03/11/2022
CARLOS P. GARCIA DAY
Carlos P. Garcia was born on November 4, 1896 in Talibon, Bohol from a middle-class family that believed in giving children the best education it could afford. Garcia went through the Talibon Elementary School, Cebu High School, Siliman University for his preparatory law course, and Philippine Law School where he obtained his Bachelor of Laws degree.
In the law school, Garcia was holder of the Malcolm Scholarship Award for four consecutive years. He was among the topnotchers in the bar examination.
He taught law in Manila colleges, and then resigned to run for Congress in 1925. He was elected representative of the third district of Bohol and held it for six years; then elected provincial governor of Bohol for three successive terms.
He came to the notice of both President Quezon and Vice-President Osmeña, and was drafted as Nacionalista senatorial candidate in 1941. He won and he has been elected three times to the Senate until his election as Vice-President of the Philippines in 1953, leaving two years of his senatorial term unserved.
During the war years, Garcia was the leader of the resistance movement in bohol, for which he received a citation from the late President Manuel L. Quezon of the Philippines.
While a senator, Garcia was minority floor leader from 1946 to 1951 and he did brilliant work as chairman of the Senate committee on foreign relations. He was also a member of the Philippine Rehabilitation and war damage Commission to Washington in 1959. He also had been delegate to the Interparliamentary Union Conference in Dublin.
He was President of the Republic from 1957-1961.
President Garcia was the distinguished chairman of the historic Southeast Asia Treaty Organization which welded democratic South East Asia countries into a defensive military organization for mutual protection against communist aggression.
SOURCE: Senate of the Philippines
SOURCE LINK: https://legacy.senate.gov.ph/senators/former_senators/carlos_garcia.htm
