Geronima Josefa Tomelden Pecson was an educator, suffragette, and social worker who became the first woman senator of the Philippines in 1947 and the first woman member of the Executive Board of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization in 1950.
10 Facts About Geronima Pecson
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Geronima Pecson gained her elementary and secondary education from Lingayen's public schools and her college education from the University of the Philippines Manila, where she graduated with degrees in Bachelor of Science and Master of Arts.
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Geronima Pecson began her career as a classroom teacher at the Manila High School and Ermita Elementary School in 1919.
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Geronima Pecson eventually joined the faculty of the Zamboanga Normal School when her husband was assigned to teach there.
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Geronima Pecson married Potenciano Pecson, a teacher and lawyer, who was elected as representative for the First District of Pangasinan from 1928 to 1935 and was later appointed an associate justice of the Court of Appeals in 1953.
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Apart from being a member of Commission on Appointments and of the Senate Electoral Tribunal, Geronima Pecson pioneered Philippines laws that included the 1953 Free and Compulsory Education Act, the Vocational Education Act, laws related to establishing training facilities for instructors of arts and trades in certain national schools, and laws that upgraded the School of Forestry of the University of the Philippines and the Philippine Normal School into colleges.
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Geronima Pecson ran in the 1953 Philippine Senate election for a second term but lost and placed ninth out of twenty candidates.
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Geronima Pecson served as chairperson of the Philippine Red Cross.
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Geronima Pecson was a member of the board of trustees of a number of schools and universities, among which were Centro Escolar University, the Philippine Normal College, and the Philippine College of Commerce ; and a member of the Board of Regents of the University of the Philippines.
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Geronima Pecson served as a board member of the Philippines Tuberculosis Society and the Philippine Rural Reconstruction Movement.