Tomas Confesor

Tomas Valenzuela Confesor (born March 2, 1891 in Iloilo , † June 6, 1951 ) was a Filipino politician .

Life

Origin, studies and member of parliament

The Confesor, who came from a humble background, emigrated to the USA after attending high school in Iloilo in 1908 and worked there as a janitor to finance his studies. He first completed a degree in commercial management at the University of California , which he completed with a Bachelor of Science (B.Sc. Commerce). He completed another degree in economics at the University of Chicago with a Bachelor of Philosophy (B.Ph. Economics). After his return to the Philippines, he was appointed by the US colonial administration as a school supervisor for Jaro .

Confesor began his political career when he was elected to the House of Representatives in 1922, where he represented the constituency of Iloilo III . In the following years he became known for his campaign against maladministration and government and was re-elected twice in his constituency. He was the main author of the Act 3425 Cooperative Marketing Law , which promoted the cooperative movement in the Philippines, particularly the establishment of agricultural cooperatives . After three electoral terms, he left the House of Representatives in 1931.

In 1933, Governor General Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. appointed Confesor as the first Native Commerce Director of the United States Colonial Administration. Appointed Head of the National Cooperatives Administration by President Manuel Quezon after the Commonwealth of the Philippines was founded in 1935 . In this function he initiated the organization of financing groups that freed countless small farmers from their dependence on exploitative business people and usurers.

Commonwealth of the Philippines, World War II and Postwar Period

In 1935 he was one of the delegates of the constitutional convention that drafted the constitution of the Philippines and was then again a member of the House of Representatives between 1935 and 1938 as a representative of the third electoral district of Iloilo.

He then became governor of Iloilo and was at the outbreak of the Pacific War on December 7, 1941 in his second term. After the beginning of the occupation by Japan on April 16, 1942, he was asked to work in the "puppet government" established thereafter. After he refused, he was attacked by the Japanese.

In the period that followed, Confesor organized a resistance group against the Japanese occupation forces in his home province and, because of his activities there, was immediately appointed "wartime governor of the Free Panay and Romblon " by President Quezon . During the entire occupation he led his guerrilla groups in the fight against the Japanese army.

For his outstanding service during the war, he was appointed Commander of the Philippine Legion of Honor by President Sergio Osmeña in 1945 . Shortly thereafter, he was appointed Secretary of the Interior on April 8, 1945 after the restoration of the Commonwealth of the Philippines .

In the first national elections after World War II, Confesor was elected senator in 1946. Shortly before the end of his six-year election period, he died on June 6, 1945 of complications from a myocardial infarction .

Web links

• Biography on the Senate homepage

Individual evidence

1. ↑ History of Iloilo ( Memento of the original from June 18, 2014 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. (Homepage of the government of Iloilo)