Edgar Romero Maria Luisa Romero-Gabaldón Jose Emeterio Romero Jr. Teresita Romero-Romulo Ernesto Romero Rodolfo Romero Raquel Romero-Smith George Albert Romero
Romero was born 3 March 1897, one of three children born to Francisco Romero Sr., mayor of Tanjay, Negros Oriental from 1909 to 1916 and later a member of the Provincial Board of Negros Oriental, and Josefa Calumpang Muñoz, daughter of Tanjay gobernadorcillo Don José Teves Muñoz and Doña Aleja Ines Calumpang. His mother died in a stampede that occurred on 24 December 1906 while midnight mass was being celebrated at the St. James the Greater Parish in Tanjay. A group of hooligans falsely announced the approach of pulahanes, a notorious group of bandits, which resulted in a stampede that killed and injured churchgoers rushing to leave the church.[1][2]
Beginning in 1904, he received primary instruction in the public schools of Tanjay where he spent his formative years. In 1905, he moved to study at Silliman Institute in Dumaguete, Negros Oriental. In 1907, when he was only 10 years old, he was appointed municipal school teacher in Tanjay. From 1908 to 1913, he studied at the Negros Oriental High School for secondary education until he went on to Manila High School where he finished in 1915. As a student in Manila, he was the ward of his father's only sister Adela Romero de Prats and her husband Francisco Prats Mestre.[3][4]
Romero completed his Associate of Arts degree at Silliman Institute and then went on to the University of the Philippines (UP) to finish a bachelor's degree graduating cum laude in 1917. As a student at UP, he was awarded first prize in a university-wide poetry contest. He also received the Quezon medal in an oratorical contest and was awarded first prize in the Philippines Free Press literary contest for UP students.[3]
After graduation, he enrolled at the University of the Philippines College of Law but had to temporarily postpone his studies due to ill health. He eventually returned to law school upon recovery and completed his Bachelor of Laws degree in 1922. He was admitted to the Philippine Bar and practiced law in Manila before returning to Negros Oriental in 1924.[3][4]
Romero published TheRising Philippines in 1917, the first English language magazine published by Filipinos, together with Romulo, Mauro Mendez and Fernando Maramag as editor-in-chief.[2] He succeeded Maramag as editor of the PhilippinesNational Weekly from 1918 to 1920.[8] Later on, he was the sole owner and publisher of the Oriental Negros Chronicle.[3] Romero also wrote the lyrics of the university hymn of the Philippine Women's University.[9]
Political career
Romero, together with his cousin Angel Calumpang, was elected to the Provincial Board of Negros Oriental for two consecutive terms from 1925 to 1928 and from 1928 to 1931 during the incumbency of Atilano Villegas as provincial governor.[3][4]
He was reelected to the 10th Philippine Legislature and remained as majority floor leader, which only lasted until the following year when it was effectively replaced by a unicameral national assembly as a result of the 1935 Constitution.[3][4]
In 1935, Romero was elected to the National Assembly. He served for two consecutive terms from 1935 to 1938 and from 1938 to 1941. He was majority floor leader from 1935 to 1938, and was concurrently chairman of the Congressional standing committees on rules and on education, and ex-officio member of the Board of Regents of the University of the Philippines. He was succeeded as majority floor leader by Quintin Paredes in 1938.[3][4]
In 1939, during a meeting convoked by President Quezon, he called for an indefinite suspension of the planned 1946 Philippine independence, which was under the threat of World War II.[12][13] Together with fellow assemblymen Salvador Z. Araneta, Tomas Oppus and Carlos Tan, they formed the Philippine Civic League, which conducted education campaigns on the problems and deficiencies of the Philippine independence mission.[14]
In 1946, Romero was elected to the Philippine Senate but was replaced by Prospero Sanidad after a highly politicized electoral protest filed against him and senators-elect Ramon M. Diokno and Jose O. Vera, and elected members of congress belonging to the Democratic Alliance.[15][16][17][18][19]
Government service
In 1917, after finishing his undergraduate degree, he worked as an assessor at the Bureau of Customs but only stayed on for four months due to conflicts in schedule with his classes at law school.[2]
Romero was appointed as a member of the Philippine Surplus Property Commission by Manuel Roxas in 1948.[11][20]
In 1953, he ended his tour of duty when he resigned to become the representative of the Philippine Sugar Association (PSA) to Washington for whom he was longtime executive officer and secretary-treasurer, and later president.[11][26][27] Upon the recommendation of the PSA, he served as a director of the Philippine Sugar Institute (PHILSUGIN), an agency tasked to conduct research work for the sugar industry in all its phases, agricultural and industrial. PHILSUGIN together with the then Sugar Quota Administration (SQA) effectively replaced the Philippine Sugar Administration in 1951.[28][29] In May 1956, together with Joaquín M. Elizalde who was chief delegate, he represented the Philippines at one of the meetings of the United Nations Sugar Conference, which opened at the Headquarters of the United Nations in New York.[30][31][32]
On 13 August 1959, Romero issued Department Order (D.O.) no. 7, s. 1959 ordering the use of the term Pilipino as the proper name for the national language of the Philippines, which up until that point was referred to as either wikang pambansa or Tagalog.[35][36]
After the death of his first wife in childbirth on 7 July 1927, he married Elisa Zuñiga Villanueva on 6 September 1930.[1] She was the granddaughter of Don Leonardo Villanueva, brother of senator Hermenegildo Villanueva. They had seven children:
Maria Luisa Romero (11 November 1931 – 9 June 1987), married to Pelayo Valera Gabaldón, grandson of Filipino statesman Isauro Gabaldón and nephew of Ramon O. Valera, National Artist of the Philippines for Fashion Design.[38]
Raquel Romero-Smith, retired diplomat and civil servant.
George Albert Romero, former diplomat and civil servant.
SS Corregidor
On 17 December 1941, he was aboard the ill-fated SS Corregidor when it hit a mine off the coast of Manila Bay where his cousin Juanito Calumpang, an academic supervisor of the Department of Education, and his daughter died. His wife's great-uncle Hermenegildo Villanueva and his son also perished in the incident.[2][39][40][41]
Ancestry
Romero's paternal grandfather José Maria Romero emigrated from Sanlúcar de Barrameda in the middle of the 19th century and married Maria Ramona Derecho of Manila. His maternal family was descended from gentry who were part of the Principalía. His maternal grandfather Don José Teves Muñoz was the last gobernadorcillo and capitan municipal of Tanjay who became the town's first presidente municipal in 1901.
In 1973, Romero became president of Bel-Air Village Association, which manages Bel-Air Village, a gated community in Makati where he was a resident.[52]
^"Tatak UP: UP Activism". University of the Philippines Diliman. September 2014. Retrieved 4 May 2020.
^Steinbock-Pratt, Sarah (2019). "A Political Education: Americans, Filipinos, and the Meanings of Instruction". Educating the Empire: American Teachers and Contested Colonization in the Philippines. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 173–210. doi:10.1017/9781108666961.006. S2CID226859304.
^Haas, William Joseph (1996). China Voyager: Gist Gee's Life in Science. Armonk, New York: M.E. Sharpe, Inc. p. 165. ISBN1-56324-674-0.
^Taylor, Carson (1927). History of the Philippine Press. Manila. Philippines: Manila Daily Bulletin. pp. 44–45.
^Caoili, Manuel A. (January 1987). "Quezon and His Business Friends: Notes on the Origins of Philippine National Capitalism". Philippine Journal of Public Administration. XXXI: 84.
^ abcTakagi, Yusuke (2016). Central Banking as State Building: Policymakers and Their Nationalism in the Philippines, 1933-1964. National University of Singapore: NUS Press. pp. 66, 85. ISBN978-981-4722-11-7.
^Guevarra, Dante G. (1995). Magsasaka sa Pilipinas. Manila: REX Book Store. p. 92. ISBN9789712317644.
^Diokno, Ramon (December 1946). "Roxas Violates the Constitution". Amerasia. Vol. 10, no. 6. pp. 75–78.
^Shalom, Stephen R. (August 1980). "Philippine Acceptance of the Bell Trade Act of 1946: A Study of Manipulatory Democracy". Pacific Historical Review. 49 (3): 499–517. doi:10.2307/3638567. JSTOR3638567.
^Steinberg, S.H., ed. (1950). The Statesman's Year-Book: Statistical and Historical Annual of the States of the World for the Year 1950 (87, illustrated ed.). London: Macmillan and Co, Limited. p. 1309.
^"CONFERENCE ON SUGAR". Sydney Morning Herald (NSW : 1842 - 1954). 1953-07-03. p. 4. Retrieved 2019-04-26.
^Fernandez, Erwin S. (2017). The Diplomat-Scholar: A Biography of Leon Ma. Guerrero. Yusof Ishak Institute, Singapore: ISEAS Publishing. p. 145. ISBN978-981-47-6243-4.
^Cullather, Nick (1994). Illusions of Influence: The Political Economy of United States-Philippines Relations, 1942-1960. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press. pp. 188–189. ISBN0-8047-2280-3.
^Philippines, American Chamber of Commerce of the (2005). Journal. [1956].
^Crespo, Horacio (2006). "Trade Regimes and the International Sugar Market, 1850-1980: Protectionism, Subsidies, and Regulation". In Topik, Steven; Marichal, Carlos; Frank, Zephyr (eds.). From Silver to Cocaine: Latin American Commodity Chains and the Building of the World Economy, 1500-2000. London: Duke University Press. p. 168.
^Viton, Albert (2004). The International Sugar Agreements: Promise and Reality. West Lafayette, Indiana: Purdue University Press. p. 65. ISBN1-55753-344-X.
