Wenceslao Vinzons
Wenceslao Vinzons was probably my father’s closest friend from the time they were in College of Law in U.P. They have been rival at university and co -founders of the first really organized political youth movement. Before the Japanese came they had plans and dreams of making the Philippines a better place for everyone.
When Vinzons and his family were killed by the Japanese, my father lost someone he cares very much and he carried those dreams nearly half a century. Those dreams ended with the early death of Wenceslao Vinzons during the Japanese occupation and the death of Arturo M. Tolentino, August 2, 2004 both co-founder of the Young Philippines Movenent.
My father gave tribute to Wenceslao Vinzons, in a radio broadcast on the occasion of Vinzons’ 36th birthday, September 1946 “If Vinzons Were Alive”. It was a long speech but this part of his tribute to Vinzons tells us the kind of relationship they had:
- "I knew Wenceslao Q Vinzons in his life. We worked and edited together the student newspaper of the University of the Philippines, where to maintain our editorial independent from faculty dictation, we risked suspension and expulsion. We founded together the Young Philippines in the effort to unite the youth of the land. We worked side by side and threw our youthful energies into the scale with Osmena and Roxas and the other pros, when the vital issue of the Hare-Hawes-Cutting independence law was placed before the people. We were shoulder to shoulder when we vainly resisted the steamroller movement of majority party to amend the Constitution, creating the Senate and allowing Presidential re-election. And even when he was already in the hills fighting the Japanese, we still had some contacts – until he was captured and taken to the garrison, while I was arrested and confined at Fort Santiago. Through that long and close association, I came to know Wenceslao Q. Vinzons.”