Diosdado Macapagal - The Presidents of the Philippines

Diosdado Macapagal

Diosdado Macapagal entered Philippine Law School to get his law degree. In his law school he became well known as the best Orator and debater. After two years he transferred to the University of Sto. Tomas.

After receiving his law degree, Mcapagal was admitted to the bar in 1936. During World War II he practiced law in Manila and aided the anti-Japanese resistance. After the war he worked in a law firm and in 1948 served as second secretary to the Philippine Embassy in Washington DC. The following year he was elected to a seat in the Philippine House of Representatives, serving until 1956. During this time he was Philippine representative to the United Nations General Assembly three times. From 1957 to 1961 Macapagal was a member of the Liberal Party asnd vice president under Carlos P. Garcia, the Nacionalista president. In the 1961 elections, however, he ran against former presideent Garcia forging a coalition of the Liberal and progressive parties and making a crusaed against corruption a principal element of his platform. He was elected by a wide margin.

While president, Diosdado Macapagal worked to suppress graft and corruption and to stimulate the Philippine economy. He placed the peso in the free currency-exchange market, encouraged wealthiest families, which cost the treasury millions of pesos yearly. His reforms were crippled by a House of Representatives and Senate dominated by the Nacionalistas and he was defeated in the 1965 elections by Ferdinand E. Marcos.

In 1972 he chaired the convention that drafted the 1973 constitution only to question in 1981 the validity of its retification. In 1979 he organized the National Union for Liberation as an opposition party to the Marcos regime.