As early as 1919, Alzona spoke in favor of conferring the right of suffrage to Filipino women, in an article she published in the Philippine Review. Īlzona returned to the Philippines in 1923 and joined the faculty of the Department of History, of the original Manila campus of the University of the Philippines, which was later moved to the University of the Philippines Diliman.Įven as American women won the right to vote in 1920, women in the Philippines, then an American colony, were not accorded the same right. Alzona was the first Filipino woman to have obtained a Ph.D. She obtained another master's degree in history from Radcliffe College, Harvard University in 1920, and a Ph.D. Īlzona pursued further studies in the United States as a pensionado, a scholar funded by the American government. Her thesis was a historical survey on the school education of women in the Philippines, a theme that proved apt in light of her later activism as a suffragette.

She obtained a degree in history from the University of the Philippines in Manila in 1917, and a master's degree the following year from the same university. Both her parents were voracious readers, a circumstance that fostered her academic inclinations. Her father was a trial court judge and a distant relative of Jose Rizal. The first Filipino woman to obtain a Ph.D., she was conferred in 1985 the rank and title of National Scientist of the Philippines.Įncarnación Alzona was born in Biñan, Laguna and grew up in the province of Tayabas. Radcliffe College, Harvard University (MA)Įncarnación Amoranto Alzona (Ma– March 13, 2001) was a pioneering Filipino historian, educator and suffragist. University of the Philippines Manila ( BA, MA)

Teodoro agoncillo history