Quezon City
Quezon City, also known as the City of Quezon and Q.C., is the most populous city in the Philippines. According to the 2024 census, it has a population of 3,084,270 people. It was founded on October 12, 1939, and was named after Manuel L. Quezon, the second president of the Philippines. Quezon City served as the capital of the Philippines from 1948 until 1976, when the designation was returned to Manila.
The city was intended to be the national capital of the Philippines that would replace Manila, as the latter was suffering from overcrowding, lack of housing, poor sanitation, and traffic congestion. To create Quezon City, several barrios were carved out from the towns of Caloocan, Marikina, San Juan and Pasig, in addition to the eight vast estates the Philippine government purchased for this purpose. It was officially proclaimed the national capital on October 12, 1949, and several government departments and institutions moved out of Manila and settled into the new capital city. This necessitated the expansion of the city northward, carving out Novaliches from Caloocan which divided it into two non-contiguous parts. Several barrios were also taken from San Mateo and parts of Montalban. However, on June 24, 1976, Presidential Decree No. 940 was enacted, which reverted national capital status to Manila while the whole of Metro Manila was designated as the seat of government. The city was also chosen as the regional center of Southern Tagalog, which was created in 1965, along with the provinces of Quezon and Aurora, the birthplace of Manuel L. Quezon; however, its status of regional center became ineffective when the region was divided into Calabarzon and Mimaropa, through the effect of Executive Order No. 103 in May 2002 under the presidency of Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, and Aurora was transferred to the authority of Central Luzon, with Southern Tagalog limited to being a cultural-geographic region.
Quezon City is known for its culture, entertainment industry and media, and is aptly called the "City of Stars". Major broadcasting networks have their headquarters and studios in the city. It is also known for its commerce, education, research, technology, politics, tourism, art and sports. Several national government branches including the Batasang Pambansa Complex, the seat of House of Representatives of the Philippines, call the city home.
Quezon City is a planned city. It covers a total area of, making it the largest city in Metro Manila/NCR in terms of land area. It is politically subdivided into six congressional districts, which represent the city in the Lower House of the Congress of the Philippines. The city has 142 barangays under the City Government. National government departments and agencies are mostly situated in the first National Government Center in Diliman. and the second National Government Center in Batasan Hills, where the Lower House of the Philippine Congress is located. Most of the city's northern part lies at the foothills of the Sierra Madre mountain range, including the La Mesa Watershed Reservation, the largest watershed in Metro Manila and a designated protected area.
According to its 2023 estimated census, Quezon City had 3.1 million people in its boundaries, and in its gross domestic product, and it is the only planned city in the National Capital Region of the Philippines.
History
Commonwealth era
Initial plans for a new capital city
Before the creation of Quezon City, the land on where it would eventually rise was part of several towns such as Caloocan, Mariquina, Montalban, Pasig, San Mateo, and San Juan del Monte, all under Manila province and, beginning in 1901, Rizal province.In the 1930s, Manila's urban problems were apparent and problematic. It lacked public housing, where thousands of the city's residents lived in congested informal settler communities, especially in the central districts of Binondo, Intramuros, Quiapo, San Nicolas and Tondo. There were also problems with sanitation and traffic congestion. The rise of slums in Manila gave rise to the development of its suburbs outside the city limits in the municipalities of Pasay, San Felipe Neri, San Francisco del Monte, Makati, and San Juan del Monte. These towns became favorable to the upper and middle-class who wanted to escape the congested city but had economic links to it.
President Manuel L. Quezon, aware of the problems besetting Manila, initiated housing projects called Barrio Obrero. These communities were established in various places in Manila such as Avenida Rizal, Sta. Cruz and Barrio Vitas, Tondo. However, the project failed miserably and these communities became slum areas.
Alejandro Roces Sr., a prominent Filipino author, was said to be influential in Quezon's vision to establish a new city. Quezon dreamed of a city where the common people could live and thrive. Roces suggested that a sizeable tract of land be purchased for this purpose. However, the government had no available fund except for in the hands of the National Development Company.
In order to make Quezon's dream a reality and to mobilize funds for the land purchase, the People's Homesite Corporation was created on October 14, 1938, as a subsidiary of NDC, with an initial capital of. Roces was the chairman of the Board of PHC, and they immediately acquired the vast Diliman Estate of the Tuason family at a cost of 5 centavos per square meter. PHC conducted topographical and subdivision surveys, and then subdivided the lots and sold them to the target buyers at an affordable price. Its target users and beneficiaries were Manila's working class, who were suffering from a shortage of affordable and decent housing in the capital. The service of the Metropolitan Waterworks system was extended to site. The Bureau of Public Works, then under Secretary Vicente Fragante, constructed the streets and highways within the property. Quezon also tapped Architect Juan M. Arellano to draft a design of the city.
Eight vast estates were acquired in order to create Quezon City: Diliman Estate,, Santa Mesa Estate,, Mandaluyong Estate,, Magdalena Estate,, Piedad Estate,, Maysilo Estate, and the San Francisco Del Monte Estate,. Quezon's goal was to create a place for the working class, coinciding with the planned transfer of the University of the Philippines campus in Manila to a more suitable location, which became another precedent for the creation of Quezon City.
As early as 1928, the University of the Philippines had planned to expand by adding more academic units and constructing new buildings. The university experienced increase in enrollment and its planned expansion was hampered by its small campus in Manila. The revised Burnham Plan of Manila envisioned the new campus to be located just outside Manila's city limits at 'the heights behind Manila'. The UP Board of Regents informed Quezon of their desire to relocate the campus and he was supportive of the idea. Furthermore, he wanted the facilities in the Manila campus to be used for government purposes. In 1939, Quezon urged the National Assembly to enact UP's relocation and on June 8, 1939, Commonwealth Act No. 442 was passed, enacting the transfer of UP outside of Manila. A portion of Mariquina Estate, which was adjacent to Magdalena Estate, was chosen as the new site with an approximate area of. Additional land from the Diliman Estate was also added as part of the new university campus.
Creation of Quezon City
With the development of the People's Homesite Corporation housing in the Diliman Estate and the creation of the new UP Campus, the creation of Quezon City was justified. On October 12, 1939, Commonwealth Act No. 502, also known as the Charter of Quezon City, was passed by the National Assembly, which created Quezon City. Surprisingly, Quezon allowed the bill to lapse into law because he did not sign it. The city was originally to be known as Balintawak City according to the first bill filed by Assemblyman Ramon P. Mitra Sr. from Mountain Province, but Assemblymen Narciso Ramos and Eugenio Perez, both from Pangasinan, amended and successfully lobbied the assembly to name the city after the President in honor of his role in the creation of this new city. The creation of Quezon City halted the full implementation of the Burnham Plan of Manila and funds were diverted for the establishment of the new capital.Several barangays from different towns were carved out to correspond to the estates that PHC bought for the creation of Quezon City. The new city had an area of, and the barrios and sitios that were taken for its creation were the following: Bagubantay, Balingasa, Balintauac, Kaingin, Kangkong, Loma, Malamig, Matalahib, Masambong, San Isidro, San Jose, Santol and Tatalon, were taken from Caloocan; Cubao, Diliman, Kamuning, New Manila, and San Francisco del Monte were taken from San Juan; Balara, Barranca, Jesus de la Peña, Krus na Ligas, Tañong and the site of the new UP Campus were taken from Marikina; and, the barrios and sitios of Libis, and Ogong from Pasig. Commonwealth Act No. 659, enacted on June 21, 1941, changed the city's boundaries. Under this law, the area of Wack Wack Golf and Country Club were to be reverted to Mandaluyong, and the barrios of lower Barranca and Jesus de la Peña were reverted to Marikina. However, Camp Crame was taken out of San Juan and was given to Quezon City.
1939, the year the city was established, recorded a population of 39,103 people. The city in its early days was predominantly rural, but Quezon asked American Architect William Parsons to craft a master plan for the newly created city. Parsons was the one who advised Quezon to locate the National Government Center in Diliman instead of Wallace Field, due to the possibility of naval bombardment from Manila Bay. He died in December 1939 and his partner Harry T. Frost took over and become the lead planner. Frost arrived in the Philippines on May 1, 1940, and became the architectural adviser of the Philippine Commonwealth government. Together with Juan M. Arellano, Alpheus D. Williams, and Welton Becket, they created the Master Plan for Quezon City which was approved by the Philippine government in 1941. The Frost Plan featured wide avenues, large open spaces, and roundabouts at major intersections. The plan for major thoroughfares made by Louis Croft for the Greater Manila Area served as the backbone for the Plan of Quezon City. The center of the city was a quadrangle formed by four avenues — North, West, South and East — which was designed to be the location of the National Government of the Philippines. At the northeast corner of the Quadrangle was a large roundabout, a elliptical site, were the proposed Capitol Building is envisioned to rise.
To make the city accessible, Quezon ordered Luzon Bus Lines to ply from Kamuning towards Tutuban in Divisoria, Manila to provide transport for the city's residents. However, the fare was not affordable to minimum wage earners. Because of the city's unaffordable housing prices and lack of transportation for low-income earners, the goal of creating mass housing for the working class was not met. Instead, those who opted to live in Quezon City consisted of middle-class households such as those in Kamuning, whose residents petitioned to rename it from Barrio Obrero to Kamuning because its residents were not Obreros.