Caricature of President Manuel Quezon

Second President of the Philippine Republic

First President of the the Commonwealth

1935-1944

Manuel L. Quezon, known as the "Father of the Philippine National Language", was the first Filipino president of the Commonwealth of the Philippines under U.S. rule, a Filipino-Spanish mestizo, was born on August 19, 1877 in Baler, Tayabas now found at Aurora, to Lucio Quezon and Maria Dolores Molina.

In 1906, Quezon was elected councilor and later became Governor of Tayabas. On July 25, 1907, he resigned as Governor and ran for the Philippine Assembly. He was a member of the Philippine Assembly from 1907 to 1909, as well as Majority Floor Leader and the Chairman of the Appropriations Committee. In 1909 he was elected by the Philippine Legislature to serve as the resident commissioner to the United State Congress.

Manuel L. Quezon was elected senator for the 5th Senatorial District in 1916 and became Senate President, serving continuously until 1935.

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.

On December 8, 1941, when Quezon had just been recently re-elected as President, Japan launched an aerial attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, and 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.

Quezon died of tuberculosis on August 1, 1944 in Saranac Lake, New York. He was first buried at Maine Memorial, Arlington National Cemetery, in Washington D.C. His body was later carried by the USS Princeton ( CV-37 ) and re-interred in Manila, at the Manila North Cemetery on August 1, 1946. Finally, it was moved to the Manuel Quezon Memorial Shrine, within the monument at the Quezon Memorial Circle in Quezon City in August 19, 1979.