Commonwealth of the Philippines
After the War in the Philippines the Commonwealth was restored and a one-year transitional period in preparation for independence began. Elections followed in April 1946 with Manuel Roxas winning as the first president of the independent Republic of the Philippines and Elpidio Quirino winning as vice-president. In spite of the years of Japanese occupation, the Philippines became independent exactly as scheduled a decade before, on July 4, 1946.
Land reform in the Philippines
When the Philippines gained its independence in 1946, much of the land was held by a small group of wealthy landowners. There was much pressure on the democratically elected government to redistribute the land. At the same time, many of the democratically elected office holders were landowners themselves or came from land-owning families.