19/08/2022
Today in Philippine History
AUGUST 19, 1878
MANUEL LUIS QUEZON (y Molina), the First Filipino President of the Commonwealth of the Philippines, and officially considered the Second President of the Philippines (after Emilio Aguinaldo, from 1935-1944) was born on this day in Baler, Tayabas (now renamed Aurora).
Quezon was the first Senate president elected to the presidency, the first president elected through a national election, and the first incumbent to secure re-election (for a partial second term, later extended, due to amendments to the 1935 Constitution).
For pushing Commonwealth Act No. 184 that established the National Language Institute and a consequent Philippine national language, advocating Filipino-language amendments to the 1935 Constitution, Quezon has been tagged as his country's "Father of the National Language".
Quezon is also called the “Father of Philippine Independence” for his efforts in pushing for the independence of the Philippines from American rule.
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Quezon was born to Spanish-Mestizos Lucio Quezon and Maria Dolores Molina, both schoolteachers. He was privately tutored and received most of his primary education from the public school established by the Spanish government in his village, as part of the establishment of the free public education system in the Philippines. Afterwards, he boarded at Colegio de San Juan de Letrán where he finished secondary school in 1889. However, his mother died of tuberculosis in 1893, before he graduated 'summa cm laude' with a Bachelor of Arts degree at the University of Sto. Tomás (UST) in 1894. In 1898, his father Lucio and brother Pedro were ambushed and killed by armed men while on their way home to Baler from Nueva Écija, because of their loyalty to the Spanish government.
Quezón’s law studies at UST were cut short by the Philippine-American War, where he joined the Philippine Revolutionary forces and later served as aide-de-camp to Emilio Aguinaldo from 1899 until Aguinaldo’s capture in 1901. After the war, he completed his law studies at UST and placed fourth at the 1903 Bar Exams. He then worked for a time as a clerk and surveyor, before entering government service as an appointed fiscal for Mindoro on September 19, 1903, and later becoming fiscal of Tayabas in March 1904, where he filed 25 cases for estafa against Frank J. Berry, an influential American lawyer and publisher. However, he resigned as fiscal of Tayabas in November 1904 and instead went into private practice from 1904 to 1906.
On July 13, 1906, the Supreme Court found in the case of U.S. vs. Querijero (G.R. No. L-2626) that at the time Quezon's father and brother were killed the perpetrators were “soldiers in the insurrection against Spain and that it was committed by order of a superior officer and for the purposes of the revolution”.
POLITICAL CAREER. In 1906, Quezon was elected councilor and later became Governor of Tayabas. On July 25, 1907, however, he resigned as Governor and ran for the Philippine Assembly. From 1907 to 1909, he was a Member of the Philippine Assembly, as well as Majority Floor Leader and Chairman of the Appropriations Committee. In 1909 he was elected by the Philippine Legislature to serve as the resident commissioner to the United States Congress.
As resident commissioner, Quezon could be heard but not vote during deliberations of the U.S. Congress. Even then, he was outspoken in advocating the Philippine bid for independence.
After a speech at Tammany Hall for the American Fourth of July in 1911, Quezon told the New York Times,
“We are grateful to Mr Taft and to the American people for what they have done but we don’t want to be colonised. We want our freedom.” (New York Times, July 1911 edition)
In response to the NY Times article “Philippines the Key to our Success in the Far East”, Quezón again told the Times (as printed in their September 15, 1912 edition):
”It is time for those who look upon the Philippines as a business enterprise to come out and say so frankly when they are advocating the retention of the islands, instead of covering their real purpose with the arguments, insulting to the national pride of the Filipino people, that ‘the United States is in the Philippines, not for territorial expansion, not for commercial gain, but to supply the islands with a benevolent and wise Government, that the Filipinos are incapable of establishing and maintaining from within.”
Quezón warned that the Filipinos only accepted American rule with the understanding that they will be given their full independence in time, and if the Filipinos became convinced that America intended to remain permanently, they would “make it a very expensive task for the American Government to govern the islands, and a serious menace to the success of American enterprises.” (New York Times, September 1912 edition)
In 1916, Quezón brought home the Jones Law, which promised recognition of the independence of the Filipino people.
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SENATOR. Manuel L. Quezon was elected senator for the 5th Senatorial District in 1916 and became Senate President, serving continuously until 1935, for a total of 19 years.
On December 9, 1918, he sailed for the United States as the head of the first Independence Mission to the U.S. Congress, marrying his first cousin, Aurora Aragon y Molina, along the way in Hongkong on December 17. They had four children: María Aurora (“Baby”, 1919-1949); Maria Zeneida (“Nini”, 1921- ); Luisa Corazón Paz ("Nenita", b. and d. 1923); and Manuel L., Jr. (“Nonong”, 1926-1998).
On May 10, 1920, Quezon delivered his maiden speech in front of the U.S. Congress, containing, among others, the lines "Despite it all, we still want independence", "Moreover, large investments of American capital in the Philippines will result in the permanent retention of the Philippines by the US", and "If the pre-ordained fate of my country is either to be subject people but rich, or free but poor, I am unqualifiedly for the latter".
In 1922, Quezon challenged what he described as Speaker Sergio Osmeña's "unipersonal leadership" as opposed to "collective leadership", which he advocated. On February 24, 1922, Quezon broke with then Speaker Sergio Osmeña and the Nacionalista Party, stating: "The party never has been and never will be the people. My loyalty to my party ends where my loyalty to my country begins." He won that struggle to remain as Senate President, with Osmeña becoming Senate President Pro Tempore. (Nacionalista Party website, History of the Nacionalista Party)
Following the election of Warren Harding as President of the U.S.A. in 1920, Francis Burton Harrison was replaced by Leonard Wood as Governor-General of the Philippines. As Governor-General, Wood implemented policies which were considered by the Filipinos to be harsh. In 1923, during the campaign period for the special election for the fourth senatorial district (then comprising Manila and the nearby provinces) Interior Secretary José P. Laurel resigned to protest Wood's interference in his department. The opposition party, 'Partido Democrata', pledged cooperation with Wood. Quezon called the Partido Democrata "Americanistas", saying that a vote for their candidate was a vote against Philippine independence, and further stated: "I prefer a country run like hell by Filipinos to a country run like heaven by Americans, because however bad a Filipino government might be, we can always change it.”
In 1931, however, the OsRox mission headed by Sergio Osmeña and Manuel Roxas went to the United States to lobby for independence and brought home the Hare-Hawes-Cutting Act. Quezon vehemently opposed this act because it provided that American military bases would still stay in the Philippines even after independence. Although the Hare-Hawes-Cutting Act had already been approved by the U.S. Congress, the Philippine Legislature rejected it in October 1933. In November 1933, Quezon was on his way back to Washington. In 1934, he brought home the Tydings-McDuffie Act, which did not provide for the retention of the American military bases, and it was approved by the Philippine Legislature.
On July 30, 1934, the Constitutional Convention formally opened and on May 14, 1935 the 1935 Constitution was ratified.
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PRESIDENCY. Quezon ran in the Philippines' first presidential election held in November 1935 and won against former revolutionary president Emilio Aguinaldo (whom he had formerly served as aide-de-camp) and Bishop Gregorio Aglipay.
During his first term, Quezon, in cooperation with United States High Commissioner Paul V. McNutt, facilitated the entry into the Philippines of Jewish refugees fleeing fascist regimes in Europe. (Escape to Manila by Frank Ephraim, Book about Jewish refugees finding sanctuary in the Philippines) Quezon was also instrumental in promoting a project to resettle the refugees in Mindanao.
From 1901 to 1935, although a Filipino was always appointed chief justice, the majority of the members of the Supreme Court had always been Americans. Complete Filipinisation was achieved only with the establishment of the Commonwealth of the Philippines in 1935 when Quezon, as President, was given the power to appoint the first all-Filipino Supreme Court of the Philippines. Claro M. Recto and Jose P. Laurel were among Quezón's first appointees to replace the American justices. The membership in the Supreme Court increased to 11, a chief justice and ten associate justices, who sat either 'en banc' or in two divisions of five members each.
In 1935, former United States Chief of Staff General Douglas MacArthur, whom Quezon had known for many years, returned to the Philippines as military advisor for the Philippine Commonwealth, tasked with evolving a national defense plan and organizing and training a Philippine Army. When MacArthur retired from the U.S. Army in 1937, Quezon offered him the position of Field Marshal.
In 1936, Quezon issued E.O. No. 23 prescribing the technical description and specification of the Flag of the Philippines.
In January 1937, Quezon created the Institute of National Language with the view of creating a common national language for the Filipinos. In November 1937, the Institute recommended the adoption of Tagalog as the national language ("Wikang Pambansa"). On December 30, 1939, Quezon proclaimed Tagalog as the Philippine national language, and in June 1940, ordered that it be taught as a subject in schools.
Quezon championed social justice; one of his best-known statements is: "Social Justice is far more beneficial when applied as a matter of sentiment, and not of law.". In 1937, he signed the first minimum wage law in the Philippines. Women also voted for the first time in a plebiscite on women's suffrage.
On October 12, 1939, Quezon signed Commonwealth Act 502, creating a city located at Diliman, just outside of Manila. The city, which he had founded and developed to become the nation's capital, would be named after him – Quezon City ('Ciudad Quezon').
Quezon's original six-year term was extended by constitutional amendment, allowing him to serve two additional years for a total of eight. He was reelected in November, 1941.
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WORLD WAR II and GOVERNMENT IN EXILE. On December 8, 1941, when Quezon had just been recently reelected as President, Japan launched an aerial attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, followed with aerial attacks on various other American installations in the Philippines. When Japan invaded, Quezon evacuated to Corregidor, where he was sworn in for his second term as President on December 30, 1941, in front of Malinta Tunnel (term extended by Act of U.S. Congress, November 15, 1943). The next month, Quezon was forced to flee Corregidor to go to the Visayas via submarine, and from there to Mindanao. Upon the invitation of the US government, he was further evacuated to Australia and then to the United States, where he established the Commonwealth government in exile with headquarters in Washington, D.C. There, he served as a member of the Pacific War Council and wrote his autobiography (The Good Fight, 1946).
On June 14, 1942 at the White House in Washington, D.C., Quezon signed the United Nations Declaration on behalf of the Philippines. For the first time, the flag of the Philippines was raised alongside that of other nations, and, although still a Commonwealth, the Philippines was given an international personality in anticipation of its eventual independence.
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DEATH. President Manuel Quezon suffered from tuberculosis and died on August 1, 1944 in Saranac Lake, New York. He was initially buried in Arlington National Cemetery in the United States of America before his body was transferred by the USS Princeton to Manila and brought at the Manila North Cemetery on July 17, 1946.
He was moved to his final resting place at the Quezon City Monument in Quezon Memorial Circle on August 19, 1979. The epitaph on his tomb reads: "Statesman and Patriot, Lover of Freedom, Advocate of Social Justice, Beloved of his People."
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LEGACY. On September 23, 1955, President Ramon Magsaysay declared August 13 to 19 of every year to be "Linggo ng Wika" (National Language Week), the celebrations culminating on the birthday of Quezon, the man who first pushed for the creation of a Filipino national language.
In 1989, President Corazon Aquino signed and approved Republic Act No. 6741 that commemorates the birth of former President Manuel L. Quezon which is now officially known as Quezon City Day. Every 19th of August will be declared a special nonworking public holiday in Quezon City, Provinces of Quezon and Aurora while a special working holiday is declared throughout the Philippines.
On January 15, 1997, President Fidel V. Ramos declared the whole month of August to be National Language Month.
On April 28, 2005, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo had the remains of Aurora Aragon Quezon, who had been killed in an ambush on the Bongabon road in Nueva Ecija on April 28, 1949, re-interred at the Quezon Memorial beside that of her husband, President Manuel L. Quezon.
Quezon City, Quezon Province, Quezon Bridge in Manila and the Manuel L. Quezon University, and many streets are named after him. The highest honor conferred by the Republic of the Philippines is the Quezon Service Cross. He is also memorialized on Philippine currency, appearing on the Philippine twenty peso bill. He also appears on two commemorative one peso coins, one alongside Frank Murphy and another withFranklin Delano Roosevelt.
The "Open Doors" is a holocaust memorial in Rishon LeZion, Israel. Its is a 7 meter high sculpture designed by Filipino artist Luis Lee Jr. and erected in honor and thanks to President Manuel Quezon and the Filipinos who saved over 1,200 Jews from N**i Germany.
·— researched by on August 19, 2016 —·
info sources:
*Wikipilipinas
*senate.gov.ph
*encyclopedia.com
*Wikipedia
*quezoncity.com
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