Early Life and Career
Quezón, was born in Baler in the district of El Príncipe (which later became Baler, Tayabas, now Baler, Aurora). His Spanish parents were Lucio Quezón and María Dolores Molina. His father was a primary grade school teacher from Paco, Manila, and also a retired Sergeant in the Spanish colonial army, while his mother was a primary grade school teacher in their hometown.
Although both his parents must have contributed to his education, he received most of his primary education from the public school established by the Spanish government in his village, as part of the establishment of the system of free public education in the Philippines, as he himself testified during his speech delivered in the House of Representatives of the United States during the discussion of Jones Bill, in 1914. He later boarded at the Colegio de San Juan de Letran where he completed secondary school.
In 1898, his father Lucio and his brother Pedro were ambushed and killed by armed men while on their way home to Baler from Nueva Ecija. Some historians believe they were murdered by bandits who also robbed their money, while others believe the killings could have been related to their loyalty to the Spanish government.
In 1899, Quezón cut short his law studies at the University of Santo Tomás in Manila, to participate in the struggle for independence against the United States, led by Emilio Aguinaldo. During the Philippine-American War he was an ayuda-de-campo to Emilio Aguinaldo. He rose to the rank of Major and fought in the Bataan sector. However, after surrendering in 1900 wherein he made his first break in the American press, Quezón returned to the university and passed the bar examinations in 1903, achieving fourth place.
He worked for a time as a clerk and surveyor, entering government service as an appointed fiscal for Mindoro and later Tayabas. He became a councilor and was elected governor of Tayabas in 1906 after a hard-fought election.
Read more about this topic: Manuel L. Quezon
Famous quotes containing the words early, life and/or career:
“It is easy to see that, even in the freedom of early youth, an American girl never quite loses control of herself; she enjoys all permitted pleasures without losing her head about any of them, and her reason never lets the reins go, though it may often seem to let them flap.”
—Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–1859)
“History not used is nothing, for all intellectual life is action, like practical life, and if you don’t use the stuff—well, it might as well be dead.”
—A.J. (Arnold Joseph)
“John Brown’s career for the last six weeks of his life was meteor-like, flashing through the darkness in which we live. I know of nothing so miraculous in our history.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)