Epifanio de los Santos

Filipino academic
the major road named after him

Epifanio de los Santos y Cristóbal, also known as Don Pañong or Don Panyong (April 7, 1871 – April 18, 1928), was a notable Filipino historian, journalist, and civil servant. Rafael Palma (1930) noticed that during his college years, his collecting instinct was early manifested when he curiously dedicated himself to gathering plants and flowers in the Nueva Ecija wherein he also sought the company and even communed with the rural communities. According to Agoncillo, "nobody suspected that he would someday become a literary man". As a young law student, his fascination with the study of Spanish literature was through readings of Juan Valera's novel entitled "Pepita Jimenez" and most of all his available works. Eventually, he formed a delightful and lasting friendship with this author which he met in Spain. When he was young, he was the first Filipino to become a member of the Spanish Royal Academy of Language, Spanish Royal Academy of Literature and Spanish Royal Academy of History in Madrid. He was a polyglot, being fluent in Spanish, English, French, German, Ita, Tingian, and Ibalao. He notably translated Florante and Laura classically into sonorous Castilian. As one of the brilliant writers in the Golden Age of Fil Hispanic literature who had published numerous titles and books, he was an honorary member of the Academia Filipina de la Lengua Española. As a versatile researcher, he also contributed to early Philippine studies on anthropology, ethnology, archaeology, linguistics and demographics.

Aside from his scholarly works on different facets of the Philippines, he was also known to be one of the best guitarists at that time. According to Teodoro Agoncillo, there were at least two guitarists that could contend with him, and these were Fernando Canon and General Antonio Luna. For him, music is the embodiment of happiness of the soul, the one that could refreshen the withered spirit. There was even a story that de los Santos and his friend, Clemente Jose Zulueta had a bitter face off in the office of La Independencia and Antonio Luna offered to pacify the two gentlemen and he offer his guitar to the one who would win the argumentation, and de los Santos won so he received Luna's guitar.

Epifanio de los Santos was elected the Malolos Congress in September 1898, serving as one of the three representatives from Nueva Ecija until November 1899. He wrote a treatise on electoral fraud "Electoral Fraud and its Remedies" (Fraudes Electorales y Sus Remedios) in 1907 for the Philippine Assembly. On the side, he devoted his spare time to researches in Philippine history and literature. Portions of his collections where destroyed when fires hit his house in San Isidro, Nueva Ecija. According to Agoncillo and Palma, his interest lies not in politics. In 1918, he was appointed by Governor General Francis Burton Harrison as Assistant Technical Director of the Philippine Census. He was also elected as third President of the Philippine Library Association (now Philippine Librarians Association, Inc.), becoming the first Filipino of native parentage to assume such position professionally for Philippine library science.

He died in office on April 18, 1928, 11 days after his 57th birthday. The Philippine government paid him the tribute of a state funeral. Local and foreign scholars lamented the loss of one who they described as a "Great among the Great Filipino Scholars." Epifanio de los Santos Avenue (commonly known as EDSA), the main road through Metro Manila, was named after him. Several schools, streets, a college, a hospital, a printing press and an auditorium in National Library of the Philippines were also named in his honor.