Leon Gallery wishes to thank Mrs. Sylvia AmorsoloLazo for confirming the authenticity of this lot

Provenance: Provenance: Commissioned from the artist by Doña Rosenda lavadia Benitez, the mother of Captain Jose Teofilo Benitez in his memory. Capt. Benitez died in a fiery airplane crash in 1949.

ABOUT THE WORK

El Capitan, Teofilo A. Benitez Captain Teofilo A. Benitez was a war hero, be-medalled for his audacious exploits as a guerrilla during WW II, while he operated in his home-province of Laguna. When he was finally captured by the Japanese, he became one of a handful of prisoners who survived the Bataan Death March. After the war, Benitez, was sent by the Philippine Army to train to become a pilot at Randolph Field, an air base of the United States Army Air Corp, (the predecessor of the US Air Force), in Lubbock, Texas. It was said that he was being groomed to head the newly-formed Philippine Air Force. After returning to the Philippines, he became the aide-de-camp of Gen. Carlos P. Romulo. He then accompanied Romulo when the latter became the Philippine representative to the newly formed United Nations where he eventually became the first Asian President of the General Assembly. Living in an apartment at the prestigious Empire State Building on 5th Avenue, Captain Benitez was rumored to be a man about town and ladies’ man, as he was reputed to be back home in the Philippines. In New York City, one of his constant companions was the beautiful, young daughter of India’s ambassador to the UN, Jawaharlal Nehru. She was none other than Indira Nehru who would later become India’s prime minister, Indira Gandhi. Her address in NYC was to be found in his address book, among the names of Filipino society beauties. Benitez, after all, was born into one of the Philippines’ moneyed and patriotic clans. His grandfather, Judge Higinio Ortega Benitez was a delegate to the Malolos Congress and was a signatory of its Constitution in 1899. He would be immortalized by Simon Flores in 1894 and the portrait still hangs in the Benitez ancestral home, ‘Mira Nila.’ Higinio’s wife, Soledad Francia Benitez, would be painted by Antonio Malantic in 1876. It was not surprising that Teofilo’s mother, Rosenda Lavadia Benitez, would commission the great Maestro Fernando Amorsolo to memorialize him in 1954. Teofilo’s father, Eulogio Francia Benitez, was a Commonwealth congressman and, as secretary of the House of Representatives, witnessed the signing of the 1935 Philippine Constitution. By all accounts, Benitez was also destined for greatness. (His younger siblings were, incidentally, Eulogio Jr., (partnered with the Syjucos for Darigold), businessman Alberto, Mario (of the eponymous famous restaurant chain and iconic Caesar Salad), the elegant Emma Benitez, later Mrs. Luis Araneta; and the vivacious singer/actress Leila Benitez.) But that was not to be : Having survived the perils of the War, Benitez perished too young and too soon — like so many other men with their whole lives ahead of them — in a plane crash in 1949. He was only 28 years old. His co-pilot, who managed to survive, said that while he did a “flyby” or aerial pass over the home of his then girlfriend who lived in Pila, Laguna, he flew so dangerously low that he hit the top of a bamboo pole of a palay haystack. This romantic detail, however, was never revealed to the press but it is a testament of Benitez’ derring-do and bold character. The plane would fall out of the sky in Imus on its way back to the Fernando Air Base in Lipa, Batangas. His death would make front page news in the country’s no. one newspaper of the time, the Manila Times, and President Elpidio Quirino would call for an investigation of “the airworthiness of all Philippine Air Force planes” as a result. His mentor Carlos P. Romulo would write a poem in his honor and it would be engraved on his tombstone. Captain Teofilo A. Benitez continues to be remembered with much admiration as a “man’s man” by his family and friends.