Arron Villaflor, Benjamin Alves, Bodjie Pascua, Cris Villanueva, drama, Iain Glen, JC Santos, Jericho Rosales, Jerrold Tarog, Manuel L. Quezon, MLQ, Mon Confiado, movies, Nor Domingo, Philippines, Quezon, reviews, Romnick Sarmenta, Sue Prado
November 3, 2025
by Carla Hay
Directed by Jerrold Tarog
Tagalog with subtitles
Culture Representation: Taking place in the Washington, D.C./Maryland area, from 1901 to 1944, the dramatic film “Quezon” (a biopic of former Philippines president Manuel L. Quezon) features a predominantly Filipino cast of characters (with some white people) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.
Culture Clash: Quezon built his political career by changing alliances and getting a reputation for being a political chameleon.
Culture Audience: “Quezon” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners and Filipino history, but the movie has a muddled and superficial approach to Quezon’s story.
“Quezon” is a somewhat tacky drama that reduces the life and career of former Philippines president Manuel L. Quezon to a series of trite political battles. All the characters have shallow personalities. The dialogue and acting are often cringeworthy.
Directed by Jerrold Tarog (who co-wrote the “Quezon” screenplay with Rody Vera), “Quezon” takes place in the Philippines from 1901 to 1944. Quezon (who was nicknamed MLQ) died of tuberculosis in 1944, when he was 65 years old and 18 days away from his 66th birthday. The movie is presented as a political soap opera, but the narrative is so dry and jumbled, it just becomes a “checklist” biopic instead of being a well-rounded portrait of a controversial politician.
“Quezon” is divided into four chapters that are titled like boxing matches and chronicle the various political fights that Quezon had in his career. Chapter 1, titled “Quezon vs. Joven,” is about Quezon’s turbulent relationship with fictional media mogul Joven Hernando. Chapter 2, titled “Quezon vs. Osmeña,” details Quezon’s longtime feud with politician Sergio Osmeña, who when from being Quezon’s enemy to his vice president running mate. Chapter 3, titled Quezon vs. Wood,” chronicles Quezon’s power struggles with American bureaucrat Leonard Wood, who was governor-general of the Philippines. Chapter 4, titled “Quezon vs. Aguinaldo,” show the vendetta that Quezon had against Emilio Aguinaldo, the first president of the Philippines and the head of the Association of Veterans of the Revolution.
All of these political betrayals, alliances, scheming and campaigning could have made this a very intriguing and fascinating movie. Instead, “Quezon” is much duller than it should have been. Many of the cast members deliver their awkward dialogue stiffly. The movie’s messy timeline jumping also makes it difficult to have a cohesive narrative. By the end of the movie, all you’ll learn is that Quezon was a successful politician who was also vindictive, petty, insecure, ruthless and very dishonest while having an image that he wanted to make the Philippines a very prosperous nation. For the purposes of this review, the real people will be referred to by their last names, while the characters in the movie will be referred to by their first names
In Chapter 1, a young Manuel Quezon played by (Benjamin Alves) is a young major in the Philippines military in 1901, when the U.S. was winning the Philippine-American war, which lasted from 1899 to 1902. Manuel is seen giving a coin to a young Joven Hernando (played by Arron Villaflor) and makes a statement that Manuel will make the Quezon name great. Later, Manuel helps Joven launch Joven’s own newspaper called Alerta.
Joven, his family members and Alerta are all fabricated for this movie. These fabricated characters and fake newspaper are unnecessary, considering Quezon had a lot of major things that happened in his life that are barely mentioned or not mentioned at all in the film. It’s a time-wasting stunt to have an entire chapter in a biopic devoted to characters and situations that didn’t happen in real life. Alerta also becomes a battleground in the feud between Joven and Manuel, who gets revenge by eventually making Alerta go out of business. None of this should be considered spoiler information since it never happened in real life.
Because the timeline in “Quezon” is so messy, Joven is seen in other chapters in the movie. It’s later shown that an older adult Joven (played by Cris Villanueva) and Joven’s daughter Nadia Hernando (played by Therese Malvar) become filmmakers and defy Manuel’s orders to make propaganda movies about Manuel and instead make unflattering movies about him. These silent black-and-white movies are clumsily placed in “Quezon.”
The young version of Manuel is ambitious and bit idealistic. By the time the movie shows Manuel (played by Jericho Rosales) in his mid-30s and older, he’s become a cynical and ruthless manipulator. In real life, Quezon held several political offices. In the movie, he is mainly shown as president of the Philippines Senate (from 1916 to 1935), president of the Nacionalista Party, and president of the Philippines, holding the latter two positions simultaneously from 1935 to 1944.
Manuel has a longtime unfriendly rivalry with Sergio Osmeña (played by Romnick Sarmenta), who was the Philippines’ Speaker of the House of Representatives but also held many of Manuel’s other political positions before Manuel did, such as president of the Nacionalista Party and Secretary of Public Instruction, which is now called Secretary of Education. During their feud, Manuel Quezon mentors a younger legislator named Manuel Roxas (played by JC Santos), whom he hopes will discredit and replace Sergio. Years later, Manuel Quezon convinces Sergio to be Manuel Quezon’s vice presidential running mate, with Manuel Quezon promising that he would be president for only one term. (He broke that promise.)
Manuel Quezon’s conflicts with Leonard Wood (played by Iain Glen) have a lot to do with Wood’s resisting Quezon’s attempts for the Philippines to become independent. Leonard, like a typical colonialist oppressor, doesn’t think the native leaders of the Philippines are capable of governing themselves as an independent nation. Leonard also thinks many of the native Filipino leaders—such as Quezon and Manila mayor Ramón J. Fernández (played by Nor Domingo)—are corrupt.
Manuel Quezon wants Emilio Aguinaldo (played by Mon Confiado) to speak out against Leonard, but Emilio refuses and becomes an ally of Leonard. Manuel Quezon holds a grudge against Emilio for years, and the feeling is mutual. When Manuel Quezon runs for president of the Philippines commonwealth in 1935, former Philippines president Emilio is one of his most outspoken critics and becomes his political opponent (representing the National Socialist Party) in the campaign.
There’s kind of a weird scene where Manuel Quezon and Leonard get drunk together because Manuel Quezon hopes this will weaken Leonard’s animosity toward Leonard. However, this plan backfires because Leonard threatens to expose two scandals from Manuel Quezon’s past: Manuel Quezon went on trial for rape (he was found not guilty), and he is rumored to be a bigamist who never had a divorce or marriage annulment from his first wife.
The movie then never really mentions Leonard having this bombshell information again because Leonard dies (in 1927, at age 66), not long after this drunken conversation. The movie implies that Leonard never did anything with this information, which is a little hard to believe considering how much Leonard despised Manuel Quezon and wanted to ruin his career. Leonard’s death paves the way for Manuel Quezon’s political ascent.
As questionable and disjointed as this movie is in depicting Manuel Quezon’s political career, the movie is downright opaque about his personal life. His second wife Aurora Quezon (played by Karylle) has very little screen time. And when she does, it’s in a scene where she’s putting on makeup and says to her husband that he’s a “chameleon,” and she can’t believe he was engaged to four women before he married her. The movie never explains the rape case against him. The movie also never mentions that Aurora was his first cousin, and they had four children together.
The bigamist allegations are brought up again in a soap-opera-like sequence where Manuel Quezon’s first wife Ana Ricardo (played by Sue Prado), whom he abandoned, is invited to an event where Manuel Quezon will be, in order to humiliate him. The person who invites her is Raymundo Melliza (played by Bodjie Pascua), the vice president running mate of 1935 Philippines presidential candidate Emilio Aguinaldo, who doesn’t want play this type of dirty trick in the campaign. The movie shows the outcome of this set-up.
“Quezon” takes a few too many liberties with the truth and fabricates too many things for it to be taken seriously as a completely accurate historical drama. The movie brings up things about the character of Manuel Quezon (such as how he was accused of mistreating women in his personal life) that needed more exploration, but the movie cowardly backs off from this type exploration, as if to say that’s enough just to drop small hints about these scandals. Although not all of “Quezon” is terrible, the overall quality of this drama isn’t befitting for a former president of a nation but seems better-suited for a less important politician who wanted to be remembered more for his manipulative exploits than any effective policies.
TBA Studios released “Quezon” in select U.S. cinemas on October 31, 2025. The movie was released in the Philippines on October 15, 2025.