Francisco Alonso Liongson

Francisco Alonso Liongson lived in one of the most exciting periods of Philippine history. He was born into an Ilustrado family from Pampanga, Philippines at the turn of the 20th century and raised with the revolutionary values of an emerging Philippine identity which held freedom, justice, honor, patriotism and piety sacred. He witnessed the rapid changes that transformed the Philippines from a repressed society cloistered in a Spanish convent for over 300 years into modern, hedonistic consumers of American Hollywood glamor for 50 years. This period of transition brought instabilities to core family values as the generation gaps wreaked havoc on the social, political, economic and political foundations of a young nation. It was a period of experimentation where the natives began to grapple a new democratic way of life and selfrule where sacred paternalistic relationships were giving way to egalitarian modes where traditional gender and familial roles were questioned, and where a new

Don Paco, as he was better known, was born in Bacolor, Pampanga, Philippines, a month before the Philippine Revolution was unleashed on August 23, 1896. His father, Dr. Francisco Tongio Liongson, was a Spanishtrained medical doctor and a contemporary of Jos Rizal during his student days in Spain. A great influence on his son, Dr. Liongson was actively involved in the struggle for independence and became Pampangas governor and first Senator to the Philippine Legislature. Don Pacos mother was Maria Dolores AlonsoColmenares y Castro, a native of Badajoz, Spain whom his father met and married in Madrid. His mother died soon after his birth. He was raised since by his spinster aunt, Isabel Tongio Liongson.

Source: Wikipedia