Sergio Osmeña

Sergio Osmeña

Sergio Osmeña y Suico (born September 9, 1878 in Cebu , † October 19, 1961 in Quezon City ) was a Filipino politician and President of the Philippines .

Studies and early professional activities

After studying at the University of San Carlos , which he graduated in 1892, he continued his studies at the Colegio de San Juan de Letran in Manila , where he first met his college friend and later President Manuel Quezon . Later he studied law at the University of Santo Tomas , where he was a student of Cayetano Arellano and graduated in 1903 as the second best.

Already during the Spanish-American War he served as a courier and journalist on the staff of General Emilio Aguinaldo . In 1900 he founded the daily newspaper "El Nuevo Dia" in Cebu, but it was only published until 1903. He then worked for a short time as a lawyer.

Political career in the American territorial era

Governor of Cebu

As a lawyer, he began his political career as a councilor in the city council of Cebu City . Under the American colonial administration, he was first appointed governor of Cebu by then US governor Luke Edward Wright in 1904 and then elected governor there two years later.

Founder of the "Nacionalista Party"

Together with his old fellow student Quezon, he founded shortly afterwards as a counter-movement to the “Partido Federalista”, which consisted mainly of politicians from Manila , the “Nacionalista Party”, which was mostly made up of politicians from the provinces. In the years that followed, there were repeated rivalries over the political majority in parliaments.

Speaker of Parliament and President of the Senate

Even as governor, he successfully ran for election to the first Filipino Assembly in 1907 . This assembly elected him as its spokesman, so that Osmeña, who was just 29 at the time, was already the highest-ranking Filipino politician. He initially remained in these offices until 1916.

When the first House of Representatives emerged from the Philippine Assembly in 1916 , Osmeña was also elected Speaker of the Parliament.

From 1922 to 1935 he was elected to the Senate of the Philippine Legislature . From 1922 to 1933 he was also President of the Senate pro tempore .

Negotiations for independence from the USA

In 1933 he traveled to the US to there over the independence to negotiate the Philippines from the United States. As early as 1933, as a first step in decolonization, Congress passed the Hare-Hawes-Cutting Independence Act, which was finally replaced in 1934 by the Tydings-McDuffie Act . This initially envisaged self-government for the Philippines for a period of ten years and then the independence of the Philippines from the USA.

Rise to President of the Commonwealth of the Philippines

President Sergio Osmeña (November 1943)

Vice-President under Manuel L. Quezon

The laws were implemented on November 15, 1935 with the establishment of the Philippine Commonwealth . Osmeña was elected vice-president under the first president, Manuel Quezon. In 1941, President Quezon and his Vice President Osmeña were re-elected.

After Japanese troops marched into the Philippines, the government went into exile in the USA on January 3, 1942 .

Presidency

After the death of President Quezon on August 1, 1944 in American exile, he became the second and last President of this Commonwealth and formed the government against President José P. Laurel , who resided in the Philippines and who collaborated with the Japanese occupation forces . During his tenure, he began to reorganize the administration when he returned to the Philippines.

In the same year he returned to the Philippines with the troops led by US General Douglas MacArthur to liberate the Philippines from Japanese troops. After the war ended, he began to rebuild the Commonwealth of Nations, but also continued efforts to achieve full independence.

Unsuccessful presidential candidacy in 1946 and withdrawal from politics

Sergio Osmeña's tomb

After the founding of the Republic of the Philippines on July 4, 1946, he ran unsuccessfully for the office of first president and highlighted his forty years of service for the interests of the Philippines in the election campaign. However, Osmeña lost to Manuel Roxas , who was elected president with 54 percent. After this election defeat, he retired to his home province of Cebu until his death.

His son Sergio Osmeña Jr. and two of his grandchildren (Sergio Osmeña III and John Henry Osmeña ) also became senators.

Web links

Commons : Sergio Osmeña  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Information in rulers.org
• Biography in geocities.com ( Memento from October 12, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
• Biography in globalpinoy.com