Salipada K. Pendatun

Salipada K. Pendatun (1927)

Salipada "Sali" Khalid Pendatun (born December 3, 1912 in Pikit , Cotabato Province ; † January 26, 1985 in Quezon City ) was a Filipino brigadier general and politician of the Liberal Party and most recently the Kilusang Bagong Lipunan (KBL), who between 1946 and 1951 was the first Muslim to be a member of the Senate . He was later from 1957 to 1972 a member of the House of Representatives and at the same time from 1962 to 1967 Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives. Most recently in the last years of the rule of the dictatorial ruling President Ferdinand Marcos from 1978 until his death in 1985 he was a member and at the same time deputy speaker of the National Congress (Batasang Pambansa) between 1984 and 1985 .

Life

Lawyer and World War II

Pendatun came from a Filipino- Malay Muslim family and was a descendant of Sharif Kabungsuwan , who was the first sultan of Maguindanao between 1520 and 1543 . He himself completed his primary and secondary education in Cotabato and then began an undergraduate degree at the University of the Philippines , which he graduated in 1934 with an Associate in Arts (AA). A subsequent study of law at the University of the Philippines he completed in 1938 with a Bachelor of Laws (LL.B.). In addition, he began his political career at this time and was initially from 1938 to 1940 member of the Parliament of the Cotabato Province . After he had received his license to the Philippine Bar Association (Philippine Bar) on January 18, 1939 , he took up a position as a lawyer .

After the occupation of South Vietnam by the Japanese Empire from the fall of 1940 during the Second World War , Pendatun organized the establishment of a guerrilla force of the Legion of the Philippines , which fought against the occupying forces of the Imperial Japanese Army in South Vietnam. When, after the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 8, 1941 with the Battle of the Philippines , the occupation of the Philippines by Japanese troops began, he joined the Army of the Commonwealth of the Philippines (Philippine Commonwealth Army) to oppose the Japanese troops to fight. However, this suffered a defeat together with the US armed forces stationed in the Philippines on June 9, 1942, which led to the occupation of the Philippines by the Japanese.

Pendatun then continued the fight against the Imperial Japanese Army and founded a guerrilla group consisting mainly of Moros , which was also joined by Christians and soldiers from the US Army. This unit became the 118th Infantry Regiment, whose commander he was with the rank of lieutenant colonel . He experienced in particular the support of the Confederate Sultanates of Lanao, today's provinces of Lanao del Norte and Lanao del Sur , as well as the Tausūg and Maranao . In the following years he led together with Gumbay Piang , the commander of the Moro-Bolo Battalion , significantly the resistance of the Moros against the Japanese occupation forces. This continued until the end of World War II and finally culminated in the Battle of Maguindanao in the south of the Philippines from January to September 1945, which ended with a victory for the Commonwealth of the Philippines. He was honored several times for his many years of service and was the first Muslim to be appointed Brigadier General of the Armed Forces of the Philippines .

Governor and senator

After the end of the Second World War, Pendatun was appointed governor of the province of Cotabato by President Sergio Osmeña .

In the elections of April 23, 1946 Pendatun ran for the Liberal Party, which had emerged from the liberal wing of the Nacionalista Party , for the Senate, in which 16 of the 24 seats were to be newly allocated. With 557,156 votes (21.7 percent) he reached 16th place among the 57 candidates and moved into the Senate with only 384 votes ahead of the next-placed, his fellow party member Prospero Sanidad. He became the first Muslim senator in the Philippines.

During his membership in the first Congress from 1946 to 1949, he was, among other things, chairman of the Senate committees for army, naval and air force pensions, for companies, banks and franchises as well as for special provinces. Together with Lorenzo Tañada, he was one of the two senators who voted against President Manuel Roxas's proclamation of an amnesty for collaborators with the Japanese occupation forces on January 28, 1948 , while the other 22 senators agreed to the amnesty. He was also the official representative at various international conferences such as the United Nations in New York City and Paris . He was also the official representative of the Philippines at the celebrations for Indonesia's independence in 1949 .

Since Pendatun was one of the senators whose electoral term was limited to three years, he ran for the wing of the Liberal Party around José Avelino in the Senate elections on November 8, 1949 for one of the eight seats to be allocated. In this election he achieved 374,340 votes (10.5 percent) but only 18th place among the 26 candidates and thus left the Senate on December 31, 1949. Thereupon President Elpidio Quirino appointed him in 1950 as his technical advisor in the Malacañang Palace . He carried out this activity until the defeat of Quirino in the presidential elections on November 10, 1953.

Pendatun himself applied for the Liberal Party in the Senate elections taking place on November 10, 1953 again for one of the eight Senate seats to be allocated. However, he landed with 945,755 votes (21.9 percent) in 15th place among 20 candidates and thus once again missed the re-entry into the Senate.

Member of the House of Representatives and of Congress

In the elections on November 12, 1957, Pendatun was elected for the first time as a member of the House of Representatives and, after his re-elections on November 14, 1961, November 19, 1965 and November 11, 1969 until the state of emergency was imposed on the basis of Proclamation No. 1081 by President Ferdinand Marcos on September 21, 1972 the electoral district of Cotabato Lone District . In 1960 he was a member of a special committee that initiated suspension proceedings against Sergio Osmeña, Jr., for improper conduct against President Carlos P. Garcia, and Osmeña through House Resolution No. 59 suspended from his membership in parliament for 15 months. Osmeña appealed against this to the Supreme Court of the Philippines , which however dismissed the appeal.

After the 5th Congress met on January 22, 1962, Pendatun was the first deputy speaker of the House of Representatives (Deputy Speaker) and thus representative of the President of Parliament (Speaker Pro-Tempore) . In this capacity, too, he was the first Muslim and initially held this office until the beginning of the second session of the 6th Congress on February 2, 1967. His successor was then Jose M. Aldeguer .

On August 2, 1971, Pendatun, along with Jovito Salonga , Sergio Osmeña, Jr., Gerardo Roxas , Eva Estrada-Kalaw , Genaro Magsaysay , Ramon Mitra , Eddie Ilarde , Roberto Oca Jr. and John Henry Osmeña, was among the injured in the bombing of a party meeting on the proclamation of Ramon Bagatsing as candidate for mayoral for Manila in the Plaza Miranda in Quiapo, a district of Manila. Nine people were killed in the attack, while 95 people were injured, some seriously. In 1971, along with politicians Ali Dimaporo , Rashid Lucman and Mamintal Tamano, he was one of the founders of the Islamic Directorate of the Philippines , which received funds from Libya for the purchase of a property in Barangay Tandang, named after Melchora "Tandang Sora" Aquino Sora in Quezon City to build a mosque there.

After the constitution of 1973 led to the first parliamentary elections since 1969 on April 7, 1978, Pendatun was elected as a candidate for Kilusang Bagong Lipunan (KBL) as a member of the Provisional Congress (Interim Batasang Pambansa) . In the subsequent elections to the regular congress (Regular Batasang Pambansa) on May 14, 1984 he was elected to this body in the Maguindanao constituency and was a member of this body until his death. At the beginning of the first ordinary session on July 23, 1984, he became Deputy Speaker and thus Speaker Pro Tempore of the Congress. He also held this office until his death and was then replaced by Macacuna B. Dimaporo .

Pendatun was married to Aida S. Farales from Bulacan , whom he married in a Catholic church. From this marriage the twins Bai Moniera Pendatun and Bai Zamrad Pendatun, the daughter Bai Mariam Pendatun and his only son Datu Salipada Khalid Pendatun, Jr. emerged.

In his honor, the municipality of General Salipada K. Pendatun was named on April 7, 1991 on the basis of the Muslim Mindanao Autonomy Act No. 3 , which arose from parts of the municipality of Buluan and was thus the first municipality in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) was founded.

Background literature

• Thomas M. McKenna: Muslim Rulers and Rebels: Everyday Politics and Armed Separatism in the Southern Philippines , pp. 110 ff., University of California Press, 1998, ISBN 0-520-91964-5

Web links

• Entry on the Senate homepage

Individual evidence

1. ↑ UP Vanguard Hall of Fame ( Memento of the original from May 18, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on the homepage of the University of the Philippines 
2. ^ Entry in Chan Robles - Virtual Law Library
3. ^ Mark S. Williams: Business and Peace: The Case of La Frutera Plantation in Datu Paglas, Maguindanao, Philippines , p. 46, Verlag Universal-Publishers, 2011, ISBN 1-61233-758-9
4. ↑ GR No. L-17144, October 28, 1960, SERGIO OSMEÑA, JR., Petitioner, vs. SALIPADA K. PENDATUN et al.
5. ↑ The suspension of Congressman Sergio "Serging" V. Osmeña, Jr. ( Memento of the original from April 19, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . In: The Philippine Star, December 8, 2014 
6. ↑ Muslim Mindanao Autonomy Act No. 3
7. ↑ Entry on Muslim Rulers and Rebels (UC Press eBook Collection, online version)