When Aurora Quezon returned to the Philippines, she was voted a pension of 1,000 pesos a month by the Philippine Congress. She returned the check, explaining: "I feel that on account of ... countless war widows and orphans ... I should waive collection of a pension . . . I cannot, in good conscience, receive ... Government assistance when so many of my less fortunate sisters and their children are not yet taken care of. . . I know I accepted I would not be keeping faith with the memory of my beloved husband. . . ." This act, it was said, "demonstrated why thousands of Filipinos regard her as a combination queen-mother and patron saint". Quezon was offered a slot in the Liberal Party senatorial slate for the 1946 elections, which she declined. She, however, endorsed the presidential candidacy of Manuel Roxas, who defeated her husband's vice-president and successor, Sergio Osmeña, to win the presidency.