Isauro Gabaldon 1875–1942
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H former members 1900–1946 H Isauro Gabaldon 1875–1942 RESIDENT COMMISSIONER 1920–1928 NACIONALISTA FROM THE PHILIPPINES ealthy and well connected, Isauro Gabaldon in 1903, Gabaldon worked in private practice for three was part of a cohort of rising politicians years. In addition to his work as a lawyer, Gabaldon was an who helped transform the Philippines and oil and gold executive, and he owned several large rice- dominatedW the territorial government in the early 20th producing estates.4 century. By the time he became Resident Commissioner, Gabaldon made a rapid transition into politics and, though the islands were already along a path toward independence, he at first avoided party labels, he struck an alliance with but a presidential administration change only a short other up-and-coming nationalist politicos, such as Manuel while later completely altered that trajectory. As a result, L. Quezon, Sergio Osmeña, and Jaime de Veyra.5 In 1906 Gabaldon spent his eight years on the Hill fighting he won election as governor of his home province, Nueva congressional efforts to reassert control over the insular Ecija. As with other provincial governors, such as Osmeña government. As he once told colleagues, “on every occasion and de Veyra, he left the governorship before his three-year which I have addressed the Congress … I have declared term expired, running for a seat in the newly formed national that immediate, absolute, and complete independence assembly. Elected as a member of the Nacionalista Party on is the desire of the great majority of the 12,000,000 July 13, 1907, Gabaldon served two terms (1907–1912) in inhabitants of the islands. Nothing less than this … will be the national assembly representing Nueva Ecija. In Manila, satisfactory to the Filipino people.”1 he chaired the committee on provincial and municipal Isauro Gabaldon was born in the northern Philippine town governments and served on three other panels : police, of San Isidro, Central Luzon, on December 8, 1875. The accounts, and agriculture.6 While in the legislature, he landlocked Nueva Ecija Province, where he spent his earliest authored a bill subsequently named after him that provided 1 years, offered limited educational opportunities ; Gabaldon’s million pesos to construct modern public schools throughout well-to-do family instead sent the four-year-old to Spain for the islands, but particularly in the barrios (neighborhoods). his primary education in the city of Tébar, about 120 miles Despite his vast wealth, he earned a reputation for keeping southeast of Madrid. At the age of 16, he attended the colleges a watchful eye on the aparcería (sharecropping) system, in Quintanar del Rey and Villanueva de la Jara in Cuenca, protecting the rights of agricultural laborers and small farmers. earning a bachelor’s degree from the latter school in 1893. From 1912 to 1916, Gabaldon again served as “My dream was to be a military man,” Gabaldon recalled years provincial governor in Nueva Ecija, but with the later. “But my father was against it. In school I was strong in enactment of the Jones Act in 1916 and the creation of a philosophy and letters. And when the time came for me to popularly elected senate, Gabaldon sought and won a seat decide, the happy mean was chosen : I took up law.”2 in the newly formed legislative chamber. During his three Gabaldon studied at the Universidad Central in Madrid years in the senate, he chaired the committee on accounts for five years, but returned to the Philippines after his father’s and served on the agriculture, commerce, communications, death, earning a law degree from Manila’s University of Santo railroads, and rules committees.7 Tomas in 1900. That same year he married Bernarda Tinio, In February 1920, the Philippine assembly nominated whose family had considerable wealth and land. The couple Gabaldon as its candidate for the Resident Commissioner raised two children, Teresa and Senen.3 After passing the bar post vacated by Teodoro Yangco, who was returning to the 178 H ASIAN AND PACIFIC ISLANDER AMERICANS IN CONGRESS Image courtesy of the Library of Congress 42940_05-APA-MP1.indd 178 2/13/2018 11:55:44 AM Isauro Gabaldon 1875–1942 RESIDENT COMMISSIONER 1920–1928 NACIONALISTA FROM THE PHILIPPINES 42940_05-APA-MP1.indd 179 2/13/2018 11:55:46 AM H isauro gabaldon H Philippines to focus on the private sector. With Speaker maintain U.S. control in the Philippines. Moreover, Sergio Osmeña’s backing, Gabaldon won the support the new President, Warren G. Harding, had chaired of Nacionalista leaders, but still faced some opposition the Senate’s Committee on the Philippines in the 66th from the party. He was challenged for the nomination by Congress (1919–1921) and had a poor view of President Teodoro M. Kalaw, a key Quezon aide, but prevailed by Woodrow Wilson’s efforts to expedite Philippine a 53 to 16 margin. The assembly elected Gabaldon over independence.11 the minority party candidate, Tría Tirona, on February 7, On March 3, 1921, the final day of the 66th Congress, 1920, by a vote of 69 to 3.8 Gabaldon later comfortably Majority Leader Frank Mondell of Wyoming asked won re-election in February 1923, for the period from unanimous consent to allow Gabaldon to speak on the floor. March 4, 1923, to March 4, 1926, and again in late 1925, The Resident Commissioner opened his inaugural speech for the period March 4, 1926 to March 4, 1929.9 to the House by reminding Congress that its “promise” of By the time Gabaldon arrived in Washington early freedom remained “unredeemed.” Gabaldon reassured his in the fall of 1920, Congress had already gone home to colleagues that Filipinos appreciated U.S. efforts to improve finish election-year campaigning. As was customary for schools and public health on the islands. He described the Resident Commissioners, Gabaldon submitted his election Philippines’ two-decade apprenticeship in government, credentials first to the President, who then informed the highlighting the stability of the insular legislature and legislature. Gabaldon spent nearly two months in the local governments, and discounted the threat of Japanese capital settling himself and his family before the House invasion. But Filipinos, he said, expected independence convened for a lame-duck session on December 6, 1920. sooner rather than later. “It will be the greatest example of Like other Resident Commissioners, House Rules international square dealing in the history of the ages.”12 barred him from committee service and voting on the Gabaldon and fellow Resident Commissioner Jaime House Floor, but he made it clear that he planned to de Veyra met with Harding shortly after his inauguration, use the power of publicity to an extent that neither his but the President refused to commit one way or the other colleague, Jaime de Veyra, nor his immediate predecessor, on the matter of independence. His inclinations became Teodoro Yangco, had done. Even before the start of the clear enough when shortly afterward he dispatched a fact- session, he honed a message that would be the hallmark of finding mission to assess the islands’ “fitness” for self-rule. his eight-year career as Resident Commissioner. “It is of the Harding assured the Resident Commissioners that he utmost importance to continue friendly relations between would not make a policy decision until the investigators the Philippines and the United States that Congress should submitted a formal report.13 Perhaps sensing the drift of take up the question of independence without further the new administration, Gabaldon tried to preempt the delay,” he told the Christian Science Monitor. “The officials mission by recommending a four- to five-year period of of the Philippines and the masses of the Filipino people “probational independence.”14 are alike insistent that independence shall be granted. As Led by General Leonard Wood and former Governor we have demonstrated our ability to govern ourselves just General W. Cameron Forbes, both of whom opposed as often as we have had the opportunity to demonstrate it, independence, the mission visited the islands from May there is absolutely no question as to our ability to do so in through August 1921. After interviewing a wide range of the future.”10 people, including resident Americans and Filipino political At the time, however, the political calculus in leaders, the mission advised Harding to strengthen the Washington greatly complicated Gabaldon’s task. Both governor general’s office and retain the islands because, in Congress and the White House were controlled by its opinion, the Philippines had not yet mastered self-rule.15 Republicans, the party which traditionally sought to Harding unsurprisingly endorsed the report. 180 H ASIAN AND PACIFIC ISLANDER AMERICANS IN CONGRESS 42940_05-APA-MP1.indd 180 2/13/2018 11:55:46 AM H isauro gabaldon H Gabaldon and de Veyra protested the recommendations, rejected the bill, and the whole effort stalled heading into especially the suggestion to embolden the governor general the fall elections.22 at the expense of the Philippine legislature.16 In a floor In late 1924, Gabaldon found himself in the middle of an speech refuting the principal findings of the Wood–Forbes anti-independence backlash. Led in part by the Philippine report, Gabaldon alleged that it was a thinly veiled attempt American Chamber of Commerce, the effort to maintain to “find excuses for delaying independence.” To critics who American control in the Philippines took a nasty turn when, claimed that Japan would exercise undue influence in the from late November 1924 to January 1925, the Washington Pacific, he claimed the Philippines were perfectly capable Post ran a 41-part series titled “Isles of Fear” written by of defending its borders and pointed to provisions in the Katherine Mayo.23 Mayo held a number of nativist and Washington Naval Conference of 1921, a treaty signed by anti-Catholic beliefs, and her articles directly challenged the United States, Great Britain, Japan, and France, that Gabaldon’s claims that the Philippines had established a all but eliminated the threat.