As scheduled in late July 1954, Guerrero and Annie left the Philippines aboard S.S. Free State Mariner, which had a stopover in Hong Kong before embarking on the long voyage to London. His “sainted” mother had an injunction “that under no circumstances must … [he] become an Anglican, which to her mind was somehow connected with having several wives, like Henry VIII.” More than Shakespeare and Belloc of his college days, Guerrero had an extensive knowledge of British history. About Philippine-British relations, he knew that the Philippines suspended its North Borneo claim. At Palace Green, they were greeted by a birch tree at the gate of “an old English two-story building with a small front garden” that would be their home.

Here in an exclusive street close to Kensington Gardens, Guerrero had to wait for more than two months to present his credentials to the queen. Although his stint in Tokyo could have helped in his preparations, being ambassador-designate was a different matter. London was home to various embassies from countries all over the world. The process of presenting the credentials of fewer than a hundred chiefs of mission would take months as the Chief of Her Majesty's Protocol would have to schedule them. Thus, on 13 October, the trip aboard the two state carriages to the Buckingham Palace was pleasant as he presented his credentials to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. British Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden met Guerrero and Annie before they separately met the queen who chatted with them. In Whitehall, Eden received and interviewed the new Philippine envoy.

The letter of credence from the president as the “embodiment of the sovereign power of his people” and the acceptance of host country made Guerrero the personal representative of President Magsaysay to the Court of Saint James. As the ambassador of his people, he had to present the views of his government on matters affecting the national interest or on seemingly uncomplicated subject as the atomic power. Speaking before an international dinner hosted by the Institute of Atomic Information at Claridge's Hotel, Guerrero optimistically remarked on the new hope that the atomic power could raise to alleviate poverty in underdeveloped countries — the key to economic development in countries such as the Philippines. In mid-November, he visited Hunting Aerosurveys and sent a special box of Manila cigars to Sir Winston Churchill.

Two weeks later in June 1971, Guerrero hurried home to attend to his ailing wife, leaving instructions to the embassy personnel. Asked about his opinion on the opening of relations with Soviet Russia which was being opposed by some members of the Foreign Policy Council members, namely Senate President Gil Puyat, Speaker Cornelio Villareal, former Foreign Affairs Secretary Serrano and former President Garcia, he said: “Let's be candid about it. The Russians want to establish diplomatic ties with us, so we set up pre-conditions and get the best deal from such relations.” The Philippines, he said, belonged to a group of countries still adamant about opening relations with Russia, such as South Korea, South Vietnam and Nationalist China.

Again, before the same group of newsmen, when asked on the Constitutional Convention which would open the following day, he suggested the scrapping of the boundary provision or the first article in the 1935 Constitution, not only because the Philippines was the only country with definite territorial boundary, but the provision also worked against the Philippine claim on Sabah. Regarding the Tolentino Law, which delineated Philippine territorial waters around Sabah, he asked, “How can a law modify a constitution?” According to Guerrero, it would be better to rescind this law and adopt the archipelago theory he recently expounded early this year in Colombo, which would extend territorial waters from twelve to 200 miles (19.31 to 321.88 kilometres) from the outermost island. His suggestion to excise from the first article on the national territory the enumeration of colonial treaties was heeded by the committee responsible for that provision two years later.

While in the Philippines, he delivered a lecture before the first ASEAN seminar on “The Role of Mass Media in the Development of Southeast Asia”. His lecture had no connection with the theme, but it revealed a turning point in the development of his foreign policy thinking. It was in this lecture that he seemed to declare that the economic losses incurred as a result of the military bases’ presence far outweighed the economic benefits that these were supposed to bring, citing prostitution, rampant smuggling, and black-marketeering. His lecture was concerned with which foreign policy — alignment or non-alignment — would help in the development of ASEAN or more specifically, towards the region's industrialization programmes.

Outside his work in the Senate, Guerrero closely monitored world events, a habit which eventualy earned him a reputation as a wellknown political analyst who aired his views on current international affairs, particularly the emergence of the Cold War. Since the Philippines was closely allied with the United States, the Cold War demanded special attention from Filipino policymakers and analysts. Before the Malolos Rotary Club in late July 1950, he disclosed how Russia would engage in “little wars” to further its world domination in places like Indochina, Greece and Iraq by using its allies, thus weakening the United States. Russia, he said, was not ready to start a war against the United States but in due time, Russia could challenge the United States with the aid of new weapons of war. In the case of an atomic war, however, the United States, he believed, had the advantage over Russia since the former stockpiled atomic bombs. Guerrero stressed the importance of the United Nations in the maintenance of world peace.

At the Manila Overseas Press Club, he graced the inaugural meeting of the Manila Round Table, a group interested in international and national issues, discussing American policy in the advent of communism in Asia. At the Y's Men's Club, on its special United Nations Week programme, he spoke about a new United Nations that had emerged from the old one established in San Francisco since the outbreak of the Cold War, before flying to Dublin, Ireland to fulfil his function as member and secretary of the Philippine delegation to the International Parliamentary Conference. Special to the Philippines Herald, he wrote his sharp impressions of Europe in a series of articles at a time when Europe was slowly taking steps towards a European Community.

The following year, in a regular weekly luncheon meeting of the Manila Rotary at the Manila Hotel, speaking before diplomatic and consular representatives of Southeast Asian countries, he characterized Asian nationalism as anti-Western and anti-capitalist in the wake of India's rejection of the San Francisco peace treaty and Iran's agitation for the nationalization of its oil industry.

From Madrid with a brief stopover in Bangkok, Guerrero arrived with Annie in Manila on 20 February 1965, to participate in welcoming the Marques and Marquesa de Villaverde, the son-in-law and only daughter of Generalissimo and Mrs Franco, and Spanish Foreign Minister Castiella. The visit was to return the generosity accorded to President Macapagal when he visited Spain three years ago. Originally scheduled in April in time for ceremonies celebrating the Christianization of the Philippines in Cebu, the state visitors arrived on 24 February.

In an interview about the American debacle in Vietnam the following day, Guerrero said that if the United States were to leave Vietnam, the Philippines could assume an important and strategic role in the American defence map and if that happened, the Philippines would be in a much greater bargaining position to gain more concessions from the United States. At that time, the Americans were negotiating with the Philippine Government for the revision of the 1947 Military Bases Agreement. He likened the situation of the Philippines to that of Spain. The United States negotiated with Spain for another ten-year extension of the bases agreement for which it obtained massive assistance as it bargained for more concessions.

The week-long state visit was both a success and a failure. Guerrero was supposed to arrive with the state visitors but he deliberately came two days earlier to arrange for them to meet Filipinos, not Spaniards. He had told them: “You are going 10,000 miles to the Philippines and I do not want to spend your visit there with other Spaniards. I want you to know and meet the Filipino people.” They did not, for they spent their time with other Spaniards. He also wanted them to go to Pansol or to Pagsanjan to meet the real Filipinos who revolted against Spain. He would have wanted them to walk on Azcárraga. “How can you find Filipinos in Forbes Park, for goodness sake! It's really stupid. What idea will they have of Filipinos if they mix only with the Zobels and the Elizaldes and so forth?” He succeeded in one thing, that of taking them to the Senate for them “to see Philippine democracy in action”.

When the Japanese-sponsored Philippine Republic was inaugurated on 14 October 1943 with Jose P. Laurel as president, Guerrero thought he was no longer a prisoner but a free man, a citizen of an “independent” nation. Resigning from his work in the Hodobu, he waited until December when he was appointed Second Secretary to the Philippine Embassy in Tokyo to be headed by Vargas, now the ambassador whose superior was Minister of Foreign Affairs Claro M. Recto. In the second week of February 1944, leaving behind Annie, he accompanied Vargas, his son and daughter Roberto and Teresita, his private secretary Feniquito, Francisco Lavides the counsellor, and Faustino Sy-Changco, also second secretary, in a trip to Tokyo. At Nielson Airport, President Laurel, Japanese Ambassador to the Philippines Shozo Murata, Speaker Benigno S. Aquino, Chief Justice Jose Yulo, General Shigenori Kuroda and Japanese Navy and Army commanders were there to send them off. Before heading for Haneda Airport in Tokyo, they spent two days and two nights in Formosa (now Taiwan). On 14 February, the party arrived in Tokyo where they met representatives from the Japanese Foreign Office. Their arrival was welcomed in the press because they would complete the five-member nations of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere for greater cooperation among them and Japan. Ambassadors of China, Manchukuo, Thailand, and Burma were in Tokyo ahead of Vargas and his party.

They stayed for two weeks at the Imperial Hotel near the Emperor's Palace because the purchase of a building that would become the chancery of the Philippine Embassy was under negotiation. Guerrero met Leocadio de Asis, one of the ten Filipino police officers sent to study in Japan in one of the latter's visit to the hotel. Purchased at a million pesos, the Yasuda mansion atop the Kudan Hill was not ready for occupation because its heating system was clogged from disuse. The cold of February was intolerable to Vargas so that they stayed in the hotel. By mid-March, the embassy staff left the hotel and moved to the mansion with a wide lawn apt for parties, located at 18-1 Fujimi-cho, 1-chome, Kajomachiku, a walk away from the Japanese Foreign Ministry's office building.

In the summer of 1935, Leoni decided to work as a staff member of the Free Press. His work was interrupted in April when his grandfather died. As a tribute to Don León, he wrote a personal essay published in the Free Press. In the necrological rites held three months later, he represented the family and expressed gratitude for the honour accorded to his grandfather. A scholarship opportunity shaped in part his decision to take up law at Philippine Law School (PLS) in June at Calle Bustillos in Sampaloc — he would be a full scholar. He was not the first in the family to take up law — two of his uncles, Fernando María and Cesar María, were lawyers. That he had become enamoured of the legal profession was shown by a short story, “An Enemy of Caesar”, he wrote in April.

Before classes started in June, he went to Japan as a tourist and came out with several articles about his trip, which happened after the Sakdal uprising in early May. He reported on how the Japanese treated Benigno Ramos, the exiled leader of the Sakdals, whom many Japanese considered as “the great liberator” of the Philippines. One article told about their stay in Japan: the first week was spent in a hotel that was no different in Manila and the second week in Fukidecho where he and his companions were able to experience Japanese hospitality, taste sashimi, sleep on the floor and take a shower in a public bath. Another article warned readers about a travel racket to Japan run by a crook who would make a big profit out of the credulous tourist.

Having enrolled in night classes, Leoni worked during the day in the Free Press with offices at Avenida Rizal in Santa Cruz. The editorial office occupied half of the third floor that had at its centre its founder and publisher Robert McColluch Dick's desk. Behind it was the associate editor's and behind each post sat the staff writers. Behind one of these desks was Leoni with his foot up on his chair and a pipe in his mouth.

At Arzobispo Street in Intramuros, Leon Ma. Guerrero started to work as assistant solicitor in the Office of the Solicitor General in the last quarter of 1940. Solicitor General Roman Ozaeta entrusted to him the preparation of the brief on the appeal case of Ferdinand E. Marcos, a brilliant Ilocano law student accused of murdering Julio Nalundasan, the electoral opponent of his father.

In December 1938 Guerrero, then a senior law student, had read from the headlines that a fellow law student by the name of Marcos was arrested. Vicente J. Francisco, a leading trial lawyer, handled the case that implicated not only Marcos but also his father Mariano, his uncle Pio, both lawyers, and Quirino Lizardo as accomplices. Delaying tactics were employed by the defendants so that Marcos could take the bar exam in August. Marcos took the bar that Guerrero took in four successive Saturdays. In the first week of September, the four accused went on trial and finally in late November, Judge Roman Cruz of Laoag declared Marcos and Lizardo guilty of murder but absolved the father and the uncle. Marcos, however, topped the bar; he applied for provisional liberty on bail to appeal his case before the Supreme Court but the motion was denied until President Quezon informed Cruz that he was amenable to it. Marcos insisted on winning his appeal before the magistrates of the highest court. In less than a year, he prepared his brief proving his innocence of the crime. Thus, Marcos the appellant and Guerrero the prosecutor met for the oral arguments on the appeal as scheduled by the Supreme Court on 12 October 1940.

A precedent in Philippine legal history, it was the first time that a twenty-three-year-old convicted murderer would argue his case before the high bench. That Saturday, at the Ayuntamiento, members of the Manila bar, conspicuous in their black togas, packed the court hall. Outside, a throng of spectators, mostly law students, cheered for Marcos who wore a white suit and white shoes. Members of the diplomatic corps and a representative from the Office of the American High Commissioner were present.

Besides having visited Mexico to attend a Latin American conference the year Philippine-Mexican Friendship Year was proclaimed in which he visited Guadalajara and Navidad where he unveiled a monument to Legazpi and Urdaneta, while posted in Madrid, Guerrero understood the historical antecedents of Philippine-Mexican relations. In 1963, speaking in Madrid, he discussed with extraordinary erudition the close relations, deep connections and the surface differences between the Philippines and Latin America, or to use his term, Iberian America. More than the differences, superficial at best, were those lessons learned from Latin American experiences. Pointing out the Malolos Constitution as having derived its inspiration from the constitutions of Costa Rica, Mexico, Brazil, Nicaragua and Guatemala whose common roots were found in the French Constitution, Guerrero disclosed that the 1935 Philippine Constitution contained safeguards and guarantees owing to the political history of Latin America. Among those were the provisions banning the re-election of a president to prevent the perpetuation of one-man rule, and the care of the national defence placed under a civilian secretary to forestall military takeovers.

But, again greater than these lessons, Guerrero uncovered “the depth of Philippine-Iberian American kinship” in political concepts, that distinguished the Philippines, although Asian in biology and destiny, from the rest of Asian countries but inevitably linked it with Latin America. The Philippines and Latin America shared problems common in underdeveloped countries almost possessing a commonality found in Hispanic culture, in

producing a political and social human prototype in the manner of a Don Quixote and Don Juan. This political culture manifested once when Filipinos under Quezon, Osmeña and Roxas thought that political independence was able to “fix everything, when in truth it was going to reveal and to put everything out of order” because economic independence was left out of the equation.

It took five years for the Philippines to finally establish a permanent mission in Belgrade since 1972 when an exchange of letters was made between the two governments. The Yugoslav Government in 1973 accredited their Tokyo ambassador as non-resident envoy to the Philippines. After two years, they decided to send a resident ambassador to Manila. From 1972 until Guerrero's arrival in Belgrade in November 1976, there were several diplomatic engagements between the Philippines and Yugoslavia such as the signing of an agreement on waiver of non-immigrant visa requirements in Manila; Romulo's visit to Belgrade; visits to Manila of a member of the Federal Executive Council; a minister of economy and head of the Yugoslav delegation to the Third Ministerial Meeting of the Group of 77, a federal secretary for Finance and the governor of the National Bank of Yugoslavia.

The Yugoslav Government leased a terrace-type building to house the Philippine Embassy and the ambassador's residence. Guerrero was accepted as Philippine ambassador by the Yugoslav government in early January 1977. A few days after, four Yugoslav football specialists arrived in Manila to provide training to more than fifty coaches under the FIFA Coca Cola World Football development programme. From reading English newspapers that had to come all the way from Paris, he learned that Yugoslavia was reeling from an economic crisis. By the end of 1976, the World Bank had loaned more than US$1 billion to Yugoslavia followed by another US$1 billion in two loans in February 1977. In the middle of this uncertainty, he had to come home in March to attend the funeral of de la Costa who died from liver cancer.

FULFILLING A REQUEST

Guerrero attended the funeral in Novaliches to pay his last respects to his best friend. After the funeral, he went to Chitang's house in San Juan. Chitang could not forget that afternoon: “His face had darkened several hues and his eyebrows were knit over downcast eyes. Gone was the sunny smile. His shoulders drooped and he seemed to be dragging his feet to the couch in my living room. We sat together wordlessly for a long time, sunk in sorrow, digesting the fact that, both he and I, had lost someone who was, for us, the best creature to have walked this earth.”

As in London and Madrid, in between his work as ambassador, Guerrero was able to finish the research on Philippine church history he started while he was still in Madrid, where he had sought the help of Spanish priests. De la Costa, who was now the Provincial Superior of the Philippine Province of the Society of Jesus, invited him to write the article to be included in a compilation of discursive essays — a belated contribution to the fourth centenary of Christianity in the Philippines. It dealt with the contrasting religious lives of two Spanish priests after the outbreak of the revolution.

At about this time, Guerrero contemplated editing and publishing a monthly for the first time, aimed for distribution in India and other diplomatic posts. After a talk with his colleagues, his poet-friend Abou-Riche suggested the title Philippine Approaches subtitled A Monthly Review of Writing in the Philippines (Fiction Essays, Poetry, Politics, History, Economics). It was to make its debut in January 1968. Due to limited funds, the magazine was published bi-monthly. Perhaps it was the first of its kind in the entire Philippine diplomatic establishment that it received a special citation from the Manila Rotary Club during its Second Annual Journalism Awards, citing its role in promoting the works of Filipino writers and artists to people in foreign lands.

ASIAN BLOC, UNCTAD AND ISO

In January 1968, Guerrero received a letter from Lopez, now the permanent representative to the United Nations in New York and concurrent ambassador to the United States, who asked him to seek Indian support for his candidature for chairmanship of the First Committee in the United Nations. Guerrero went to the Indian official at the Indian Foreign Ministry with an aide memoire explaining the position of the Philippines on the case. Reacting rather guardedly, the Indian official thought that a decision on the matter could not be reached too early though he understood the necessity of announcing the candidature as early as possible. He was not confident that Lopez would get elected on the basis of the Asian group alone. Having no official instructions from Manila, Guerrero left telling the official to keep in touch with him.

About this time, Guerrero became a regular patron of the Philippine Artists Gallery showcasing Filipino neo-realist painters. The gallery exhibited paintings of his brother Mario who was serving as the president of its board of directors. Mario's wife, Helen Roces, held one of her own exhibitions in November 1952. Guerrero bought art pieces by Arturo R. Luz, Romeo Tabuena and Fernando Zobel. He was also taken in as one of the judges for the second Palanca awards for the short story division in December at the Manila Hotel.

Together with Senator Recto and opposition leaders in February 1953, Guerrero demanded the final judgment from the Supreme Court on the Emergency Powers Act filed back in 1949. The Supreme Court justices declared it void in favour of the petitioners as well as invalidated the Executive Orders allotting about PHP50 million for public works and typhoon relief, which was only intended for election purposes. It was a patent victory for the opposition who was wary again of Quirino's dirty tactics as the incumbent president was trying his last-ditch efforts to win again in the coming elections in November.

In commemoration of his grandfather's birth centenary, Guerrero spoke on behalf of the family before University of Santo Tomas (UST) faculty and students in March. Rather philosophical, he tried to impart the special message he found in his grandfather's life. As botanist, his grandfather looked for the “flower of happiness”. As pharmacist, he sought the “recipe for happiness”. In both instances, he said, his grandfather succeeded for he believed “he was happy”. Did his generation fail to be contented? His own answer was a reflection of his long years in public service when he said: “We belong to a money-minded generation and a generation that is obsessed with politics, not as a means of public service but as an opportunity of personal advancement.” In effect, he was assessing his first-hand experiences in the Senate, a six-year witness to Senate intrigues, quarrels and grandstanding.

Before the coming of the Spaniards, there was Lagyo, a Tagalog coastal community. On the afternoon of 21 May 1571, Legazpi's armed expeditionary troop pacified it in the name of Spain. They stumbled upon a group of natives paying homage to a wooden anito, joined them in tribute and carried it to their camp claiming that it was the carved image of the Virgin Mary. The image became the Nuestra Señora de Guía, patroness of the coastal arrabal (later of the Manila-Acapulco galleons) where a Romanesque church was built from the sand of the seashore that saw fishermen unloading from their boats the day's catch. A hermit monk was said to have stayed and died there and, in his honour, the small fishing community was absorbed into a larger village named Hermita in 1591. Over time the “h” disappeared, and Hermita became Ermita.

The coming of the Americans would bring more changes. Seventeen years after Dewey's naval squadron destroyed the Spanish flotilla on Manila Bay to annex the Philippines in 1898, the country continued to suffer from the ravages of the Philippine-American War. Officially declared over in 1902, the war continued in other parts of the archipelago including the island of Mindanao between 1903 and 1916. The war decimated the population, as did disease and famine, in the countryside. In Batangas where hamletting was employed, at least 100,000 died. In Manila, it was relatively peaceful. The Americans succeeded in courting the elite who cooperated in the establishment of a colonial government for eventual self-rule. The passage of the Philippine Bill of 1902 or the Cooper Act provided for the administration of civil government. The Filipino elite gained the power to run the affairs of the country, although the Americans still held sensitive positions in the government. In 1907, an elective Philippine Assembly was inaugurated with eighty-four members from the thirty-four provinces. Then, the Jones Law mandated the creation of a Philippine Senate in 1916, which superseded the Philippine Commission.