{{short description|Filipino author and jurist}} {{Use mdy dates|date=September 2025}} {{Philippine name|Cleofas|Bocobo}} {{Infobox officeholder | name = Jorge Bocobo | image = Jorge Cleofas Bocobo.jpg | caption = Photograph from ''The Commercial & Industrial Manual of the Philippines'', 1941 | office = 39th Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the Philippines | term_start = February 5, 1942 | term_end = January 31, 1944 | predecessor = | successor = Court reorganized | appointer = Masaharu Homma | office1 = 16th Secretary of Public Instruction | term_start1 = April 19, 1939 | term_end1 = December 24, 1941 | predecessor1 = Manuel L. Quezon | successor1 = Sergio Osmeña | president1 = Manuel L. Quezon | office2 = 5th President of the University of the Philippines | term_start2 = 1934 | term_end2 = 1939 | predecessor2 = Rafael Palma | successor2 = Bienvenido Ma. Gonzalez | birth_date = {{birth date|1886|10|19}} | birth_place = Gerona, Tarlac, Captaincy General of the Philippines | death_date = {{Death date and age|1965|7|23|1886|10|19}} | death_place = Manila, Philippines | spouse = Felicia de Castro | children = 7 | alma_mater = Indiana University School of Law (LLB) | occupation = Author, jurist }} '''Jorge Cleofas Bocobo''' (October 19, 1886 – July 23, 1965) was a Filipino author and jurist. He was appointed Secretary of Public Instruction by President Manuel L. Quezon and Justice of the Supreme Court from 1942 to 1944 under President Jose P. Laurel.<ref name=":0">{{Cite journal |date=1886-10-19 |title=Jorge Cleofas Bocobo |url=https://www.repository.law.indiana.edu/notablealumni/186/ |journal=Maurer Notable Alumni |publisher=Indiana University Bloomington}}</ref> Bocobo was the principal author of the Civil Code of the Philippines.<ref name=":5">{{Cite news |title=DID YOU KNOW: Jorge Bocobo |url=https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/826704/did-you-know-jorge-bocobo/amp |access-date=2025-04-06 |newspaper=Philippine Daily Inquirer |language=en-US}}</ref>
==Early life and education== Bocobo was born in October 19, 1886, in Gerona, Tarlac, to Tranquilino Bocobo y Duenas and Rita Teodora Tabago y Cleofas. He studied his early education in his hometown until at the age of 17, he went to Manila and attended a private school there. He was chosen as one of the 100 Philippine students for the Pensionado program, which sent exceptional Filipino students to attend a U.S. college. This enabled Bacobo to attend Indiana University School of Law. In June 1907, he received his Bachelor of Laws (LL.B.).<ref name=":0" />
==Career== ===University of the Philippines=== thumb|Bocobo in 1918 thumb|Bocobo (last person on the right) along with representatives of the Philippine Independence Mission, 1924 thumb|Bocobo in 1933
Bocobo returned to the Philippines. In 1910, he became a member of the faculty of the College of Law at the University of the Philippines. He then became Assistant Professor of Civil Law in 1914 and subsequently a Full Professor in 1917.<ref name=":0" /> He also became the Dean of the College of Law from 1917 to 1934.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":2" /> He was also member of the Philippine independence commissions to the United States in 1919, 1922, 1923, and 1924.<ref name=":3">{{Cite web |date=2011-10-19 |title=Jorge Bocobo was born in Gerona, Tarlac October 19, 1886 |url=https://kahimyang.com/kauswagan/articles/695/today-in-philippine-history-october-19-1886-jorge-bocobo-was-born-in-gerona-tarlac |access-date=2025-04-06 |website=The Kahimyang Project |language=en}}</ref>
In 1927 and 1928, he was acting president of the university. He served president of the university in 1934 until 1939.<ref name=":0" />
====As a writer==== During the 1910s, Bocobo was a writer of short stories for the Filipino publication, ''The Philippine Review''.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Towne |first=Charles Arnette |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=y5oBbsStH-QC&dq=Jorge+Bocobo&pg=PP13 |title=Philippine Independence |date=1938 |publisher=U.S. Government Printing Office |language=en}}</ref> He also translated Rizal's preface of Ferdinand Blumentritt's book, ''Filipinas,'' into English.<ref name=":3" />
As a writer himself, Bocobo criticized Jose Garcia Villa's poems as too "indecent and obscene". Being dean at the University of the Philippines, he suspended the sophomore in the College of Law for a year.<ref name=":2">{{Citation |last=Joseph Ponce |first=Martin |title=The Queer Erotics of José Garcia Villa's Modernism |date=2012-02-01 |work=Beyond the Nation: Diasporic Filipino Literature and Queer Reading |pages=0 |editor-last=Ponce |editor-first=Martin Joseph |url=https://academic.oup.com/nyu-press-scholarship-online/book/21793/chapter-abstract/181769588?redirectedFrom=fulltext |access-date=2025-04-06 |publisher=NYU Press |isbn=978-0-8147-6805-1}}</ref>
====Filipinism (''filipinismo'') movement==== Filipino intellectuals, like Bocobo, expressed worries about losing the Philippines' cultural identity due to American influence. Bocobo emphasized the importance of preserving the "Filipino Soul" or "filipinismo" and distinct national character. He warned that: "The violent winds of custom that flow from across the Pacific are beginning to rock the edifice of Filipino virtues. The sound and stout qualities of the Filipino race are in danger."<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Mojares |first=Resil B. |author-link=Resil B. Mojares |date=2006 |title=The Formation of Filipino Nationality Under U.s. Colonial Rule |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/29792581 |journal=Philippine Quarterly of Culture and Society |volume=34 |issue=1 |pages=11–32 |jstor=29792581 |issn=0115-0243}}</ref>
As an educator, Bocobo promoted the revival of Filipino folk dances. He also pushed for more Filipino-centric materials.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Steinbock-Pratt |first=Sarah |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lrSQDwAAQBAJ&dq=Jorge+Bocobo&pg=PA206 |title=Educating the Empire: American Teachers and Contested Colonization in the Philippines |date=2019-05-02 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-1-108-47312-5 |language=en}}</ref> He, as president of the university, initiated research on music and dances across various ethnic communities and assigned university faculty, including Francisca Reyes, to survey Philippine folk dances in 1934.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Santos |first=Monica Fides Amada |date=2019-11-14 |title=Philippine Folk Dances: A Story of a Nation |url=https://journals.upd.edu.ph/index.php/jescl/article/view/6884 |journal=Journal of English Studies and Comparative Literature |language=en |volume=18 |issue=1 |issn=0119-1721}}</ref>
===Government service=== Bocobo was appointed as Secretary of Public Instruction in 1939 by President Manuel L. Quezon.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":1">{{Cite web |title=Jorge C. Bocobo: University Honors and Awards: Indiana University |url=https://honorsandawards.iu.edu/awards/honoree/659.html |access-date=2025-04-06 |website=University Honors & Awards |language=en-US}}</ref> He served until 1941.<ref name=":1" /> During the Japanese occupation, he served as Justice of the Supreme Court under the administration of President Jose P. Laurel. Due to this, he was charged with treason by the Americans.<ref name=":0" />
When the Americans occupied Manila in 1945, Bocobo was detained as a political prisoner for ten months and then freed for lack of sufficient evidence. After the war, he achieved monumental success. He became chairman and chief contributor of the Code Commission which produced the Civil Code of the Philippines.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Meany |first=James J. |date=1982 |title=Review of ARISTOCRACY OF THE MIND: A PRECIOUS HERITAGE (A BIOGRAPHY OF JORGE BOCOBO) |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/42632623 |journal=Philippine Studies |volume=30 |issue=3 |pages=430–432 |jstor=42632623 |issn=0031-7837}}</ref> It was approved by the Philippine Congress in 1949.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Sangco |first=J. Cezar S. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lIJuucgYpAsC&q=Jorge+Bocobo&pg=PR47 |title=Philippine Law on Torts and Damages |date=1993 |publisher=Goodwill Trading Co., Inc. |isbn=978-971-11-0953-0 |language=en}}</ref> He served chairman of the commission from 1947 until 1962.<ref name=":0" />
====1955 Land Reform Act==== Bocobo defended the need for land reform during the administration of President Ramon Magsaysay. He was one of the staunch defenders of Magsaysay's 1955 Land Reform Bill to be passed in Philippine Congress. However, there were opposition for the bill.<ref name=":4">{{Cite book |last=Tai |first=Hung-chao |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=g1HhEAAAQBAJ&dq=Jorge+Bocobo+code+commission&pg=PA156 |title=Land Reform and Politics: A Comparative Analysis |date=2023-11-15 |publisher=Univ of California Press |isbn=978-0-520-32699-6 |language=en}}</ref>{{Rp|page=166}} In a debate between Bocobo and president of The National Rice Planters Association (NPRA), Manuel N. Gallego, Gallego asked the Code Commissioner whether it is actually the inequality of land causing the peasant farmer rebellion in Central Luzon. Gallego further belittled the rebellion deeming that the farmers were inspired by communist propaganda.<ref name=":4" />{{Rp|page=156}}
==Awards and recognition== *Honorary doctorate degree from the University of Southern California (1931)<ref name=":0" /> *Presidential Award of Merit (1949) given by President Elpidio Quirino<ref name=":3" /><ref name=":5" /> *Honorary doctorate degree from the Indiana University (1951)<ref name=":0" /> *Honorary doctorate degree from the University of the Philippines (1953)<ref name=":0" />
==Selected publications== *{{Cite book |last=Bocobo |first=Jorge Cleofas |url=https://tuklas.up.edu.ph/Record/UP-99796217605001585?sid=33010627 |title=El nuevo codigo civil Filipino |date=1951 |publisher=Instituto Editorial Reus |series=Guillermo B. Guevara papers |location=Madrid}} *{{Cite book |last=Bocobo |first=Jorge Cleofas |url=https://tuklas.up.edu.ph/Record/UP-99796217601490755?sid=33010627 |title=Furrows and arrows, poetry and verse |date=1951 |publisher=M. Colcol |location=Manila}} *{{Cite book |last=Bocobo |first=Jorge Cleofas |url=https://tuklas.up.edu.ph/Record/UP-99796217604356317?sid=33010627 |title=For freedom and dignity the Hawes-Cutting Bill denounced by the author in a debate with Dean Maximo M. Kalaw |date=1933 |publisher=Oriental Print. |location=Manila}} *{{Cite journal |last=Bocobo |first=Jorge Cleofas |date=1937–1938 |title=The Cult of Legalism |url=https://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?handle=hein.journals/philplj17&div=29&id=&page= |journal=Philippine Law Journal |volume=17 |pages=253}}
== References == {{reflist}}
== External links ==
* {{Commons-inline}} {{PMM(Ph) Recipients}}{{Authority control}}{{DEFAULTSORT:Bocobo, Jorge}} Category:1886 births Category:1965 deaths Category:20th-century Filipino lawyers Category:20th-century Filipino judges Category:Ilocano people Category:Academic staff of the University of the Philippines Category:Filipino expatriates in the United States Category:Indiana University Maurer School of Law alumni Category:People from Tarlac Category:Associate justices of the Supreme Court of the Philippines Category:Filipino nationalists Category:Filipino Protestants Category:Filipino Methodists Category:University of the Philippines College of Law alumni Category:Presidents of universities and colleges in the Philippines Category:Recipients of the Presidential Medal of Merit (Philippines) Category:Secretaries of education of the Philippines Category:Quezon administration cabinet members Category:Filipino short story writers