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Manuel L. Quezon Quotes

Manuel Luis Quezon y Molina was a Filipino statesman, soldier and politician who served as president of the Commonwealth of the Philippines from 1935 to 1944. He was the first Filipino to head a government of the entire Philippines , and is considered to have been the second president of the Philippines, after Emilio Aguinaldo .

During his presidency, Quezon tackled the problem of landless peasants in the countryside. His other major decisions include the reorganization of the islands' military defense, approval of a recommendation for government reorganization, the promotion of settlement and development in Mindanao, dealing with the foreign stranglehold on Philippine trade and commerce, proposals for land reform, and opposing graft and corruption within the government. He established a government-in-exile in the U.S. with the outbreak of the war and the threat of Japanese invasion.

It was during his exile in the U.S. that he died of tuberculosis at Saranac Lake, New York. He was buried in the Arlington National Cemetery until the end of World War II, when his remains were moved to Manila. His final resting place is the Quezon Memorial Circle.

In 2015, the Board of the International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation approved a posthumous bestowal of the Wallenberg Medal upon President Quezon and to the people of the Philippines for having reached out, between 1937 and 1941, to the victims of the Holocaust. President Benigno Aquino III and then-94-year-old Maria Zenaida Quezon Avanceña, the daughter of the former president, were informed of this recognition. Wikipedia  

✵ 19. August 1878 – 1. August 1944
Manuel L. Quezon photo
Manuel L. Quezon: 3 quotes9 likes

Famous Manuel L. Quezon Quotes

“My loyalty to my party ends where my loyalty to my country begins.”

Manuel L. Quezon

As quoted in John Gunther's Inside Asia. (1939)

“I would rather have a government run like hell by Filipinos than a government run like heaven by any foreigner.”

Manuel L. Quezon

Speech on Civil Liberties http://www.officialgazette.gov.ph/1939/12/09/speech-of-president-quezon-on-civil-liberties-december-9-1939/, delivered on the occasion of the interuniversity oratorical contest held under the auspices of the Civil Liberties Union at the Ateneo auditorium, Manila, on December 9, 1939 <br class="br">Variant: I would rather have a government run like hell by Filipinos than a government run like heaven by Americans <br class="br">Context: It is true, and I am proud of it, that I once said, “I would rather have a government run like hell by Filipinos than a government run like heaven by Americans.” I want to tell you that I have, in my life, made no other remark which went around the world but that. There had been no paper in the United States, including a village paper, which did not print that statement, and I also had seen it printed in many newspapers in Europe. I would rather have a government run like hell by Filipinos than a government run like heaven by any foreigner. I said that once; I say it again, and I will always say it as long as I live.

“The Latin American people believed and feel that we Filipinos form past of that vast family, the children of Spain. Thus, although Spain ceased to govern those countries many years ago and although another nation is sovereign in the Philippines, those Latin-American peoples feel themselves as brothers to the people of the Philippines. It is the Spanish language that still binds us to those peoples, and the Spanish language will bind us to those peoples eternally if we have the wisdom and patriotism of preserving it.”

Manuel L. Quezon

As quoted in Ambeth R. Ocampo's Chulalongkorn's Elephants: The Philippines in Asian History, Looking Back 4 (2011)

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