Cipriano Purugganan Primicias Sr. (September 14, 1901 – September 20, 1965) was a

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politician, who was best known for his service as a

Senator of the Philippines The Senate of the Philippines ( Filipino: ''Senado ng Pilipinas'', also ''Mataas na Kapulungan ng Pilipinas'' or "upper chamber") is the upper house of Congress of the bicameral legislature of the Philippines with the House of Representatives a ...

. He was born in 1901 at Alcala, in the northern

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province of Pangasinan to Javier Crescini Primicias and Cristeta Purugganan.

Education and early career

He completed his elementary education with highest honors, his high school courses with second-highest honors and passed the government first grade civil service tests when he was still in high school in 1919. He enrolled in the National Law College and at the same time worked as a clerk in the Bureau of Commerce in 1919 where he rose to the rank of Chief, Commercial Section. He finished his Bachelor of Laws degree in 1923 with highest honors and passed the

bar examination A bar examination is an examination administered by the bar association of a jurisdiction that a lawyer must pass in order to be admitted to the bar of that jurisdiction. Australia Administering bar exams is the responsibility of the bar associ ...

s in the top five that same year.Official Website of the Senate of the Philippines: Former Senators: Cipriano Primicias
(HTML) Accessed April 13, 2007. In 1924, he quit his post at the Bureau of Commerce and began his law practice as an assistant attorney in the law office of then-Senator Alejo R. Mabanag. By 1936 he was the President of the Pangasinan Bar Association, a post he held till 1945.

Political career

House of Representatives

A ranking member of the Nacionalista Party (NP), Primicias entered politics in 1934 when he was elected to the

Philippine House of Representatives The House of Representatives of the Philippines ( fil, Kapulungan ng mga Kinatawan ng Pilipinas, italic=unset, ''Kamara'' or ''Kamara de Representantes'' from the Spanish word ''cámara'', meaning "chamber") is the lower house of Congress, the ...

from the fourth district of Pangasinan. He represented his district for three consecutive terms beginning in 1934, 1941 and 1946. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia: Legislative Districts of Pangasinan - 4th District. (HTML) Accessed August 1, 2007. Being in the then-minority party at the time, Primicias was an oppositionist and fiscalizer in the

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Bell Trade Act of 1946

During his last term in the House, Primicias was one of nine Congressmen and three senators who opposed the ratification of the United States' Bell Trade Act of 1946 (also called the Philippine Trade Act of 1946) mostly because it required amending the

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to give American citizens and corporations equal access with Filipinos to the

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' natural resources. In addition the law also gave U.S. citizens the right to import goods without paying

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and fixed the value of the

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to the

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. Primicias and other opponents of the Bell Trade Act considered the measure an inexcusable surrender of Philippine sovereignty. Because ratification of the Bell Trade Act required a two-thirds vote of the House and the Senate, Primicias - with the eight other Congressmen and the three senators - were unseated from the

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on spurious charges while the ratification process was underway in order to ensure its passage. Upon appeal to the

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all twelve legislators were reinstated, but by that time their temporary ejection had served its purpose and the Bell Trade Act had already been ratified.Sison, Corazon N. 2001. Senator Cipriano P. Primicias: Vignettes and Anecdotes on His Life and Times, Philippines: C.P.Primicias Memorial Foundation, Inc., 47-48. During his last term in the House (1946–1949), Primicias served as the Minority Floor Leader. From 1946 till 1964 he was the Nacionalista Party Vice-President.

Senate

In the 1951 Philippine midterm elections, Primicias was elected in an 8-0 shut-out by the Nacionalista Party to his first term as a Senator. While in the

Philippine Senate The Senate of the Philippines ( Filipino: ''Senado ng Pilipinas'', also ''Mataas na Kapulungan ng Pilipinas'' or "upper chamber") is the upper house of Congress of the bicameral legislature of the Philippines with the House of Representatives a ...

he became chairman of the following Committees: Finance (1952–1953), Labor (1952–1953), Public Works (1953), Justice (1958–1960), Appointments (1958–1960) and the powerful Committee on Rules (1953–1963) as well as a member of the Senate Electoral Tribunal (1954–1963).Sison, Corazon N. 2001. Senator Cipriano P. Primicias: Vignettes and Anecdotes on His Life and Times, Philippines: C.P.Primicias Memorial Foundation, Inc., 16. He was reelected to the Senate for a second term in 1957. From 1953 till 1963 Senator Primicias was the Senate Majority Floor Leader.

Other positions

*Four-time Vice-President, World Inter-Parliamentary Union Conference: 1954 (

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), 1956 (

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), 1958 (

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), and 1960 (Tokyo). *Member, Council of State, 1953 to 1963. Senator Primicias was also the former Dean of the College of Law in Orient College, President of the Pindangan Agricultural Company and the Lingayen Gulf Fishing Company and was a member of the

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Personal life

In 1930, Primicias married Miss Pangasinan Nieves Ocampo Benito, with whom he had nine children: Cipriano Jr. (Tito) – himself a former Congressman and Governor of Pangasinan; Ma. Corazon (Marietta); Ricardo; Juan Augusto; Ramon; Edmundo; Carlos; Perla; and Baby Nieves. An ardent Hispanist, Primicias spoke fluent Spanish and regularly debated on the Senate floor in that language. He also spoke English,

, Ilocano, and Pangansinense with equal facility. He died a week after his 64th birthday in

Quezon City Quezon City (, ; fil, Lungsod Quezon ), also known as the City of Quezon and Q.C. (read in Filipino as Kyusi), is the most populous city in the Philippines. According to the 2020 census, it has a population of 2,960,048 people. It was fou ...

, on September 20, 1965. AlcalaPangasinanjf075

Footnotes

References

External links

Official Website of the Senate of the PhilippinesThe NP Convention Story, 1953
{{DEFAULTSORT:Primicias 1901 births 1965 deaths Majority leaders of the Senate of the Philippines Senators of the 5th Congress of the Philippines Senators of the 4th Congress of the Philippines Senators of the 3rd Congress of the Philippines Senators of the 2nd Congress of the Philippines People from Pangasinan Nacionalista Party politicians Members of the House of Representatives of the Philippines from Pangasinan 20th-century Filipino lawyers Minority leaders of the House of Representatives of the Philippines Members of the Philippine Legislature