Abad Santos, José (1886-1942), was a Filipino lawyer who served as chief justice and secretary of state of the Philippines. Abad Santos was a close adviser to President Manuel L. Quezon, acting as administrator of the government after President Quezon left the country during World War II (1939-1945). Abad Santos was captured and executed by Japanese soldiers shortly after Quezon’s departure.
Abad Santos trained as a lawyer on a government scholarship in the United States, at Northwestern University in Illinois and at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. Upon his return to the Philippines, he was appointed to the Philippine bar as a court interpreter in 1911 and became assistant attorney at the Bureau of Justice in 1918. He served as an adviser to the first independence mission to the United States in 1919.
In 1922, Abad Santos was appointed undersecretary of justice, a position he held for three months until his promotion to secretary of justice in April 1922. In this position, he worked to improve the rights of prisoners. In 1932, Abad Santos was appointed associate justice of the Philippines. He left this position in 1938 to serve his third term as secretary of justice. In December 1941 he was appointed chief justice of the Philippines.
In 1941, President Quezon and several members of the government, including Abad Santos, fled from Manila, the capital, to the nearby island of Corregidor. In the government in exile, Abad Santos remained chief justice and secretary of justice, and was also appointed the acting secretary of finance, agriculture, and commerce.
President Quezon left for the United States in March 1942, but Abad Santos remained in the Philippines, taking over responsibility for the administration of the government. Abad Santos was captured by Japanese soldiers on April 11, 1942. He refused to cooperate with the Japanese and was executed on May 2, 1942.
Jose Abad Santos was born on Feb. 19, 1886, in San Fernando, Pampanga, in the Philippines. He served as president of the Philippine Bar Association. His charity work included work with the Boy Scouts of the Philippines and the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA).
