Tomás Confesor

{{Infobox officeholder

| name = Tomás Confesor

| image = Tomás Confesor (cropped).jpg

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| office = Senator of the Philippines

| term_start = May 25, 1946

| term_end = June 6, 1951

| office2 = Secretary of the Interior

| term_start2 = March 8, 1945

| term_end2 = July 10, 1945

| president2 = Sergio Osmeña

| predecessor2 = José P. Laurel

| successor2 = Alfredo Montelibano Sr.

| order3 = 15th & 18th

| office3 = Governor of Iloilo

| term_start3 = 1942

| term_end3 = 1945

| predecessor3 = Fermin Caram

| successor3 = Patricio Confesor

| term_start4 = 1938{{cite web|title=About Tomas Confesor|url=http://philippinediaryproject.com/about-the-diaries/about-tomas-confesor/|website=The Philippine Diary Project|date=6 September 2013 |accessdate=18 March 2016|quote=Published as To Leyte And Washington In 1944–1945 (A Diary Fragment Of Tomas Confessor) in Bulletin of the American Historical Collection Vol 10 No. 3 (40) July 1982}}

| term_end4 = 1941

| predecessor4 = Timoteo Y. Consing Sr.

| successor4 = Oscar Ledesma

| office5 = Member of the National Assembly from Iloilo's 3rd district

| term_start5 = September 16, 1935

| term_end5 = December 30, 1938

| predecessor5 = Atanasio Ampig (as Representative)

| successor5 = Atanasio Ampig

| office6 = Member of the House of Representatives from Iloilo's 3rd district

| term_start6 = 1922

| term_end6 = 1931

| predecessor6 = José E. Locsin

| successor6 = Silvestre Villa

| birth_name = Tomás Valenzuela Confesor

| birth_date = {{Birth date|1891|03|02}}

| birth_place = Cabatuan, Iloilo, Captaincy General of the Philippines

| death_date = {{Death date and age|1951|06|06|1891|03|02}}

| death_place = Manila, Philippines{{cite news|title=Milestones, Jun. 18, 1951|url=https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,815014,00.html|access-date=18 March 2016|agency=Time Magazine|date=June 18, 1951}}

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| citizenship =

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| party = Nacionalista (1938-1951)

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| spouse = Rosalina Javellana Grecia

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| children = 3

| parents = {{Unbulleted list|Julian Confesor|Prospera Valenzuela}}

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| alma_mater = {{Unbulleted list|University of California|University of Chicago}}

| occupation = Politician

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| awards = Philippine Legion of Honor, degree of commander

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| allegiance = {{flag|Philippines|1936}}

| branch = Philippine Commonwealth Army

| serviceyears = 1941–1945

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| battles = World War II

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Tomás Valenzuela Confesor (March 2, 1891{{Cite web|url=https://www.officialgazette.gov.ph/1960/02/25/proclamation-no-651-s-1960/|title=Proclamation No. 391, s. 1957: DECLARING SATURDAY, MARCH 2, 1957, AS A SPECIAL PUBLIC HOLIDAY IN THE PROVINCE AND THE CITY OF ILOILO|date=1 March 1957|website=Official Gazette|access-date=11 March 2017}} – June 6, 1951) was a Filipino politician and former Senator of the Philippines from 1946 to 1951. He was served as a governor of Iloilo and later, all of Panay Island during the Japanese occupation of the Philippines during World War II.{{cite news|title=THE PHILIPPINES: The Metal in Our Being|url=https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,775459,00.html|access-date=18 March 2016|agency=Time Magazine|date=April 2, 1945}} Right after the war, he served as Mayor of Manila and secretary of the Philippine Department of the Interior under President Sergio Osmeña.

Biography

Confesor was born to a "farmer-schoolteacher" in Iloilo. He graduated from the Iloilo High School. He then went to the United States, which then ruled the Philippines, and worked while attending the University of California for three years. In 1912, while at the University of California, he was a founder of a new pro-Philippine independence student newspaper called the Filipino Student.{{cite news|title=Filipinos Issue New Magazine|url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/78513462/?terms=tomas%2Bconfesor|accessdate=19 March 2016|newspaper=Oakland Tribune|date=December 1, 1912|via = Newspapers.com|page=80}}{{Open access}} He later graduated from the University of Chicago in Illinois with a major in municipal government and economics. He earned a Bachelor of Science in commerce from the University of California and a Bachelor of Philosophy in economics from the University of Chicago.

When he returned to the Philippines, he was briefly a teacher. He served as supervisor of Jaro, Iloilo.v He was then elected to the Philippine Legislature in 1922 and served for three terms. In 1933, he was appointed by the Governor-General of the Philippines Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. as the Director of Commerce, the first Filipino to hold that office.

In 1934, he was elected to the Philippine Constitutional Convention that drafted the 1935 Constitution of the Philippines and was subsequently elected to the Philippine National Assembly, the body that replaced the Philippine Legislature.

=World War II resistance leader on Panay=

When Japan attacked the Philippines on December 8, 1941, Confesor was in Manila. He was chief of the National Cooperatives Association while also governor of Iloilo. He escaped to Panay on a small sailboat. He fled to the mountains of Panay along with his wife and children to help lead the resistance to the Japanese occupation. He led the civilian government first of Iloilo and then he was appointed by Philippine President Quezon as “wartime governor of Free Panay and Romblon”, which includes the provinces of Aklan, Antique, Capiz and Romblon. Macario Peralta, Jr. led the armed guerrillas on Panay. Confesor and Peralta frequently clashed.{{citation needed|date=March 2016}}

During the war, the puppet governor of Iloilo urged Confesor to stop fighting. Confesor replied in what Time Magazine called a "classic of resistance literature": "This war has placed us in the crucible to assay the metal in our being. . . . You underrate the nobility and grandeur of the character and soul of the Filipino. . . . I will not surrender as long as I stand on my feet."

Immediately after the liberation of Manila from the Japanese, during which Manila was largely destroyed, he was appointed mayor of Manila. The destruction of Manila was so great that in Manila's business district only two buildings were not damaged and those two were looted of their plumbing.{{cite news|title=War Scars|url=https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,775542,00.html|access-date=17 March 2016|publisher=Time Magazine|date=April 16, 1945}} On April 8, 1945, he was also appointed Secretary of the Interior. Also after the war, he served as the Chief Philippine Delegate to the Far Eastern Commission.{{cite news|title=Letters, Mar. 18, 1946|url=https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,934431,00.html|access-date=18 March 2016|agency=Time Magazine|date=March 18, 1946}}

In 1946, he was elected to the Philippine Senate.

Positions on issues

In the 1946 presidential election he supported incumbent Pres. Osmeña of the Nacionalista Party over challenger and ultimate winner Manuel Roxas of the Nacionalista Party (Liberal wing) (the precursor to today's Liberal Party).

He opposed "parity rights", providing rights to Philippine natural resources to American citizens and corporations equal to Philippine citizens and corporations, as required by the U.S. Bell Trade Act and campaigned against approval of the parity rights constitutional amendment in the Philippine parity rights plebiscite of 1947.{{cite news|title=Filipinos Vote Heavily for U.S. Trade Parity|url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/5212368|accessdate=19 March 2016|agency=AP|newspaper=Record-Chronicle (Benton, Texas)|date=March 12, 1947|page=10|via = Newspapers.com}} {{Open access}}

Honours

President Sergio Osmeña awarded Confesor the Philippine Legion of Honor, degree of commander.

Death

Confesor died of a heart attack on June 6, 1951, during his Senate term. He was given a state funeral in 1951.{{cite news|title=State Funeral for Guerrilla Chief|url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/25050107|accessdate=19 March 2016|agency=AP|newspaper=Greeley Daily Tribune|date=June 8, 1951|page=2|via = Newspapers.com}} {{Open access}}