2 MAY

1942 - Jose Abad Santos y Basco, Chief Justice of the Philippine Supreme Court during the American imperialist rule, is executed at Malabang, Lanao by the Japanese during World War II for refusing to collaborate; an American educated lawyer who has held various government positions, including as justice secretary in the cabinet of the American Governor-General Henry Lewis Stimson,  Abad Santos became virtual head of the American-sponsored Philippine government under siege from the Japanese when President Manuel Quezon left for Washington, United States, thus (temporarily) transferring the seat of colonial government to the American capital, earlier the same year during the Japanese occupation of the Southeast Asian archipelago; a year later, the Japanese will sponsor the first and only Filipino government under what will be known as the Second Philippine Republic government, with Jose P. Laurel as President and to be inaugurated on October 14, 1943; Abad Santos, a pensionado sent by the imperialist American officials to study in California, United States, refused to cooperate with the Japanese and instead preferred to be executed because he could not bear to "live in shame" as a traitor to the Bald Eagle nation and the Philippines.


Photo credit: http://www.gov.ph/2011/02/19/jose-abad-santos/