“I die without seeing the dawn brighten over my native land. You who have it to see, welcome it—and forget not those who have fallen during the night!”
Dr. José Rizal wrote these lines on the eve of his execution in Bagumbayan on Dec. 30, 1896. Scarcely did he know that in two years’ time, independence would be declared against the Spanish conquistadores by Filipino revolutionaries.
Earlier in August of the same year, Spanish authorities have gotten wind of the secret revolutionary organization, the Katipunan, under the helm of Andres Bonifacio. This forced Filipino insurrectos to execute their plan to revolt prematurely. Sporadic fighting commenced all across Luzon, triggering the further spread of nationalist sentiment among many Filipinos.
Along the sidelights, a young 28-year-old Emilio Aguinaldo took the reins of the revolution sometime March 1897, two months before Bonifacio’s death by Aguinaldo’s troops. It didn’t take long before the young, ambitious general was exiled to British Hong Kong where he established the so-called Hong Kong Junta, an organization formed by exiled Filipino revolutionaries.
For Aguinaldo, British Hong Kong became the ground through which the Filipino general made arrangements with American forces to return to the Philippines, with the promise that he will fight alongside American troops against Spain.
After Aguinaldo’s return sometime May, he reconvened his forces and began liberating numerous towns adjacent to Manila. His victories, garnered with the help of American troops, were substantial enough to for him to move further and declare independence from Spain, but with one catch: the Filipino intelligentsia were doubtful of America’s intentions.
Historian O.D. Corpuz wrote: “There was no time to wait for sure answers to the question of whether or not the United States was a do-gooder non-imperialist nation, disposed to disinterested protection of the Filipinos and their independence. Bautista, the writer of the June 12 proclamation, committed Gen. Aguinaldo and his countrymen to an uncertain and novel fate by writing the United States’ role of protector into the independence proclamation.”
The man here mentioned was Ambrosio Rianzares Bautista, a lawyer who drafted the Declaration of Philippine Independence. In that declaration, Bautista wrote, “And having as witness to the rectitude of our intentions the Supreme Judge of the Universe, and under the protection of the Powerful and Humanitarian Nation, the United States of America, we do hereby proclaim and declare solemnly in the name and by authority of the people of these Philippine Islands.”
For Aguinaldo, el árbol de la libertad or the tree of liberty, cannot be truly realized under the dangerous assertion that Filipinos would be under the protectorate of another foreign power. Corpuz therefore wrote, “It rendered for naught the bloodshed and the sacrifices made by the Filipinos since August 1896 to attain independence and self-government. Aguinaldo did not affix his signature to the historic document.”
On June 12, 1898, Gen. Emilio Aguinaldo unfurled the Philippine flag and formally declared the country’s independence against Spain in his residence in Kawit, Cavite. Little did most Filipinos realize that such an independence would soon be subjected to American suppression all because of the Philippine flag.
It began in 1907 when journalist and poet Fernando Ma. Guerrero decided to run as a candidate for Manila in the First Philippine Assembly under the Liga Popular Nacionalista. Guerrero’s overwhelming victory paved the open display of the Philippine flag that came with much jubilation. The little attention paid to the American flag, on the other hand, was seen as an insult to the sovereignty of the United States over the islands.
According to De La Salle University professor of history, Jose Victor Torres, “On 23 August 1907, the Philippine Commission passed Act No. 1696 also known as the Flag Law. It prohibited ‘the display of flags, banners, emblems, or devices used in the Philippines for the purpose of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, and of Katipunan flags, banners, emblems, or devices.’ The law also covered the display of the Philippine flag. For over ten years, in spite of the Filipino control of the legislature, the lawmakers failed to repeal the Flag Law after the bills that they passed was vetoed by the American governor-general.”
Only on 1946, when America “gave” the country its independence, that independence was recognized on July 4. It took nearly two decades before Pres. Diosdado Macapagal signed Proclamation No. 28, s. 1962 on May 12, transferring Philippine Independence Day from July 4 to June 12.
Thus, to the question “Are we really independent?” Prof. Torres has this to say:
“Were we independent in 1898? Yes, we were. Because in 1899 we had our own Republic. A Republic born from the independence that America recognized in 1946. Did we fail that independence? Yes, we did. Because being independent means living for it, fighting for it, and working for it to succeed. And with the poverty, inequality, and injustice we have today, we see how much we failed in living up to the tenets of freedom. What am I saying here? Know your history.”