The opening ceremony will kick off at 11 a.m. and will honor the 80th anniversary of Quezon’s death in Saranac Lake in 1944.

Quezon was the first democratically elected president of the Philippines, taking office in 1935. He continued to lead the country as it found itself caught in the global crossfire of World War II and a decision he made while in Saranac Lake shaped the course of Filipino history in the war.

HSL Executive Director Amy Catania said on Friday that the plans for the event are still evolving, but she outlined the current itinerary for the day.

The opening ceremony will begin at 11 a.m. in the Harrietstown Town Hall. A number of dignitaries are expected to be there, including a representative of the New York City Consulate General’s Office, which is associated with the Philippines embassy; Assemblyman Steven Raga from Queens, where there is a large Filipino community and some local political officials; as well as some members of the Quezon family who still live in the U.S.

President Quezon in Saranac Lake, just before his death at Camp Massapequa on Lower Saranac Lake. (Photo courtesy Quezon Family Collection)

The ceremony will start with a brief history presentation and an acknowledgement of the dignitaries in attendance. This will be followed by a dance performance in the town hall from KAoS, a dance group directed by part-Filipino professional dancer Nikaio Bulan Sahar Thomashow, who is originally from Saranac Lake and whose parents, Lisa and Joe, still live here. There will be another dance performance after that featuring octogenarian ambassadors of a Filipino community in Montreal, the Golden Maidens, and there may be others.

After the celebrations in the town hall, there will be a street fair on Main Street, complete with cultural food and crafts from the Philippines. The Hotel Saranac will be involved, selling Filipino food and beverages.

Inmates at Adirondack Correctional Facility will be making a model of a jeepney, which Catania described as a decorated jeep painted in bright colors, which are used for transportation in the Philippines.

The HSL Laboratory Museum will be showing a video tour of Camp Massapequa, which was home to Quezon in 1944, and a recording of a Zoom presentation by Quezon’s grandson and Filipino author Luis Francia. They will also have exhibits set up showing various items related to President Quezon. The items will be organized by which part of the museum each one best corresponds to, according to HSL Programs Coordinator Alex Krach. The museum’s usual medicine exhibit might be paired with diary excerpts from Quezon’s last days, for instance. Other items will include Quezon’s autobiography, “The Good Fight,” his trunk from Camp Massapequa, and some extra information that “helps people see into the significance that came from President Quezon, especially during his time here, in Saranac Lake,” according to Krach.

The event will be televised for international media coverage.

Members of Historic Saranac Lake march in a Filipino parade in Manhattan on June 2 to publicize President Quezon History Day. (Photo Courtesy of Historic Saranac Lake)

Catania said one of her favorite parts of organizing this event was getting in touch with so many Filipino communities around the state. She said that HSL has been traveling to many of these communities, including a Filipino parade and street festival in Albany on Saturday that they were planning to attend. The communities have been enthusiastic about participating in President Quezon History Day, too.

“Every time we reach out, somebody says, ‘oh yeah, we want to come do this,'” she said.

Catania said that people often wonder why HSL is putting on this or that event.

“What we had hoped was that by doing an event, it would help us learn more. And I think that’s happening. … (But) really the interesting thing is the way that it makes these connections. I now know people in this community I didn’t know before,” she said.

She now knows people in other cities and states too, who are excited to come to the event and learn the history.

Historic Saranac Lake tour Camp Massapequa, where President Quezon died in 1944. (Photo courtesy of Historic Saranac Lake

“It’s just interesting, the way those circles kind of expand,” she said.

She hopes the whole Saranac Lake community will consider participating.

“Who wouldn’t want to walk around and eat some different food and meet some new people?” she said.

Catania said that HSL already knew about Quezon coming here, but they never really thought to go deeper into that history until now, when they decided to commemorate the 80 anniversary of his death, and realized that there was a lot to learn about Quezon and the Philippines.

To learn more about the topic at hand, HSL wrote a small grant to Humanities New York, a non-profit that funds organizations like HSL to reach out to scholars.

“Much of our time is spent not being scholars. We’re trying to keep the business open and talk to the public. … Making those connections with people that really spend the time learning about things is great for us,” Catania said.

The $1,500 grant paid for HSL to connect with Luis Francia, a professor at NYU and an accomplished Filipino writer and poet. He agreed to do a talk for HSL about Quezon and the Philippines. Catania also mentioned his book, “A History of the Philippines,” as a helpful source of information. After that, they were able to reach political writer and former government official Manolo Quezon, who is the grandson of President Quezon. He agreed to join Francia as a guest speaker to give HSL a history presentation.

The presentation was public and took place over Zoom on June 12, which is Philippines Independence Day.

Francia and Manolo took turns talking about the Filipino history, President Quezon’s role therein, and the time he went on to spend in Saranac Lake.

“We met once together and then had the public Zoom presentation, which I think went really well, and we were just so excited to learn about the bigger picture (and) the details of Quezon’s time here and what it was like for his family, and the how the numbers of important officials — other government officials that came here to visit with him, and what was happening around him at that time,” Catania said.

She said that the Zoom opened her and other attendees’ eyes to just how much there is to the history of the Philippines.

“I wouldn’t say I’m now in any way an expert on the Philippines, but I’m more aware of what I don’t know about the Philippines,” Catania said with a laugh.

Catania said it was very special to have Manolo as a guest speaker for the Zoom. The Quezon name is important in the Philippines — the country’s most populous city is named for President Quezon.

She said that being President Quezon’s direct descendant, and the history Manolo is tied to is something that she is sure “has really shaped him.”

Manolo lives in Korea, so he will not be able to attend the history day event.

HSL will be dividing the recording of the Zoom in smaller segments and posting them online, and the recording will also be shown in the Laboratory Musuem for President Quezon History Day.

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Presidency and stay in Saranac Lake

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In the Zoom call, Manolo and Francia talked about the events leading up to Quezon’s presidency. Before World War II, the Philippines were under American rule, having been a colony of Spain prior to the Spanish-American war. The Philippines didn’t want external government, and after a decades-long struggle for independence, the Philippines were granted the status of a commonwealth by the United States. Quezon, who had advocated for independence himself and had a strong political background, was elected as the first ever democratic leader, according to Manolo. He said that Douglas MacArthur, famous for keeping his “I shall return” promise to the Philippines after America’s 1942 retreat from the country, was Quezon’s military advisor from 1935 until he was called to lead the U.S. Army in 1941.

As it became apparent that a war with Japan was on the horizon, Quezon tried to prepare the under-disciplined Filipino military cadets for action with a speech warning them that Japanese bombs could start falling on them any day now. The cadets laughed at President Quezon at first, but eight days later, war was on their doorstep, according to Manolo.

Catania said Friday that when Japan took over the Philippines in 1942, Quezon was forced to flee to the U.S. and lead a government in exile out of Washington, D.C. While there, he contracted tuberculosis. He became very sick and was forced to travel around the country to different cure programs, before ending up in Saranac Lake for the summers of 1943 and 1944.

On Monday, Enterprise local History Columnist Howard Riley said he still remembers being a teenager and working as a paper boy when Quezon was here.

Riley remembers that Quezon had a limousine to travel around town, an unusual sight in Saranac Lake, and he and the other paper boys knew Quezon was in there. They would crowd around the vehicle on their bikes and try to peer into the tinted windows, which probably “scared the s*** out of him,” Riley said.

Catania said that when she talked to Riley, he told her a theory that Quezon must have lived in Alta Vista cure cottage, on Franklin Avenue, which Catania said was “a revelation,” because it had previously been thought that Quezon stayed at the Gonzales cottage on Park Avenue. Catania said Alta Vista makes more sense, because it was a fancier cottage that served a lot of international patients, especially patients who spoke Spanish, which Quezon happened to speak as well — Catania clarified that not all Filipinos speak Spanish. Alta Vista would have had more room for Quezon’s associates and extended family as well, and it was generally a more private cottage.

After Alta Vista in 1943, Catania said that Quezon would have stayed at Camp Massapequa on Lower Saranac Lake.

Krach said that Quezon may have made a number of significant leadership decisions while in Saranac Lake, but the one particular choice seems to stand out as a defining moment of his presidency.

This decision came when the Japanese contacted Quezon, offering a deal: Full independence for the Philippines in exchange for Filipino military support in WWII. This was an important decision for Quezon to make. While he wanted independence for his people, something they had been deprived of for almost four centuries, counting both Spanish and American rule, he did not trust that Japan would be true to their word, according to Krach.

It was while he was in Saranac Lake that he chose his and his nation’s course of action, a choice that made a difference not just for the Philippines, but in the war itself.

Krach said Quezon told the U.S. that he would continue to back them on one condition, that the Philippines be granted full independence after the war. Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s administration agreed to the terms, and the Philippines supported the U.S. until the end of the war. President Harry S. Truman upheld the Americans’ side of the promise, and gave the Philippines full independence on July 4, 1946, according to the National WWII Museum.

Quezon died in Saranac Lake on Aug. 1, 1944, two years before he would have gotten to see his country become an independent nation, but without his decision, that independence may never have happened. Manolo said that to honor Quezon’s passing, the flags of the allied nations from around the world were lowered to half-mast in Washington, D.C., which was significant as a recognition of the legitimacy of a Philippine leader.

“Yes, this is a meaningful history because it is going on here in Saranac Lake, but it is meaningful to the global story as well,” Krach said.