Carlos Poléstico García (1896-1971), president of the Republic of the Philippines from 1957 to 1961. García was born in the city of Talibon in the Visayan Islands of the central Philippines. He attended Silliman University and Silliman Institute, in the city of Dumaguete, and later studied at the Philippine Law School in Manila. García practiced law and became a teacher. He entered politics in 1926 as a member of the Philippine House of Representatives and served until 1932. García was the governor of Bohol, a province in the southern Philippines, from 1932 to 1942, and was a member of the Philippine Senate from 1942 to 1953. During World War II (1939-1945) he resisted Japanese occupation as a member of guerrilla forces based in Bohol. In 1946 he became Senate minority leader. In 1953 García was nominated for vice president as part of the

Nationalist ticket headed by Ramón Magsaysay, a Philippine politician who had organized and led the guerrilla force that fought the Japanese occupation. They won a decisive victory, and in 1954, García became vice president and minister of foreign affairs. In March 1957 García became president after Magsaysay was killed in plane crash, and he won an elected term as president in November 1957. While in power, García’s government negotiated the transfer of unused United States military base areas to Philippine control. Criticized for inefficiency and corruption, García was defeated by Diosdado Macapagal when he ran for reelection in 1961.

Besides his accomplishments as a statesman, García was a recognized poet in his native dialect, Visayan.