| Honorific-Prefix: | The Honourable |
| José Abad Santos | |
| Image Name: | Chief Justice Jose Abad Santos.jpg |
| Image Upright: | 0.9 |
| Caption: | Official portrait, 1941 |
| Office: | Acting President of the Philippines |
| Status: | Unofficial |
| Term Start: | March 17, 1942 |
| Term End: | May 1, 1942 |
| Appointer: | Manuel L. Quezon |
| Office1: | 5th Chief Justice of the Philippines |
| Term Start1: | December 24, 1941 |
| Term End1: | May 1, 1942 |
| Predecessor1: | Ramón Avanceña |
| Successor1: | José Yulo |
| Appointer1: | Manuel L. Quezon |
| Office2: | 28th Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the Philippines |
| Term Start2: | June 18, 1936 |
| Term End2: | December 23, 1941 |
| Predecessor2: | Norberto Romuáldez |
| Successor2: | José Lopez Vito |
| Nominator2: | Herbert Hoover |
| Office3: | Secretary of Justice |
| President3: | Manuel L. Quezon |
| Term Start3: | December 5, 1938 |
| Term End3: | July 16, 1941 |
| Predecessor3: | José Yulo |
| Successor3: | Teófilo Sison |
| Appointer4: | Governor-General Henry L. Stimson |
| Term Start4: | September 1, 1928 |
| Term End4: | June 18, 1932 |
| Successor4: | Alexander Reyes |
| Appointer5: | Governor-General Leonard Wood |
| Term Start5: | April 26, 1922 |
| Term End5: | July 17, 1923 |
| Predecessor5: | Quintín Paredes |
| Successor5: | Luis Torres |
| Office6: | Secretary of Finance |
| President6: | Manuel L. Quezon |
| Term Start6: | December 30, 1941 |
| Term End6: | March 26, 1942 |
| Predecessor6: | Serafín Marabut |
| Successor6: | Andrés Soriano (as Secretary of Finance, Agriculture, and Commerce) |
| Birth Name: | José Abad Santos y Basco |
| Birth Date: | 19 February 1886 |
| Birth Place: | San Fernando, Pampanga, Captaincy General of the Philippines, Spanish East Indies |
| Death Place: | Malabang, Lanao, Philippines |
| Death Cause: | Firing squad |
| Relations: | Pedro Abad Santos (brother) Vicente Abad Santos (nephew) Jamby Madrigal (granddaughter) |
| Children: | José Abad Santos Jr. (nicknamed Pepito) Luz Abad Santos Amanda Abad Santos (nicknamed Mandy) Osmundo Abad Santos (nicknamed Ossie) Victoria Abad Santos (nicknamed Vicky) |
José Abad Santos y Basco (pronounced as /es/, in Tagalog hoˈse ʔaˈbad ˈsantos/; February 19, 1886 – May 1, 1942) was the fifth chief justice of the Supreme Court of the Philippines. He briefly served as the acting president of the Commonwealth of the Philippines and acting commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of the Philippines during World War II, from March 1942 until his execution. Japanese forces killed him for refusing to cooperate during their occupation of the country.
Together with Josefa Llanes Escoda and Vicente Lim, he is memorialized on the Philippines' 1,000-Peso banknote depicting Filipinos who fought and died resisting the Japanese occupation of the Philippines during World War II.
José Abad Santos was born on February 19, 1886, in San Fernando, Pampanga. He was the seventh of the ten children of Vicente Abad Santos and Toribia Basco. His brother Pedro eventually emerged as a leading socialist leader during the Commonwealth era. He finished his early education in his hometown. In 1904, he was sent to the United States as a government pensioner. He finished a pre-law course at the Santa Clara College in Santa Clara, California; his Bachelor of Laws at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois; and his Masters of Laws at George Washington University in 1909. He was admitted to the Philippine Bar and passed in 1911 and later served as assistant attorney at the Bureau of Justice from 1913 to 1917.
In 1919, Abad Santos was instrumental in laying the legal groundwork, as well as drafting the by-laws and constitution of the Philippine Women's University, the country and Asia's first private non-sectarian women's institute of higher learning.
Abad Santos was later appointed as the first Filipino corporate lawyer of the Philippine National Bank, Manila Railroad Company and other government corporations. He went to the Department of Justice, where he became attorney-general, undersecretary of justice, then secretary of justice from 1921 to 1923. In July 1923, he resigned as secretary of justice together with other department secretaries as a result of the controversy between Governor-General Leonard Wood and Filipino leaders.
Abad Santos then served as chief counsel of the president of the Senate and the speaker of the House of Representatives of the Philippines. In 1926, he went to the United States as head of the Philippine educational mission. He was again appointed secretary of justice in 1928 and re-appointed on July 1, 1931. In 1932, he became an associate justice of the Supreme Court. He became its chief justice on December 24, 1941. As part of the emergency reorganization of the Commonwealth government, Abad Santos, in his capacity as chief justice, was given the responsibilities previously handled by the secretary of justice (the position of secretary of justice was abolished for the duration of the war). Abad Santos accompanied the Commonwealth government to Corregidor, where on December 30, 1941, he administered the oath of office to President Quezon and Vice-President Osmeña for the second term to which they had been elected in November of that year. He also undertook, with Manuel Roxas, the supervision of the destruction of Commonwealth government currency to prevent its falling into enemy hands.
With the Japanese invasion rapidly advancing to the southern part of the Philippines, President Manuel L. Quezon was advised by General Douglas MacArthur to establish a government in exile to the United States; Quezon invited Chief Justice Abad Santos to leave with him. The latter declined preferring to remain in the Philippines and carry on his work and stay with his family. On March 17, 1942, the day of Quezon's departure at Zamboanguita, Negros Oriental for the United States by way of Australia, he appointed Abad Santos as the acting president with full authority to act in the name of, and on behalf of the president of the Commonwealth of the Philippines and become the acting commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of the Philippines in some areas unoccupied by the Japanese.
On April 11, 1942, Abad Santos, his son José Jr. (nicknamed Pepito), Col. Benito Valeriano and two enlisted men were captured by the Japanese in Barangay Tubod in Barili, Cebu while traveling by automobile to Toledo, Cebu.[1] He identified himself as the chief justice of the Supreme Court of the Philippines. He and his son were then taken to a concentration camp in Basak San Nicolas, Cebu City. When asked to cooperate with the Japanese, he refused. Although he had nothing to do with military operations, they imputed to him, as acting president, the destruction of the bridges and other public works in Cebu that had been undertaken by the USAFFE forces to delay the invasion of the island.
The Japanese high commander, Kiyotake Kawaguchi, took him and his son aboard a ship on April 26, 1942, thinking they were heading to Manila. Instead, they arrived on April 28 at Parang, Cotabato (now in Maguindanao del Norte). The next day they were brought to Malabang, Lanao, arriving on April 30. After two days' confinement at Japanese camps, Abad Santos was called in front of Kawaguchi and was informed about the order of his execution. Before he was shot to death, he was able to talk to his son Pepito. Among his last parting words to his son were, "Do not cry, Pepito, show to these people that you are brave. It is an honor to die for one's country. Not everybody has that chance." Abad Santos was executed at 2:00 pm, on May 1, 1942, under a tall coconut tree near a river bank. He refused to be blindfolded and refused the last cigarette offered to him.[1]
On May 1, 1942, Chief Justice Jose Abad Santos was executed by Japanese troops in Malabang, Lanao del Sur.
Prior to 2014, the public knew Abad Santos was executed either on the dates May 2 or May 7, 1942. But the National Historical Commission of the Philippines (NHCP) ascertained May 1, 1942 using the Japanese war crime records found in the National Archives of the Philippines.
Later that afternoon of May 1, 1942, two Japanese interpreters took José's son, Pepito, to his father's grave. It was a small mound—too small, Pepito thought, to hold his father's remains if properly buried. On top of the grave lay a rock as large as a coconut. Pepito begged that he be allowed to mark the grave with a cross, but his request was denied.
After the war, an intensive search for the place where José was buried failed. Pepito did not find the hut and the trees, which would have served as points of reference for locating the grave. The area where the execution took place had been plowed and planted to root crops.[1]
On September 21, 1918, Abad Santos was married to Amanda Teopaco daughter of Pedro Teopaco member of the Malolos Congress and has five children José Jr. (born 1919), Luz (born 1920), Amanda (born 1921), Osmundo (born 1922) and Victoria (born 1924). A staunch Methodist, Abad Santos worshiped at Central United Methodist Church along T.M. Kalaw Street in Ermita, Manila (then known as the Central Methodist Episcopal Church). Abad Santos was a freemason and a member of the Upsilon Sigma Phi fraternity.[2] [3]