Guillermo de Vega

Guillermo de Vega
Guillermo de Vega, 1969
Presidential assistant

Guillermo Cruz de Vega (February 1, 1931 – October 27, 1975), nicknamed Gimo, was a Presidential Assistant of former Philippine President Ferdinand E. Marcos with the rank of Cabinet Secretary. He was assassinated on October 27, 1975 while working at his office at the Malacañan Palace, the site of the President’s residence and office complex.

As Presidential Assistant, Secretary de Vega was in charge of preparing documents for the President’s appointment of officials of the executive and judicial departments, among other duties. He was thus regarded as the “little president.”

He was also the Chairman of the Board of Censors for Motion Pictures (now known as the Movie and Television Review and Classification Board), a chess buff and a published writer. He first served Malacañang in 1967 under then Executive Secretary Rafael M. Salas, who recommended him as a Special Assistant in the Office of the President.

Guillermo is survived by his wife Maria Rocio Atienza de Vega and their three children, Maria Margarita, born 1960, Eduardo Jose, born 1964, and Jaime Rafael, born 1967. They were married on February 21, 1959 and his widow has not remarried. His remains are in the St. James Parish at Muntinlupa, Philippines.

Among De Vega’s published works were Ferdinand Marcos: An Epic (1974), a biography in verse that was also translated into Filipino, and Film and Freedom: Movie Censorship in the Philippines (1975), the first comprehensive historical account of film censorship in the Philippines.

De Vega was born in Manila, Philippines on February 1, 1931 to Jose Cruz de Vega and Vicenta Vinluan. He graduated from the Manuel L. Quezon University with a Master of Arts degree in History and a Bachelor of Arts degree in History, cum laude. He obtained his Doctor of Philosophy in History from the University of Sindh in Hyderabad, Pakistan in 1962 as an exchange scholar of the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO).

The archives of De Vega are housed at the Technological Institute of the Philippines, which granted university scholarships annually in his name from 1976 to 2011.