User:Carlolivar/sandbox

''Manuel L. Quezon was a statesman, soldier, and politician who was the first elected Filipino to lead a government in the Philippines, despite being the country's second president after Emilio Aguinaldo. Quezon, the son of primary school teachers, was a leader in the Philippine–American War independence movement and subsequently entered politics after getting a law degree. During his presidency, he implemented a number of major reforms and reorganizations, including increasing military defense, reorganizing government positions, introducing land reforms, anti-corruption measures, new tenancy laws, social reforms affecting the working class and farmers, and pushing for women's suffrage. He also saved almost 2,500 European Jews from the Holocaust, for which the International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation awarded him the Wallenberg Medal posthumously. Following the Japanese invasion of the Philippines during WWII, Quezon sought refuge in the United States, where he administered the government-in-exile until his death. Manuel Quezon, the late President of the Philippines, was known as a man of words. He was a quotable speaker who spoke eloquently. Some, on the other hand, have forgotten these attributes due to the passage of time.'' ''' According to his grandson, Manuel L. Quezon III, Quezon's only known recorded speech is his "Message to My People," delivered in English and Spanish in the 1920s, "when [President Manuel Quezon] was initially diagnosed with tuberculosis and assumed he didn't have much longer to live."

My fellow citizens: there is one thought I want you always to bear in mind. And that is: that you are Filipinos. That the Philippines are your country, and the only country God has given you. That you must keep it for yourselves, for your children, and for your children's children, until the world is no more. You must live for it, and die for it, if necessary. Your country is a great country. It has a great past, and a great future. The Philippines of yesterday are consecrated by the sacrifices of lives and treasure of your patriots, martyrs, and soldiers. The Philippines of today are honored by the wholehearted devotion to its cause of unselfish and courageous statesmen. The Philippines of tomorrow will be the country of plenty, of happiness, and of freedom. A Philippines with her head raised in the midst of the West Pacific, mistress of her own destiny, holding in her hand the torch of freedom and democracy. A republic of virtuous and righteous men and women all working together for a better world than the one we have at present.