| Honorific-Prefix: | The Honorable |
| Tomás Confesor | |
| Office: | Senator of the Philippines |
| Term Start: | May 25, 1946 |
| Term End: | June 6, 1951 |
| Office2: | Secretary of the Interior |
| Term Start2: | March 8, 1945 |
| Term End2: | July 10, 1945 |
| President2: | Sergio Osmeña |
| Predecessor2: | José P. Laurel |
| Successor2: | Alfredo Montelibano Sr. |
| Office3: | Governor of Iloilo |
| Term Start3: | 1942 |
| Term End3: | 1945 |
| Predecessor3: | Fermin Caram |
| Successor3: | Patricio Confesor |
| Term Start4: | 1938[1] |
| Term End4: | 1941 |
| Predecessor4: | Timoteo Y. Consing Sr. |
| Successor4: | Oscar Ledesma |
| Office5: | Member of the National Assembly from Iloilo's 3rd district |
| Term Start5: | September 16, 1935 |
| Term End5: | December 30, 1938 |
| Predecessor5: | Atanasio Ampig (as Representative) |
| Successor5: | Atanasio Ampig |
| Office6: | Member of the House of Representatives from Iloilo's 3rd district |
| Term Start6: | 1922 |
| Term End6: | 1931 |
| Predecessor6: | José E. Locsin |
| Successor6: | Silvestre Villa |
| Birth Name: | Tomás Valenzuela Confesor |
| Birth Date: | 2 March 1891 |
| Birth Place: | Cabatuan, Iloilo, Captaincy General of the Philippines |
| Death Place: | Manila, Philippines[2] |
| Party: | Nacionalista (1938-1951) |
| Spouse: | Rosalina Javellana Grecia |
| Children: | 3 |
| Occupation: | Politician |
| Awards: | Philippine Legion of Honor, degree of commander |
| Allegiance: |  Philippines |
| Branch: | Philippine Commonwealth Army |
| Serviceyears: | 1941–1945 |
| Battles: | World War II |
| Awards: | is not set --> |
Tomás Valenzuela Confesor (March 2, 1891[3] – June 6, 1951) was a Filipino politician and former Senator of the Philippines from 1946 to 1951. He was served as a governor of Iloilo and later, all of Panay Island during the Japanese occupation of the Philippines during World War II.[4] Right after the war, he served as Mayor of Manila and secretary of the Philippine Department of the Interior under President Sergio Osmeña.
Confesor was born to a "farmer-schoolteacher" in Iloilo. He graduated from the Iloilo High School. He then went to the United States, which then ruled the Philippines, and worked while attending the University of California for three years. In 1912, while at the University of California, he was a founder of a new pro-Philippine independence student newspaper called the Filipino Student.[5] He later graduated from the University of Chicago in Illinois with a major in municipal government and economics. He earned a Bachelor of Science in Commerce from the University of California and a Bachelor of Philosophy in economics from the University of Chicago.
When he returned to the Philippines, he was briefly a teacher. He served as supervisor of Jaro, Iloilo.v He was then elected to the Philippine Legislature in 1922 and served for three terms. In 1933, he was appointed by the Governor-General of the Philippines Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. as the Director of Commerce, the first Filipino to hold that office.
In 1934, he was elected to the Philippine Constitutional Convention that drafted the 1935 Constitution of the Philippines and was subsequently elected to the Philippine National Assembly, the body that replaced the Philippine Legislature.
When Japan attacked the Philippines on December 8, 1941, Confesor was in Manila. He was chief of the National Cooperatives Association while also governor of Iloilo. He escaped to Panay on a small sailboat. He fled to the mountains of Panay along with his wife and children to help lead the resistance to the Japanese occupation. He led the civilian government first of Iloilo and then he was appointed by Philippine President Quezon as “wartime governor of Free Panay and Romblon”, which includes the provinces of Aklan, Antique, Capiz and Romblon. Macario Peralta, Jr. led the armed guerrillas on Panay. Confesor and Peralta frequently clashed.
During the war, the puppet governor of Iloilo urged Confesor to stop fighting. Confesor replied in what Time Magazine called a "classic of resistance literature": "This war has placed us in the crucible to assay the metal in our being. . . . You underrate the nobility and grandeur of the character and soul of the Filipino. . . . I will not surrender as long as I stand on my feet."
Immediately after the liberation of Manila from the Japanese, during which Manila was largely destroyed, he was appointed mayor of Manila. The destruction of Manila was so great that in Manila's business district only two buildings were not damaged and those two were looted of their plumbing.[6] On April 8, 1945 he was also appointed Secretary of the Interior. Also after the war, he served as the Chief Philippine Delegate to the Far Eastern Commission.[7]
In 1946, he was elected to the Philippine Senate.
In the 1946 presidential election he supported incumbent Pres. Osmeña of the Nacionalista Party over challenger and ultimate winner Manuel Roxas of the Nacionalista Party (Liberal wing) (the precursor to today's Liberal Party).
He opposed "parity rights", providing rights to Philippine natural resources to American citizens and corporations equal to Philippine citizens and corporations, as required by the U.S. Bell Trade Act and campaigned against approval of the parity rights constitutional amendment in the Philippine parity rights plebiscite of 1947.[8]
President Sergio Osmeña awarded Confesor the Philippine Legion of Honor, degree of commander.
Confesor died of a heart attack on June 6, 1951, during his Senate term. He was given a state funeral in 1951.[9]