Early Life
Abalos was born into a poor family in Pangasinan on September 21, 1935. Studied Economics at Ateneo De Manila University. A 1957 law graduate of the Manuel L. Quezon University (MLQU), Abalos claims to have supported himself through college by working as a janitor, factory worker, and a caddy at the Wack Wack Golf and Country Club.
In 1963 Abalos ran for vice mayor of Mandaluyong, which was then part of Rizal. He lost to the scion of a political family in what he alleges to have been a fraud-ridden local election.
For the next several years he served as judge. While his record as judge is not associated with any monumental legal feat, he loves talking of how he was named as outstanding judge for 10 straight years.
In the course of his career as judge, he would meet and forge a partnership with Neptali Gonzalez, an opposition leader at that time who would eventually become Senate President.
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Famous quotes related to early life:
“... goodness is of a modest nature, easily discouraged, and when much elbowed in early life by unabashed vices, is apt to retire into extreme privacy, so that it is more easily believed in by those who construct a selfish old gentleman theoretically, than by those who form the narrower judgments based on his personal acquaintance.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)