ROXAS City – The province of Capiz commemorated the 66th death anniversary of former president Manuel Roxas in a ceremony Tuesday morning at the Roxas City plaza.
Governor Victor Tanco Sr. and Roxas City Mayor Angel Alan Celino, with the provincial and city councils, led the celebration which coincides with the province’s 113th founding anniversary.
The ceremony kicked off with a Thanksgiving Mass at the Immaculate Concepcion Cathedral. The local officials together with Roxas’s daughter-in-law Judy Araneta-Roxas laid wreaths at the late president’s shrine.
Born in Capiz (now Roxas City), Capiz in 1892, Manuel was the youngest of two sons of Gerardo Roxas and Rosario Acuña, who both descended from distinguished clans in Western Visayas. He was born after his father was killed by Spanish soldiers.
Graduating in 1913 as president and valedictorian of the first class of the UP College of Law, he was the country’s first Bar exam 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 Republic of the Philippines.
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. (Felipe Celino/The Daily Guardian)
