Felipe G. Calderon

Feliqe G. Calderon

Felipe Gonzáles Calderón y Roca ( April 4, 1868 - July 6, 1908 ) was a Filipino lawyer and author of the Malolos Constitution , which is considered the first republican constitution in Asia . He was born in Santa Cruz de Malabon to Jose Gonzales Calderon and Manuela Roca .

He completed his studies at the Ateneo de Municipal, now Ateneo de Manila University , and graduated in 1885 with the academic title of Bachelor of Arts . At the request of his mother, he was supposed to pursue the priesthood, so he enrolled at the Pontifical and Royal University of St. Thomas Aquinas in Manila (UST) and took various jobs to finance the study of law. He worked for the Spanish daily La Oceania Española and wrote pro-Filipino articles. However, he resigned himself as hardly any articles were published and he received no money. For this reason, Calderon gave private lessons, including for the son of Don Francisco Roxas. Roxas has been generous in sponsoring Calderon trips to Hong Kong , Singapore, and India . When he returned, he settled in Bauan and married Josefa Amurao.

Calderon graduated with a Lincenciate of Law in 1893 and then worked at Cayetano Arellano's law firm before opening his own law firm in Cavite Province . In 1895 he enrolled again at the UST to study philosophy , science and literature . When the Philippine Revolution broke out in 1896 and the call of the falcon's nest rang out, the liberal-minded Calderon was imprisoned and locked up in the Fuerza de Santiago . After his release in 1897, he lived in seclusion in Manila with his family. After the revolution came to a standstill after the end of the Republic of Biak-na-Bato and Emilio Aguinaldo went to Hong Kong, however, he seems to have started to rethink. After Aguinaldo returned to Manila in May 1898, Calderon offered him his services.

Calderon was appointed representative of the province of Palawan at the Revolutionary Congress in Malolos in September 1898 . He was given the task of drawing up a constitution. The draft was controversial at the Congress, especially Article five. Calderon wrote in his draft that Catholicism should become the state religion of the Philippines. This article was amended by the delegates of Congress so that the adopted constitution provided for freedom of choice of religion and the separation of church and state.

A few months after the Philippine-American War broke out, Calderon began working with the US- appointed Schurman Commission . He helped the US authorities restructure the communities in the Philippines . In the same year he founded the Colegio de Abogados de Manila organization and the Escuela de Derecho law school . In 1904 he was commissioned by the Taft Commission to draw up the Philippines' first civil penal code. In 1905 he founded the Associacion Historica de Filipinas , which published the magazine Historica de Filipinas from May 1905 to April 1906 . He later became editor of the Encyclopedia Filipina , which, however, did not appear regularly. He wrote popular science essays on the history of the Philippines and among others the biographies of Jose Maria Basa and Lorenzo Guerrero . Important essays were El Mes de Agosto en la Historia Patria (1896-1906) , Mis Memorias Sobre la Revolucion (1907), Documentos para la historia de Filipinas .

Felipe G. Calderon died on July 6, 1908 in Saint Paul's Hospital in Manila .

Web links

• Short biography of Felipe G. Calderon (English; PDF; 19 kB)