<div class="image-550">
<a href="https://cdn.kahimyang.com/resources/roxas_inaugural_in_1946.webp" rel="lightbox" title="Manuel Roxas inauguration in 1946">
<img loading="lazy" src="https://cdn.kahimyang.com/resources/roxas_inaugural_in_1946.webp" alt="Manuel Roxas inauguration in 1946" class="ui-corner-all" />
</a>
<div>
President Manuel Roxas was inaugurated as the 5th President of the Philippines and the first president of the Third Republic on July 4, 1946 at the Independence Grandstand (now Quirino Grandstand), Manila (Photo credit:  Philippine Presidential Museum and Library.)
</div>
</div>
<p>
Senators Manuel Roxas and Elpidio Quirino as Vice president, running under the Liberal Wing of the Nacionalista Party, prevailed over  incumbent President Sergio Osmeña with Senator Eulogio Rodriguez for the vice presidency running under the Nacionalista Party.  A third party, Partido Modernista (Hilario Moncado and Luis Salvador for president and vice president respectively), was also in the race.
</p>
<p>
Inaugurated on May 28, 1946 as last President of the Commonwealth, Roxas continued in office as first President of the Republic which was proclaimed on the morning of July 4, 1946,  this was  when the Philippines was granted independence by the United States.
</p>

<p>
The term of Roxas is the shortest so far among the country's presidents -- <b><i>one year, 10 months and 18 days</i></b>. He had barely outlined his rehabilitation and reconstruction programs when death took him while taking a rest after delivering a speech at Clark Field in Pampanga on April 15, 1948.
</p>
<p>
<div class="image-550">
<a href="https://cdn.kahimyang.com/resources/roxas-macarthur-handshake-at-roxas-inauguration.webp" rel="lightbox" title="Manuel Roxas inauguration in 1946">
<img loading="lazy" src="https://cdn.kahimyang.com/resources/roxas-macarthur-handshake-at-roxas-inauguration-t.webp" alt="Roxas-MacArthur handshake at Roxas inauguration in 1946" class="ui-corner-all" />
</a>
<div>
President Roxas-General MacArthur handshake at Roxas inauguration in 1946 (Photo credit:  Philippine photographs digital archives, University of Michigan digital library).
</div>
</div>
Roxas entered college at the University of Manila and took up law at the University of the Philippines College of Law, becoming a 

member of the college's first-ever graduating class in 1913.
</p>
<p>
He placed first in the Bar examinations held later that year. He was immediately drawn into politics and began what became a 

lifelong career in government service to include: provincial fiscal, congressman, senator, and finance secretary of President 

Manuel L. Quezon's Cabinet.
</p>
<p>
After his death, Roxas was replaced by his vice president, Elpidio Quirino, who also became full-term president after winning the 

1949 presidential election.
</p>


<h4>
Source:
</h4>
<ol class="article-sources">
<li>
  Philippines News Agency archives
</li>
<li>
Wikipedia
</li>
</ol>


April 23, 1946: Manuel Roxas was elected President