Жозе Пасиано Лаурель: Филиппин Президенті (1943-1945)

President of the Philippines from 1943 to 1945

José Paciano Laurel y García (March 9, 1891 – November 6, 1959) was a Filipino politician, lawyer, and judge, who served as the President of the Japanese occupied Second Philippine Republic, a puppet state during World War II, from 1943 to 1945. Since the administration of President Diosdado Macapagal (1961–1965), Laurel has been officially recognized by later administrations as a former president of the Philippines.

José Paciano Laurel y García was born on March 9, 1891, in the town of Tanauan, Batangas. His parents were Sotero Laurel y Remoquillo and Jacoba García y Pimentel, both from Tanauan. His father had been an official in the revolutionary government of Emilio Aguinaldo and a signatory to the 1899 Malolos Constitution. Just like many other presidents, he is a Chinese mestizo descendant. His second given name Paciano was in honor of Paciano Rizal. Laurel completed his high school education at Manila High School in 1911. He received his law degree from the University of the Philippines College of Law in 1915, where he studied under Dean George A. Malcolm, whom he would later succeed at the Supreme Court of the Philippines. On the same year, he took the Philippine bar examination and placed second. He then obtained a Master of Laws degree from University of Santo Tomas in 1919. Laurel was later awarded a scholarship at Yale Law School, where he obtained his J. S. D. degree in 1920. On the same year, he was admitted to the Bar by the Supreme Court of the United States and the Supreme Court and Court of Appeals of the District of Columbia. He later traveled extensively throughout the United States and Europe, where he also took special courses in international law at Oxford University in England and at the University of Paris in France before returning to the Philippines in 1921.

Laurel began his life in public service while a student, as a messenger in the Bureau of Forestry, then as a clerk in the Code Committee tasked with the codification of Philippine laws, and law clerk in the Executive Bureau. During his work for the Code Committee, he was introduced to its head, Thomas A. Street, a future Supreme Court Justice who would be a mentor to the young Laurel. In 1921, Laurel was also appointed as lecturer at University of the Philippines, particularly at the UPD College of Liberal Arts and at the College of Law. then promoted as Secretary of the Interior in 1923. In that post, he would frequently clash with the American Governor General Leonard Wood, and eventually, in 1923, resign from his position together with other Cabinet members in protest of Wood's administration. His clashes with Wood solidified Laurel's nationalist credentials. Laurel was a member of the Philippine fraternity Upsilon Sigma Phi.

In 1925, Laurel was elected to the Philippine Senate, beating incumbent Senator Antero Soriano. Serving from the 5th district, he would serve for one term before losing his re election bid in 1931 to fellow Batangueño Claro M. Recto. He retired to private practice, but by 1934, he was again elected to public office, this time as a delegate to the 1935 Constitutional Convention. Hailed as one of the "Seven Wise Men of the Convention", he would sponsor the provisions on the Bill of Rights.</blockquote>

Another highly influential decision penned by Laurel was Ang Tibay v. CIR, 69 Phil. 635 (1940). The Court acknowledged in that case that the substantive and procedural requirements before proceedings in administrative agencies, such as labor relations courts, were more flexible than those in judicial proceedings. At the same time, the Court still asserted that the right to due process of law must be observed, and enumerated the "cardinal primary rights" that must be respected in administrative proceedings. Since then, these "cardinal primary rights" have stood as the standard in testing due process claims in administrative cases. Calalang v. Williams, 70 Phil. 726 (1940) was a seemingly innocuous case involving a challenge raised by a private citizen to a traffic regulation banning kalesas from Manila streets during certain afternoon hours. The Court, through Laurel, upheld the regulation as within the police power of the government. But in rejecting the claim that the regulation was violative of social justice, Laurel would respond with what would become his most famous aphorism, which is to this day widely quoted by judges and memorized by Filipino law students:
Social justice is neither communism, nor despotism, nor atomism, nor anarchy, but the humanization of laws and the equalization of social and economic forces by the State so that justice in its rational and objectively secular conception may at least be approximated. Social justice means the promotion of the welfare of all the people, the adoption by the Government of measures calculated to insure economic stability of all the competent elements of society, through the maintenance of a proper economic and social equilibrium in the interrelations of the members of the community, constitutionally, through the adoption of measures legally justifiable, or extra constitutionally, through the exercise of powers underlying the existence of all governments on the time honored principle of salus populi est suprema lex. Social justice, therefore, must be founded on the recognition of the necessity of interdependence among divers and diverse units of a society and of the protection that should be equally and evenly extended to all groups as a combined force in our social and economic life, consistent with the fundamental and paramount objective of the state of promoting the health, comfort, and quiet of all persons, and of bringing about "the greatest good to the greatest number. While an associate justice, Laurel also held other appointive posts. Laurel was appointed by President Manuel L. Quezon as a member of the Moral Code Committee in 1939 and as member of the Code Committee in 1940. In 1941, he was also appointed as Professor of Civil Law at the Central College of Law. He was also named as acting Secretary of Justice and acting Chief Justice on December of the same year and Commissioner of Justice in January 1942.

When Japan invaded, President Manuel L. Quezon first fled to Bataan and then to the United States to establish a government in exile. Quezon ordered Laurel, Vargas and other cabinet members to stay. Laurel's prewar, close relationship with Japanese officials (a son had been sent to study at the Imperial Japanese Army Academy in Tokyo, and Laurel had received an honorary doctorate from Tokyo Imperial University) in 1938, placed him in a good position to interact with the Japanese occupation forces. Under vigorous Japanese influence, the National Assembly selected Laurel to serve as president in 1943. He took the oath of office on October 14, 1943, at the Legislative Building (now the National Museum of Fine Arts) in Manila. The oath was administered by Chief Justice José Yulo.

During his presidency, the Philippines faced a crippling food shortage which demanded much of Laurel's attention. Rice and bread were still available but the sugar supply was gone.

On October 20, 1943, the Philippine Japanese Treaty of Alliance was signed by Claro M. Recto, who was appointed by Laurel as his Foreign Minister, and Japanese Ambassador to Philippines Sozyo Murata. One redeeming feature was that no conscription was envisioned.

Laurel declared the country under martial law in 1944 through Proclamation No. 29, dated September 21. Martial law came into effect on September 22, 1944, at 9  a. m. Proclamation No. 30 was issued the next day, declaring the existence of a state of war between the Philippines and the United States and the United Kingdom. This took effect on September 23, 1944, at 10:00 a. m.

Due to the nature of Laurel's government and its connection to Japan, much of the population actively resisted the Japanese occupation and his presidency, instead supporting the exiled Commonwealth government.

On October 20, 1944, American and Philippine armed forces landed on Leyte Island during the Battle of Leyte and began the Liberation of the Philippines. Philippine President in exile Sergio Osmeña was among them. Other landings on other islands followed. Then on January 9, 1945, Allied forces landed on the south shore of Lingayen Gulf and began to march towards Manila. During the Battle of Manila from February 3 to March 3, 1945, Japanese occupation forces were driven from the capital city. After that, only pockets of Japanese forces remained active in the Philippines. Beginning in March 1945, President Laurel, together with his family, Camilo Osías, Benigno Aquino Sr., Gen. Mateo M. Capinpin, and Jorge B. Vargas evacuated to Baguio. Shortly after the city fell, they traveled to Tuguegarao, where they embarked a bomber plane to Japan via Formosa (now Taiwan) and Shanghai, China. Emperor Hirohito of Japan announced Japan's unconditional surrender to the Allied Powers on August 15, 1945. Two days later on August 17, 1945, from Nara Hotel in Nara, Japan, Laurel issued an executive proclamation which declared the dissolution of his regime. He was later provisionally released in September 1946 after posting a bail.

Laurel garnered more than 2 million votes and was elected to the Senate of the Philippines as the top vote getter in the 1951 Philippine Senate election, under the Nacionalista Party. He was urged to run for president in 1953, but declined, working instead for the successful election of Ramon Magsaysay. Magsaysay appointed Laurel head of a mission tasked with negotiating trade and other issues with United States officials, the result being known as the Laurel–Langley Agreement. Laurel was also named as chairman of the Senate Committee on Education, which he held when he sponsored in 1955 a bill that would make José Rizal's two novels, Noli Me Tángere and El filibusterismo, as compulsory readings in all universities and colleges. During his retirement, Laurel resided in a 1957 three story, seven bedroom mansion in Mandaluyong, Rizal, dubbed "Villa Pacencia" after Laurel's wife. The home was one of three residences constructed by the Laurel family, the other two being in Tanauan, Batangas and in Paco, Manila (called "Villa Peñafrancia"). In 2008, the Laurel family sold "Villa Pacencia" to then Senate President Manny Villar and his wife Cynthia. In 1958, Laurel launched an organization known as Committee of Citizens, which he headed. On the same year, it was announced that his book entitled Thinking of Ourselves would be launched and The Manila Times announced the launching of Unity Movement for National Survival that he sponsored. On his 68th birthday on March 9, 1959, President Carlos P. Garcia conferred him the award of Philippine Legion of Honor with the degree of Chief Commander. In the early afternoon of November 5, 1959, Laurel suffered a stroke. On November 6, 1959, at 1:00 in the morning, he died at Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Manila, from a massive heart attack and cerebral hemorrhage. President Carlos P. Garcia declared a "period of national mourning" from November 6 to the day of Laurel's interment over Laurel's death. His wake was held at Villa Pacencia in Mandaluyong before being interred on November 8, 1959, at what is now Tanauan City Public Cemetery in Tanauan, Batangas.