Chief Justice Jose Abad Santos Day: Honoring an exemplary Filipino patriot and hero

Twenty-four years ago today, then President Joseph Ejercito Estrada issued Proclamation No. 229,  declaring Feb. 19, 2000, and every year thereafter, as Chief Justice Jose Abad Santos Day “to enable our country and people to properly pay tribute to his patriotism and heroism and be inspired and guided by his shining example of sacrifice and nobility.”

On Dec. 30, 1941 in Corregidor, Chief Justice Abad Santos administered the oaths of office to President Manuel Quezon and Vice President Sergio Osmeña in Corregidor, after they had been reelected in the Commonwealth elections held in November that year. He declined President Quezon’s invitation to leave with him and Vice President Osmeña for the United States to establish a government in exile, declaring that he preferred to remain in the Philippines with his family.

When President Quezon left on March 17, 1942, he designated Abad Santos as head of the caretaker government. Abad Santos and his son, together with Col. Benito Valeriano, were arrested in Cebu and brought to a concentration camp. He was transferred to Malabang, Lanao where, on April 30, 1942, he was executed. According to the Official Gazette, he told his son: “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.”  In a final act of defiance, he refused to be blindfolded during his execution.

Indeed, as noted in then President Estrada’s proclamation, he “remained steadfast in his refusal to betray our country and people in the face of extreme pressure and intimidation.”
In the Pampanga provincial capitol grounds in San Fernando City, there is a life-size bronze statue of the late Chief Justice wearing a magistrate’s majestic robe. During the commemoration of his martyrdom in 2022, Chief Justice Alexander Gesmundo paid tribute to his extraordinary patriotism: “As he had lived his life with honor and integrity, he bravely accepted his fate when the Japanese ordered his execution 80 years ago. Indeed, he chose death rather than betray his country, and he preferred ‘to die rather than live in shame.’”

In behalf of the Abad Santos clan, his great-grandniece, Desiree Ann Cua-Benipayo, noted that” “[Jose Abad Santos] could have chosen the easy way out — collaborate with the enemy and live out his last years in privilege. All he needed to do was to raise his right hand in a mythical pledge of allegiance, as many others had done. But he knew he could never live with the fact that if he did so, he would be a traitor not just to his beloved country, but to the very principles and ideals he held sacred in life.”

Starting in 1991 and until recently, he –together with Brigadier General Vicente Lim and Girl Scouts of the Philippines founder Josefa Llanes Escoda, who like him, were also killed by the Japanese Imperial Army during the Second World War – were commemorated on the most expensive denomination of Philippine currency, the 1,000-peso banknote.
Such nobility and dignity in public office is truly exemplary – and highly treasured by a grateful nation.