[3][4] Palanca was born on June 6, 1844, named in Hokkien Chinese: 陳謙善; Pe̍h-ōe-jī: Tân Khiam-siān (later romanized in Spanish Philippines as "Tan Quien Sien") in Tong'an (同安; Tâng-oaⁿ), Amoy, Fukien, Qing China.

Later, he converted to Roman Catholicism in the 1860s and adopted his non-Chinese name from an influential padrino (godfather), Colonel Carlos Palanca y Gutierrez of the Spanish colonial army.

[2] Years later, he would become a successful businessman and an established political figure in the local Chinese community of Binondo, Manila.

[10] Wilson (2004) also asserts this, that Rizal portrayed the character of Quiroga the Chinaman as a tacky and duplicitous opportunist, as a form of critique on Carlos Palanca's political and economic influence.

Also due to the recent death of Carlos' wife around 1899, his son decided to step down as consul-general by March 1899 to observe a period of mourning.

[2] Carlos Palanca Tan Guin Lay, a successful influential Chinese Filipino businessman during the American colonial era, would ascribe him as his godfather using his name too and later started the La Tondeña Distillery in Manila by 1902,[5][2] which later became part of San Miguel Corporation (SMC) and was renamed as Ginebra San Miguel in 2003.