Claro M. Recto

Claro Mayo Recto Jr. (born Claro Recto y Mayo; February 8, 1890 – October 2, 1960) was a Filipino politician, statesman, lawyer, jurist, author, writer, columnist, and poet. Perhaps best known as the president of the 1934 Constitutional Convention and the Father of the 1935 Philippine Constitution, he is remembered as a fierce opponent of U.S. "neocolonialism" in Asia and for his staunch nationalist leadership throughout his career.

Serving as a representative of Batangas from 1919 to 1928 and as a senator in the Philippine Legislature from 1931 to 1935, he rose to prominence as the president of the Constitutional Convention that drafted the 1935 Constitution, of which he was the primary author. He was appointed as the Associate Justice to the Supreme Court of the Philippines by U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1935, becoming the last Philippine Supreme Court member to be appointed by the United States.

Recto was elected as a senator in 1941 despite being detained on charges of collaboration with the Japanese. During the Japanese occupation of the Philippines, he became affiliated with the KALIBAPI party and served in Japanese-installed President Jose P. Laurel's wartime cabinet. He was arrested at the end of the war for treason, but successfully defended himself. He was again reelected in 1949 and 1955, during which he became an outspoken critic of President Ramon Magsaysay's policies, which he perceived to be "pro-American". Before finishing his final term, he mysteriously died of a heart attack on October 2, 1960 in Rome.

He also served as Commissioner of Education, Health and Public Welfare from 1942 to 1943, Minister of State for Foreign Affairs from 1943 to 1944 and Cultural Envoy with the rank of Ambassador Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary on cultural mission to Europe and Latin America in 1960. He is the grandfather of representative and former senator Ralph Recto.

Early life and education
Recto was born in Tiaong, Tayabas (now known as Quezon province), Philippines, of educated, upper middle-class parents, Claro Recto Sr. of Rosario, Batangas, and Micaela Mayo of Lipa, Batangas. He studied Latin at Instituto de Rizal in Lipa, Batangas, from 1900 to 1901. He continued his education at Colegio del Sagrado Corazón of Don Sebastián Virrey and finished his secondary education in 1905 at the age of 15. He moved to Manila to study at Ateneo de Manila where he consistently obtained outstanding scholastic grades, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts degree maxima cum laude in 1909. He received a Masters of Laws degree from the University of Santo Tomás. He later received a Doctor of Laws degree honoris causa from Central Philippine University in 1969.

Early years (1916-1934)
Recto launched his political career as a legal adviser to the first Philippine Senate in 1916. In 1919, he was elected representative from the second district of Batangas.

Recto led the Democrata Party and was its candidate for the office of Speaker of the House in the 1922 elections. The party won 25 seats, but Recto was defeated by the Nacionalista-Collectivista candidate Manuel Roxas, and instead became floor leader of the Minority in the House of Representatives until 1925, with distinction for his good grasp of parliamentary proceedings that won for him the acclaim of both friends and adversaries. He travelled to the United States as a member of the Independence Mission and was admitted to the American Bar in 1924. Recto would again run for the title of House Speaker in 1925 but would again be defeated by Roxas, who was now under the newly-reunited Nacionalista Party.

In 1928, Recto temporarily retired from politics and dedicated himself to the teaching and practice of law, joining the Guevara, Francisco, & Recto law firm. However, he later found the world of academia restrictive and soporific, and he reentered politics in 1931, serving as a senator and Minority Floor Leader from 1931 to 1934. He became known as the "one-man fiscalizer" during this period.

Tydings-McDuffie Act
"Main articles: OsRox Mission, Hare–Hawes–Cutting Act, Tydings–McDuffie Act"The 1931 OsRox mission culminated in the enactment of the Hare–Hawes–Cutting Act (1933), which established the Philippine Commonwealth as a transition government for 12 years and promised the country full independence on July 4, 1946. However, the act also required the Philippines to exempt American goods from customs duties, and essentially allowed the indefinite retention of U.S. military and naval bases in the Philippines and the American imposition of high tariffs and quotas on Philippine exports such as sugar and coconut oil.

Pending ratification from the Philippine Senate, opposition sparked in response to the controversial provisions, once more dividing the Nacionalista Party into two factions: the "Pros", led by Senator Sergio Osmeña and House Speaker Manuel Roxas; and the "Antis", led by then-Senate President Manuel Quezon. In light of this, Recto switched his allegiance to the Nacionalista, siding with the Anti faction.

In the end, the Philippine Legislature rejected the Act. Quezon headed another Philippine Independence mission to the US in 1934, which instead secured the passage of the Tydings–McDuffie Act, which established the Commonwealth as the transitional government of the Philippines, specified a framework for the drafting of a constitution, detailed a number of mandatory constitutional provisions, and required approval of the constitution by the U.S. President and by Filipinos. Prior to independence, the act allowed the U.S. to maintain military forces in the Philippines and to call all military forces of the Philippine government into U.S. military service. Finally, the act mandated U.S. recognition of independence of the Philippine Islands as a separate and self-governing nation after a ten-year transition period.

Drafting the Philippine Constitution (1934-1935)


Recto presided over the assembly that drafted the Philippine Constitution in 1934–35 in accordance with the provisions of the Tydings–McDuffie Act and a preliminary step to independence and self-governance after a 10-year transitional period. Recto was the primary author of the Constitution, thus becoming known as the "Father of the Philippine Constitution." After minor amendments, the Tydings–McDuffie bill was passed and signed into law by U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Together with then-Senate President Quezon, who later was elected the first president of the Commonwealth of the Philippines, Recto personally presented the Commonwealth Constitution to President Roosevelt. The consensus among many Philippine political scholars of today judges the 1935 Constitution as the best-written Philippine charter ever in terms of prose.

Recto later ran for and won a senate seat and was subsequently elected majority floor leader from 1934-1935. He was appointed Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the Philippines on July 3, 1935, by President Roosevelt and held the position until November 1, 1936.

World War II (1939-1945)
During World War II, Recto was arrested by the US colonial government for collaboration charges with the Japanese. Despite this, he ran for senator in the 1941 senatorial elections and reaped 1,084,003 votes, the highest number of votes among the 24 elected senators. However, Imperial Japan would invade on December 8, 1941, preventing the elected senators from taking oath. Thus, they were not seated until 1945.

Japanese Occupation
By 1943, the Commonwealth established a government-in-exile in Washington, DC; however many politicians stayed behind and collaborated with the occupying Japanese, among them Recto and then-Minister of Interior José P. Laurel. The Japanese installed Laurel as the President of the Second Philippine Republic on October 14, 1943. Recto was appointed as Commissioner of Education in 1942, and as Minister of Foreign Affairs from 1943 to 1944. As Minister, he signed the Philippine-Japanese Treaty of Alliance alongside Japanese Ambassador to Philippines Sozyo Murata on October 20, 1943.

After the war, Recto, along with Laurel, Minister of Education Camilo Osías, and Senator Quintín Paredes, was taken into custody and tried for treason, but he successfully defended himself was acquitted. He wrote a defense and explanation of his position in Three Years of Enemy Occupation (1946), which convincingly presented the case of the "patriotic" conduct of the Filipino elite during World War II.

1946 onwards
On April 9, 1949, Recto opened his attack against the unfair impositions of the U.S. government as expressed in the Military Bases Agreement of March 14, 1947, and later in the Mutual Defense Treaty of Aug. 30, 1951, and especially the Tydings Rehabilitation Act, which required the enactment of the controversial parity-rights amendment to the constitution. He debated against U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower's Attorney General Herbert Brownell Jr. on the question of U.S. ownership of military bases in the Philippines.

In the 1953 and 1955 elections, Recto denounced the influence and coercion of the Catholic Church on voters' decisions—the Philippines having a 90% Catholic majority at the time. In a 1958 article in "The Lawyer's Journal," Recto suggested a constitutional amendment to make the article on the separation of church and state clearer and more definitive. He also argued against the teaching of religion in public schools.

Recto also foresaw the demands of a fast-moving global economy and the challenges it would pose. In a speech on the eve of the 1957 presidential election, he petitioned all sectors of society and implored Philippine youth: "The first task to participate seriously in the economic development of our country (is to) pursue those professions for which there is a great need during an era of rapid industrialization. Only a nationalistic administration can inspire a new idealism in our youth, and with its valid economic program make our youth respond to the challenging jobs and tasks demanding full use of their talents and energies."

Recto would lose the election to incumbent president Carlos P. Garcia, winning just 8 percent of the vote. He would then be appointed Cultural Envoy with the rank of Ambassador on a cultural mission to Europe and Latin America in 1960.

As a jurist
Recto was known as an abogado milagroso (lawyer of miracles), a tribute to his many victories in the judicial court. He wrote a three-volume book on civil procedures, which, in the days before World War II was standard textbook for law students.

His prominence as a lawyer paralleled his fame as a writer. He was known for his flawless logic and lucidity of mind in both undertakings.

Recto took part in many landmark cases. In "Hall v. Piccio" (G.R. No. L-2598), the landmark civil case involving Articles of Incorporation as a requisite to becoming a de facto corporation, Recto lost the case to Ramon Diokno and his son Jose W. "Ka Pepe '' Diokno. This was the only time Recto took on the young Pepe Diokno, but they later collaborated and won in "Nacionalista Party v. Felix Angelo Bautista", against Felix Angelo Bautista, then the Solicitor-General of the Philippines.

As a writer
He was reared and schooled in the Spanish language, his mother tongue alongside Tagalog, and he was also fluent in English. He initially gained fame as a poet while a student at University of Santo Tomás when he published a book Bajo los Cocoteros (Under the Coconut Trees, 1911), a collection of his poems in Spanish. A staff writer of El Ideal and La Vanguardia, he wrote a daily column, Primeras Cuartillas (First Sheets), under the pen name "Aristeo Hilario." They were prose and numerous poems of satirical pieces. Some of his works still grace classic poetry anthologies of the Hispanic world.

Among the plays he authored were La Ruta de Damasco (The Route to Damascus, 1918), and Solo entre las sombras (Alone among the Shadows, 1917), lauded not only in the Philippines, but also in Spain and Latin America. Both were produced and staged in Manila to critical acclaim in the mid-1950s.

In 1929, his article Monroismo asiático (Asiatic Monroism) validated his repute as a political satirist. In what was claimed as a commendable study in polemics, he proffered his arguments and defenses in a debate with Dean Máximo Kálaw of the University of the Philippines where Kálaw championed a version of the Monroe Doctrine with its application to the Asian continent, while Recto took the opposing side. The original Monroe Doctrine (1823) was U.S. President James Monroe's foreign policy of keeping the Americas off-limits to the influence of the Old World, and states that the United States, Mexico, and countries in South and Central America were no longer open to European colonization. Recto was passionately against its implementation in Asia, wary of Japan's preeminence and its aggressive stance towards its neighbors.

In his deliberation, he wrote about foreseeing the danger Japan posed to the Philippines and other Asian countries. His words proved prophetic when Japan invaded and colonized the region, including the Philippines from 1942 to 1945.

His eloquence and facility with the Spanish language were recognized throughout the Hispanic world. The Enciclopedia Universal says of him: "Recto, more than a politician and lawyer, is a Spanish writer, and that among those of his race" (although he had Irish and Spanish ancestors), "there is not and there has been no one who has surpassed him in the mastery of the language of his country's former sovereign."

Death
Recto died of a heart attack in Rome, Italy, on October 2, 1960, while on a cultural mission, and en route to Spain, where he was to fulfill a series of speaking engagements. His body was flown back to the Philippines to be buried in Manila North Cemetery.

The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency is suspected of involvement in his death. Recto, who had no known heart disease, met with two mysterious "Caucasians" wearing business suits before he died. that a plan to murder Recto with a vial of poison was discussed by CIA Chief of Station Ralph Lovett and the US Ambassador to the Philippines Admiral Raymond Spruance years earlier.

Legacy
Recto is referred to by some as the "Great Academician" or the "finest mind of his generation". Teodoro M. Locsín of Philippines Free Press, defined Recto's genius:"Recto is not a good speaker, no. He will arouse no mob. But heaven help the one whose pretensions he chooses to demolish. His sentences march like ordered battalions against the inmost citadel of the man's arguments, and reduce them to rubble; meanwhile his reservations stand like armed sentries against the most silent approach and every attempt at encirclement by the adversary. The reduction to absurdity of Nacionalista senator Zulueta's conception of sound foreign policy was a shattering experience, the skill that goes into the cutting of a diamond went into the work of demolition. There was no slip of the hand, no flaw in the tool. All was delicately, perfectly done... Recto cannot defend the indefensible, but what can be defended, he will see to it that it will not be taken." Critics claim that Recto's brilliance is overshadowed by his inability to capture nationwide acceptance. His lack of popularity frequently saw him at the bottom of senate votes, and he sometimes lost the senate elections. He was seen as out of touch with the poor, and only garnered less than nine percent of votes when he ran for the presidency in 1957. His appeal was limited to the intellectual elite and the nationalist minority of his time, though others argue that he was just too ahead of his time.

Political editorialist Manuel L. Quezon III, laments:"Recto's leadership was the curious kind that only finds fulfillment from being at the periphery of power, and not from being its fulcrum. It was the best occupation suited to the satirist that he was. His success at the polls would be limited, his ability to mold the minds of his contemporaries was only excelled by Rizal's... But he was admired for his intellect and his dogged determination to never let the opposition be bereft of a champion, still his opposition was flawed. For it was one that never bothered to transform itself into an opposition capable of taking power."

During the 1957 presidential campaign, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) conducted black propaganda operations to ensure his defeat, including the distribution of condoms with holes in them and marked with `Courtesy of Claro M. Recto' on the labels.

Family
Claro Mayo Recto had seven children in all: four children in his first marriage with Angeles Zamora Silos, and two sons with his second wife, Aurora Reyes. He is the grandfather of Ralph Recto.

His children with Angeles Silos were:


 * María Clara 'Nena' Recto Silos (December 29, 1912, Manila - November 16, 1979, Madrid)
 * José Recto Silos (born December 8, 1914, Manila)
 * Concepción 'Conchita' or 'Chitang' Recto Silos (December 7, 1915, Manila - c. 1970)
 * José María Recto Silos (December 19, 1917, Manila – December 17, 1963, Manila)
 * María Priscilla 'Chona' Recto Silos (February 5, 1922, Manila - April 4, 1987, Manila)

His children with Aurora Reyes were:


 * Rafael Reyes Recto (died 2008) Assemblyman during the Regular Batasang Pambansa, father of Ralph Recto.
 * Claro Sebastián 'Clarito' Reyes Recto.