Elpidio Quirino

Vocation

Sixth President of the Philippines. A lawyer by profession, Quirino entered politics when he became a representative of Ilocos Sur from 1919 to 1925. He was then elected as senator from 1925–1931. In 1934, he became a member of the Philippine independence commission that was sent to Washington, D.C., which secured the passage of Tydings–McDuffie Act to American Congress. In 1935, he was also elected to become member of the convention that will write the draft of then 1935 constitution for the newly established Commonwealth. At the new government, he served as secretary of the interior and finance under Quezon's cabinet. Quirino was elected vice-president in the 1946 election, consequently the second and last for the Commonwealth and first for the third republic. After the death of the incumbent president Manuel Roxas in 1948, he succeeded the presidency. In what was claimed to be a dishonest and fraudulent 1949 presidential election, he won the president's office under Liberal Party ticket, defeating Nacionalista vie and former president José P. Laurel as well as fellow Liberalista and former Senate President José Avelino. The Quirino administration was generally challenged by the Hukbalahaps, who ransacked towns and barrios. Quirino ran for president again in the 1953 presidential election, but was defeated. After his term, he retired to his new country home in Novaliches, Quezon City, where he died of a heart attack on February 29, 1956. Link to Wikipedia biography