MONICO R.

MERCADO
(1875-1952)

Writer and Legislator

Poet, playwright, lawyer, educator, and legislator, Monico Mercado was born in Sexmoan
(now Sasmuan), Pampanga on May 4, 1875. His father, Don Romulo, was said to have been a
gobernadorcillo, with vast landholdings. His mother was Doña Simona del Rosario. Belonging
to a prominent family in his hometown, he was educated, first, in the private school of Professor
Quirino in San Fernando, Pampanga and, later, at the Colegio de San Juan de Letran in Manila,
where he obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1889. He entered the University of Santo
Tomas, obtaining there the title of licenciado en canones y teología in 1890 and teacher’s
certificate in 1891. During the Philippine Revolution, he returned to Sexmoan and was
appointed as the town’s justice of the peace in 1899. He was later made clerk of the Court of
First instance of Pampanga, a position he held until 1902.

In 1900, Mercado married Tomasa Lorenzo, a belle from Mexico, Pampanga. Mercado
later attributed his success in life to his wife who, according to him, helped a lot in advancing his
public career. Their marriage was blessed with eight children. She died in 1912. Four years
later, he married Gregoria Andres of Guagua, Pampanga, with whom he had four children.

In March 1903, after he received his Bachelor of Laws degree and was admitted to the
bar, he joined the law office of Dr. Rafael Palma and Don Julian Gerona (which later became the
Palma, Gerona and Mercado law office). In June 1904, he opened a law office of his own, then
returned to his hometown. He continued to practice his profession.

His political career started in 1907, when running as a candidate of the recently
established Nacionalista party, he was elected delegate to the First Philippine Assembly,
representing Pampanga. He was reelected to the same body in 1909.

In the First Assembly, he was named chairman of the civil service committee, and
member of the committees on internal government; lands, forests and mines; railroad and
franchise; and agriculture. He so distinguished himself in the last committee that in the Second
Assembly, Speaker Sergio Osmeña named him its chairman.

Mercado was the author of some bills that were enacted into laws by the First Assembly,
like the one creating a government agricultural bank, and the one amending the then-existing
land registration law by providing, among other things, for the reduction of the fees paid by
landowners to the court of land registration.
 In the Second Assembly, he served as a member of the committees on ways and means,
railroads and franchise, internal government, and public instruction, and as chairman of the
special committee that framed the law, which he co-authored with Assemblymen Esperidion
Guanco (Negros Occidental) and Emiliano Tirona (Cavite), and eventually instituted the first
irrigation systems in the Philippines.

He lost his bid for reelection in 1912. He returned to private practice with the law firm
Mercado, Adriatico and Tirona, formed after he broke off his partnership with Palma and
Gerona.

As a public servant, Mercado also served as Representative for the province of Lanao,
having been appointed as such by the Governor General around 1925. In 1934, he ran
unsuccessfully for delegate to the Constitutional Convention. Four years later, he lost in the
electoral race for representative of his district. These two successive failures drew his political
career to a close.

Mercado was a gifted writer to boot. His novel, Ketang Milabas, and Ing Bye Na Ning
Tau, an elegy on the revolutionary era-Kapampangan writer Felix N. Galura, are considered as
his best works. Mercado was also one of the founders of Katipunan Mipanampun and Academia
Pampangueña.

As an educator, he once served as Vice President and legal adviser of Guagua National
College, which he co-founded.

He died on January 26,1952.

On his 91st birth anniversary in 1966, the National Historical Institute installed a marker
at his birthplace.

References:

Cornejo, Miguel. Cornejo’s Commonwealth Directory of the Philippines, 1939.

Hilario-Lacson, Evangelina. Kapampangan Witing, A Selected Compendium and

Critique. Manila: National Historical Institute, 1984.

Historical Markers, Regions I-IV. Manila: National Historical Institute, 1993.

Larkin, John A. The Pampangans, Colonial Society in a Philippine Province. Berkeley,
Los Angeles, London: University of California Press, 1972.

NHI clippings (include: “In Memoriam”by Emiliano T. Tirona; articles in Philippine Herald
[April 27, 1966] and Sunday Times Magazine [February 3, 1952])