José Abad Santos: A Rare Privilege
The Chief Justice left to hold the free government in the south, who refused to serve the enemy and chose death over collaboration — and told his weeping son it was a rare chance to die for one's country.
The jurist
José Abad Santos y Basco was born on the 19th of February 1886 in San Fernando, Pampanga. He studied law at home and in the United States, at Northwestern University and George Washington University, and returned to a life in the law. He served as Secretary of Justice, then as Associate Justice of the Supreme Court from 1932. In December 1941, as the war broke over the islands, President Quezon named him the fifth Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.
Service to the Commonwealth
Abad Santos stood close to the government in its worst hour. On the 13th of December 1941 he sat in the Council of State that Quezon called in Manila to put the nation on a war footing. After the government crossed to Corregidor, it was Abad Santos who administered the oath of office to Quezon for his second term, on the 30th of December 1941.
When Quezon left for exile, he did not leave the islands without a government. He named Abad Santos his acting delegate and vested him with full presidential power over all matters in the unoccupied Philippines. For a short time in 1942 the Chief Justice was the acting president of the country and the acting head of its armed forces — a duty with no army left to protect it. To stay was to accept that capture was only a matter of time.
Taken near Barili
On the 11th of April 1942, Abad Santos was traveling on Cebu when a Japanese patrol stopped his car near Barili. They arrested him with his son José Junior — Pepito, an army lieutenant and his father's aide — and two soldiers. The enemy knew who he was. Here was the highest Filipino official still free, and they meant to use him.
They pressed him to swear allegiance to the Japanese flag, to serve the occupying administration, and to order the guerrillas to lay down their arms. He refused. I would rather die than be a traitor, he said. I would prefer to die rather than live in shame.
The general who tried to save him
His captor was Major General Kiyotake Kawaguchi, commander of the 35th Infantry Brigade. Kawaguchi came to respect the Chief Justice and tried to spare him. He appealed for clemency to Yoshihide Hayashi of the military administration and to General Masaharu Homma, the Fourteenth Army commander. The appeal failed. When the order came down, Kawaguchi would not carry it out himself and left it to a subordinate. He did use what discretion he had to save the son — Pepito was sent to Tokyo as a prisoner of war rather than shot.
The first of May
On the 1st of May 1942 they took Abad Santos to a coconut grove by a river near Malabang, in Lanao. Seven soldiers formed the firing squad. He spoke first to his weeping son. The words have been kept ever since: Do not cry, Pepito. Show these people that you are brave. It is a rare opportunity for me to die for our country. Not everyone is given that chance.
Witnesses said he met the rifles with complete calm, as if he were simply going home. He was among the first of the country's high officials to choose death over collaboration, and the choice set a mark. Through all the years of the occupation, when others argued that serving the enemy was the only way to shield the people, the memory of Abad Santos stood against the easy path — a man who was offered his life and gave it back rather than bend.