Salvador A. Rodolfo Sr.

He died on January 9, 2012 at Los Robles Hospital in Thousand Oaks, California. He was a month away from his 93rd birthday.

In 1995, he was appointed as Chief Security Consultant in the Bureau of Immigration under then Commissioner Leandro Verceles during Pres. Fidel V. Ramos Administration.

He was granted US Citizenship in 1992 after the US Congress passed the law granting citizenship to the USAFFE Veterans who served under Gen. Douglas MacArthur. He decided to stay in America for good in 2002.

Rodolfo played a role in local politics in the 1980s and 1990s, serving as Senior Provincial Board Member of the Sangguniang Panlalawigan and acting Vice Governor in Catanduanes. He was a key ally of the late Gov. Leandro Verceles Sr., ultimately bringing an end to the political dynasty in the province.

He organized the Catanduanes Liberation Forces (CLF), the guerilla unit that paved the way for the liberation of Catanduanes in 1945. As a result, Japanese forces were destroyed before the American forces arrived in Catanduanes in 1945.

On February 8, 1945, when Rodolfo was about to declare the independence of the province after he and his men killed every Japanese Imperial Army and burned every Japanese garrison in Catanduanes, one of his men approached him and said that there were Japanese reinforcements on board 2 vessels approaching the island. He then talked to his men, most of whom were wounded and exhausted, he said:

With that, everybody decided to stand their ground and fight the incoming Japanese. They went to their posts to wait for the enemy’s arrival but then, as if by providence, American planes arrived and bombed the Japanese vessels. Rodolfo declared independence of the entire province on February 8, 1945.

When the Second World War broke out, Rodolfo was called to arms in defense of the Philippines against the invading Japanese Imperial Forces. He fought in the three-month Battle of Bataan in 1942, and was a survivor of the Bataan Death March. While in Camp O’Donnel in Capas, Tarlac, he met the then Lt. Ferdinand E. Marcos, who would later on become President of the Philippines. He was released later. After being released from the camp in Capas, Rodolfo organized the Catanduanes Liberation Forces.

Col. Salvador Rodolfo Sr. (7 February 1919 – 9 January 2012) was a Filipino soldier who helped liberate the Island Province of Catanduanes in the Philippines from the Japanese Imperial Army during World War II. He was known in Catanduanes as “Phantom” or the "Man who Never Dies", based on the comic book hero created by Lee Falk in 1936.

Rodolfo was born in 1919 in Bato, Catanduanes, Philippines. He was a descendant of Don Juan Rodolfo of Almeria, Spain who went to the Philippines in the 18th century and married the daughter of Datu Bantog, who was then one of the Tribal Chieftains in Catanduanes, in order to put to a halt the hostilities between the natives and the Spaniards. The Rodolfos played an important role in Catanduanes politics in the Spanish Colonial Period. His father, Roman Rodolfo, was an undefeated Mayor of Bato, and his mother, Maria Tan Arambulo, was a Chinese businesswoman.