Carlos Peña Rómulo was a Filipino diplomat, politician, general, journalist and author. He was a reporter at age 16, a newspaper editor by the age of 20, and a publisher at 32. He is the co-founder of the Boy Scouts of the Philippines.
Rómulo served eight Philippine presidents, from Manuel L. Quezon to Ferdinand Marcos, as the Secretary of Foreign Affairs of the Philippines and as the country’s representative to the U.S. and to the United Nations. He also served as the Resident Commissioner to the U.S. House of Representatives during the Commonwealth era. In addition, he served also as the Secretary of Education in President Diosdado P. Macapagal’s and President Ferdinand E. Marcos’s Cabinet from 1962 to 1968.
Rómulo was the President of the Fourth Session of United Nations General Assembly from 1949–1950, and chairman of the UN Security Council. He served with General Douglas MacArthur in the Pacific, and became the first non-American to win the Pulitzer Prize in journalism in 1942, for “his observations and forecasts of Far Eastern developments during a tour of the trouble centers from Hong Kong to Batavia.” He was a candidate for the position of UN Secretary-General in 1953, but did not win.
Rómulo was arguably the greatest Filipino statesman of the 20th century, even though he failed to win the nomination of the Liberal party to run for president of the Philippines in the early 1950s. During his lifetime he was awarded over 80 honorary degrees by various educational institutions and 74 decorations from foreign countries.
Rómulo wrote and published 18 books, including Mother America (1943), I Saw the Fall of the Philippines (1943), My Brother Americans (1945), I See the Philippines Rise (1946), The United: A Novel (1951), Crusade in Asia: Philippine Victory (1955), The Meaning of Bandung (1956), The Magsaysay Story (co-written with Marvin M. Gray, 1957) Friend to Friend: A Candid Exchange Between Pearl S. Buck and Carlos P. Rómulo (1958), I Walked with Heroes (1961), Last Man Off Bataan (1969) Forty Years: A Third World Soldier at the UN (1986) and Philippine Presidents: Memoirs of Carlos P Rómulo, (co-written with Beth Day Rómulo, 1989).
Rómulo lived at this first address from 1943 to 1947 while serving as Resident Commissioner to the U.S. House of Representatives from the Philippines.
The Homes
2253 R Street, NW, Washington, DC (Philippine Ambassador's Residence)
3422 Garfield St NW, Washington, DC
Carlos Peña Rómulo
2253 R Street, NW, washington, DC
Located in Sheridan/Kalorama neighborhood, Northwest - East of Rock Creek
Carlos Peña Rómulo
3422 Garfield St NW
Located in Cathedral Heights neighborhood, Northwest - East of Rock Creek