Anything under the sun
Evolution of the Philippine Flag (1)
(Excerpts from the speech of this columnist as guest speaker during the joint National Flag Program of the City and Province of Iloilo at the Freedom Grandstand, Iloilo City)
Look at our National Flag flying proudly over our skies. It has a white equilateral triangle on its right side with a sun at the center and a star at its corner. The triangle represents equality while the white, liberty. The sun at the center of the triangle represents the Revolution and its eight rays – the first eight provinces which rose in revolt against Spain. The stars represent the three main divisions of our country – Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao.
On the left side of our Flag are two stripes – blue at the top representing peace and red at the bottom representing patriotism and redenned by the blood of our patriots and heroes.
These three colors – red, white and blue – must have been inspired by the tri-color flag of France because the French Revolution was the model of revolucionarios led by Andres Bonifacio.
The basic design – equilateral triangle and two stripes were taken from the Flag of Cuba which was at the same time revolting against Spain.
Incidentally, both Cuba and the Philippines succeeded in their revolts. Because of these, Spain had lost two pearls in her imperial ring – the Pearl of the Orient (Filipinas) and Pearl of the Antilles (Cuba).
Our Flag is unique in that it is the only flag in the world that can be displayed in an inverted way. Again, look at our Flag – it's blue stripe is above because this is peace time. But in time of war, we invert our flag with the red stripe at the top. This really makes our Flag unique in the world. No other flag of any country is ever inverted.
For the third time, look again at our Flag. It has three stars. When this Flag was raised for the first time ever on June 12, 1898 during the Declaration of Philippine Independence in Kawit, Cavite, President Emilio Aguinaldo read his Acta de Proclamacion de la Independencia del Pueblo / Filipino, explained the meaning and symbolism of our Flag.
In Spanish he said: "El triangulo represente el emblema distinctivo de al famosa sociedad de Katipunan que por medio de su PACTO DE SANGRE. Augurio al las masa del pueblo la urgencia de la insurreccion, las tres estrellas representan las tres principales islax de este archipelago Luzon, Mindanao y Panay."
Here we learn that one of the stars in our Flag is Panay. This is a manifest recognition by no less than the first President of the Philippines of the great contribution of Panay to the Philippine Revolution a hundred and ten years ago.
Yes, the third star in our Flag was Panay. The concept was changed only during the succeeding American regime. (To be continued on tomorrow)