section_path: History/Philippine Commonwealth
section_name: Philippine Commonwealth
paragraph_text: Philippine Commonwealth
  
  In October 1935, Manuel L. Quezon was elected the first president of the Commonwealth of the Philippines, which had been established, still under United States sovereignty, under a constitution ratified on May 14 of that year. During its first five years, the president could serve for a six-year term that cannot be renewed. It was later amended in 1940 to limit a president to serving no more than two four-year terms. When the administration of President Quezon exiled to the United States after the Philippines fell to the Empire of Japan in World War II, Quezon appointed Chief Justice José Abad Santos as his delegate, which in effect the acting president of the commonwealth according to Justice George A. Malcolm. Abad Santos was subsequently executed by the Imperial Japanese Army on May 2, 1942.