Laurel: Crisis leadership and humanity

ON November 6 we will be commemorating the 62nd death anniversary of President José Paciano Laurel who died in 1959. He became president in a time of crisis, and although the Covid-19 pandemic may not be comparable in scope with World War 2, we are also fighting a war with an unseen enemy and there can be lessons and reflections that can be drawn from his leadership.

When approached by the Laurel family and the José P. Laurel Memorial Foundation through the granddaughter of the former president Inday Arcenas, to help them organize an event to show the 2019 docu-film "Laurel," I suggested to them that they do it on Oct. 14, 2021, the 78th anniversary of his inauguration as president of the Second Philippine Republic in 1943. Even if that republic was under the Japanese occupiers, most historians now concede that it was not a "mere" puppet government, but Laurel did his level best for the nation to survive.