able to support herself with literary pursuits. Political science the usual pre-law curriculum, was "embarrassingly easy".

She speeded through the four-year curriculum in three-and-a-half years so that she could devote her final semester to her love, literature.

As a college student, Defensor studied so efficiently that she had plenty of time left for other activities. From her freshman year onward she edited the college monthly magazine. She also competed in debating and, in summers, took outside courses in journalism and stenography. Having decided that she could write better stories than the ones she was reading, she proceeded to do so and began selling them to national magazines. In everything, she was brilliantly successful. She won award after award. For example in 1963 she won first prize in the university competitions in orator poetry, short stories, and essays. All the while she maintained excellent grades, so that when she graduated in 1965 she did so magna cum laude.

Miriam at the University of the Philippines

Early in her college career Defensor had undergone a prolonged, debilitating illness. From a stubborn case of amoebic dysentery, she slid into a serious bout of depression: "I felt that my physical energy were totally exhausted and that I had nothing left to give." Having been taught by her mother always to be doing something useful, she believed herself to be utterly worthless, and lay in bed for weeks on end and wept. She attributes her recovery to her maternal grandmother who patiently and lovingly nursed her back from the depression. By the time she recovered MIRIAM had missed all but one month of the school semester and was still so weak that she had to write holding her pencil with both hands. With gritty determination she took her final examinations—and earned the highest average in the college.

After university graduation Defensor went directly to the UP College of Law in Quezon City. In fact, she acknowledges, she studied law mainly "out of a sense of filial duty". At UP she found the law courses tedious, and she became scornful of the approach of most the professors, who simply "spoon- fed" the students, pointing out necessary readings, probable issues, and correct responses.

This was a boon for Defensor however. Her superior memory made the courses relatively easy. Still, she studied industriously. While others students read their law books once or twice, she read hers five times. Even so, she recalls, "it didn't take that much intellectual energy". Once again she found lots of time for other things.

Defensor was a sparkling success at UP, thereby breaking ground for other women students. She was the first female to win the Ferdinand Marcos Gold Trophy in debate and the first female editor-in-chief of UP's Law Register. In 1968 she became the first female editor-in-chief of the hallowed and influential Philippine Collegian as well. She was chosen corps sponsor for UP's Reserve Officer Training Corps and, in both 1968 and 1969, won the prestigious Vinzons Achievement Award for leadership. She also managed to find time to write short stories for the nation's leading weeklies. The money she earned from writing supplemented her competition-won scholarships so that she was virtually self-supporting in law school. One journalist referred to her as, "Super Girl at the UP Campus".

The mid-to-late 1960s were days of great political ferment at UP. A campus leader of high profile, Defensor nevertheless shunned the radicalism popular at the time in favor of the more moderate stance of the UP Student Catholic Action. "I never could really bring myself to hate the Americans as much as my rabid friends did", she says, attributing this to her childhood gratitude for the USIS library in her hometown. "The radical leftists always criticized me for being wishy-washy, but I just stood my ground." However, Defensor did join in objecting to Philippine military participation in the war in Vietnam and, as editor of the Philippine Collegian, she exposed UP involvement with the Dow Chemical Company in Vietnam-related chemical weapons research. Based on purloined university documents given to her secretly "in the dead of night", her editorial, "Dow is Here", revealed that the company had leased research facilities at the UP College of Agriculture at Los Banos. The editorial was reprinted verbatim in a popular Manila daily. Embarrassed, UP President Carlos Romulo tried to persuade Defensor to reveal her midnight source. She refused.

As an honor student at UP College of Law, Defensor was courted by Manila's most prestigious law firm, the law office of Alexander Sycip. Sycip entertained her in his lavish home, but he warned her that in his office one often had to work all night and through the holidays. Far from being put off, Defensor was impressed. But in the end she declined his offer. As the recipient of a largely state-funded education, Defensor felt obligated to repay the public's investment, and "the best way I could do it", she says, "was to work in government".

As it happened, she had also been approached by Secretary of Justice Juan Ponce Enrile. Upon graduation in 1969, she became his special assistant. When Enrile moved to the Defense Department Defensor stayed on under the new secretary of justice, Vicente Abad Santos. Abad Santos had been dean of the College of Law at UP, although Defensor had not known him there. For the next several years she would work in daily contact with Abad Santos, and he became her professional mentor.

Miriam met Narciso

	Miriam and husband Narciso on their 40th wedding anniversary (Photo credit: http://raiisthename.blogspot.com/ )

Miriam met the man who would become her husband, Narciso Santiago, Jr., at law school but, as she says, law school was about all they had in common. She was from an established, but not well-off, family from the Visayas; he was the son of a newly rich family from Luzon. She was a diligent honor student who always sat in the front of the class; he was an indifferent student who sat in the back.

They met one day when Defensor, arriving late to class because of a meeting with President Marcos, slipped quietly into the back of the room. There sat Narciso with his friends, gambling and rating the legs of their women classmates. "I was absolutely flabbergasted", she remarks, "because I always thought all students were like me, terrified of the professors ... in his case, he was having a grand time." Their romance was a case of the attraction of the opposites. Although she had many other beaus, Santiago was especially ardent. After finishing law school Miriam agreed to marry him.

On June 1970 their wedding took place. Senator Benigno Aquino, Jr., a friend and provincemate of Narciso, was the sponsor.

"My husband had very flexed ideas about marriage", Miriam recalls. He believed that a marriage must produce a child. So I accommodated him and my mother-in-law, who gave me a cash reward for my efforts. Their first child, a son, Narciso III, was born 13 April 1971. Defensor Santiago, who had added her husband's name to hers, took two months' maternity leave and then plunged back into her work at the Justice Department.

As special assistant to the secretary, Defensor Santiago now found herself very close to the center of her country's political life. Ensconced in a little room beside the secretary's office, she was assigned to do everything his regular staff members could not do, or could not do quickly enough. She researched materials, drafted speeches and memoranda, and prepared him for television interviews. Moreover, she often drafted speeches on law and justice for President Marcos.

Abad Santos monitored her work closely and, in academic fashion, graded it, noting "good," "very good," or "excellent," as the case might be. From Abad Santos, Miriam Defensor Santiago acquired her own, now famous, management style, which she candidly calls "headbashing." Miriam herself, was spared Abad Santos's tantrums, however; in fact, he had the much appreciated habit of complimenting her in public.

Defensor Santiago was not content to meet the demands of a full-time job, marriage, and motherhood. (In one of her short stories written about this time, a young lawyer says of herself, "Adrenalin runs in my veins.") In 1971 Miriam accepted an evening teaching position at Trinity College in Quezon City and also began to write law articles and legal textbooks.

Her most sensitive assignment as special assistant to Enrile had been to prepare a confidential memorandum for President Marcos on the advisability of declaring martial law. Locked away in a room, she and three others pored over their law books. "Our conclusion", she recalls, "was that the president was better advised not to avail [himself] of this drastic measure. We felt that the many crises that had surfaced at that time did not yet suffice to mandate such a dramatic action."

Two years passed before Marcos decided that the time had come: he declared martial law on September 21, 1972. Congress was dissolved and many of the president's political opponents were arrested. Abad Santos, who, like Defensor Santiago, was not personally in favor of the declaration, managed to resolve his doubts in favor of the president and cooperated. Following the lead of her mentor, Miriam "almost automatically adopted the same attitude." Like many others at the time, she nourished the hope that the urgent problems of the day could better be solved "in one bold stroke".

Marcos adopted a new constitution and declared it legal on the basis of a voice vote in villages around the country. Defensor Santiago's book, The 1973 Constitution, was an analysis of the new constitution for students and lawyers. Bowing to the strict censorship of the times, she refrained from expressing her doubts about the legitimacy of the document in print. However, with her law students at UP—including, at one point, the president's son—she held that the constitution had not been validly ratified. The Supreme Court justices who upheld the constitution, she said, "were suffering from a state of doctrinal confusion." Despite such reservations, she carried on as special assistant to Abad Santos, who had become minister of justice in the martial law government.

By 1974 her Saturday morning writing had resulted in a scholarly study on "The Archipelago Concept in the Law of the Sea" and a textbook entitled International Relations. She was also writing regular columns for the Philippine Daily Express on the subject of feminism. At that time she believed "there was an authentic need for a women's liberation movement," since "women were generally oppressed by the social and cultural system. Now that I am older," she says fifteen years later, "I don't think it is relevant or that it is cost efficient ... you alienate more people than you win over."

In the fall of 1974, with the blessing of Abad Santos, Defensor Santiago took a leave of absence from the ministry to study at the University of Michigan in the United States. She and her husband and son moved to Ann Arbor where, as a Dewitt Fellow, she began work toward a master's degree. (Her desire to study abroad dated from her disappointment with the UP College of Law. At that time, she had wondered, "how could U.S. Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes have achieved such stature if he went to a law school like mine?")

At Michigan, Defensor Santiago enrolled under Professor William W. Bishop, a distinguished legal scholar of international law. Under his rigorous but kindly tutelage, she honed her analytical powers and, for the first time, enjoyed law as an intellectual discipline. "Michigan is where I really went to school," she says. "It was like graduating from a fishbowl into the ocean." Bishop encouraged her to work for a doctorate, which she achieved by disciplined study during the academic year 1975-76. Her thesis was published in 1977 as Political Offenders in International Law, followed over the next decade by seven other articles on major legal questions.

In Ann Arbor, Defensor Santiago and her family joined in the social life of the local Filipino community. For parties she cooked rellenong bangus, a stuffed fish dish requiring painstaking preparation. Normally, she recognized, someone in graduate school did not take the time to do that, but her perverse streak compelled her to prove she could.

The Santiagos returned to the Philippines in 1976 and Miriam joined Abad Santos at the Ministry of Justice. When he moved to the Supreme Court three years later, she stayed at the ministry but, on occasion, helped him draft decisions. But when later in 1979 she was offered the post of legal officer with the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) in Geneva, Switzerland, Abad Santos encouraged her to accept, and she did. Thus, with her son and "most competent maid", Defensor Santiago moved to Europe, while her husband—who was not permitted to work under Swiss law—remained in Manila. Her duties involved planning and attending conferences on refugee law and analyzing draft treaties affecting refugees. In 1980, however, her father developed terminal cancer and she returned to Manila to care for him; he died six months later. Nevertheless, she remained in Manila and became consultant to the UP Law Center. On October 2, 1981, her second child, Alexander, was born.

The young lawyer was then invited to become legal consultant at the Philippine Embassy in the United States, where President Marcos's brother-in-law was ambassador: "that was an invitation I couldn't refuse," she notes. When she reported for work, however, she found she had little to do but attend cocktail parties.

Quezon City Trial Court Judge

On leave in Manila a few months later, ostensibly to arrange to move her children and husband to Washington, Defensor Santiago learned of an impending nationwide reorganization of the judiciary. She seized the opportunity to fulfill a deathbed pledge to her father—"that I would do my best to serve my country as a trial judge, as he had." She sought an appointment as regional trial judge in Quezon City, the part of Metro Manila housing the legislature of the Philippines and many of the government offices.

This was considered a plum post. Appointments to trial judgeships anywhere in Metro Manila were generally awarded only to those who had served in the provinces for seven to ten years. In her case, she had not seen a courtroom in her entire adult life.

With characteristic forwardness, Defensor Santiago went directly to the chief justice of the Supreme Court, Enrique Fernando, who had once offered her a judgeship on Mindoro Island, and asked to be nominated for Quezon City. She requested Quezon City, she told him, so that she could continue teaching at the UP College of Law. ("Fernando was known to be very, very partisan in favor of UP.") Her mentor (now Associate Justice) Abad Santos was also enlisted to support her candidacy. Leaving nothing to chance, she sought the help of Juan Tuvera, an old, personal friend, who was President Marcos's executive assistant. It was Tuvera who approached Marcos with the appointment letter and who stood by and watched as the president signed it.

As a regional trial judge, Defensor Santiago heard major cases in criminal and civil law and handled special proceedings. In any given week, she might hear criminal cases ranging from bad checks through drug dealing, robbery, rape, and murder, and civil suits involving adoption, probate, or large claims between competing businessmen. The Philippine judicial system follows the European system in eschewing jury trials: the judge determines guilt or innocence and metes out sentences.

Defensor Santiago assumed her new post, determined to redeem the reputation of her country's judiciary. Philippine judges were then widely perceived to be corrupt—a perception she believes to have been all too accurate. She was determined "to prove that a party could go before me and rest assured that I would decide the case on the merits, that I would never receive a bribe to decide a case."

To emphasize this position, she established strict procedures limiting access to her chambers by litigants: "You can always tell me everything you want to tell me ... in the courtroom when the other party is present," she announced. Those who tried to bribe her, she threatened with citations for contempt of court. To make the point, she sent some immediately to jail, ordering them released, relieved but shaken, shortly thereafter. She admonished her staff against accepting or forwarding to her any gifts from interested parties. In a procedure manual she wrote, now used widely by other judges, she stated: "The first rule of this courtroom is no bribes, no extortion." To a judge who sent her unsolicited advice about one of her cases, she replied through his messenger that, "if he wants to decide my case, then I should take steps to have the case transferred to him." Rebuffing influences from all sides, Miriam Defensor Santiago eventually got her message across. After six months people stopped trying to influence her decisions.

Defensor Santiago'S most famous case pitted her stubborn independence against the government forces of Ferdinand Marcos. By presidential decree, criticizing the government in a public assembly was an offense punishable by death. And, as she points out, "an illegal public assembly was defined as a gathering of two or more people."

Following the assassination of Benigno Aquino, Jr., in August 1983, rallies, demonstrations, and strikes against the Marcos government proliferated. The government made selective arrests. During a military rally on the occasion of a jeepney driver's strike in 1985, several speakers who criticized the government—and in particular the First Lady—were rounded up by the police and military. They were held under a Preventive Detention Action Order issued by the president himself. Those arrested included film director Lino Brocka. When he and his companions requested release on bail, Defensor Santiago faced the question: "In a martial law situation, can a mere regional trial jury overrule the president of the republic ?"

Judges in the past had prudently sustained such arrests a denied bail. Defensor Santiago now experienced indirect intimidation from military men and anonymous death threats. She knew that a decision against the president might place her in jeopardy assassination ("at that time people had a mysterious habit of getting killed in vehicular accidents") or of being detained herself. Having scrupulously examined the issues, however, the judge ordered Brocka and the others released.

In the severely repressive climate of the times, her decision was sensational. Because of it, she became a hero to those opposing the Marcos regime, and she welcomed the publicity because "it represented an opportunity for me to demonstrate that the judicial system was working, that it was intellectually honest."

Aside from restoring integrity to the judiciary, Defensor Santiago was eager to restore efficiency. Among the problems she found was interminable delay. Delays occurred, in part, because there were too many litigious Filipinos. But aside from this, there was the habit of postponement of cases. Lawyers routinely appeared in court on their appointed days, only to request postponement, usually pleading "diarrhea" on the part of themselves, clients, or witnesses. (Lawyers were paid by clients whenever they appeared, even though the case was not brought to trial.) In many courtrooms this habit was so entrenched that the vast majority of cases scheduled to be heard on any given day would be postponed.

The young judge moved decisively to break this habit, refusing to grant postponements without real cause. In so doing, she says, "I created my own monster". The faster cases were tried, the sooner her decisions had to be rendered. She had to work doggedly to prevent a backlog and was under great personal stress. Nevertheless, she had a case disposal rate of fifty per month, one of the highest in Metro Manila. What is more, her meticulously constructed decisions were rarely appealed; three are pending before the Supreme Court. During this period, she received four major awards: Outstanding Woman in Iloilo in 1984, and in 1986 the National Police Commission Distinguished Achievement Award, the Lion's Club Award to Outstanding Women in the Nation's Service, and the prestigious Jaycee TOYM (Ten Outstanding Young Men) Award, opened to women the previous year.

As the crisis attending the later years of the Marcos regime deepened, Defensor Santiago carried on her personal battle for judicial integrity in her courtroom and addressed constitutional issues in her classrooms. But she adhered strictly to the prohibition barring judges from taking part in partisan political activities. Privately, she came to feel that the downfall and disgrace of Ferdinand Marcos was inevitable, but also rather sad. In her years in the Justice Department she had come to admire him as a truly gifted Filipino, "a man with the law at his fingertips ... and a masterful politician."

Commissioner, Commission on Immigration and Deportation

By the time of the February Revolution of 1986, however, Defensor Santiago was seen as an exception in Marcos's corrupt government. She seemed to represent the spirit of integrity that many Filipinos hoped to see restored under the new president, Corazon Aquino.

Although President Aquino's husband had been a sponsor Miriam's wedding, the two women had never met. Defensor Santiago first came to the attention of Aquino as the Judge who stood up Marcos in the Lino Brocka trial. The president offered her several positions, but Defensor Santiago declined them all so that she could continue to work close to her home in Quezon City—she treasured having lunch with son Alexander—and to the UP campus where she was still teaching. Finally, faced with finding a new chief for the country's notoriously mismanaged Commission on Immigration and Deportation (CID), Aquino made a special appeal to Defensor Santiago to accept. Miriam likes to say that her first instinct was to say, "insanity does not run in my family!" But in a heart-to-heart talk with the president she relented, although not before express her preference for a Supreme Court justiceship. "I told her ... if you think this is the best way for me to help you, so be it. It's my duty to accept."

On January 4, 1988, the "fighting judge" of Quezon City took charge of the CID and showed how a "traditionally corrupt government agency can be reformed."

With breathtaking decisiveness, she threw out the fixers, transferred suspected bribe-takers from sensitive positions, and filed administrative charges against corrupt employees. She swept away corruption-breeding disorder and red tape. She declared war on crime syndicates and exposed drug pushers, pedophiles, gunrunners, and passport forgers.

During this time, Miriam Defensor Santiago received the 1988 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Government Service.

Secretary, Department of Agrarian Reform

Impressed with her performance in the CID, President Aquino appointed Santiago as Secretary of Agrarian Reform in 1989. Miriam lost no time in overhauling the department's policies. She instituted three major policies in agrarian reform.

• First, to concretize the basic philosophy of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law (CARL), she stressed that all doubts on the inclusion of lands in the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) should be resolved in favor of inclusion.
• Under her term, the DAR policy was to prefer the contract-growing principle over the lease-back arrangement, particularly with respect to corporate farms or plantations. Under the lease-back arrangement, the tiller would end up as the lessor who receives rent and remains a mere laborer of multinational corporations. In contrast, the principle of land to the tillers would still be practiced under the contract-growing scheme. The contract grower would have a say on how much would be produced and in marketing the produce.
• Most important, under her term, the DAR shifted its land acquisition thrust from the voluntary offer-to-sell (VOS) scheme to compulsory acquisition of lands to hasten the pace of the CARP. The VOS scheme implemented during her predecessor's term was riddled with anomalies and corruption. Miriam assumed her duties when the DAR was being rocked by the highly controversial and fraudulent Garchitorena land deal. The former agrarian reform secretary was forced to resign due to the scandal. One of Miriam's first acts as agrarian reform secretary was to halt all land transactions under the VOS method, and order the investigation of all past and pending transactions.

Miriam's boldest move as agrarian reform secretary was to ask President Aquino to inhibit herself from deliberations of the Presidential Agrarian Reform Council (PARC) on the stock distribution scheme of Hacienda Luisita. The president was the chairperson of PARC, while Santiago was its vice chairperson.

The Cojuangcos availed themselves of the CARP's stock-transfer option scheme allowing the President's family to distribute shares of stocks to the Cojuangco corporation instead of distributing land titles from the estate. Critics decried the scheme, saying it allowed the owners to retain control of the estate.

Miriam endorsed to Congress an alternative "people's agrarian reform program" (Parcode) drafted by the Congress for People’s Agrarian Reform, a coalition of farmers' groups including the militant Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP) and the conservative Federation of Free Farmers (FFF). She said the Parcode was a "superior piece of legislation" and "rational, highly logical, and consistent". The Parcode put land retention limits to five hectares. Under the CARL, the retention limit was 11 hectares, which virtually exempted 75% of all agricultural lands from land reform. Miriam’s endorsement was hailed by farmers' organizations.

Santiago ran for President

After President Corazon Aquino declared her intention not to seek another term in the 1992 elections, Santiago ran for president, seeking Aquino's endorsement. She founded the People's Reform Party (PRP) as her vehicle, inviting Ramon Magsaysay, Jr. to be her running mate. The party did not have any other candidates at the national level and endorsed only two local candidates Alfredo Lim and Lito Atienza for the position of mayor and vice mayor of Manila.

Aquino decided instead to back her Secretary of National Defense Fidel V. Ramos in his bid for the presidency.

Santiago was leading the canvassing of votes for the first five days. Following a string of power outages, the tabulation concluded, and Ramos was declared President-elect.

Santiago filed a protest before the electoral tribunal citing the power outages during the counting of votes as evidence of massive fraud. Her election protest was eventually dismissed. Many believed that this election was marred by fraud because of the nationwide power outages.

The public outrage over the presidential results prompted Newsweek to feature her and her rival on the cover with the question:

"Was the Election Fair?"

In another cover story, Philippines Free Press magazine asked:

"Who's the Real President?"

Senator of the Philippines

Santiago ran for the Senate of the Philippines in 1995 elections, again as a candidate of her own PRP. She was elected to the senate and served as a senator from 1995 to 2001. As a Senator, Santiago became a vocal critic of the Ramos Administration. She filed the most number of bills in the Senate during her term. Santiago again ran for president in the 1998 elections and invited former Marcos crony Francisco Tatad to be her running mate against Pwersa ng Masang Pilipino candidate Joseph Estrada but lost by a landslide. After losing the election, Santiago returned to the Senate. In 2001 Santiago ran for reelection but lost.

In 2004, Miriam won her second term as senator. In late 2006, a group of her former students nominated her for Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. All candidates were requested by the Judicial and Bar Council, the nominating body, to submit an application and bio-data and undergo an interview. No one showed up but Santiago. Deeply humiliated, she threw a series of public tantrums and tried to save face by saying she would give way to the senior associate justice, because at age 61 she was "too young for the post".

Santiago ran for reelection in the Philippine Senate election in 2010 under the her PRP and as a guest candidate for six different political parties. She finished third among other senatorial candidates, she garnered more than 17 million votes.

In 2012, Santiago proved to be the most important personality in the Impeachemt trial of the Chief Justice Renato Corona. She, along with fellow Senators Joker Arroyo and Ferdinand Marcos, Jr., were the only senator-judges to vote to acquit the chief magistrate.

Also in 2012, Santiago sponsored two controversial bills: Sin Tax Reform Act of 2012 (with Senator Franklin Drilon) and the Responsible Parenthood and Reproductive Health Act of 2012 (with Senator Pia Cayetano).

Judge of the International Criminal Court

On December 12, 2011, Senator Santiago was elected to a nine-year tenure as judge of the International Criminal Court (ICC) based in The Hague, Netherlands. Although she is currently listed as a judge by the ICC, she has yet to take her oath and assume her office there. Santiago was absent during the March 9, 2012 oath-taking of new judges due to medical reasons, citing her elevated blood pressure and bone marrow aplasia, but later went on to reveal that she had written the president of the ICC to request that she be the last of the six newly elected judges to take her post to allow her more time to fulfill her responsibilities as a Philippine senator.

Senator Miriam Santiago died on Thursday 8:52 in the morning, September 29, 2016.

References

James R. Rush for the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation, September 1988, Manila
( Acosta, Omar M. "German Women Held for Selling Infants." Philippine Daily Inquirer, 25 June 1988.
"Nine Suspected 'Bamboo Gang' Men Nabbed." Philippine Daily Inquirer, 2 July 1988.
Barrameda, Nes. "Santiago Defends Airport Revamp." Manila Times, 5 July 1988.
"Santiago Defies Order of Justice Secretary. " Manila Times, 13 April 1988.
Callo, Kathleen. "Death Threats, Armed Guards Easy Parts of Miriam's Job." Philippine Daily Inquirer, 10 February 1988.
"Child Prostitution Network Busted." Philippine Daily Inquirer, 28 February 1988.
"CID Chief Hurls Chairs at Erring Employees." Manila Chronicle, 25 June 1988.
"CID Names Government Officials Listed as Aliens." Business World, (Manila), 24 March 1988.
Defensor Santiago, Miriam. The Archipelago Concept in the Law of the Sea Problems and Perspectives. Makati: Development Academy of the Philippines, 1982.
The Archipelago Concept in the Law of the Sea." Philippine Law Journal 49 (1974).
"The Culture of Corruption." Outline of extemporaneous speech delivered before the Manila Rotary Club, 14 January 1988. Typescript.
"Fighting Graft and Corruption in Government." Paper presented at Awardee’s Forum, Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation, Manila, 1 September 1988. Typescript.
"The Infinite Intelligence." Manila Times, 21 April 1988.
International Relations. Quezon City: New Day Publishers, 1974.
Interview by James R. Rush. Tape recordings, September 1988. Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation, Manila.
The 1973 Constitution. Quezon City: New Day Publishers, 1973.
Political Offenses in International Law. Quezon City: University of the Philippine Law Center, 1977.
Staff Manual. Regional Trial Court, Branch 106, Quezon City, 1983.
"The Supreme Court Applies 'Clear and Present Danger': But Which One?" Philippine Law Journal 60 (1985).
"Suerdo." Philippines Free Press, 3 July 1971.
"What About This Women's Lib Thing?" Focus Philippines, 27 January 1973
"Defensor Santiago Vows to Lead by Example at CID." Business World (Manila), 21 July 1988.
Estacio, Athle Wijangco. "Miriam Defensor Santiago: All Set to Dig in Her Heels at the CID. " Sunday Times Magazine (Manila), 3 January 1988.
Flores, Jamil Maidan. "The Wages of Virtue." Philippine Panorama, 3 April 1988.
"Immigration Men at Airport Reshuffled." Manila Times, 2 July 1988.
Mangaser, Lito. "Miriam Loses Temper." Manila Chronicle, 7 July 1988.
"Santiago Eyes Legalization of 300,000 Aliens." Manila Chronicle, 17 June 1988.
Manlogon, Melanie. "The Lady Is a Tiger." Midweek. 6 April 1988.
Paunlaqul, Milagros D. "CID Boss Cracks Down on Corrupt NAIA Personnel." Journal (Manila). 23 June 1988.
"CID Busts International Swindling Ring." Journal (Manila), 20 February 1988.
Pelaez-Marfori, Berry. "I Was Born to Raise Hell." Chronicle on Sunday (Manila). 8 May 1988.
Republic of the Philippines. Commission on Immigration and Deportation. Accomplishment Report. January to August 1988.
"SC Upholds CID on Pedophiles." Manila Bulletin, 20 July 1988.
Severino, Horacio. "The Wrong Way to Fight Aids." Chronicle on Sunday (Manila), 10 April 1988.
"Tough Job, Tough Lady." Asiaweek, 1 April 1988.
Various interviews with and letters from persons acquainted with Miriam Defensor Santiago and her work. )

Wikipedia Commons

On This Day - June 14, 1945 - Gen. Tomoyuki Yamashita and the Japanese troops was defeated by Filipino & American troops in Battle of Bessang Pass

 

On June 14, 1945, combined forces of Filipino and American soldiers defeated the Japanese troops of General Tomoyuki Yamashita in the epic Battle of Bessang Pass in Northern Luzon.

(Japanese General Yamasita in Ifugao)

This was a three-month uphill battle between the guerrilla forces under Colonel Russell Volckman in the Cordilleras on the border of Ifugao and Mountain Province close to Cervantes town in Ilocos Sur.

The fall of the Japanese to the hands of the United States Armed Forces in the Philippines paved the way for the entrapment of Yamashita's forces in the Cordilleras. Yamashita finally surrendered in September 1945.

General Tomoyuki Yamashita was known as the “Tiger of Malaya”, a nickname he earned for conquering Singapore.

Reference: Philippines News Agency