Did You Know? General Santos City Was Named From A Person In Camiling, Tarlac

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Paulino Torres Santos

was born on June 22, 1890 in Camiling, Tarlac and died upon August 29, 1945 was a military officer who became the Commanding General of the Philippine Army from May 6 to December 31, 1936. Upon his retirement, he served as a civilian administrator out cold President Manuel L. Quezon.

Gen. Santos was born in Camiling, Tarlac to Remigio Santos and Rosa Torres. After his Spanish education from 1897 to 1900, he enrolled in an English speculative in 1901. In 1907, behind he had curtains the sixth grade, he was appointed as municipal university, a p.s. which he held until the subsequent to year.

In 1908, at age 18, he was an enlisted man in the Philippine Constabulary and he had just completed his first enlistment gone he was named civil minister to clerk at the PC headquarters in 1912. That connected year, he enrolled in the Constabulary Officers' School wherein, two years difficult, he graduated valedictorian. Santos was appointed as Third Lieutenant of the PC in 1914, and as such, he worked complex and continued studying to be more busy in his assignment as a auditorium manager.

While taken prisoner by the Japanese,General Santos fell ill, mostly due to effects of inclement weather and his desire to refrain from taking full meals because of food shortage. General Masouka refused to take the sick general to an American Hospital, a few kilometers from Kiangan. Finally, on August 29, 1945, Former Chief of Staff of the Philippine Army and General Manager of the South Cotabato settlements Paulino Torres Santos Sr. died of pneumonia at the age of 55.

Paulino Santos' record as an officer was one of distinctive achievements. As a soldier, Santos served in the Lanao campaign in 1916, where he sustained wounds from a Moro spear, and in the Bayang Cotta campaign in 1917, where he sustained a near fatal wound at the back of his head after he and his men performed a suicidal mission in which they had to place ladders beside the fortified cottas. It was in the latter campaign that he demonstrated extraordinary courage and leadership. Under his term, he established six settlements in South Cotabato namely Koronadal, Banga, Tupi, Tampakan, Polomolok, and Buayan, thus, increasing Christian population in the region.

As a tribute to his legacy in the area, the municipality of Buayan (formerly Dadiangas) was renamed General Santos City, which, by virtue of Republic Act No. 5412 signed on July 8, 1968, was declared a city. A grave and monument of Gen. Paulino Santos was unveiled in front of its City Hall on September 5, 1981 in General Santos City, South Cotabato.

The Koronadal section of the South Cotabato-Sarangani Road was also named as "General Santos Drive," while the radial road leading to the New Bilibid Prison in Muntinlupa City was also named as "General Santos Avenue" as an honor for his service as a former Director of the Bureau of Prisons. He was instrumental in the transfer of the prison to the present area. Taguig City's main avenue, fronting Camp Bagong Diwa of the Philippine National Police, also a former Philippine Constabulary camp, and the City Hall was also similarly named as "General Santos Avenue."

As Chief of Staff of the Philippine Army, Major General Santos is a pioneer in the Self Reliance Defence concept as early as the 1930's. Maj. Gen. Santos intended to have all supplies for the new Commonwealth army made if possible in the Philippines.

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