9. Elpidio Quirino ` (1890-1956) The second president of the postwar Republic of the Philippines, Elpidio Quirino was born November 16, 1890 in Vigan, Ilocos Sur province, in the island of Luzon. He attended high school in Manila and took his law degree at the University of the Philippines. Quirino served at the Philippine house of representatives (1919-25) and in the senate (1925-31). He was a member of the Philippine independence mission which helped to obtain the passage in the US Congress in 1934 of the Tydings-McDuffie act under which the Philippines achieved independence on July 4, 1946. Also in 1934, he was elected to the constitutional convention. Thereafter, he served as secretary of finance and later as secretary of the interior in the commonwealth government (1935-38). He was elected to the senate in 1941 and stayed in the Philippines during the Japanese occupation. After the war, Quirino again became the secretary of finance in May 1946. As the candidate of the newly formed Liberal party, he became vice-president and secretary of foreign affairs of the new republic in July 1946. He succeeded to the presidency on the death of President Manuel Roxas in 1948 and was elected president in 1949. During his term of office an intensive program of economic development was initiate with the assistance of the United States, the treaty of peace was signed with Japan and a new mutual defense treaty was concluded with the United States in 1951. The Huks, or communist guerillas of Hukbong Mapagpalaya ng Bayan ( People's Liberation Army) in Luzon, were pacified primarily through the efforts of his secretary of defense, Ramon Magsaysay. After being defeated for reelection in 1953 he retired to private life and died on February 28, 1956.
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