Gabaldón, Isauro, 1875-1942

<p>Isauro Gabaldón y González (born Isauro González; December 8, 1875 – December 21, 1942) was a Resident Commissioner from the Philippine Islands serving from 1920 until 1928.</p>

<p>He was born in San Isidro, Nueva Ecija, Philippines on December 8, 1875, and was a Spanish-Filipino mestizo, the illegitimate son of José Gabaldón y Pérez, a Spaniard from Tébar, Cuenca, and of María González y Mendoza, a Filipina native. He was the grandson by paternal side of Lorenzo Gabaldón and Luisa Pérez, and by maternal side of Cosme González and Bárbara Mendoza.</p>

<p>He attended the public schools in Tebar, Spain, which was his father's hometown. He studied law in the Universidad Central, in Madrid, Spain and graduated from the University of Santo Tomas in Manila, Philippine Islands. He practiced law from 1903 to 1906.</p>

GABALDON, Isauro, a Resident Commissioner from the Commonwealth of the Philippine Islands; born in San Isidoro, Nueva Ecija Province, Luzon, Philippine Islands, December 8, 1875; attended the public schools in Tebar, Spain, and the Colleges Quintanar del Rey & Villa Nueva de la Jara, Cuenca, Spain; attended La Universidad Central, Madrid, Spain, 1894-1899; graduated with a law degree from the University of Santo Tomas, Manila, P.I., 1900; lawyer, private practice; business owner; Governor of Nueva Ecija Province, P.I., 1906, 1912-1916; member of the Philippine assembly 1907-1911; member of the Philippine senate 1916-1919; elected as a Nacionalista to the Sixty-sixth Congress to a three-year term, reelected to two succeeding terms, and served until his resignation became effective on July 16, 1928 (February 7, 1920-July 16, 1928); was also elected to the Philippine house of representatives in 1925, but declined to serve, preferring to continue serving as Resident Commissioner; member of the Philippine independence mission to Washington in 1933; died on December 21, 1942, in Manila, P.I.; interment at North Cemetery, Manila, P.I.

<p>Wealthy and well connected, Isauro Gabaldon was part of a cohort of rising politicians who helped transform the Philippines and dominated the territorial government in the early 20th century. By the time he became Resident Commissioner, the islands were already along a path toward independence, but a presidential administration change only a short while later completely altered that trajectory. As a result, Gabaldon spent his eight years on the Hill fighting congressional efforts to reassert control over the insular government. As he once told colleagues, “on every occasion which I have addressed the Congress … I have declared that immediate, absolute, and complete independence is the desire of the great majority of the 12,000,000 inhabitants of the islands. Nothing less than this … will be satisfactory to the Filipino people.”</p>

<p>Isauro Gabaldon was born in the northern Philippine town of San Isidro, Central Luzon, on December 8, 1875. The landlocked Nueva Ecija Province, where he spent his earliest years, offered limited educational opportunities; Gabaldon’s well-to-do family instead sent the four-year-old to Spain for his primary education in the city of Tébar, about 120 miles southeast of Madrid. At the age of 16, he attended the colleges in Quintanar del Rey and Villanueva de la Jara in Cuenca, earning a bachelor’s degree from the latter school in 1893. “My dream was to be a military man,” Gabaldon recalled years later. “But my father was against it. In school I was strong in philosophy and letters. And when the time came for me to decide, the happy mean was chosen: I took up law.”</p>

<p>Gabaldon studied at the Universidad Central in Madrid for five years, but returned to the Philippines after his father’s death, earning a law degree from Manila’s University of Santo Tomas in 1900. That same year he married Bernarda Tinio, whose family had considerable wealth and land. The couple raised two children, Teresa and Senen. After passing the bar in 1903, Gabaldon worked in private practice for three years. In addition to his work as a lawyer, Gabaldon was an oil and gold executive, and he owned several large rice producing estates.</p>