Roxas’ 64th death anniversary Sunday

MANILA, Philippines—Transportation and Communications Secretary Manuel Roxas III leads the commemoration of the 64th death anniversary of former President Manuel Roxas today (Sunday) with a wreath laying at the president’s national monument in his hometown Roxas City.

The transport secretary is the grandson of the former president.

The observance, which coincides with the 111th year of the province of Capiz, begins with the celebration of the Holy Mass at 7 a.m. at the Immaculate Conception Cathedral in the  city.

President Roxas died at Clark Air Base, Pampanga just hours after delivering an impassioned speech championing the cause of liberty, justice and democracy in our country. He just turned 56.

Born in Capiz, Capiz (now Roxas City), in 1892, Manuel was the younger of two sons of Gerardo Roxas and Rosario Acuña, both from distinguished clans in Western Visayas.  He was a posthumous baby, his father having been shot and killed by Spanish soldiers a few months before he was born.

Graduating in 1913 as president and valedictorian of the first class of the UP College of Law, he became the country’s first bar topnotcher and the only Filipino leader who held sequential authority as House Speaker, Senate president and president of the republic.

On April 23, 1946, he became the last President of the Commonwealth, and on July 4, the first President of the New Republic.

Despite the brevity of his presidential tenure, Roxas recorded a number of achievements. From the ruins of war, he rebuilt the country by reorganizing the bureaucracy, establishing the Central Bank of the Philippines and the Rehabilitation Finance Corporation and systematizing financial institutions to speed up national economic recovery (through the National Economic Council he created). He provided a brilliant leadership that progressively transitioned the country from a commonwealth status to republic.