page_title: Tomas Morato
section_title: Friendship with Quezon
hierarchical_section_title: Tomas Morato / Friendship with Quezon
caption_attribution_description: English: President Quezon at the Malacañang Staircase
context_page_description: Tomas Eduardo Bernabeu Morato was a Spanish-born Filipino businessman and politician of full-blooded Spanish ethnicity who became the first Quezon City Mayor from 1939 to 1942.
context_section_description: It was in Baler where he met Manuel L. Quezon, the 2nd President of the Philippines, and became friends with him. His friendship with Quezon was a rare and unique one. They courted girls together and helped each other during difficult times.
   
  When Quezon was elected president in 1935, he entered Malacañang for the first time with Morato and Manuel L. "Nonong" Quezon, Jr. And thereafter, Morato was one of the very few people who could enter Malacañang at all times, even staying overnight in some often cases.
  Quezon himself urged Morato to enter politics, so he ran as Mayor of Calauag and won with ease. At his second term, Quezon invited him to help build a new city, a city that would later be known as Quezon City.
caption: President Manuel L. Quezon (1935-1944) climbs up the grand staircase of Malacañan Palace with aide-de-camp Col. Manuel Nieto and Presidential Guard Battalion Commander Col. Manzano.
exif: {"Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "600", "Image YResolution": "600", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop 7.0", "Image DateTime": "2003:05:12 17:55:48", "Image ExifOffset": "156", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "294", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "4091", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "400", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "276"}