Vicente Gregorio Baltazar Lava Sr. was born on December 24, 1894, in Bulakan, Philippines, at the end of the Spanish colonial period.

[2] In 1929, Lava returned to the United States, where he worked at Oberlin College in Ohio on a Grasselli research fellowship, conducting studies on Vitamin B.

[1] According to Lava in an unpublished article submitted to Pacific Affairs entitled The Democratic Movement in the Philippines, "together, the merged parties [had] acquired considerable influence among the peasantry of central and southern Luzon and among the workers of Manila and other cities.

[3] In December 1941, as the Japanese struck Pearl Harbor, a simultaneous strike occurred at Clark Air Base in the Philippines.

That month, the Communist Party, with the help of Lava, prepared a 12-point memorandum urging national unity and resistance against the Japanese, and pledging loyalty to the Philippines and United States.

[3][7] In February 1942, the leaders of the Communist Party were arrested during the Japanese invasion of the Philippines, leaving Vicente Lava as the new general secretary.

[4][7] A few months prior to the outbreak of the war, the Japanese offered Lava a sum of ₱1 million for his patented coconut process, but he refused to sell it, believing that it should only be used to advance Philippine industry.

Although Lava hoped to obtain equipment for his coconut process from the United States, he died of heart disease in Manila on September 16, 1947.