Vicente Lim

Vicente Lim y Podico (February 24, 1888 – December 31, 1944) was a Filipino brigadier general and World War II hero. Lim was the first Filipino graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point (Class of 1914). Prior to the establishment of the Philippine Army, he served as an officer in the Philippine Scouts (a now-defunct native Filipino unit of the US Army). During the Battle of Bataan, Lim was the Commanding General of the 41st Infantry Division, Philippine Army (USAFFE). After the fall of the Philippines he contributed to the Filipino resistance movement until his capture and subsequent execution. Lim was one of the seven Charter Members of the Boy Scouts of the Philippines. He is memorialized in the Philippines' 1,000-Peso banknote together with two other Filipino heroes who fought and died against the Japanese during the Second World War. Vicente Lim was born on February 24, 1888, in the town of Calamba, Laguna, and was the third of Jose Ayala Lim Yaoco and Antonia Podico's four children. As a Chinese Filipino, His father was a full-blooded Sangley (Chinese migrant) who braided his hair in a queue, while his mother, Antonia Podico, was a Mestiza de Sangley (Chinese mestiza). Jose Lim died when Vicente was just nine years old, leaving Vicente's mother to raise him and his three siblings from the earnings of a small business. Vicente and the other Lim children, Joaquin, Olympia and Basilisa, like many Chinese Filipinos, grew up identifying themselves as Filipinos. Among the friends of Jose Lim and Antonia Podico was the family of José Rizal, who was later recognized as the Philippines' national hero. The Lim Family, like the Rizal Family, leased land owned by the Dominican Order: rice lands in the Calamba barrios of Lecheria and Real and sugar land in Barrio Barandal. In 1891, recurring disputes between the Spanish administrators of the Dominican estate and the tenants over rental rates and conditions came to a head and resulted in the eviction of many tenants from their lands.