Lecture Notes - Secretary Of The Interior

Secretary of the Interior After graduation he decided to return to Manila via Europe. First was London where at the British Museum he saw copies of Magna Carta and then to Paris where he spent some weeks at the Sorbonne University to pore over documents that had been adopted by Frenchmen after the...

Secretary of the Interior After graduation he decided to return to Manila via Europe. First was London where at the British Museum he saw copies of Magna Carta and then to Paris where he spent some weeks at the Sorbonne University to pore over documents that had been adopted by Frenchmen after the fall of the Bastille in the 18^th^ century. He did not speak French but knew enough of the language to absorb the gist of what he was reading. His entire family was at the pier to welcome him plus his co-workers in the Executive Bureau. Some months later, Secretary Kalaw appointed him chief of the office, just a step to Undersecretary of the Department, to which he was later named with the approval of President Quezon. Ten months later, after Quezon had yanked out Don Teodoro as Secretary to help the independence mission, the new Governor General Leonard Wood, made Laurel as the Secretary of the Department. Don Teodoro Kalaw, of course had highly recommended him for the vacancy and when Wood received the letter from Chief Justice Taft he was immediately named Secretary of the Department. The Commission on Appointments of the legislature confirmed his appointment without much ado. Laurel had barely warned his seat as Department Secretary, so to speak, when he came into direct conflict with his boss, the Governor General. The conflict rose over the dismissal of Ray Conley, an American in the secret service of the Manila police for having allegedly accepted bribes from the gambling lords of the city. Mayor Ramon Fernandez secretary named Almario had tried to exclude Conley in a doctored telephone conversation according to the American version. Convinced by listening to the conversation, the Mayor suspended Conley. Laurel who also had listened to the taped conversation, countersigned his approval to the suspension and brought the case to the Court of First Instance. The judge, an American absolved Conley; whereupon both the Mayor and Secretary urged Wood for an administrative investigation. Wood refused on the ground that such a probe would make the two Filipino officials prosecutor and judge at the same time. Instead, Wood ordered an investigation by a board consisting of the Director of Civil Service, a Filipino, the Undersecretary of Justice, also a Filipino and an American Constabulary Commander. Since Conley was living with a native mistress, Wood wanted the additional charge included in the investigation. The board found Conley innocent of the charge of bribery but guilty of immorality. Wood reinstated Conley in the post bot ordered that he should resign "in view of his long and extraordinarily efficient service". Both Fernandez and Laurel resigned. Wood then ordered the chief police, who was an American, to reinstate Conley after which Conley voluntarily resigned. Both Laurel and Fernandez said the Governor General's action was contrary to the organic (Jones) Act which prescribed in its preamble that "for the speedy accomplishment of such purpose it is desirable to place in the hands of the people of the Philippines as a large control of their domestic affairs as can be given them without, in the meantime, impairing the exercise of the rights of sovereignty by the people of the United States..." On the other hand Wood, on the advise of his military assistants, cited Section 21 of the Jones law declaring "that the supreme executive power shall be vested in an executive officer, whose official title shall be Governor General of the Philippines Islands." Under such a clear mandate, since power of supervision and control were vested in the chief executive, Wood could do as he deemed legal. Since he could name or dismiss Department Secretaries and City Mayors he could revoke or amend their official acts. Native nationalists, led by Quezon and Speaker Roxas were determined in their opposition to this and other acts of the Governor General who deemed as having ridden "rough shod" on Filipino aspirations after his experience in Cuba at the turn of the century with the Rough Riders led by then Assistant Secretary of the Navy Theodore Roosevelt. Quezon had told Kalaw, " when all these can be written down calmly, it will be shown that in the fight with General Wood, I defended not only our political autonomy but also our economic heritage. General Wood wanted to hand over to American capitalists the Philippine National Bank, the Manila Railroad and our sugar centrals. I fought hard to keep these for the Filipinos. Had Speaker Roxas and I consented to a certain proposal, some 250 million pesos would have been lost." Wood did not want Laurel to resign and since a telephone call revealed that the Secretary of Interior was out of town, the Governor General sent one of his aides, Col. Gordon Johnson, to fetch him. Johnson went to Los Banos in Laguna, where the Secretary was spending the day with his wife for thermal baths. The American officer almost took Laurel by force to bring him to the Palace but Laurel dared Johnson to do so, and he had to report to Gen. Wood that Laurel would go to Malacanang on the following day. At the termination of their meeting, Laurel said, "I'll always be grateful to you, General, for all that you have done for me but I cannot with dignity continue serving under the circumstances." "And why not?" snapped Wood. Laurel composed himself for their attitude have become acrimonious. Finally he answered: "The honor of my country as well as my own does not permit me to stay." But the stubborn chief executive still would not accept Laurel's resignation until Senate President Quezon published a letter the next day admiring the Secretary's "very dignified attitude for a clean administration of the Department." City Fiscal Guillermo B. Guevara in his memoirs noticed that "unmistakable were the racial, economic and political overtones" in the rupture of Laurel, Abad Santos and their colleagues with Leonard Wood. Many efforts of reconciliation were made for fear that an open break would be bad for both sides. Secretary of Justice Jose Abad Santos of Pampanga, who had assumed office as department head less than a year ago, conferred with Wood to avoid the mass resignation of the cabinet secretaries. But Wood told him, "Mr. Secretary, this question is one between the Americans and the Filipinos. Naturally, I have to be with the Americans. Abad Santos rose from his seat in front of the Governor General at the executive building and said "I have sided with you on this case even at the risks of being held suspect by my friends. But since you make the racial question the issue, I find myself obliged also to be with my kind." Then he strode out of the room. The Council of the State, plus all the cabinet secretaries and legislative members met in a private conference, and decided after impassioned speeches to resign *en masse.* The Cebuano representative Manuel Briones shouted loudly "The war is on!" Clad in formal cut away clothes, Quezon and Roxas accompanied by Laurel, Abad Santos, Alberto Baretto of Finance, Rafael Corpus of Agriculture and Salvador Laguda of Commerce, called at Malacanang Palace to tender their resignations which Wood gravely accepted after thanking them for their past services. Bureaucratic work continued under the Undersecretaries who claimed, since they were civil service men and not political appointees, they had no need to resign. Quezon told the Associated Press correspondent in Manila that the wholesale resignation was not meant "as a protest against the administration of President. Harding, but against Wood personally for his encroachment upon the constitutional rights already enjoyed by the Filipinos. Wood's acts were "indirect violation of existing laws and the action of the Filipino leaders was in defense of the principles of democracy and good government." When Roxas appealed to Harding's successor in the White House, Calvin Coolidge, the American President merely kept quiet and hinted that he would support his Governor General in the islands. "Looking at the whole situation fairly and impartially", said Coolidge, "one cannot but feel that if the Filipino people cannot cooperate in the support and encouragement of as good as an administration as has been accorded under Governor Wood, their failure will be rather a testimony of unpreparedness than an evidence of patriotic eagerness of advance." General Wood stayed in office until his death from a brain tumor in August of 1927. Dr. Laurel was offered other positions in the government but he turned them down for the simple reason that his personal finances were at the ebb. He decided to form his own law firm with Attys. Vicente del Rosario and Guillermo Lualhati as partners. Immediately, the firmed prospered for its clients paid well. He accepted a few classes in law colleges in the city and in his spare time wrote articles and books on election laws, autonomy for local governments, administrative law and commented on phases in constitutional law, earning the name as a profound scholar and prolific writer. Although in his early thirties, Dr. Laurel was already considered a national figure by the people.