ELPIDIO RIVERA QUIRINO

PERSONAL PROFILE :

Sixth President of the PhilippinesSecond President of the Third RepublicBorn:  Nov. 16,1890

Birthplace:  Vigan, Ilocos Sur; native of Caoayan,Ilocos Sur

Father:  Mariano Quirino(provincial jail warden )

Mother:  Gregoria Rivera (barrio school teacher )

Wife: Alicia Syquia Children: Tomas, Armando, Victoria Quirino-Delgado(1931–2006),Fe Angela

Died: Feb. 29, 1956Cause of death: Heart FailureLocation of death: Manila, Philippines

Resting place: Manila South Cemetery

EDUCATIONAL & CAREER PATH

Elementary: Caoyan, Ilocos SurSecondary: Ilocos Sur High School; Manila High School

- Served as barrio school master in Caoayan, Ilocos Sur while enrolled in ISHS

- worked as junior computer in the Bureau of Lands

- Performed clerical works in Manila Police Department

(1911) – finished his secondary education at the age of twenty

Tertiary: University of the Philippines (College of Law) and earned his Law Degree on March 15, 1915 and was admitted to the bar later that year. He was engaged in the private practice of law.

Applied for a position as a legal clerk in the Philippine Commission until 1916.

The transition from Philippine Commission to Philippine Bicameral Legislature gave him the opportunity to work with Senate President Manuel L. Quezon. He eventually became the private secretary of Quezon.

In 1919, He decided to run for a congressional position in Ilocos Sur and won.

In 1925, Quirino ran for Senator and won.

In 1931, he was elected to another six-year term.

In 1934, he was elected as one of the delegates of Constitutional Convention , representing his constituents in the district of Ilocos Sur.  He was appointed again by Quezon as a finance secretary of Commonwealth then to department of interior.

In 1941, Quirino was again elected as Senator.

After the World War II, Quirino won as Vice President of President Manuel A. Roxas.

 When President Roxas passed away in 1948, Quirino assumed the Presidency

The following year’s election, he was elected President.

In the 1953 Presidential Election, President Elpidio R. Quirino sought reelection but lost to President Ramon F. Magsaysay.

PROGRESS AND PROGRAMS

1. President's Action Committee on Social Amelioration or PACSA - beneficial for financially challenged families

2. The establishment of the Agricultural Credit Cooperative Financing Administration (ACCFA) to help farmers market their crops and save them from usurers.

3. The establishments of rural banks in the provinces to give load to farmers at low interest rates.

4. The creation of new government agencies to handle labor problems and to take care of and distribute relief to poor families as well as to the victims of natural disasters such as fires, floods, and typhoons.

5. The conclusion of the Quirino-Foster Agreement to further intensify the economic development of the country. This agreement provided for a Philippine-American partnership in the economic development of the country, wherein the United States furnish funds and technical advisers, and the Philippines will furnish labor and provide counterpart funds. All economic projects were to be jointly supervised by the Philippine Council for US Aid and the Foreign Operations Administration (FOA).

PROBLEMS AND CHALLENGESQuirino's administration faced a serious threat in the form of the communist HukBaLaHap movement. Though the Huks originally had been an anti-Japanese guerrilla army in Luzon, communists steadily gained control over the leadership, and when Quirino's negotiation with Huk commander Luis Taruc broke down in 1948, Taruc openly declared himself a Communist and called for the overthrow of the government.

Unabated rampage of graft and corruption in his government, as revealed in the Tambobong-Buenavista scandal, the Import Control Anomalies, the Caledonia Pile Mess and the Textbook Racket;

Wasteful spending of the people's money in extravagant junkets abroad;

Failure of government to check the Huk menace which made travel in the provinces unsafe, as evidenced by the killing of former First Lady Aurora Quezon and her companions on April 28, 1949 by the Huks on the Bongabong-Baler road, Baler, Tayabas (now part of Aurora province).

Economic distress of the times, aggravated by rising unemployment rate, soaring prices of commodities, and unfavorable balance of trade. Quirino's vaunted "Total Economic Mobilization Policy" failed to give economic relief to the suffering nation.

10 THINGS ABOUT THE PRESIDENT

1. When World War II broke out, Quirino refused to join the puppet government of José Laurel and became an underground leader of the Filipino resistance movement against the Japanese. He was captured and imprisoned by the Japanese military police in Ft. Santiago, and his wife, two daughters, and a son were murdered by the Japanese forces.

2. 1st president to undergo an impeachment trial because he allegedly purchased a very expensive Golden Orinola using government money

3. critiqued for permitting immorality in the armed forces & neglecting the problems of the masses & involving himself to the American government which made him compliant to international economies

4.  He became the Father of Foreign Service

5. In 1934, Quirino was a member of the Philippine Independence mission to Washington D.C., headed by Manuel L. Quezon that secured the passage in the United States Congress of the Tydings-McDuffie Act. This legislation set the date for Philippine independence by 1945. Official declaration came on July 4, 1946.

6. In 1950, at the onset of the Korean War, Quirino authorized the deployment of over 7,450 Filipino soldiers to Korea, under the designation of the Philippine Expeditionary Forces to Korea or PEFTOK.

7. For six years, Quirino oversaw postwar reconstruction, but his administration suffered from corruption.

 8. Quirino was also one of the drafters of the Philippine constitution, which was approved in May 1935.

9. Elpidio Quirino was reelected president in November 1949, under suspicion of widespread election fraud and intimidation.

10. The 1951 budget included the use of a residue fund for the land resettlement program in favor of the surrendered HUKS. The money helped maintain the Economic Development Corps (EDCOR), with its settlements of six thousand five hundred hectares in Kapatagan (Lanao) and twenty five thousand hectares in Buldon (Cotabato).

“I have faith in the democratic process we have established and in the capacity of our people to perfect themselves in it.”

– Elpidio Quirino