Benjamin Abalos

Abalos was born into a poor family in Pangasinan on September 21, 1934. He studied economics at Ateneo de Manila University and graduated from the Manuel L. Quezon University in 1957. Abalos was admitted to the roll of attorneys of the Supreme Court in 1958 and then into the Integrated Bar of the Philippines in 1973. Abalos supported himself through college by taking several jobs, 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 a municipality of Rizal, and lost to the scion of a political family.

He ran for Mandaluyong mayor in 1980, losing to the candidate of former President Ferdinand Marcos. In 1986, shortly after Marcos was ousted through a popular uprising, President Corazon Aquino appointed him as Officer-in-Charge (OIC) of the then municipality of Mandaluyong.

As OIC of the town, he ran for the post of mayor and won in the local elections of 1988, the first local elections under the 1987 Constitution. He was re-elected two times in the elections of 1992 and 1995, making him one of the two Aquino OIC appointees who survived and secured the constitution-mandated three consecutive terms limit for local officials. Abalos made Mandaluyong's cityhood in 1994. In 1998, Abalos ran for congressman but lost to Neptali Gonzales II.

Abalos was a former member of the Laban ng Demokratikong Pilipino later joining the then newly formed Lakas NUCD-CMD.

He married Corazon de Castro in 1960 with whom he has five children, including Benjamin Abalos Jr., the incumbent Secretary of the Interior and Local Government who also served as mayor of Mandaluyong and Metropolitan Manila Development Authority chairman.[7] His wife died on January 25, 2021, due to severe sepsis, secondary to pneumonia caused by COVID-19.[8]