On the morning of 19 June 1982, President Ferdinand E. Marcos awarded the Gawad Mabini, the highest decoration in the Foreign Service, to a shrunken man on his deathbed. The day was special for an avid Rizalist. That barong-clad man who once displayed his brilliance and audacity was Leon Ma. Guerrero III. He was far from his old self, the tall dashing man who had exchanged barbs with foreigners in defence of the Filipino. In that hospital room, close family, a few friends and himself listened to Prime Minister Cesar Virata declare that he had “helped set the tone of Philippine foreign policy” and that “many of his beliefs have become part of the parcel of the foreign policy of the Republic….”

Being a writer was the other side of Guerrero. Shortly after his death, one author published an intriguing article on what he called “the great switcheroo of eighty-two”, finding the National Artist for Literature award to Carlos P. Romulo unmerited and that Guerrero deserved it more than Romulo because of his lasting contributions to Philippine literature. To him, “the better writer got the award for diplomacy and the better diplomat got the award for writing”, unaware that Romulo got his Gawad Mabini ahead of Guerrero.

As a diplomat, how did Guerrero influence the template of Philippine foreign policy? What were those beliefs he held that became one of the features of Philippine foreign policy in the 1970s and 1980s? In any case, as a writer, how did Guerrero contribute to Philippine letters that he is said to deserve the highest honour in Philippine arts and what were these contributions?

Examining the life of a historical figure requires placing him in the context of his times. Acting not only on his own volition, he responds to the forces about him and the limitations of the environment where he lives. Leon Ma. Guerrero III, the subject of this biography, distinguished himself as a writer and as a diplomat. To understand him demands an examination of Philippine, particularly elite Hispanic Tagalog society and culture during the twentieth century. In addition, we must take into account the circumstances in which he finds himself in literature and in diplomacy.

Though on a tight schedule, Guerrero decided to develop into a booklet his thesis on the raison d’être of martial law he put forward in his New York Times article. Romulo launched Today Began Yesterday in Manila in early September 1975 and was issued as a newspaper serial in late September in time for the anniversary of the proclamation of martial law. Retitled later as Why Martial Law?, Guerrero justified the imposition of martial law in the Philippines, which he hoped would bring about reforms, using Philippine history as a backdrop beginning with the Philippine Revolution against Spain until 1972 in the context of Muslim secessionism and the CPP-NPA-orchestrated communist revolution. “One must seek in Philippine history,” he noted, “the nature of these reforms, political as well as social, and the way to bring them about best suited to the traditions and character of the Filipinos.” His thesis was that martial law, with its vision of a “New Society”, was a long overdue recognition of Rizal's call for “social regeneration” and Mabini's exhortation on “internal revolution”, which led Quezon to promote “partyless democracy” in a society Senator Juan Sumulong called “farcical representative government” reigned by “feared and detested oligarchy”.

What should the “New Society” accomplish? As if to remind President Marcos, he stated it would:

Guerrero did not believe that Japan would attack the Philippines because it would mean engaging the United States. Still, the radio commentator known as Ignacio Javier was critical of Japanese aggression starting in Manchuria in 1931, China in 1937 and northern Indochina in 1940. After Pearl Harbour was attacked on 8 December 1941, he was even more relentless in his denunciation of the Japanese along with Salvador “SP” Lopez, a fellow newsman. They belonged to a group of broadcast and print journalists who saw Japan as a threat; they would be loosely called “Japanophobes” along with others of similar persuasion.

His career as a solicitor was cut short the next day after the Pearl Harbour bombing and the almost simultaneous bombings on Clark Field, Baguio and Davao, putting employees of the courts and other offices in the bureaucracy in a state of panic. A few days before Manila fell however, he was still broadcasting over the air. Then, upon the advice of the Jesuit Superior, Father John F. Hurley, SJ, who told them that “the Japs will make mince meat of the two of you if they find you here” and the Jesuits’ help in securing a transport through the assistance of Mr Chick Parsons, he and Lopez fled from the burning city by clinging to the deck of a Luzon Stevedoring barge with anti-aircraft guns. It was the night of New Year's Day. The barge kept on circling the bay throughout the night until it brought them to Bataan. Americans arrested them for they suspected them to be Japanese spies. Fortunately Major Carlos P. Romulo of the United States Army Forces in the Far East (USAFFE) Public Relations in a visit to Bataan recognized the two familiar faces from his Herald days and got them released and commissioned. Since the Americans needed only one Filipino propaganda officer in Corregidor, Lopez who had a boil went with Romulo while Guerrero stayed in Bataan.

FROM MIS TO THE VOICE OF FREEDOM

In Bataan, Guerrero was assigned to the Military Intelligence Service (MIS) unit with the rank of first lieutenant under Brigadier General Simeon de Jesus. He did not know that in Manila the Japanese, upon their arrival in January, were looking for him and Romulo for immediate execution.

Since 2010 when I finished an early version of my full-length work on Leon Ma. Guerrero, I managed to come up with a number of articles on Guerrero. In the meantime, the plan to publish the biography opened up after having submitted the manuscript for consideration by the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (ISEAS) (now known as ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute) in Singapore and having received a favourable review in 2014. In 2015, Guerrero's family and heirs commemorated his birth centenary at a time when the revision process did not take off. Early in 2016 when I have the luxury of time to fine-tune and rework the manuscript, the outcome is this biography.

As the making of this biography is a journey in itself, I could not have arrived at my destination without the encouragement and help along the way of my family, especially my mom and dad, and relatives, especially Mrs Martha S. Rosa; my former teachers and colleagues, Dr Milagros C. Guerrero, Dr Ma. Bernadette G.L. Abrera, Dr Evelyn A. Miranda, Dr Ferdinand C. Llanes, Dr Bienvenido Lumbera, Dr Ricardo T. Jose, Prof Herman Joseph H. Kraft, Dr Maria Luisa T. Camagay, Dr Filomeno V. Aguilar, Dr Motoe Terami-Wada, Dr Floro C. Quibuyen, Dr Jaime B. Veneracion, Dr Jonathan Chua, Mr Phillip Ramirez, Prof. Elizabeth Siler, late Dr Josefina Cabigon, Dr Laura Lee Junker, Dr Rachel Harrison, Prof Henry David Burton; Mr Alfredo Liongoren and late Mrs Norma Liongoren; Mr Marciano de Borja; Guerrero's immediate family, Margaret Burke Guerrero and David Guerrero; Mrs Carmen Guerrero Nakpil, Mrs Gemma Cruz Araneta; Prof Ajit Singh Rye, late Fr John N. Schumacher, S.J., former Ambassador Juan A. Ona, late Fr. James Reuter, S.J., Mrs Ljiljana Plavsic, Mr Abelardo Caro, Ms Rahilah Yusuf and other helpful staff of the ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute.

Along the journey were crucial brief or long stopovers at the National Library of the Philippines, the National Archives of the Philippines in Paco, Manila; University of the Philippines Main Library and its constituent libraries headed at that time by Prof.

One of the best schools in pre-war Manila, the Jesuit-run Ateneo, established in 1859 and elevated to a secondary school in 1865, was located in Intramuros, a few minutes ride from home. But Leoni went to Saint Paul Institution at Calle Herran (now Pedro Gil Street) for the first two years of grade school. There he learned Basic English from French nuns. As to why his parents sent him to this school — something he himself wondered about all his life — it was because in 1921 Ateneo would only accept boys who had finished their first three primary grades. By 1923 due to requests from its alumni, the preparatory school offered grades from one to seven. In any case, Alfredo's decision for Leoni to study at the Ateneo followed family tradition. His father, brother, and he were Ateneans. His cousins graduated too from Ateneo.

By the time Leoni enrolled in June 1923, it had been three years since the American Jesuits of Maryland-New York Province took over the school from the Spanish Jesuits and introduced an English-based eight-year curriculum: a four-year high school and a four-year college leading to the Bachelor of Arts degree, with provision for drama and theatre as well as sports and athletics, and even military drill. English had become the lingua franca in business and government. Alfredo chose what he thought was best for Leoni. It was at the Ateneo that Leoni's budding Americanization was reinforced by his American teachers, the English-language curriculum, and his exposure to Catholic liturgy.

Almost everyone was a son of an Atenean in Leoni's third grade class where they were taught Christian doctrine in a half-hour class. Each month, he had to approach the sacraments of penance and the Eucharist so that by October 1923, he was admitted to the Sodality of the Virgin Mary. He learned to practise his First Friday devotions; undergo physical exercises every morning under the supervision of the physical director; and join in the games during recess or after class — a routine he would pursue in the coming years.

The Legislative Building at the corner of Taft Avenue and Burgos Street was an imposing architectural edifice destroyed during the war. That first day of September 1947, Guerrero rode his car from Lipa Street in Sampaloc to apply for a job as legal adviser, not in Padre Burgos Street but in the Manila City Hall, the temporary office of the Philippine Senate until it moved three years later to the rebuilt and refurbished complex. Having given up his work as first assistant attorney at Gibbs, Gibbs, Chuidian and Quasha law firm, the job he had after he resigned from the Department of Foreign Affairs, he filled up a form stating his name, birth, and the usual personal matters, but there were quite unusual questions which he answered nonetheless. “Are you an habitual gambler of card, cockfighting, etc?” He wrote down “No.” “Are you addicted to any drug or intoxicating liquor?” “No.” “Are you punctual in the payment of your debts?” “Yes.” “Are you related (by blood or by law) to anybody now working in the Senate?” He wrote “Yes.” His second cousin, Efrain Ma. Guerrero, was working in the Senate. On space allotted for references, he only wrote Antonio Zacarias. On that same day, he was sworn in as legal adviser by Zacarias, the Secretary of the Senate.

From the executive branch of government, he would now be working at the legislative branch. As legal adviser, he would advise the secretary on legal matters particularly on bills and resolutions affecting the office and the entire Senate without having to be insulated from politics. Working fulltime at the Senate allowed him to go to Albert, Reyes, Guerrero, Roces law offices for his private legal practice. It was in November when the senatorial elections were held. Guerrero saw Laurel's re-emergence into the political scene when the latter decided to run for senator under the Nacionalista Party. President Roxas, however, persuaded him to get out of the opposition. Roxas did try hard to convince Laurel from participating in the elections until after the issuance of amnesty in late January 1948. Laurel decided not to run while Osias went on with his senatorial ambition.

From the Iberian Peninsula, Guerrero crossed to India, a homecoming to Asia after more than ten years of exile in the heartland of Europe. Great Britain and Spain combined, almost a quarter of India's total land area, was no match to a subcontinent. India was the cradle of human civilization older and more ancient than the West. He had been to London, the metropolis that during the heydays of empire ruled colonial India until its independence in 1947. Writing about Philippine-India relations in 1952, Guerrero noted how the two countries diverged, never to converge, in their way of looking at world affairs. India maintained diplomatic relations with the United States and the USSR, choosing not to side with either camp; it recognized Communist China instead of Taiwan and backed its entry to the UN — the exact opposite of Philippine policy — but with an anti-communist posture on the domestic front, the only similarity between Indian and Philippine foreign policies. In 1966 the template in those relations changed from an attitude of suspicion during the height of the Cold War to a meeting of minds with the upgrading of legations to embassies, increase in technical cooperation, intensified cultural and student exchanges, and state visits — the favourable situation Guerrero would find himself in June.

Guerrero and Annie stayed at the embassy residence located in Friends Colony (West) with the chancery situated at B66, Greater Kailash I. Unlike the London and Madrid embassies, the New Delhi embassy moved from one place to another. Under Ambassador Narciso Ramos, now the Foreign Affairs Secretary, it had offices at Suites 32-37 Indra Palace Building, Central Ring, Connaught Place. Then, during the terms of Ambassadors Manuel A. Alzate and Mauro Calingo, it moved to the third floor of the Thapar, Thipar or Thaper (different spellings in the directories) Building, 124 Jan Path. The mission had jurisdiction on a non-residential basis over the Kingdom of Nepal and oversaw honorary consulates in Calcutta, Bombay and Madras, the only three in the whole of India.

Upon his retirement, Leon Ma. Guerrero was the most senior career ambassador in the Philippine Foreign Service. Although he did not want to retire, heavy smoking and hard drinking had taken a toll on his health. His emphysema worsened. Yet, his interest in international affairs did not diminish. Seated or in bed while smoking, he would read Philippine newspapers and Time magazine bought to him by his houseboy whom he had difficulty conversing with in Tagalog. He could not walk because of a broken hip so that he had to use a wheelchair.

During the last two years of his life, he suffered from bouts of depression leading him to alcoholism. He would drink tea during breakfast but would skip his meal to drink brandy in the morning. Difficult to feed, he would only eat sotanghon with soup, a diet that made him bony and lean. Once, Chitang brought him food for he was said to be pining for Ermita food. “I brought him,” she reminisced, “dishes from a caterer, French galantine, puffy ukoy made from rice flour that Mamá used to cook for him, empanaditas wrapped in mille feuilles, pasta de mil hojas, but he would throw them at the wall, fretfully complaining that they were not at all what he remembered.” “I lost my patience one day,” she continued, “and replied sharply (only to regret it as soon as I'd said it) that he was not at all what I remembered either [her emphasis].”

Coming back from Africa, Guerrero devoted the rest of December 1959 to translating Noli Me Tangere (hereafter Noli) he finished on Rizal Day. The following year it was published by Longmans. He agreed to the offer of David Medalla, a rising Filipino artist who had just arrived in London, to draw its cover design. As soon as he was done with Noli, he worked on El Filibusterismo (hereafter Fili). Before Longmans published Noli, he sold the rights to the Manila Times for publication in instalments. What speeded up his translation was the deadline set by the publisher. “I always like to write against a deadline, because I'm very lazy,” he admitted. Thus he did finish translating Noli and then Fili. The catch to selling his rights to the daily of Noli was the exclusion or omission from publication the debate on purgatory between philosopher Tasio and Don Filipo or some parts of chapter fourteen. People noticed it, and many accused him of deliberately suppressing the section. His justification was that it did not help the story. His loyalty to the Church was at stake. It can be said that he was merely protecting himself or trying not to hurt the interest of the Church. His translations met both praise and condemnation. He “desecrated” the language the author used making it unfaithful to the original. But he justified that each generation needed its own translations and that he tried to provide a Noli as Rizal had written it for the present generation of Filipinos. Instead of using outdated terms usually accompanied by notes at the bottom or a glossary, he replaced them with contemporary expressions such as the “guardia civil” with “constabulary” or “alcalde mayor” with “governor” so that a new generation of readers could imagine Rizal and his characters in the novels in the context of the turbulent sixties and the coming decades. He had expected the criticism. Romulo, however, wrote to the New York Times that Guerrero successfully preserved the original flavour by modernizing outmoded terms.

His translations in time for Rizal's birth centenary got him reacquainted with Rizaliana literature, forcing him to write a biography of Rizal. He wrote an introduction to these translations containing a brief account of Rizal's life.

In the newly created Department of Foreign Affairs that held offices first at Malacañang Annex then moved to Arlegui Street in Manila, Guerrero applied in August 1946 for a post and was accepted, becoming the assistant chief of division, Division of European and African Affairs under Dr Jacinto C. Borja. Under the Office of Political and Economic Affairs, the division was responsible for the crafting of governmental policy in its conduct of relations with states of Europe and Africa. As assistant chief, he assisted Borja in developing basic country and area studies to guide Philippine foreign policy in those countries. He consulted various offices and agencies of the government in the formulation of policy; provided information to these offices to guide them in the conduct of their activities that impinge on Philippine policy towards other countries, and other tasks. He also worked with Teodoro “Doring” Evangelista, still his superior, who held office at the Office of the Counsellor on Political and Cultural Affairs. The wartime ministry became the nucleus of the new department.

Guerrero was also taken in as confidential secretary to Vice President, and also Secretary of Foreign Affairs Elpidio Quirino. He wrote memos, letters, speeches and would perform other tasks ordered by Quirino such as taking down notes in meetings presided by his boss. Then, he was promoted to Chief of Protocol. By virtue of the reorganization implemented in January 1947, the Division of Protocol was placed under the office of Undersecretary Bernabe Africa. As head of the division, Guerrero was responsible for arranging the presentation of ambassadors and ministers accredited to the government. He corresponded with foreign governments on their acceptability and the acceptability to foreign governments of Filipino counterparts. He arranged national and international events here and abroad in which the Philippines participated; made arrangements for the visit of Philippine officials and organizations abroad; arranged for the entry of American forces and their supplies in accordance with treaties; prepared letters of credence, commissions, exequaturs, certificates of recognitions, and other correspondences regarding the exchange of diplomatic and consular representatives and the opening and closing of diplomatic and consular offices; and maintained a record of all officers and staff of foreign governments in the Philippines and published it into a list annually.

As early as January 1962, the Foreign Office had notified Madrid of Guerrero's assignment to Spain, which was accepted late that month. He was in Madrid in May the previous year when he delivered a lecture on the occasion of Rizal's birth centenary. Delivered in the midst of writing Rizal's biography, his lecture dealt with Rizal's Hispanism as reflected in his novels. Those novels, he said, were a dialogue between two ambivalent Rizals. Rizal had a love-hate relationship with Spain, but this ambivalence gave birth to his love for his beloved nation; he created a nation because the Spanish nation repudiated him.

A week or two before his departure from London, Guerrero and Annie packed clothes, books and research materials to be brought to Madrid. Annie donated five parcels to the Save the Children Fund. Then, she fell ill, exhausted from all the packing, and was brought to the Priory Clinic. Hearing about Annie's illness and their departure, their close friends and acquaintances wished her a speedy recovery and thanked Guerrero for the outstanding services he rendered to the Philippines and Britain. After Annie's recovery, the couple attended an official farewell lunch given by the Marquess of Landsdowne, the foreign undersecretary of state, and his wife. Instead of a formal lunch, usually given for arriving and departing ambassadors, the marquess agreed to make it informal among close associates of the couple.

While preparing for the next post, Guerrero thought it was opportune to be awarded the Knight Grand Cross of Rizal before the presentation of his credentials but in an unprecedented way. He had the Grand Cross of the Lion and Grand Cross, Order of Dannebrog from the Finnish and Danish governments respectively for meritorious services as ambassador to these countries. He was a Knight of Rizal. Now that he had his prize-winning biography and translations of Rizal's novels to his credit, he thought he was qualified for the award. Upon learning later that the unorthodox way of bestowing it would create a controversy with the oldest members, he gave it up as mere “vanitas vanitatum”. But it was not a lost cause for in another assembly of the Order in the same year, his nomination was approved, with the awarding ceremonies to be made in February the following year.

As scheduled in late July 1954, Guerrero and Annie left the Philippines aboard S.S. Free State Mariner, which had a stopover in Hong Kong before embarking on the long voyage to London. His “sainted” mother had an injunction “that under no circumstances must … [he] become an Anglican, which to her mind was somehow connected with having several wives, like Henry VIII.” More than Shakespeare and Belloc of his college days, Guerrero had an extensive knowledge of British history. About Philippine-British relations, he knew that the Philippines suspended its North Borneo claim. At Palace Green, they were greeted by a birch tree at the gate of “an old English two-story building with a small front garden” that would be their home.

Here in an exclusive street close to Kensington Gardens, Guerrero had to wait for more than two months to present his credentials to the queen. Although his stint in Tokyo could have helped in his preparations, being ambassador-designate was a different matter. London was home to various embassies from countries all over the world. The process of presenting the credentials of fewer than a hundred chiefs of mission would take months as the Chief of Her Majesty's Protocol would have to schedule them. Thus, on 13 October, the trip aboard the two state carriages to the Buckingham Palace was pleasant as he presented his credentials to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. British Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden met Guerrero and Annie before they separately met the queen who chatted with them. In Whitehall, Eden received and interviewed the new Philippine envoy.

The letter of credence from the president as the “embodiment of the sovereign power of his people” and the acceptance of host country made Guerrero the personal representative of President Magsaysay to the Court of Saint James. As the ambassador of his people, he had to present the views of his government on matters affecting the national interest or on seemingly uncomplicated subject as the atomic power. Speaking before an international dinner hosted by the Institute of Atomic Information at Claridge's Hotel, Guerrero optimistically remarked on the new hope that the atomic power could raise to alleviate poverty in underdeveloped countries — the key to economic development in countries such as the Philippines. In mid-November, he visited Hunting Aerosurveys and sent a special box of Manila cigars to Sir Winston Churchill.

Two weeks later in June 1971, Guerrero hurried home to attend to his ailing wife, leaving instructions to the embassy personnel. Asked about his opinion on the opening of relations with Soviet Russia which was being opposed by some members of the Foreign Policy Council members, namely Senate President Gil Puyat, Speaker Cornelio Villareal, former Foreign Affairs Secretary Serrano and former President Garcia, he said: “Let's be candid about it. The Russians want to establish diplomatic ties with us, so we set up pre-conditions and get the best deal from such relations.” The Philippines, he said, belonged to a group of countries still adamant about opening relations with Russia, such as South Korea, South Vietnam and Nationalist China.

Again, before the same group of newsmen, when asked on the Constitutional Convention which would open the following day, he suggested the scrapping of the boundary provision or the first article in the 1935 Constitution, not only because the Philippines was the only country with definite territorial boundary, but the provision also worked against the Philippine claim on Sabah. Regarding the Tolentino Law, which delineated Philippine territorial waters around Sabah, he asked, “How can a law modify a constitution?” According to Guerrero, it would be better to rescind this law and adopt the archipelago theory he recently expounded early this year in Colombo, which would extend territorial waters from twelve to 200 miles (19.31 to 321.88 kilometres) from the outermost island. His suggestion to excise from the first article on the national territory the enumeration of colonial treaties was heeded by the committee responsible for that provision two years later.

While in the Philippines, he delivered a lecture before the first ASEAN seminar on “The Role of Mass Media in the Development of Southeast Asia”. His lecture had no connection with the theme, but it revealed a turning point in the development of his foreign policy thinking. It was in this lecture that he seemed to declare that the economic losses incurred as a result of the military bases’ presence far outweighed the economic benefits that these were supposed to bring, citing prostitution, rampant smuggling, and black-marketeering. His lecture was concerned with which foreign policy — alignment or non-alignment — would help in the development of ASEAN or more specifically, towards the region's industrialization programmes.