Osías, Camilo, 1889-1976

Camilo Olaviano Osías (born Camilo Osías y Olaviano; March 23, 1889 – May 20, 1976) was a Filipino academic and politician. He served as Resident Commissioner of the Philippines to the U.S. Congress from 1929 to 1935 and as President of the Senate of the Philippines on two brief occasions in 1952 and 1953.

Born in Balaoan in the La Union province of the Spanish Philippines, he attended school there, in Vigan, Ilocos Sur, and San Fernando, La Union before being named a government scholar to the United States in 1905. He studied at the University of Chicago in 1906 and 1907 before graduating from the Western Illinois State Teachers College at Macomb, Illinois in 1908 and from the Teachers College of Columbia University in New York City in 1910. On his return to the Philippine Islands, he taught and later assumed various administrative positions, particularly in the field of education. He successively became the first Filipino Superintendent of Schools (1915 to 1916), Assistant Director of Education (1917 to 1921), a lecturer at the University of the Philippines (1919 to 1921), and President of National University (1921–1936), a private institution.

Osías also entered national politics. He was a member of the first Philippine mission to the United States (1919 to 1920). He was elected a member of the Philippine Senate in 1925, and, as a Nationalista, a Resident Commissioner in the United States House of Representatives in 1928, reelected in 1931 and served from March 4, 1929 until January 3, 1935, when his term expired in accordance with the new Philippine Commonwealth Government. In 1934 he was an unsuccessful candidate for election to the Philippine Senate, but became a member of the Constitutional Convention in 1934, and a member of the first National Assembly in 1935. In 1939 he was a member of the Economic Mission to the United States, and chairman of the Educational Mission between 1938 and 1941.

Back in the Philippines, Osias became chairman of the National Council of Education in 1941, Director of Publicity and Propaganda until January 1942, chairman of the National Cooperative Administration in 1941, later Assistant Commissioner of the Department of Education, Health, and Public Welfare, then Secretary of Education until 1945. He was also Chancellor of Osías Colleges. He was elected again to the Philippine Senate in 1947 for a term expiring in 1953. He was President of the Senate of the Philippines twice for a short time in 1952 and in 1953. He was the Philippines' representative to the Interparliamentary Union in Rome and to the International Trade Conference in Genoa in 1948. He was an unsuccessful candidate for the Nationalist Party nomination for President of the Philippines in 1953, losing to Ramon Magsaysay. He was again elected, this time as a Liberal to the Philippine Senate (1961–1967), and served as president pro tempore. He was a resident of Mandaluyong, Rizal, Philippines, until his death in Manila in 1976.