Assassination
On the morning of April 28, 1949, Quezón left her home to travel to her husband's hometown of Baler to open the Quezon Memorial Hospital. She had been cautioned about this trip beforehand due to the frequent insurgency activities in Central Luzon of the Hukbalahap, the military arm of the Communist Party of the Philippines. She shrugged off the threat, remarking on the morning of the trip, " Taruc knows my white hair and he will not hurt me." Nonetheless, a convoy of thirteen vehicles, including two military jeeps full of armed soldiers, accompanied Quezón. Together with Quezon in her Buick sedan was her daughter "Baby", then a law student at the University of Santo Tomas, her son-in-law Felipe "Philip" Buencamino, Quezon City mayor Ponciano Bernardo, and retired Armed Forces Chief of Staff Major General Rafael Jalandoni.
They traveled along the Baler-Bongabon Road connecting Baler with Nueva Ecija, which Quezón herself inaugurated in 1940. At Quezón's request, her vehicle led the caravan, and it soon sped away from the military jeep immediately behind it. As Quezón's vehicle traversed the mountain road, it was blocked by a group of armed men. The men ignored the protestations from General Jalandoni and Mayor Bernardo that Quezón was in the vehicle, and machine-gunfire erupted from the side of the road and from the mountain slopes. It was later estimated that between 100 to 200 armed men had participated in the attack. Mrs. Quezón, her daughter, and Bernardo were killed instantly, while her son-in-law was mortally wounded. The soldiers in the convoy arrived immediately at the scene and exchanged fire with the assailants, who were able to seize the valuables of the victims before fleeing the scene. In all, twelve members of the Quezon party and ten of the assailants were killed.
There was national and international condemnation of the massacre. United States President Harry Truman was shocked and simply declared, "It was awful." A nine-day national mourning period was declared, and President Elpidio Quirino openly wept during the funeral. Quezón was buried at Manila North Cemetery. The mourners included her two surviving children, Manuel, Jr., and Nini, who herself was widowed by the massacre. While no Philippine President has ever been assassinated, Aurora Quezón is one of three presidential spouses who have been murdered. The other two were Alicia Syquia-Quirino and Senator Benigno Aquino, Jr.
It was widely believed that the Hukbalahap was responsible for the killings. In preparation of the attack, the ambuscaders had blockaded the road and rounded up passengers from passing vehicles, and one of those passengers claimed seeing a former employee of his who had joined the Huk as among the armed men. While General Jalandoni, who survived the attack, tagged the Huks as responsible, the Chief of the Philippine Constabulary laid blame instead on bandits. President Quirino blamed the Huks and responded by calling for "a people's war on the dissidents".
Luis Taruc, Supremo of the Hukbalahap, denied that his group was responsible for the crime, though he also claimed that the Huk were conducting an investigation of their own if one of the group had breached ranks and participated in the killing. Nonetheless, after Taruc's surrender in 1954, he was formally charged for the murder of Quezón and her party; these charges would be dropped before they could be heard on trial. Throughout the 1950s, several other captured Huk members would be charged for participation in the assassination, with five of them being sentenced to death by a Cabanatuan City trial court.
On April 28, 2005, exactly fifty-six years after her death, the remains of Quezón were transferred from North Cemetery for interment in a black crypt beside her husband's sarcophagus at the Quezon Memorial in Quezon City. The re-interment rites were attended by President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and the Quezóns' sole surviving child, Zenaida Quezón-Avanceña.
Read more about this topic: Aurora Quezon