Pedro Abad Santos

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Pedro Abad Santos
Member of the House of Representatives of the Philippine Islands from Pampanga's 2nd district
In office October 16, 1916 – June 6, 1922
Preceded by	Andrés Luciano
Succeeded by	Vicente E. Manapat
Personal details
Born	Pedro Abad Santos y Basco January 31, 1876 San Fernando, Pampanga, Captaincy General of the Philippines
Died	January 15, 1945(1945-01-15) (aged 68) Minalin, Pampanga, Philippines
Political party	Socialist Party of the Philippines
Other political affiliations	Nacionalista Party
Relations	José Abad Santos (brother)
Alma mater	University of Santo Tomas
Occupation	Politician
Profession	Physician

Pedro Abad Santos y Basco (Spanish: [ˈpeðɾo aˈβað ˈsantos] : 31 January 1876 – 15 January 1945) was a Filipino politician. He founded the Partido Sosyalista ng Pilipinas (PSP) or Philippine Socialist Party in 1929. He ran for several local elections but never won. Luis Taruc of the Hukbalahap Rebellion was under his tutelage and was his right-hand man.

Early years[]

Abad Santos was born to a wealthy family in the town of San Fernando in Pampanga. He was the eldest of the 10 children of Vicente Abad Santos and Toribia Basco.^[1] He is a brother of José Abad Santos, who would become chief justice of the Supreme Court of the Philippines. He was also the uncle of another Vicente Abad Santos, who would become an associate justice of the Philippine Supreme Court.

Pedro, or Perico as he was known, completed his secondary education at the Colegio de San Juan de Letran. He later enrolled in the University of Santo Tomas where he received his Doctor of Medicine. He later took and topped the medical board examinations.

After several years, he studied law by himself and took the bar examinations (this was allowed at the time), which he topped.

Freedom fighter[]

There are no extant evidence of his activities during the Philippine Revolution of 1896 but he was already a major in the revolutionary forces, under Gen. Maximino Hizon, during the Philippine–American War. He was eventually captured by the Americans and sentenced to 25 years imprisonment for his guerrilla activities. But his family, who hired the prominent American lawyer John Haussermann to defend him during his trial, was able to secure a pardon.

Lawyer and politician[]

In 1906, Pedro was admitted to the bar^[2] and began a legal career that followed the career paths of politicians of his generation. From 1907 to 1909, he served as justice of the peace in his hometown. He served as councilor of his hometown from January 1910 to March 1912. From 1916 to 1922, he represented the second district of Pampanga in the House of Representatives of the Philippine Islands for two terms. In 1922, he was also a member of the Philippine Independence Mission to the United States, headed by Sergio Osmeña.

But in 1926, when his younger brother Jose was already an undersecretary in the Department of Justice of the American colonial government, Pedro lost the election for governor of Pampanga. He would never again serve in any official capacity in the colonial or Philippine governments.

Pioneer Filipino Marxist[]

Instead Pedro, who was already 50 years old, joined his friends Crisanto Evangelista, Antonio de Ora and Cirilo Bognot to study at the Lenin Institute in Moscow, Russia.

Pedro's protégé, Luis Taruc, described Pedro as a Marxist but not a Bolshevist. Marxist principles found fertile ground in Pampanga and the other provinces of the Central Luzon region because of the poverty which farmers blamed on the land tenancy system prevalent at that time. Although the government repeatedly promised relief, land reform in the Philippines would not take off until the 1960s.

On October 26, 1932, Pedro founded the Socialist Party of the Philippines when the Partido Komunista ng Pilipinas (PKP) was outlawed by the Supreme Court. Two years later, together with his assistants Agapito del Rosario, Luis Taruc, Lino Dizon and others, he organized the Aguman ding Talapagobra ning Pilipinas (ATP) into the Aguman ding Maldang Talapagobra (AMT), similar to the general workers’ unions in Spain, Mexico and France, which advocated the expropriation of landed estates and friar lands, farmers’ cooperative stores and the upliftment of peasants’ living conditions. On November 7, 1938, during the anniversary of the Russian Bolshevik Revolution, members of the PKP and the PSP held a convention at the Manila Grand Opera House where they declared their merger as the Communist Party of the Philippines. Crisanto Evangelista was elected president, Pedro Abad Santos Vice President, Guillermo Capadocia secretary general.^[3]

In the 1930s, Filipino farmers frequently came to bloody encounters with their landlords that the government had to send several units of the Philippine Constabulary to keep the peace.

On the 21st anniversary celebration of the Bolshevik Revolution on November 7, 1938, Filipino socialists and communists gathered at the Manila Grand Opera House and agreed to merge their organizations. They called the merged group Partido Komunista ng Pilipinas (Tagalog for Communist Party of the Philippines). They also elected the following as their officers: Crisanto Evangelista as president, Pedro Abad Santos as vice president and Guillermo Capadocia as secretary-general.

The following year, the administration of President Manuel Luis Quezon formulated a reform program that was meant to address social problems in the Philippines. Quezon decided to launch it in Pampanga and Pedro's group organized a gathering of farmers and workers at San Fernando in February for the purpose.

Pedro's brother Jose, who was already justice secretary, pleaded with Pedro not to embarrass Quezon when Pedro introduced the President. Dutifully, Pedro introduced the President as a 'friend of the masses and the poor'. But before Quezon spoke, Pedro enumerated farmers' grievances and criticized the legal system that, he said, landlords used against the poor. He challenged his brother, who was sitting beside Quezon, to clean up the courts and sarcastically remarked that the 'secretary cannot help us if he just sits in his office.'

Last years[]

On January 25, 1942, the Japanese occupation forces arrested Pedro, Crisanto Evangelista, Guillermo Capadocia and other Filipino leaders. He was still incarcerated at Fort Santiago when his brother Jose, who was named Chief Justice of the Supreme Court in December of the previous year, was executed by the Japanese.

Pedro, who was then 66 years old, would stay in prison for two years,^[4]:61 but he was released to his family because of a stomach ailment in 1944. After a few months of recuperation, he reported to President José Laurel, who refused to return him to Japanese custody.

A bachelor, he joined his protégé Luis Taruc, who had founded the guerilla force Hukbo ng Bayan Laban sa Hapon (Hukbalahap) (Tagalog for People's Army Against the Japanese). On January 15, 1945, Pedro succumbed to complications of his stomach ailment at a guerilla base in Minalin, Pampanga 16 days before he turned 69.

See also[]

• History of the Philippines
• José Abad Santos

References[]

• National Historical Institute, Filipinos in History Volume 1 (Manila: National Historical Institute, 1995)