Yangco, Teodoro Rafael, 1861-1939

YANGCO, Teodoro R., a Resident Commissioner from the Commonwealth of the Philippine Islands; born in San Antonio, Zambales Province, Luzon, Philippine Islands, on November 9, 1861; attended local schools; B.A., Ateneo de Manila University, Manila, P.I., 1880; attended University of Santo Tomas, Manila, P.I., 1880-1881; studied business in Madrid, Spain, 1881-1882; attended Ealing College, London, England, 1882-1886; clerk; business manager; business owner; director, Philippines national bank; president, Philippine chamber of commerce; philanthropist; elected as a Nacionalista to the Sixty-fifth Congress to a three-year term and served until his resignation on February 7, 1920 (January 10, 1917-February 7, 1920); was not a candidate for renomination in 1920; resumed his former business activities in Manila, P.I., until his death on April 20, 1939; interment at Cementerio del Norte, Manila, P.I.

<p>Teodoro Rafael Yangco (November 9, 1861 – April 20, 1939) was a Filipino businessman who served in a variety of public and civic offices, and was considered to be the foremost Filipino philanthropist of his time. He was the longest serving president of the YMCA in the Philippines (1911–1925) and was called the "Father of the YMCA of the Philippines".</p>

<p>Yangco was born on November 9, 1861 in San Antonio, Zambales. He was the only child of shipping magnate Luis R. Yangco and Ramona Arguelles Corpus, widow of Tomas Corpus and is of Chinese descent through his father. He graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree at the Ateneo de Manila University in 1880 and graduated from the University of Santo Tomás in 1881. He pursued a commercial course at Ealing Commercial College in London from 1882 to 1886.</p>

<p>Yangco established a shipping company, organized a bus company called TRY TRAN, set up a shipyard, a big department store named Bazar Siglo XX and a huge dry goods market in Divisoria called Yangco Market. He also became president of Insular Life. He followed his father's practice of investing his surplus earnings in properties suitable for commercial purposes.</p>

<p>Known as the “Rockefeller of the Philippines,” Teodoro Yangco, whose business acumen and wealth made him the islands’ leading philanthropist, enjoyed a brief, symbolic term as a Resident Commissioner in the U.S. Congress. Yangco followed in the tradition of Benito Legarda and Manuel Earnshaw when he was selected as one of the islands’ two concurrent Resident Commissioners on a track reserved for leading industrialists and merchants. These men tended to be gradualists on the independence question as opposed to their colleagues, who came from overtly political backgrounds and tended to espouse the popular will of Filipinos who favored immediate autonomy. But as a staunch ally of Manuel L. Quezon, who sometimes disagreed with his friend on tactics but not objectives, Yangco believed that, in the wake of the Jones Act, full freedom remained the central aspiration for Filipinos. “I am a business man and have [been] much involved in this question of Philippine independence,” Yangco noted in 1919. “I am supposed to be a conservative. I believe still the time has come for independence. We are grateful to America for the great things she has done for us, and our desire now to separate from her side is only the natural desire of the child when he comes of age to leave the care and control of a parent.”</p>

<p>Teodoro Rafael Yangco was born in San Antonio, Zambales Province, Philippines, on November 9, 1861, the only child of the troubled union of “Capitan” Luis Rafael Yangco, a wealthy entrepreneur and industrialist, and Ramona Arguelles. When Teodoro was four, his father built a grocery store in Manila and moved away to manage it. For six years, Ramona raised Teodoro alone in San Antonio, where private tutors educated the boy. In 1871, at the beckoning of Luis, 10-year-old Teodoro traveled 120 miles to live with his father and attend Ateneo de Manila University, one of the Philippines’ most prominent finishing schools. His father eventually remarried to Victorina Obin, and from this union Teodoro gained three step-siblings: Pacita, Luisa, and Luisito. Teodoro graduated from Ateneo de Manila University with a bachelor of arts degree in 1880. He enrolled in the law program at the University of Santo Tomas for one year, but his father encouraged him to pursue a commercial degree instead of law. Yangco studied business in Madrid for a year but left disgusted. “Except for the fact that I was entitled to a vacation,” he recalled, “my time was wasted. I learned little or nothing of value.” Yangco moved on to Ealing College, a small school in West London, where he lived between 1882 and 1886.</p>

<p>Upon returning to the Philippines in 1887, Yangco worked for his father to learn the business from the ground up. As a self-made entrepreneur, Luis Yangco did not provide his son any special favors and, in fact, verged on being overbearing. “Now Teodoro,” he said, “you’ll work as a clerk in my office. Don’t think that simply because you have studied in Europe you can be a manager right away.” A salaried employee, Yangco clerked and slowly worked his way up to manager after a 10-year apprenticeship. His father garnished his wages during that time, using that money to construct a private department store, Bazar Siglo XX (Twentieth Century Bazaar), in Teodoro’s name. During the 1896 Philippine Revolution, when Luis was arrested and imprisoned for six months, Teodoro managed the family business. As a reward for his successful work, Yangco received a hefty raise and 13 ships to start his own business. He continued to manage his father’s firm while, in his spare time, building his own shipping company.</p>