Jose Roy

Jose de Jesus Roy Sr. (July 19, 1904 – March 14, 1986) was a Filipino lawyer, economist, and politician who served for 25 consecutive years as a congressman and senator in the Congress of the Philippines.

Known as the "poor man's economist", he drafted, authored and sponsored laws to improve the lot of the peasantry.

As a member of Congress, he took particular pride in the sponsorship of almost all laws on land reform.

Roy worked his way through college and graduated from the University of the Philippines with an Bachelor of Laws degree in 1930.

To help finance his studies he worked as a clerk in the Bureau of Civil Service and rose to the position of examiner.

With his knowledge of Spanish, English, Filipino, Ilocano and Pampango, he became the deputy secretary and interpreter in the Public Service Commission.

While still a law student, he was a known campus leader and orator for which distinctions he was the recipient of several medals.

Roy carried over this leadership when he ran for Representative for the first district of Tarlac under the Liberal Party.

After passing the Bar Examination in 1930, Roy was appointed Special Attorney in the Public Service Commission.

He was just one of three public utility practitioners who specialized in transportation.

The following year Roy resigned his position in the commission and went into private practice as a corporate lawyer.

In 1936 he expanded his practice organizing mining corporations during the mining boom.

His career flourished until the Second World War broke out in December of 1941.

In 1942 Jose Roy retired his practice to join the resistance movement during the war.

He is also considered to be the "Father of the Philippine Banking System" because of his authorship and involvement in almost all the major finance and tariff measures since the beginning of the Third Philippine Republic in 1946.

Roy was born and raised in Moncada, Tarlac.

His family were tenant farmers and he attended public schools.

As a young boy, his first ambition was to become a writer and one of the topics he wrote on for a school paper was crop-sharing.

Seeing and much affected by the oppression surrounding the farmers around him, he thought crop-sharing would be the best Remedy for the life of disparity that existed between the wealthy landlords and the poverty-stricken tenant farmers.

After the war in 1946, the first elections were held.

The presidential candidate of the Liberal party was Manuel A. Roxas.

Roxas persuaded Roy to run for Congress.

Roy agreed only after being promised that if they won, Roxas would consider supporting the 70-30 Rice Crop Sharing law he was planning to author.

This law would provide that 70% of the rice crop be given to the tenant farmers and 30% to the landowners in all rice-producing regions of the Philippines and, after studying the matter, Roxas found that it had its merits.

The 1946 election was a very difficult one.

Roy was elected to congress as representative of the 1st district of Tarlac.

He was the lone Liberal Party candidate to win in Central Luzon.

In the general election of 1961, Roy was elected as senator for the Fifth Congress.

He was one of only two Nacionalista Party senatorial candidates who was elected.

As senator, Roy was elected as the Majority Floor Leader and later that year President Pro-tempore of the Sixth Congress in 1966 and President Pro-tempore of the Seventh Congress.

He was a member of the Commission on Appointments and chaired the Committee on Ways and Means, Committee on Rules and Foreign Relations Committee As President Pro-tempore, Roy urged then President Ferdinand Marcos to reduce the power of various political warlords throughout the country by forcing them to disband their private armies.

In the November 14, 1967 Senate election, Roy garnered the highest number of votes in his re-election bid for senator receiving over 51 percent of the votes and more than half a million votes over his nearest pursuer.

He was the lone incumbent to defend his seat.

The Nacionalista Party won seven of the eight possible senate seats.

His efforts failed, however, and the Seventh Congress was eventually abolished when Marcos declared martial law in 1972.

Roy had the distinction of being the only legislator in both houses to serve continuously for 25 years.

Over the next 16 years, Roy was elected to four consecutive terms as congressman of Tarlac's 1st District.

He was instrumental in the drafting and passage of important finance and socio-economic measures which he authored or co-authored.

Among them were the Central Bank Act, Rehabilitation Finance Corporation Act (R.A.85), the Development Bank Act, the General Banking Act, the Rural Banks Act (R.A.720), Philippine Veterans Bank Act (R.A. 3518), the Philippines Deposit Insurance Corporation Act (R.A.3591); the Industrialization Act (R.A.901); Ramie Incentive Act, Agricultural Tenancy Act, 70-30 Rice Share Tenancy Act, Land Tenure Act, the Land Reform Code (R.A.3844), the Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act (RA3019), Savings and Loan Association Act (R.A.3799), the Congressional 5-Year Development Plan, Tax Exemption to Basic Industries, Laurel-Langley Agreement, the Tariff and Customs Code of 1957, an Act providing the creation, organization and operation of an internal audit service for all departments, bureaus and offices of the National government otherwise known as the Internal Audit Act (R.A.3456) are among some of the measures he had authored and sponsored.

He was a member of the Philippine Council of Leaders, the Development Council, the Council of State and Security Council.