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About Aurelio Alvero

About the author: Aurelio Sevilla Alvero (October 15, 1913 — 1958). Lawyer, educator, poet, essayist, novelist; after 1945 he wrote under the pen name Magtanggul Asa. Son of Emilio de Vera Alvero and Rosa Sevilla Alvero. During the Japanese Occupation, affiliated with the Makapili, the New Leaders Association, Bisig Bakal ng Tagala. As Grant K. Goodman wrote,

Aurelio Alvero (1913–58) was a brilliant and complex Filipino intellectual who was found guilty of collaboration with Japan by the postwar Philippine People’s Court and spent 1945–47 and 1950–52 in prison…

He was the son of Emilio Alvero y de Vera, painter, art-glass artist and interior decorator, and Rosa Sevilla y Tolentino, writer, social worker and educator and founder of the Instituto de Mujeres, one of the oldest schools for women in the Philippines. Alvero studied at the Centro Educativo y Instructivo and completed his primary education at the Instituto de Mujeres. He later graduated from the Ateneo de Manila high school and then went on to study law and education simultaneously at the University of Santo Tomas. He received the A.A. degree in 1933, the B.S.E. in 1935 and his law degree cum laude in 1937.

About the diary: The entries from the diary of Aurelio Alvero comes from the Supreme Court of the Philippines decision in People v. Aurelio AlveroGR No. L-820, Apr 11, 1950. The entries used here appeared within the decision as quoted exhibits.

The decision delves into the admissability of the diaries as evidence, and provides some background on how they came to be:

In this connection and inasmuch as this diary (Exhibit ZZ) has been continually referred to and quoted not only by the People’s Court but also by this tribunal, it is deemed advisable to say a few words on its admissibility and competence. Exhibit ZZ was duly identified by Patricia Fermin, one of the secretaries of the appellant to whom it was dictated by him and who (Patricia) later transcribed it. It was offered and admitted in evidence without objections As a rule, diaries are inadmissible because they are self-serving in nature, unless they have the nature of books of account, (51 L. R. A. [N.S.], 813-815); but it has also been held that an entry in a diary being in the nature of a declaration if It was against interest when made, is admissible, (Muller vs. Mclean, 31 Ohio Cir. Ct, Rep. 64 cited in Ann. Gas. 1916C, p. 718.)

Exhibits X and KK, alleged diaries dictated to Romana Bautista, another secretary, are a little different. Exhibit X was objected to by the defense on the ground that it was among the papers illegally seized from appellant’s house; and Exhibit KK was objected on the ground that its authenticity was not properly established although in the course of the hearing of the appellant’s petition for bail he admitted the correctness of his material statements in Exhibit X. However, inasmuch as Romana Bautista who took down and transcribed Exhibits X and KK refused to identify them during the trial, it is doubtful whether their authenticity has been duly proven. Consequently, they are not admissible.