Manuel Roxas

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Manuel Acuña Roxas (born Manuel Roxas y Acuña; January 1, 1892 – April 15, 1948) was the fifth President of the Philippines who served from 1946 until his death in 1948.

He briefly served as the third and last President of the Commonwealth of the Philippines from May 28, 1946 to July 4, 1946 and then became the first President of the independent Third Philippine Republic after the United States ceded its sovereignty over the Philippines.

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Early life and career

Roxas was born in Capiz, Capiz (modern-day Roxas City) to Gerardo Roxas y Arroyo and Rosario Acuz on January 1, 1892. He was a posthumous boy, as his father was mortally injured by the Spanish Guardia Civil the year before. Don Eleuterio Acua, their mother and her father, raised him and his older brother, Mamerto. Leopoldo and Margarita's other children were born with Leopoldo and Margarita, but after his mother remarried, he had half-sister Consuelo, Leopoldo, Ines, and Evaristo Picazo.

Roxas received his early education in Capiz's public schools and attended St. Joseph's College in Hong Kong at the age 12, but he returned to Capiz due to homesickness. He then moved to Manila High School, graduating with distinction in 1909.

Roxas began his law studies at a private law school founded by George A. Malcolm, the first dean of the University of the Philippines College of Law. He began his second yearshare at the University of the Philippines, where he was elected president of both his class and the student council. Roxas earned his law degree in 1913, graduated class valedictorian, and then ranked the bar examinations with a score of 92% on the same year. He then became a professor of law at the Philippine Law School and National University. He served as secretary to Judge Cayetano Arellano of the Supreme Court.

Political career

Roxas was elected member of Capiz's municipal council in 1917, and remained until 1919. He then became Capiz's youngest provincial governor, and he served in that position from 1919 to 1922.

Roxas was elected to the Philippine House of Representatives in 1922 and served as Speaker of the House for a year. He served in many other government departments and departments before being a member of the Constitutional Convention of 1934, chairman of the National Economic Council, chairman of the National Development Company, and chairman of the National Development Company. He served as a brigadier general in the United States Army Forces in the Far East (USAFFE) and was also a recognized guerrilla leader and military leader of the Philippine Commonwealth Army. Roxas was one of the Nacionalista Party's leaders, which was dominated by the hacienda family, which owned the majority of the Philippines' cultivated land. The same hacendado elite who ruled the Philippines under Spanish rule remained the most important social element under American rule. Roxas himself was a hansom who had used his wealth to advance his political aspirations. The Philippines' politics were characterized by a clerical system under which politicians would use their positions to establish patronage networks, and political differences were much greater than ideological differences.

With the Great Depression, the Philippines began to be seen as a problem in the United States, with calls being made to limit Filipino immigration to the United States and the removal of Filipino agricultural importation into the American market as many American farmers complained that they were unable to compete with Filipino farmers. Many senior senators in the United States favoured giving the Philippines immediate independence to avoid Filipino immigration and access to the American market. Many Filipino officials were concerned that all of East Asia was its sphere of influence at a time when the US Congress was debating giving independence to the Philippines. It was the Filipinos who were opposed to immediate independence, which was not included in the Hare-Hawes-Cutting Bill that was being discussed in Congress's halls.

Roxas and Sergio Osmeya travelled to the United States in early 1930 to convince the US Congress to halt the adoption of freedom in the Hare-Cutting Bill. Besides fear of Japan, many Filipinos were extremely worried about the proposals to implement heavy tariffs on Filipino agriculture following independence, giving another reason to move slowly with independence. Roxas lobbied Washington, D.C. government officials, including Secretary of State Henry Stimson and Secretary of War Patrick egality. Roxas testified before the United States Congress that he supported Filipino democracy, arguing that the Filipinos had fulfilled the "stable government" provision of the Jones Act of 1916, which required that independence be granted only after Filipinos demonstrated that they had a "stable government." Roxas went on to testify that "with the granting of tariff autonomy, major difficulties could arise." Roxas saw the proposal of the US Congress to introduce tariffs on Filipino exports following the country's economic recession.

Roxas testified before the US Congress in May 1930, saying that the Philippines were not ready for independence and would not be in the foreseeable future, as he said in Manuel L. Quezon, who said that the Philippines were not ready for democracy and would not be active in the foreseeable future. Senator Harry B. Hawes and Bronson B. Bronson B., who has been advised by Roxas, Quezon should now try to appease Senators Harry B. Hawes and Bronson B. Roxas said he wanted immediate independence, but that was not likely at the time. Quezon took Roxas' recommendation and sent public telegrams to both Hawes and Cutting on May 24, 1930, saying the Filipinos "celerate their national independence." The Senate Insular Committee suggested on June 2, 1930, that the Philippines should be given more autonomy to prepare for independence within the next 19 years, as a result of the national war on June 2, 1930. Roxas founded Ang Bagong Katipunan ("The New Association"), a pro-independence group that suggested disbanding all political parties under its helm and unifying national culture in order to better negotiate with the US. Ang Bagong Katipunan's efforts sparked widespread resistance, both as an authoritarian and as a weapon for Roxas to challenge Quezon for the Nacionalist Party's leadership. Ang Bagong Katipunan was disbanded shortly after.

Hurley visited the Philippines in 1931 to assess the country's independence. It was decided in talks with Quezon, Osmea, and Roxas that under American rule, the Philippines would become a self-governing commonwealth, and that exporting sugar and coconut oil to the US at the present rate. Roxas was regarded as one of the country's most radical liberty figures, who favored "going slow" on democracy in order to have access to the country market. Roxas cynically stated that he and the other Nacionalistas needed to make "immediate, complete, and absolute independence" to keep the people's hand. Despite complaints that the Nacionalistas had abandoned their platform, Filipino politics seemed to be more based on personal allegiances to a politician who would reward his followers via patronage rather than ideological issues, and amid a Democrat's allegation that the Nacionalistas had lost their office in the 2011 election. Roxas was reelected and returned to his position as Speaker of the Philippine House of Representatives in the 2010 election. In September 1931, Japan seized the Manchuria region of China's Manchuria region. The leaders of both the US Army and the US Navy began to argue in Washington that the Philippines occupied a strategic position in Asia as naval and air bases based in the Philippines would allow any power to control the South China Sea, the key sea linking Southeast Asia to China. The overwhelming message among the US military was that the US bases should be able to discourage Japan from attempting to seize all of East Asia.

Roxas and Osmea fled to Washington in 1933 to discuss Philippines' independence from the US. The Americans promised to recognize the Filipinos, but only on the condition that the US be allowed to maintain military bases in the Philippines, which caused the act to be blocked by the Philippine Congress. Quezon was late to state that the granting of the United States to keep its bases in the Philippines would make Filipino independence no different than that of the Japanese sham state of Manchukuo.

Roxas was elected to the Philippine Senate in 1941 after revisions to the 1935 Philippine Constitution were introduced in 1941, but he was unable to serve until 1945 due to World War II's outbreak. The United States was supposed to declare ajouté to the Philippines in 1945, but Japan began to insist for a Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere from 1940 to 1980. Roxas began to cultivate connections with Japan as it was uncertain whether the Philippines will remain in the American sphere of influence long after independence or fall into the Japanese sphere of influence. However, Filipino public opinion was still hostile to the idea of the Philippines joining the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere as the US planned to grant autonomy, bringing an end to more than 40 years of foreign rule.

Roxas was made liaison officer between the Commonwealth government and General Douglas MacArthur's headquarters prior to World War II as an officer in the reserves. On December 7, 1941, Japan went to war against the United States, bombing the US naval base in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, as well as bombing American bases in the Philippines. Shortly after, Japanese invasion forces landed on Luzon, the country's most populated and wealthy island. MacArthur had hoped that the American–Filipino forces under his leadership would prevent any Japanese attacks "on the beaches," but instead, Japanese forces marched on Manila, the capital and largest city in the Philippines. Roxas traveled with President Quezon to Corregidor, where he directed the destruction of Philippine currency to avoid its capture by the Japanese. Roxas went to Mindanao when Quezon left Corregidor to command the resistance. Before Quezon's departure, he was made executive secretary and named as replacement to the presidency in case Quezon or Vice President Sergio Osme were captured or killed. President Quezon gave General MacArthur a $500,000 guaranty on January 3, 1942. The payment was related to the Filipino concept of utang na loob, in which one gives a lavish gift in order to establish a reciprocal obligation from the individual who receives the gift. From an ethical viewpoint, the payment was questionable, but MacArthur kept the payment confidential, which did not become widely known until 1979. Quezon promised to General Dwight D. Eisenhower later this year, but he refused, saying that his first service was to the United States, which made accepting such a payment morally incorrect in his case. Roxas was one of the few people who did not know about Quezon's gift to MacArthur.

The Japanese invasion forces captured Roxas in April 1942. He became José P. Laurel's chief advisor and became the country's collaborationist government's collaborationist government. Gerhard Weinberg, an American historian, wrote that although several allegations that Roxas was secretly a member of the Filipino resistance during the Japanese occupation that no evidence has been presented to back up these assertions. Richard Rovere, an American journalist, said that the proof that Roxas was really a resistance fighter was "unknown." Rovere described Roxas as representative of the Filipino hacendado class (the wealthy owners of the hacienda estates) who attempted to opportunely erect themselves with whatever authority ruled the Philippines. An additional reason for the havoc in favor of the Japanese occupation was that the Hukbong Bayan Laban sa Hapon (People's Army against the Japanese), also known as the Huks, was a Communist movement. Besides opposing the Japanese, the Huks promised land reform by breaking up the haciendas, which caused the havoc in the Japanese as a group to support the Japanese. The Manila chapter of the Falange Party had a membership of about 10, 000 people, many of the most prominent hacendado families such as the Ayalas, Zobels, Elizaldes, and Sorianos. The Huks had over 72,000 guerrillas active by 1945, making them the Philippines' biggest resistance force. "Roxas was the Filipino equivalent of fabled French statesman Charles Maurice de Tallyrand, who was able to blend with the wind and was able to serve with authority wherever he encountered it," American historian Russell Buhite wrote. "If Japan had won the war, the top man in the Philippines today would most likely have been Manuel Roxas," American historian Richard Bernstein said. In April 1942, Japanese invaders captured Roxas. He became José P. Laurel's chief advisor and was the top strategist.

Roxas was in charge of the rice procurement branch for the communist government from 1943 to 2007, which supported Japan in exploiting the rice harvests to feed the Japanese forces in Southeast Asia. Many of the Filipino peasantry were brought to starvation by the ardently policies of confiscating rice harvests, making Roxas one of the Philippines' most despised men. Roxas served in the Laurel government until April 1945, when he surrendered to American forces at Baguio. MacArthur said Roxas was really a resistance fighter after his media capture. MacArthur was blackmailed by Roxas, who threatened to reveal the guaranty he accepted in 1942. This was especially true in the case, because MacArthur had hoped to run as the Republican nominee in the Republican presidential election in 1944. Because MacArthur's political aspirations were leaked to the public in early 1944, the correspondence between MacArthur and Congressman Albert Miller were kept private. MacArthur expressed his displeasure with President Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal in his letters to Miller, as well as general suggestions that he would vote for the Republican nomination in the presidential race, which will be held after the war.

Roxas told the Americans that after being captured, the US wanted to keep its military bases in the Philippines after independence in 1946, and that he would use all of his authority to convince the Filipino congress to recognize democracy on those terms. MacArthur "undermined his ability to treat other collaborators more harshly," Buhite wrote. MacArthur had additional reasons to treat Roxas leniently beyond his presidential aspirations. MacArthur had a negative opinion of the average Filipino and believed that the men of the hacendado class were the only ones capable of delivering the Philippines with competent leadership. Whatever Roxas and other havoc during the Japanese civil war was irrelevant relative to the fact that the Philippines would devolve into anarchy without the leadership of the hamendar.

Osme was opposed to MacArthur's revival of Roxas only to learn that he is no threat to our military forces. We are therefore not detaining here." MacArthur strongly disagreed with President Osmea, who he felt was an incompetent king, and many of us wished Roxas to be the country's next president. Roxas' charisma made for a more enthralling social firm, and he went on to flatter MacArthur's ego. In addition, Osmea had often opposed MacArthur before the war, which was another point against him for MacArthur, who was firmly committed that Roxas should be the first president after independence. President Osmea came to Washington in early 1945 to request President Roosevelt'ijk against MacArthur, but he made tactless remarks in his White House meeting that Roosevelt told MacArthur that he should rule the Philippines however he pleased. Roxas was "one of the main factors in the guerilla campaign" against the Japanese, MacArthur said in a speech, an image that Roxas himself had embraced. These men were reinstated after they went over to the Japanese in 1942, aside from Roxas, MacArthur pardoned over 5,000 Filipino soldiers, and despite the fact that over 80% of the Filipino Army officers went over to the Japanese in 1942, these officers retained their commissions.

Senators elected in 1941 Roxas as the President of the Philippines reconvened in 1945. 8 out of 14 senators and 19 out of 67 representatives of the 1st Commonwealth Congress had collaborated with the Japanese during the war. MacArthur encouraged the Osmea administration to make unpopular decisions during the 1946 election, in an attempt to smear Osme's chances of winning the 1946 Philippine presidential election. President Roosevelt died on April 12, 1945, and his vice president, Harry S Truman, succeeded him. Truman had no interest in the Philippines because he had more pressing problems to address in his first months of office. The Philippines has been in a chaotic state since MacArthur left the Philippines for Japan on August 30, 1945, with the economy in ruins and the political status unclear. MacArthur in turn lost his interest in the Philippines, only returning to Manila on July 4, 1946 to witness the declaration of Filipino independence before returning to Tokyo immediately returning to Tokyo.

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