MANUEL L.

QUEZON
Manuel Luis Quezón Y Molina

1. Quezon fought for passage of the Tydings–McDuffie Act (1934), which provided for full
independence for the Philippines 10 years after the creation of a constitution and the
establishment of a Commonwealth government that would be the forerunner of an
independent republic.
2. In 1909 Quezon was appointed resident commissioner for the Philippines, entitled to speak,
but not vote, in the U.S. House of Representatives; during his years in Washington, D.C.,
he fought vigorously for a speedy grant of independence by the United States.
3. After Japan invaded and occupied the Philippines in 1942, he went to the United States,
where he formed a government in exile, served as a member of the Pacific War Council,
signed the declaration of the United Nations against the Fascist nations, and wrote his
autobiography, The Good Fight (1946).
4. Quezon resigned as commissioner and returned to Manila to be elected to the newly formed
Philippine Senate in 1916; he subsequently served as its president until 1935.
5. Quezon played a major role in obtaining Congress’ passage in 1916 of the Jones Act, which
pledged independence for the Philippines without giving a specific date when it would take
effect.

POLITICAL ASPECT

 In 1935, Manuel L. Quezon headed a Filipino delegation to the US, which witnessed US
President Franklin Roosevelt signing a new constitution for the Philippines to grant it
semi-autonomous commonwealth status. Later that year, Quezon won the first national
presidential election in the Philippines. He beat Emilio Aguinaldo and Gregorio Aglipay
with 68% votes.

 He undertook an enormous social justice program which introduced a minimum wage

law, eight-hour work day, a tenancy law for the Filipino farmers in addition to
establishing the court of Industrial Relations to mediate disputes. On the agricultural
 field, he fixed many loopholes in the Rice Share Tenancy Act of 1933, allowing the
redistribution of agricultural land to tenant farmers.

 As he neared the end of his six-year term, a 1941 national plebiscite led to an amendment
in the constitution that allowed presidents to serve two four-year terms, giving Quezon
the option for reelection. In the 1941 presidential elections, he got a landslide victory,
beating former Senator Juan Sumulong with nearly 82% votes.

SOCIAL ASPECT

The keystone of Quezon’s social thought is social justice and all its implications,
including:

(a) the fair treatment of all members of society;

(b) the implementation of the social aim of wealth, which is the amelioration of man’s
living conditions;

(c) the elimination of all forms of abuse from official or private quarters;

(d) the maintenance of peace and public order; and

(e) the safeguarding of property rights and individual liberty.

ECONIMICAL ASPECT

Manuel L. Quezon made several institutions and programs to attend to the needs of
theeconomy on his term. Healthy economy is hard to establish back then because we became
independenton U.S. His effort to fix the economy was see on the Commonwealth Act No. 2 which
established theNational Economic Council, this act helps solve social imbalance, land
maldistribution, provide land tothe landless and farmers, provide housing and create an
employment to the unemployed.