Aquino was first elected to the
Philippine Legislature as a member of the
Philippine House of Representatives in
1919 representing the
2nd district of
Tarlac. He was reelected to the same position in
1922 and
1925 before winning a
Philippine Senate seat in
1928 representing the
3rd Senatorial District comprising the
provinces of
Bulacan,
Nueva Ecija,
Pampanga and his home-province of
Tarlac. He became part of the Philippine Independence Mission in 1931, which negotiated the terms of obtaining
Philippine independence from the United States. During the elections for the
Commonwealth of the Philippines government in
1935 he ran again in his district in Tarlac and won, this time as a member of the
National Assembly. In 1937, he was appointed by Commonwealth
President Manuel L. Quezon as
secretary of agriculture and commerce.
Speaker of the National Assembly Being among the more prominent Commonwealth officials remaining in the country after the Commonwealth government went into exile in 1941, Aquino was among those recruited by the
Japanese to form a government. He became the director-general of
KALIBAPI and one of the two assistant chairmen of the
Preparatory Commission for Philippine Independence. When the
Second Philippine Republic was inaugurated, he was elected Speaker of the
National Assembly.
Arrest and collaboration charges (2nd from left) and
Jose Laurel III (2nd from right) in 1945. In December 1944, as the combined
Filipino and
American forces continued their advance to liberate the Philippines from
Japanese forces, the government of the Second Philippine Republic, which included Aquino, was moved to
Baguio. Subsequently, they travelled to
Tuguegarao, where they were flown to Japan via
Formosa (now
Taiwan) and
Shanghai,
China. On September 15, 1945, while in
Nara, Aquino, alongside former President
Jose P. Laurel and his son
Jose III, was arrested and placed into custody by Americans led by Colonel Turner following the
surrender of Japan. They were imprisoned at
Yokohama prison and two months later at
Sugamo Prison. On July 23, 1946, they were flown back to the Philippines for trial on
treason charges by the People's Court. A few weeks later, he was released on bail. == Personal life ==