Volume I

PHILIPPINE

LAW JOURNAL

MARCH, 1915

RAMON AVANCEÑA,

Attorney-General

By Hon. Fernando Salas, Judge of First Instance.

Number 8

Honorable Ramón Avanceña, present Attorney-General of the Philippine Islands, saw the light of day for the first time on April 13th, 1872, in the town of Molo, province of Iloilo, of these Islands. He studied his first letters in the town of his birth and pursued the advanced secondary courses in the Seminary of Jaro of the same province, where he finished two courses in Dogmatic Theology.

Not feeling any vocation for the ecclesiastical career, in spite of the wishes of his family, he transferred to Manila in order to finish the subjects which he lacked in the secondary course, until he graduated as Bachelor of Arts from the University of Santo Tomas.

After having obtained the degree of Bachelor of Arts, about the year 1891, he began the study of law, which he finished in March, 1898.

In the school life of the subject of this sketch, two noteworthy things irresistibly attract our attention: the gifted mind which he revealed from the time he began the study of Mathematics, and the fact that in spite of his having passed from that time on as a great intellectual celebrity prior to his obtaining the bachelor's degree and that of licentiate in law, he did not obtain any grade higher than that of "aprobado" (passing).

We said that the intellect of our subject began to reveal itself when he studied Mathematics, that is, in the second year in Philosophy, according to the old plan of the seminaries in the Philippines; because until the study of Logic or first year in Philosophy, the old method of his professors, which up to that time consisted in requiring the lessons to be memorized, kept his genius in a latent condition; in those days the zeal of the professors, Spaniards as well as Filipinos, was directed towards making the pupils memorize the lessons that they assigned, although of course there existed meritorious exceptions to this general system.

This is how, when he took up the study of Mathematics in the said second year in Philosophy, a professor whose memory has been revered by all who have been seminarists at that time, learned to arouse by an inductive and analytic method the dormant powers of Mr. Avanceña's intellect which until then his former professors had failed to stimulate. Under the direction of said professor, Father Francisco Viera by name, our subject revealed an analytic intellect and a dialectic talent which were subjugating by reason of the clearness of their deductions and the force of their logic; he also showed himself as great a philosopher as a mathematician, for all the mediocrity which was apparent in him until he took up the study of logic was fast disappearing in the eyes of his professors, classmates and fellow students, before the rising figure of the investigator or intellectual observer and that of the talented scholar who shone with his arguments and mathematico-philosophic disquisitions.

From this epoch dates the real intellectual history of our subject, it being also the time when he did not know of any grades but those of excellent, until he continued his secondary studies in Manila and began the study of law and graduated as a lawyer.

It is thus provoking, that in spite of his having always been passed as one talented in his classes (in the secondary and law studies), when he obtained the degree of Bachelor of Arts and Licenciate in Law, he did not receive a higher grade than that of "aprobado" (passing). This was because from this time on, our subject began to show a characteristic which has had and will always have a great influence in the success which he has up to the present attained, and which, we do not doubt, he will continue attaining for the rest of his life.

Mr. Avanceña, as a talent, without being obstinate or stubborn, as is commonly said, has the firmness of his own convictions; when by force of his intellect, he has reached some conclusion, while his opponent has not destroyed the foundations upon which this is based, it cannot be expected of him to change his attitude or to draw back from his convictions; without being arrogant, but on the contrary, considerate and tolerant towards those with whom he argues, he sustains his theories and doctrines or conclusions until his opponent shall have refuted his reasons, destroying them in their foundations.

At that time when the professors, imbued with the theory of the intellectual inferiority of the Filipino race, instead of refuting the arguments propounded to them by some one, considered it disrespectful obstinacy, if not sheer petulancy, for one to sustain his opinions, it was but natural that at least two members of the examining board before whom our subject took the examinations, and to whom he was not known, should take him

as such, and for this reason by a majority of votes in the said examinations Mr. Avanceña was not given grades higher than that of "aprobado" (passing)

And the practical result of these not very encouraging occurrences was that while academically speaking Mr. Avanceña could not claim the honor of having obtained a brilliant success in his studies (nor could he perhaps think so, because of his modesty), yet his real merits were not thus belittled in the consideration of his classmates, nor in the eyes of his fellow students and friends who knew and were well acquainted with him.

We are now entering upon what we may call the second epoch in the life of our subject. Retired to his native town as a lawyer, after a few months' stay he was honored with an appointment as Auxilliary Justice of the Peace of the same town, a position which he held without any particular events worthy of mention until he was obliged to abandon his town on account of his sacred duties as a patriot, as we shall later see in the course of this narrative.

A few months after his return to Molo, which was about the end of March, 1898, the opening of hostilities between the Americans and the Spaniards took place. The blockade of Manila having been declared, Mr. Avanceña immediately sought and thereafter kept in contact with the leaders of the province, and being acquainted with his merits, they at once elected him member of the Revolutionary Conspiracy Committee with other young men who were the most conspicuous in the province for their determination and audacity. In the midst of this Committee he so demonstrated himself as a thinker and as a prudent and sagacious man, that when the Revolution triumphed with the evacuation and surrender of Iloilo by the Spaniards to the Revolutionary Government, and when the Conspiracy Committee was turned into a Revolutionary Provisional Government awaiting orders from the Central Government of Manila presided over by General Aguinaldo, our subject was intrusted with the See. retaryship of State by the provisional president, Roque Lopez, and later confirmed in this office by the permanent president elect, Raymundo Melliza.

When the emisaries of the Central Government of Luzon together with the expedition under the command of General Pablo Araneta arrived in Iloilo, and the Government of the Federal State was definitely established, our subject was again confirmed in his office of Secretary by the representative element of the people and of the army, a position which he filed in both instances with brilliant success and to the complete satisfaction of his constituents.