Legarda, Benito, 1853-1915

LEGARDA, Benito, a Resident Commissioner from the Commonwealth of the Philippine Islands; born in Binondo, Manila Province, Luzon, Philippine Islands, September 27, 1853; attended Ateneo de Manila University, Manila, P.I.; earned a law degree from the University of Santo Tomas, Manila, P.I., 1874; member of President Emilio Aguinaldo's cabinet and vice president of the Malolos Congress, 1896-1898; member of the Manila, P.I., municipal council; lieutenant mayor of Quiapo District, Manila, P.I.; member of the second Philippine commission 1901-1906; elected as a Progresista to the Sixtieth and to the succeeding Congress; appointed to the Sixty-second Congress per P.L. 61-376 in 1911 (November 22, 1907- March 3, 1912); was not a candidate for renomination in 1912; died on August 27, 1915, in Evian-les-Bains, France; interment at Cementerio del Norte, Manila, P.I.

<p>Benito Legarda y Tuason (September 27, 1853 – August 27, 1915) was a Filipino legislator who was a member of the Philippine Commission of the American colonial Insular Government, the government's legislature, and later a Resident Commissioner from the Philippine Islands to the United States Congress.</p>

<p>He was born in Manila, Philippines on September 27, 1853 to a Spanish-Filipino mestizo family. He attended the Jesuits' College and the University of Santo Tomas of Manila.</p>

<p>He started his political life as a member of President Emilio Aguinaldo's cabinet at Malolos and vice president of the Filipino Congress. He later became a member of the Philippine Commission 1901 and was elected as a Resident Commissioner to the Sixtieth and to the two succeeding Congresses (November 22, 1907 - March 3, 1912). He was not a candidate for renomination to the Sixty-third Congress in 1912, in large part due to opposition to his candidacy from the Philippine Assembly. He founded the Federalista Party during the early part of the 20th century. He was an upper-class Filipino who cooperated with the United States.</p>

<p>A prominent entrepreneur before entering Congress, Benito Legarda served as one of the first Resident Commissioners from the Philippines. Elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1907, Legarda used his vast business experience to influence tariff legislation in an effort to reshape the Philippines’ economy. He was close friends with President William H. Taft—the two first met when Taft served as civil governor of the Philippines at the turn of the century—and Legarda worked closely with officials from the Bureau of Insular Affairs on a host of trade issues. While many Filipinos called for independence, Legarda took a more measured approach and believed the island government should first establish consistent sources of revenue before it sought independence. “He was a man of the highest repute,” Democratic Senator William Stone of Missouri said about Legarda, “clear-headed, intelligent, patriotic, representative, and worthy in every way of the greatest confidence.”</p>

<p>Benito Legarda was born on September 27, 1853, in Binondo, Manila Province, Philippines, to Benito Legarda Sr., a Spaniard, and Cirila Tuason. Legarda attended the Ateneo de Manila University and matriculated to the University of Santo Tomas, also in Manila, where he graduated with a law degree in 1874. His family, according to one account, had been “distinguished for decades in the business and political life of the Spanish regime,” and Legarda was himself an adept businessman, founding the Germinal cigar factory and making a fortune in the tobacco and alcohol industries. Legarda married twice, the second time to Teresa de la Paz, and together they had three children.</p>

<p>In the midst of his lucrative business career, which made him one of the wealthiest men in the Philippines, Legarda won election to the municipal council of Manila and served as lieutenant mayor of the Quiapo District in 1891. Legarda belonged to a class of well-educated Filipinos commonly called the ilustrados (the enlightened ones), men who had often grown wealthy and successful under Spanish rule but who had also challenged the Spanish colonial structure from within. Their status as cultural elites may have given the ilustrados more conservative tendencies, but their history as internal reformers enabled men like Legarda to identify with the movement for political control that took shape in the 1890s. “They emphatically desired reform,” wrote Peter W. Stanley in his history of Philippine independence, “particularly guaranteed civil liberties, decentralization of government, separation of church and state, and recognition of their position as leaders in Filipino life.”</p>