Manuel Roxas

Manuel Roxas
5th President of the Philippines 3rd and Last President of the Commonwealth of the Philippines 1st President of the 3rd Philippine Republic
In office May 28, 1946 (as Commonwealth President until July 4, 1946, as Republic President thereafter) – April 15, 1948
Vice President	Elpidio Quirino
Preceded by	Sergio Osmeña
Succeeded by	Elpidio Quirino
Born	January 1, 1892(1892-01-01) Capiz (now Roxas City), Capiz
Died	April 15, 1948 (aged 56) Clark Air Base, Angeles, Pampanga
Resting place	Manila North Cemetery
Political party	Nacionalista (1919–1945) Liberal Party (1945–1948)
Spouse(s)	Trinidad de Leon
Occupation	Lawyer
Religion	Roman Catholicism
Signature

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.

Early life and career

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.

Former diplomatic residence of Manuel Roxas in Washington, D.C.

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.

Election

Gravesite of Manuel Roxas

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.

Transition of government

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.^[1]

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.^[2] Both recommendations were accepted by the Congress.

Presidency

Economy of the Philippines under
President Manuel Roxas
1946-1948

Population
1948	19.23 million
Gross Domestic Product
1947	▲ Php 85, 269 million
Growth rate, 1947–48	39.5 %
Per capita income
1947	▲ Php 4,434
Total exports
1947	▲ Php 24, 824 million
Exchange rates
1 US $ = Php 2.00 1 Php = US $ 0.50
Sources: Philippine Presidency Project Malaya, Jonathan; Eduardo Malaya. So Help Us God... The Inaugurals of the Presidents of the Philippines. Anvil Publishing, Inc..

Second inauguration

Manuel Roxas' term as the President of the Commonwealth of the Philippines ended on the morning of July 4, 1946 when the Third Republic of the Philippines was inaugurated and Philippine Independence from the United States proclaimed, amidts plaudits and prayers of some 300,000 people, 21-gun salute and joyous echoes of church bells. Roxas was then inaugurated as the new and first president of the new Republic.

The inaugural ceremonies took place at Luneta Park, Manila. On the grandstand there were around 3,000 guests and notables, consisted of President Roxas and his cabinet; the last US High Commissioner and first American Ambassador of US to the Philippines Paul McNutt; General Douglas MacArthur (coming from Tokyo); American Postmaster General Robert E. Hannegan; a delegation from US Congress headed by Tydings-McDuffie Act author Maryland Senator Millard Tydings and Missouri Representative C. Jasper Bell, author of Bell Trade Act and former civil governor-general Francis Burton Harrison.

Reconstruction after the war

The postwar Philippines had burned cities and towns, ruined farms and factories, blasted roads and bridges, shattered industries and commerce, and thousands of massacred victims. The war had paralyzed the educational system, where 80% of the school buildings, their equipments, laboratories and furniture were destroyed.^[3] Numberless books, invaluable documents and works of art, irreplaceable historical relics and family heirlooms, hundreds of churches and temples were burned. The reconstruction of the damaged school buildings alone cost more than Php 126,000,000.

The new Republic began to function on an annual deficit of over Php 200,000,000 with little prospect of a balanced budget for some years to come.^[4] Manila and other cities then were infested with criminal gangs which used techniques of American gangsters in some activities–bank hold-ups, kidnapping and burglaries. In rural regions, especially the provinces of Central Luzon and the Southern Tagalog regions, the Hukbalahaps and brigands terrorized towns and barrios.

Administration

Although Roxas was successful in getting rehabilitation funds from the United States after independence, he was forced to concede military bases (23 of which were leased for 99 years), trade restriction for the Philippine citizens, and special privileges for U.S. property owner and investor.

On March 11, 1947, the Filipino people, heeding Roxas' persuasive harangue, ratified in a nationwide plebiscite the "parity amendment" to the 1935 Constitution, granting United States citizens the right to dispose and utilize of Philippine natural resources, or through parity rights. The night before the plebiscite day, Roxas narrowly escaped an assassination by a disgruntled Tondo barber, who hurled a grenade on the platform at Plaza Miranda immediately after the President addressed the rally of citizens.^[5]

On 1948, Roxas declared amnesty for those arrested for collaborating with the Japanese during World War II, except for those who had committed violent crimes. His administration was marred by graft and corruption; moreover, the abuses of the provincial military police contributed to the rise of the left-wing (Huk) movement in the countryside. His heavy-handed attempts to crush the Huks led to widespread peasant disaffection.

The good record of Roxas administration was marred by two failures: the failure to curb graft and corruption in the government, as evidenced by the Surplus War Property scandal, the Chinese immigration scandal and the School supplies scandal; and the failure to check and stop the communist Hukbalahap movement.

Death

Roxas did not finish his term that was expected to end by 1950 because he died of myocardial infarction.^[6]

On the night of April 15, 1948, Roxas died at Clark Field, Pampanga. In the morning of his death Roxas delivered a speech before the US Thirteenth Airforce, in which he said:

After the speech, he felt dizzy and was brought to the residence of Major-General E.L. Eubank, where he passed away that same night.

On April 17, 1948, two days after Roxas' death, Vice-President Elpidio Quirino took the oath of office as President of the Philippines, per line of succession.

Family

Manuel Roxas was married to Doña Trinidad de Leon-Roxas and had two children Ma. Rosario "Ruby" who is married to Vicente Roxas and Gerardo M. "Gerry" Roxas who married Judy Araneta. Gerry became congressman and a leader of Liberal Party, he fathered three children, two (Dinggoy Roxas and Mar Roxas) served as Representatives of Capiz. Mar, President's Roxas grandson, became a Senator in 2004, and he was elected President of the Liberal Party of the Philippines in 2004.

References

• Zaide, Gregorio F. (1984). Philippine History and Government. National Bookstore Printing Press. 

• Zaide, Gregorio (1956). Philippine Political and Cultural History: the Philippines since British Invasion (1957 Revised ed.). Manila, Philippines: McCullough Printing Company. 

External links

• The Philippine Presidency Project
• A Country Study: Philippines
• Manuel A. Roxas Elementary School

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