Arturo Modesto Tolentino (September 19, 1910 – August 2, 2004) was a prominent political figure in the Philippines who briefly held the position of vice president in 1986, and subsequently led an abortive coup d'etat later that year. He is more well known as the father of the Philippine “archipelagic doctrine” and expert on the Law of the Sea.

Early career

Arturo M. Tolentino was born in Manila of humble parentage. He was a self-made man.

As a student, Tolentino was noted for his excellent scholarship. He was valedictorian of the Manila East High School (now V. Mapa High School) (1928); valedictorian (cum laude) University of the Philippines College of Law (1934); a bar topnotcher (1934). He obtained the degree of Bachelor of Philosophy (cum laude) with a gold medal award from the UP in 1938, and received the degrees of Master of Law (meritissimus) and Doctor of Civil Law (meritissimus) from the University of Santo Tomás.

As a debater and orator, he won seven gold medals (including the Quezon Medal) and two silver loving cups. He held the title of “Inter-Collegiate Oratorical Champion of the Philippines” in 1934. He successfully debated with American students from the University of Oregon in 1933 and from the University of Washington in 1934. In U.P., he was also editor-in-chief of the Philippine Collegian and a member of the Upsilon Sigma Phi.

Tolentino is a town and comune of about 20,000 inhabitants, in the province of Macerata in the Marche region of central Italy.

It is located in the middle of the valley of the Chienti.

History

Signs of the first inhabitants of this favorable and fertile coastal zone, between the mountains and the Adriatic, date to the lower Paleolithic.

Numerous tombs, from the 8th to the 4th centuries BCE, attest to the presence of the Piceni culture at the site of today's city, Roman Tolentinum, linked to Rome by the via Flaminia. Tolentinum was the seat of the diocese of Tolentino from the late 6th century, under the patronage of the local Saint Catervo. The urban commune is attested from 1099, assuming its mature communal form between 1170 and 1190, settling its boundaries through friction with neighboring communes like S. Severino and Camerino. From the end of the 14th century, the commune passed into the hands of the da Varano family and then the Sforza, before becoming part of the Papal States until the arrival of Napoleon.