President MANUEL LUIS QUEZON: Message to the People of the Philippines | Circa 1920s

• Report rights infringement
• published: 12 Dec 2010
• views: 103832

A PilipinasMabuhay100 exclusive: President MANUEL LUIS QUEZON, Second President of the Philippines (First President of the Philippine Commonwealth --- 1935-1944), in a speech broadcast to the Filipino People in the mid-1920s. A RARE RECORDING: According to President Quezon's grandson, Manuel "Manolo" L. Quezon III, Undersecretary for the Presidential Communications Operations Office under incumbent Philippine President Benigno Aquino III, this speech was delivered by Quezon, then serving both as Senator of the Philippines and President of the Senate, after he was diagnosed with tuberculosis and "assumed that he didn't have much longer to live". Quezon first entered politics as a local councillor and Governor of the Province of Tayabas, eventually representing the 1st congressional district of Tayabas in the National Assembly (later known as the House of Representatives, of which he would be elected Majority Leader). He was appointed as one of the Philippines' two resident commissioners to the US House of Representatives, serving from 1909-16. Quezon would return to Manila to be elected as a member of the Senate, representing the 5th Senatorial District. He was then elected as the first President of the Senate of the Philippines. Quezon won the Philippines' first national presidential election as the Nacionalista presidential nominee in 1935 --- he was elected in a landslide victory, garnering 68% of the popular vote, defeating Emilio Aguinaldo, who is considered the first president of the Philippines. He took his oath as the first President of the Commonwealth of the Philippines on 15 November 1935. During his tenure, President Quezon led the Philippines on its first steps towards full independence. He painstakingly established a government-in-exile in the United States during the Japanese occupation of the Philippines and lifted up the morale of the Filipino People in the midst of war through his frequent radio broadcasts. Just as war was brewing, the Constitution of the Commonwealth of the Philippines was amended, changing the terms of president and vice president from six years to four years with the possibility of re-election. Quezon won a second term, again by a landslide, in the 1941 presidential election, garnering 82% of the popular vote. With Quezon and Osmeña winning every single province in the Philippines, the Nacionalistas captured all twenty-four seats in the Senate, the first and last time that the upper chamber of Congress was swept by a single political party. Bar three seats, all members of the House of Representatives were Nacionalistas. As a result of the ongoing war, the US Congress extended both the terms of Quezon and Osmeña in 1943, four years after their historic re-election. His former colleague in the Senate, Jose Paciano Laurel, would be tasked by the occupying Japanese forces to form a separate government, assuming the top helm as president of the Japanese-sponsored administration --- the Philippines effectively had two presidents during the Second World War. Quezon would never live to see the liberation of the country he dearly loved. President Quezon died of tuberculosis in Saranac Lake, New York on 1 August 1944. Vice President Sergio S. Osmeña took his oath as President of the Commonwealth of the Philippines that same day. In a historic landing on the shores of Leyte island, President Osmeña returned to the Philippines with General Douglas MacArthur and American and Filipino liberation forces two months later --- the Battle of the Philippines soon commenced, beginning the long, difficult war to free the country from Japanese control. By 15 August 1945, with the surrender of Japanese forces, the liberation of the Philippines was complete. Two years later, Quezon's dream would be realized at last --- the Republic of the Philippines was finally inaugurated as a sovereign, independent and democratic nation on 4 July 1946, with Manuel Acuña Roxas as the newly-elected President of the Philippines. "I would rather have a country run like hell by Filipinos than a country run like heaven by the Americans, because however bad a Filipino government might be, we can always change it." ----Manuel Luis Quezon | 1878 - 1944 ----------------------------------------------- *INFO COMPILED by PilipinasMabuhay100. *Presidential Communications Operations Office Undersecretary (and grandson of President Quezon), Manuel "Manolo" Quezon III, has approved the broadcast of this remarkable speech.* *For more info on the history of Philippine presidential elections, please download the newly-published work "Philippine Electoral Alamanac", by the Presidential Communications Development and Strategic Planning Office: pcdspo.gov.ph/pub/uploads/Electoral-Almanac.pdf *Special thanks to our dear friend, NinoyAquinoTV, for all the help.*