The 1935 Constitution of the Philippines established the position of vice president, and may be appointed by the president to a cabinet position. The first person elected to the position of vice president under the constitution was Sergio Osmeña. Elected together with Manuel L. Quezon in the first Philippine national elections, Osmeña was given the highest-ranking cabinet portfolio with inauguration of the Commonwealth of the Philippines in November 1935. Prior to independence in 1946, that cabinet portfolio was Secretary of Public Instruction, which had once been reserved only for the vice governor-general (an American). Vice President Osmeña held that position from 1935 to 1939, and a similar portfolio in the War Cabinet during World War II.