This photo shows Pardo de Tavera--physician, bibliographer, scholar, and member of the Philippine Commission--as a young man. Noted physician, bibliophile, bibliographer and scholar, Trinidad Hermenegildo Pardo de Tavera was born in Manila on April 13, 1857, to Felix Pardo de Tavera and Juliana Gorricho. He attended the Ateneo de Manila and San Juan de Letran College where he obtained his A.B. degree in 1873; took up medicine at the University of Santo Tomas and finished it at Sorbonne University, Paris. There, he also studied Malay and Javanese at the School of Oriental Languages which granted him a diploma in 1885. In 1892, he was made a faculty member of the University of Santo Tomas, handling classes in anatomy. He was a representative to the Malolos Congress in 1898 and Director of Diplomacy of the Republic but resigned from this position a month after in order to campaign for cooperation and peace under American sovereignty. In 1899, he founded the first pro-American daily in the country, La Democracia, which became the organ of the Federal Party (a political party of "Americanistas" founded in 1900) of which he was the first president. He was appointed member of the Philippine Commission in 1901. Best known for his scholarly studies on Philippine history, alphabets, manners and customs of the Filipinos, the origin of their numerals, the etymology of Philippine tribes, medicinal plants and maps of P. Murillo Velarde, Pardo de Tavera also fought for intellectual freedom from outmoded traditions, superstitions and religious intolerance. A former Director of the Philippine Library and Museum, he had a collection of books bought by the National Library for P25,000. He died on March 26, 1925.