Panahon ng mga Hapones o Japanese President Philippines - Jose P Laurel
Japanese Occupation Philippines
The president of the Philippines during the Japanese occupation is Jose P. Laurel. He is considered to be the president of a Japanese-sponsored government, being that during the Japanese occupation in the country, the Japanese people were mostly in control of almost all the policy-making.
He finished from University of the Philippines College of Law with a law degree and later got his Master of Laws degree for UST. He went to the US to study in Yale Law school where he obtained his Doctorate of Law.
His presidency is one of the most controversial in the Philippines and it was only in the administration of Diosdado Macapagal that his presidency was recognized. Some consider his time to be a "puppet government" that is mostly dictated by the Japanese generals.
How Jose P. Laurel Became President
After the attack of Pearl Harbor, Manuel L. Quezon, president of the commonwealth government, fled to the US and Laurel was instructed to stay in the Philippines. Quezon was supposedly to start a government-in-exile. An attempted assassination was done by Philippine guerrillas but they failed and Laurel was instated as President.
Biography of Jose P. Laurel
He was a highly educated man, even receiving an honorary doctorate in the Tokyo University and this is why his close relationship to the Japanese officials that made him a perfect candidate to be president of the sponsored government. Later after the Japanese surrendered to the United States of America, Gen. MacArthur ordered the arrest of Laurel with charges of collaborating with the Japanese army and treason. It never went to trial because he was given amnesty by President Manuel Roxas. He was later elected in the Senate and also worked for the Magsaysay government.
Panahon ng mga Hapones President Philippines
There were a lot of controversies during his term as president of the Japanese-sponsored government. There are a lot of counts about how members of the Japanese army raped and massacred many of the Filipino people. There were also a lot of rebellion such as the HUKBALAHAP (Hukbo ng Bayan Laban sa mga Hapon) or People's Army Against the Japanese. This was the military arm of the Communist Party of the Philippines and they strongly opposed the Japanese occupation in the country.
