Claro Mayo Recto Jr. was a Filipino lawyer, jurist, writer, author, columnist, diplomat, and statesman who served as a senator of the Philippines from 1931 until his death in 1960. Recto was the primary author of the 1935 Philippine Constitution, one of the foremost figures in the Philippine Independence from the United States, and is remembered as the "Great Dissenter" and the "Great Academician", as a fierce opponent of U.S. neocolonialism in Asia in his later years, and a staunch Filipino nationalist throughout his career.