2. Diosdado Macapagal
President Garcia won a full term as president with a
landslide win in the national elections of November 12,
1957. Garcia, the Nacionalista candidate, garnered
around 2.07 million votes or 41% of the total votes
counted, defeating his closest rival, Jose Y. Yulo of the
Liberal Party. His running mate, House Speaker Jose B.
Laurel Jr., lost to Pampanga representative Diosdado P.
Macapagal. This was the first time in Philippine electoral
history where a president was elected by a plurality
rather than a majority, and in which the winning
presidential and vice-presidential candidates came from
different parties.
3. President Garcia won a full term as president with a landslide
win in the national elections of November 12, 1957. Garcia,
the Nacionalista candidate, garnered around 2.07 million
votes or 41% of the total votes counted, defeating his closest
rival, Jose Y. Yulo of the Liberal Party. His running
mate, House Speaker Jose B. Laurel Jr., lost
to Pampanga representative Diosdado P. Macapagal. This
was the first time in Philippine electoral history where a
president was elected by a plurality rather than a majority, and
in which the winning presidential and vice-presidential
candidates came from different parties.
4. As president, Macapagal worked to suppress graft and corruption
and to stimulate the growth of the Philippine economy. He
introduced the country's first land reform law, placed the peso on
the free currency exchange market, and liberalized foreign
exchange and import controls. Many of his reforms, however, were
crippled by a Congress dominated by the rival Nacionalista Party.
He is also known for shifting the country's observance
of Independence Day from July 4 to June 12, commemorating the
day President Emilio Aguinaldo unilaterally declared the
independence of the First Philippine Republic from the Spanish
Empire in 1898. He stood for re-election in 1965, and was defeated
by Ferdinand Marcos.
5. Under Marcos, Macapagal was elected president of
the 1970 constitutional convention that would later
draft what became the 1973 Constitution, though the
manner in which the charter was ratified and
modified led him to later question its legitimacy. He
died of heart failure, pneumonia,
and renal complications, in 1997, at the age of 86.
Macapagal was also a poet in the Spanish language,
though his poetic oeuvre was eclipsed by his political
biography.
6. Early life
Diosdado Macapagal was born on September 28, 1910,
in Lubao, Pampanga, the third of five children in a poor
family.[2] His father was Urbano Macapagal y Romero (c.
1887 – 1946),[3] a poet who wrote in the
local Pampangan language, and his mother was Romana
Pangan Macapagal, daughter of Atanacio Miguel Pangan
(a former cabeza de barangay of Gutad, Floridablanca,
Pampanga) and Lorenza Suing Antiveros. Urbano's
mother, Escolástica Romero Macapagal, was a midwife
and schoolteacher who taught catechism.
7. Diosdado is a distant descendant of Don Juan
Macapagal, a prince of Tondo, who was a great-grandson
of the last reigning lakan of Tondo, Lakan Dula.[5] He is
also related to well-to-do Licad family through his mother
Romana, who was a second cousin of María Vitug Licad,
grandmother of renowned pianist, Cecile Licad.
Romana's own grandmother, Genoveva Miguel Pangan,
and María's grandmother, Celestina Miguel Macaspac,
were sisters. Their mother, María Concepción Lingad
Miguel, was the daughter of José Pingul Lingad and
Gregoria Malit Bartolo.[
8. Diosdado is a distant descendant of Don Juan
Macapagal, a prince of Tondo, who was a great-grandson
of the last reigning lakan of Tondo, Lakan Dula.[5] He is
also related to well-to-do Licad family through his mother
Romana, who was a second cousin of María Vitug Licad,
grandmother of renowned pianist, Cecile Licad.
Romana's own grandmother, Genoveva Miguel Pangan,
and María's grandmother, Celestina Miguel Macaspac,
were sisters. Their mother, María Concepción Lingad
Miguel, was the daughter of José Pingul Lingad and
Gregoria Malit Bartolo.[
9. Early education
Macapagal excelled in his studies at local public schools,
graduating valedictorian from Lubao Elementary School,
and salutatorian at Pampanga High School.[8] He finished his
pre-law course at the University of the Philippines, then
enrolled at Philippine Law School in 1932, studying on a
scholarship and supporting himself with a part-time job as an
accountant.[4][8] While in law school, he gained prominence as
an orator and debater.[8] However, he was forced to quit
schooling after two years due to poor health and a lack of
money.
10. Returning to Pampanga, he joined boyhood friend Rogelio de la
Rosa in producing and starring in Tagalog operettas patterned after
classic Spanish zarzuelas.[4] It was during this period that he married
his friend's sister, Purita de la Rosa, in 1938.[4] He had two children
with de la Rosa, Cielo and Arturo.
Macapagal raised enough money to continue his studies at
the University of Santo Tomas.[4] He also gained the assistance of
philanthropist Don Honorio Ventura, the secretary of the interior at the
time, who financed his education.[9] He also received financial support
from his mother's relatives, notably from the Macaspacs, who owned
large tracts of land in barrio Sta. Maria, Lubao, Pampanga. After
receiving his Bachelor of Laws degree in 1936, he was admitted to
the bar, topping the 1936 bar examination with a score of
89.95%.[8] He later returned to his alma mater to take up graduate
studies and earn a Master of Laws degree in 1941, a Doctor of Civil
Law degree in 1947, and a PhD in economics in 1957. His dissertation
had "Imperatives of Economic Development in the Philippines" as its
title.
