The TRUE Father of President Sergio Osmeña

Former Commonwealth President Sergio Osmeña’s paternity has always been shrouded in mystery. While he lived, he never spoke about his father. Because all his children have already passed on, his grandchildren are the closest living descendants who can shed light on this mystery. Unfortunately, he refused to mention if he knew his father, but he also never supposedly spoke of this matter with his children or grandchildren. 

An oral history that tells us more about the attitude of Sergio Osmeña towards the topic of his paternity is in an interview by American historian Michael Cullinane with the late Senator John “Sonny” Osmeña.  Sonny Osmeña informed Cullinane in the 70s that as a small boy he asked Sergio who his father was. In response, Sergio supposedly gave him a gentle slap on the cheek and told him to never ask him that question again. As such, Sonny claimed that he had no idea who Sergio’s father was. However, in another interview in the 1980s with Jesusa Sanson Zamora, it was revealed that Sonny Osmeña told her that in his final years, Don Sergio wanted to gather his family to tell them that his father was Antonio Sanson. Sergio’s second wife, Esperanza, however, ordered that this should not be made public. So, Sergio went to his grave never revealing his father’s name.

Despite all the mystery and secret, two names have emerged as his possible father: Don Pedro Singson Gotiaoco and Don Antonio Sanson. And while Sergio never commented about it, these names have been uttered by various people in society and mentioned in newspapers and magazines since as early as the 1930s. These and more oral histories have been passed on for 145 years now, but naturally, for the last decade or so all historians and writers could rely on are the available secondary documents that point to the alleged father of Don Sergio and oral histories that continue to abound. This year, some members of the Osmeña family finally decided to settle the matter and solve this mystery with the use of DNA testing. The timing was just right because in recent years, not only have DNA tests become more commercialized and more affordable and accessible, but advancements in modern technology have also made the results of these tests more accurate and reliable. 

For decades now, DNA testing has been used to solve centuries-old mysteries. For instance, in 2012 the remains of England’s King Richard III were thought to have been discovered but in order to confirm that the skeleton belonged to the said ruler, researchers turned to genetic genealogy methods. A comparison was made to Richard’s mitochondrial DNA with those of two living cousins. Their mitochondrial DNA turned out to match the remains, supporting previously accumulated evidence indicating King Richard III's remains had been discovered. Another mystery solved by genetics were those of the Romanov bodies. In 1991, to prove that the bones in Yekaterinburg were indeed those of the last Russian Imperial family, Prince Philip, husband of Queen Elizabeth II, donated his mitochondrial DNA for comparison with the bones found and it was conclusively proven that Prince Philip’s mitochondrial DNA matched those of the bodies found. These and many other examples show how DNA testing is used to help solve what used to be believed as impossible historical mysteries.

Historical Context

While the DNA result is conclusive, a short discussion of what has been written and said about the paternity of Sergio Osmeña is needed. It must be understood that while the internet today is full of newspaper and journal articles as well as book references and blog posts that discuss the alleged fathers of Don Sergio Osmeña, the earliest biographies and write-ups on Osmeña, especially during his lifetime, did not at all mention the name of either Don Antonio Sanson or Don Pedro Gotiaoco as the possible father of Osmeña. Most of these early biographies were silent about his parentage most of the time. For instance, in a 1931 collection of biographies of prominent Filipinos, neither Sergio’s father nor mother was mentioned in his biographical sketch. A US magazine’s feature article on Don Sergio in 1944 indicates that “Osmeña, who recently became the second president of the Philippine Commonwealth…refuses to discuss his father or mother or his early home life”. Even books after Don Sergio’s death in 1961 were still mostly silent on his father’s identity, one in 1967 simply skating over his early years without mentioning a mother or alleged father and another in 1976 saying “it was Juana Osmeña y Suico who was the mother of Sergio Osmeña; the father was unknown”. 

The earliest reference to Antonio Sanson (Courtesy of @Cebuanogenealogy)

Despite all the mystery surrounding his father’s identity, two names did come out as his possible fathers. The first, and the earliest name to be associated with Osmeña, was Don Antonio Sanson of the prominent Sanson clan of Parian. He was briefly mentioned in a Progress newspaper article written by Vicente Sotto in 1934 as the father of Osmeña. Being the political rival of Osmeña, Sotto probably wanted to humiliate Osmeña by mentioning Sanson since he was much older than Juana Osmeña and was already married with at least one child. In 1961, a monograph mentioned that “the most convincing evidence to date suggests that his (Osmeña’s) father was a prominent and wealthy man from the city of Cebu who owned extensive land holdings in the northeastern municipality of Borbon named Antonio Sanson. Since Sanson was already a married man, it was not possible for him to establish a legitimate bond with Osmeña’s mother.” The name of Sanson being Osmeña’s father, for some reason, started to be mentioned less and less especially after Osmeña’s death in 1961, and another name, Pedro Singson Gotiaoco, became the more accepted identity of Sergio’s father.

An early mention of Don Pedro Gotiaoco being Don Sergio’s father was in the 1992 “She-wu Hua-shang Ching-ying”, a Chinese version of Forbes magazine, which indicated that “Gotiaoco’s second wife is said to be the mother of one of the country’s most honored senior politicians, Sergio Osmena, Sr... While there are expressed doubts regarding the authenticity of Osmena’s biological relations to Gotiaoco, there is no evidence available to prove the contrary. The 10th volume of a collection of Jinjiang historical documents published by the Fujian Political Association, however, indicates that Sergio Osmena’s Chinese name is given as Go Si Bin.” This is interesting because the supposed Chinese name of Sergio Osmeña indicated him as a fourth son (si) which tallies with the known fact that Pedro Gotiaoco had three sons with his Chinese wife. 

Over the years, more and more articles have been written supporting the Gotiaoco paternity rather than Sanson’s, and in fact, President Osmeña’s official Wikipedia entry indicates that his father was Gotiaoco, and his master profile on the online genealogy site Geni.com also indicates that Gotiaoco was his father. One of the country’s leading Chinese writers and social historians, Wilson Lee Flores, wrote in 2010 that “the father of the late incorruptible and good President Sergio Osmeña, Sr. was the 19th-century rags-to-riches Chinese immigrant tycoon, philanthropist, and Cebu Chinese community leader Don Pedro Lee Gotiaoco”. Some circumstantial evidence provided in support of Gotiaoco’s paternity, as discussed in National Artist for Literature Dr. Resil B. Mojares’s Book of Go: The Gotiaoco-Gotianuy-Go Family of Cebu, included the lore that “Pedro Gotiaoco and Juana Osmeña knew each other since they lived in the same block”,  “Juana used to buy oil and matches from Pedro; Pedro patronized the bakery and gaming parlor Juana's mother, Paula Suico, operated out of their home”, “Pedro and Juana were often seen going out on paseos”, and that Gotiaoco helped pay for Sergio Osmeña's education at Seminario-Colegio de San Carlos and Universidad de Santo Tomas.”

Despite all the articles about Gotiaoco being Don Sergio’s more probable father, American historian Michael Cullinane, who has been studying primary documents from Cebu as well as other documents and sources, and who has conducted countless interviews with members of Cebu’s old families, insists that Antonio Sanson was the more logical candidate as Don Sergio’s father. As cited by John T. Sidel in his 1995 book, “Cullinane, in published writings and personal communications with the author, expressed doubt about the veracity of these claims (that Gotiaoco was Don Sergio’s father), noting evidence that suggests that the real father of Sergio Osmeña Sr. was another Chinese merchant, and that the putative kinship ties between the Osmeñas and Gotiaocos were convenient bases for a long-lasting business-cum-political alliance between the families.” Cullinane in 1999 offered both the names of Gotiaoco and Sanson as possible fathers of Osmeña; in the body of the book Cullinane mentioned that Don Sergio took refuge in Borbon, one of Cebu’s northern towns on the east coast, where his alleged father, Antonio Sanson, had lived. He further conclusively wrote in 2015 that Sergio Osmeña was the illegitimate son of Antonio Sanson and in his 2022 The Chinese Mestizos of Cebu City (1750–1900), he placed Antonio Sanson’s name as Sergio’s father in the family tree illustration at the end of the book.

DNA Testing and Sergio Osmeña’s True Father

Annie Osmeña Aboitiz and Marilou Enriquez Bernardo, a granddaughter and great-granddaughter of Sergio Osmeña, commissioned a DNA test in 2023 to finally have a definitive answer to Osmeña’s paternity. Using the company EasyDNA, a Y-Chromosome test was utilized to determine Osmeña’s paternity. The Y chromosome test is used to explore ancestry in the direct male line, and only individuals with a Y chromosome (males) can have this type of testing done. The Y-DNA test, otherwise called the Y chromosome DNA test, is a male-specific genealogical DNA test used for exploring a man’s patrilineal or direct father’s-line ancestry.  What this means to prove the paternity of Don Sergio Osmeña is this: if we can compare the Y-DNA of a direct male-line descendant of Don Sergio with the Y-DNA of direct male-line descendants of both the Gotiaoco and Sanson families, then we will finally have scientific and definitive proof of who Don Sergio’s father was.

Both the donors for the Osmeña and Gotiaoco DNA are grandsons of our main subjects Sergio Osmeña, Sr., and his alleged father #1, Don Pedro Gotiaoco. Unfortunately for the Sanson DNA, while Don Antonio Sanson was known to have at least three wives, he only had one child, a daughter. However, as long as the sample comes from the same paternal lineage, such as any male-line direct descendant of Don Antonio Sanson’s brothers or male cousins, then this sample could still be used to compare against the Osmeña DNA. Because we do not know of any male siblings of Don Antonio Sanson, we went up one generation higher to Don Antonio Sanson’s father’s brother, Ambrosio Climaco de Sanson, whose direct male-line descendant, Ronnie Sanson, gave his DNA. 

Result 1: Y-STR Comparison Report between Osmeña and Gotiaoco DNA

When comparing the 23 markers of the Osmeña DNA with those of the Gotiaoco DNA, the results indicate that they only matched in nine (9) out of the 23 markers, clearly a non-genetic connection in the paternal line and excluding them from coming from the same male line.

Result 2: Y-STR Comparison Report between Osmeña and Sanson DNA

The comparison of the 23 markers of the Osmeña DNA and those of the Sanson DNA clearly indicates a 100% match in all markers. Thus, genetically, Don Sergio’s descendants and the Sansons cannot be excluded from being of the same male lineage. Sergio Osmeña’s descendants have a 99.982% chance of being patrilineally related to the Sansons. The 100% match of the 23 markers also clearly indicates that the Osmeñas and Sansons are closely related in the patriline and share a more recent common ancestor (MRCA) within 3-5 generations.

The fact that all 23 Y-STRs of the Osmeña DNA matched the 23 Y-STRs of the Sanson DNA conclusively proves a shared descent from the same male line. And since one of Sergio Osmeña’s alleged fathers was Don Antonio Sanson, we can now safely and scientifically conclude, supported by historical documents and various oral histories, that the true father of President Sergio Osmeña was Don Antonio Sanson.

One June 2, 2023, a press conference was conducted sponsored by the Osmeña family to announce the identity of Sergio’s father. A short presentation was made by this author, and the results were revealed. It has taken 145 years, but finally President Sergio Osmeña’s dying wish of acknowledging his father by revealing his identity has finally been fulfilled.

Watch the 3-part video of the full revelation of President Osmena's true father:

From Africa's Adam to Argao: The Genetic History of the Lucero Family

Finally, my genetic genealogy report, at least for one of the possible thousands of my ancestral lines, has become available. Thanks to my mother's older brother, my uncle Dario in the US, I am now able to chart the journey of my Lucero ancestry through the male line. Or in the case of genetics, using the Y-chromosome.

I wanted to trace my Lucero genes first because, personally, I have always been more attached to my maternal family. And since my Lucero ancestry is maternal, I had to make use of an uncle to provide the sample for genetic testing as the Y-chromosome, if we remember our basic genetics class in college, is passed through the male line only. Thus, my Lucero grandfather, Jesus Birondo Lucero, passed on his Lucero Y-chromosomes to all my mom's brothers but not to his daughters, which include my mom. Finally, since among all my familial lines it is the Lucero history that I have fully documented so it has become obvious which line I should begin with.

The Lucero history spans several generatiions, and I am in the 9th generation if I count from the oldest historically verifiable ancestor we have, while I am in the 12th generation if I add the three ancestors that are purely based on oral history. US social historian Michael Cullinane, who has read my history of the Luceros, has always insisted that the Lucero Hispanic line is paternal, while I have always subscribed to the family lore that it is maternal. Here is what I know of my Lucero ancestry:

I am the son of Fely D. Lucero, who is the daughter of Jesus Birondo Lucero, whose father was Isidro Ceballos Lucero, whose father was Bonifacio Jose Bayot Lucero, whose father was Jose Francisco Cabrera Lucero, whose father was Justiniano Francisco de Sta. Cruz Lucero, whose father, Hermenegildo Francisco Lucero, was the son of Francisca Yldefonza. The only record that shows the farthest traceable Lucero is the death certificate of Justiniano's sister Mauricia Francisca Lucero vda. de Taguenca-Cabrera where Francisca Yldefonza is listed. No surname is given and the husband is written off as padre de noconocido (father not known).

Family lore has always claimed that Francisca Yldefonza was a Lucero who married an indio principalia and thus passed on her surname to her descendants. Indeed, at least 4 documents show that the Lucero surname has existed in Argao years prior to the Claveria surname decree of 1849, a clear indication that the Lucero name, at least in the town of Argao, is a last name that has been passed down and was not adopted based on the surname decree.

Because of these I have always believed in the family legend, and now that I have the result of our genetic genealogy I can now say with certainty that Francisca Yldefonza's husband was not Spanish at the very least. 

The journey of my genetic heritage, from Africa to China, then later down to the Philippines

Whatever the name of Francisca Yldefonza's husband, he was descended from a long line of males belonging to the Austronesian family. The genetic history of this unnamed husband of my ancestor is traced from the earliest known ancestor, back to a "genetic Y-chromosome Adam" who probably lived in Africa. Although he is given the name "Adam", he was not the only man at that time but this genetic Adam was the only one among the other males whose Y-chromosome has been passed down to all of mankind today. He was also not the first man and in fact geneticists believe that even this Adam had his own ancestors, only that we no longer have any way to trace the genetic lineage beyond this genetic Adam. From this genetic Adam I can trace my ancestry down to the modern times through several Y-chromosome markers.  These are:

M168 > P143 > M89 > L15 > M9 > M214 > M175

A marker, simply put, is a random, naturally occurring, usually harmless mutation in the Y-chromosome, making one branch of a genetic family tree unique from the rest. Because the Y-chromosome remains virtually unchanged through many generations then these markers can be traced easily as they, too, are passed from father to son.

M168, also known as the Eurasian Adam, lived in northeast Africa in the region of the Rift Valley, perhaps in present-day Ethiopia, Kenya, or Tanzania, some 31,000 to 79,000 years ago. It is generally accepted that this first man who gave rise to the M168 marker lived about 50,000 years ago. He is called the Eurasian Adam because all modern males today who are not African descend from him.

Then about 5,000 years later one of Eurasian Adam's male descendants gave rise to the M89 marker, a marker which is present in 90 to 95% of all non-African males. This person lived somewhere in Northern Africa or the Middle East, and aside from stone tools people were already using wooden and ivory tools. 

My next ancestor, a man born around 40,000 years ago in Iran or southern Central Asia, gave rise to the M9 genetic marker which marked a new lineage diverging from the M89 Middle Eastern Clan. His descendants, of which I am one, spent the next 30,000 years populating much of the planet. This was already during the Upper Paleolithic era.

And then, about another 5,000 years after the birth of my M9 ancestor, a descendant gave rise to the M214 marker. This man was born and lived in Eurasia, likely east of the Aral Sea, and was most likely a hunter-gatherer. This man carrying M214 has become the direct patrilineal ancestor of a very large percentage of present-day humans.

Then finally, about 35,000 years ago my most recent ancestor, the one who gave rise to the the haplogroup O or the genetic marker M175, was born somewhere in Southeast or East Asia. This guy lived during the Ice Age and as I was reading the report by National Geographic's Genographic Project I can distinctly recall my history 1 lesson where a discussion was made about waves of migrants who crossed land bridges to the Philippines but were later unable to return home as these bridges melted or were submerged with water. One of them was my male-line ancestor, whose line continued on until it reached the coastal town of Argao, Cebu, and in the early 1700s one of their descendants married a Hispanic woman, Francisca Yldefonza Lucero, whose son Hermenegildo Jose Lucero married Florencia Visenta de Sta. Cruz and had a son, Justiniano Francisco Lucero, who married Casimira Manuela Hernaez Cabrerz, who were the parents of Jose Francisco Lucero, who married Ambrosia Villarde Bayot and had Bonifacio Jose Lucero, who married Severina Tiburciana Ceballos and who produced Isidro Ceballos Lucero, who married Anacleta Tan Birondo and whose son Jesus Birondo Lucero was the father of Fely Jesus Dolloso Lucero, my mother.

As I delve deeper into my genetic genealogy I can feel the echoes of my distant ancestors cheering that I am taking the time to tell their story. I am in awe of God's obvious hand in the history of my genetic ancestry. And I am further convinced that the wars and conflicts in the world are pointless as we all come from the same line. 

I can't wait to do genetic testing on my other lines soon!