Today is Flag Day, marking the moment in 1898, when the Philippine flag was first flown by the Philippine Revolutionary Army after trouncing Spanish forces in the Battle of Alapan. Imagine that for a moment, but know that the flag you’re imagining is probably not the one that was unfurled on that field of victory.
Let me explain.
The banner flown on that glorious day was the one Aguinaldo brought home from Hong Kong, hand-sewn by the Filipino expatriates there. It looked a lot like the flag you’re familiar with, but with one big difference: the sun on Aguinaldo’s flag had 32 rays—eight major ray clusters, composed of one major ray flanked by one smaller ray on each side, and one minor ray in between each of the eight ray clusters. In addition, Aguinaldo’s sun was anthropomorphic; it had a face on it. All the rest of the design should be fairly familiar: the white triangle, the three stars, the red and blue fields—except that there isn’t a great deal of agreement on what the actual shade of blue was.
This was the same flag that, on June 12, 1898, flew during the declaration of Philippine Independence, at Aguinaldo’s residence in Kawit, Cavite, while the March Nacional Filipina played, and which—together with various combatant flags—saw action in the Philippine-American war. In 1907, five years after the end of the Philippine-American war, the Philippine Commission passed Act 1697—the Flag Law of 1907—outlawing the display of the Aguinaldo-designed flag.
For eleven long years, the American stars and stripes flew over the Philippines, until the Philippine Legislature repealed the Flag Law and reinstated the Philippine flag, following the same basic design of Aguinaldo’s flag, but without the facial features on the sun. This was the flag that flew over the country until 1936 when, with Executive Order 23, s. 1936, President Manuel L. Quezon instituted the description and specifications of the Filipino flag.
This design, used by the Philippines from 1936 to 1941 and which was practically identical to the flag we fly now, featured a new sun with only eight rays—which were actually ray clusters featuring one major ray flanked by one smaller ray on each side—and again, no face. Interestingly, these new specifications also explicitly declared that the blue on the flag would be a navy blue, just like the shade of blue on the American flag.
In 1942, the Second Philippine Republic was put up by the Japanese occupiers, with Jose P. Laurel serving as President. Laurel eventually issued EO 17, s. 1943, essentially bringing back the old Aguinaldo design of the Philippine flag, with its 32 rays and human face. From that time until the end of war in the Pacific, two Philippine flags existed: the Commonwealth flag flown by Quezon’s government-in-exile, and the Aguinaldo banner used by the Japanese-sponsored government.
When the Philippines was liberated from Japan and the Second Republic dissolved, the short-lived resurgence of the Aguinaldo flag ended as well. From that time until more than 40 years later, the Commonwealth design of the Philippine flag flew over the country, unchanged.
In 1985, President Ferdinand E. Marcos enacted EO 1010, s. 1985, changing the shade of blue on the Philippine flag from navy blue to light blue. The jarring change was supposedly due to long-standing historical disagreements on what the shade of blue was used in the original flag. Some argued that it had to be Cuban blue because our flag design was inspired by the Cuban flag; others claimed that it should be sky-blue, citing contemporary accounts by revolutionaries. In the end, one popular historian claims that a pale sky blue fabric was settled on simply because it was the shade more easily available.
After the Edsa revolution of 1986, President Corazon C. Aquino restored the Commonwealth design of the flag via EO 292, s. 1987. And then in 1988, Republic Act 8491—the Flag and Heraldic Code of the Philippines—again changed the flag’s blue field from navy blue to royal blue, apparently a compromise intended to put years of debates to rest.
The flag itself may have gone through many upheavals in its long evolution—from the heartbreak of war to the cosmetic disaster of 1985—but its symbolism has always remained constant. And today, Flag Day, let us take a moment to remember that day, 122 years ago, when we first rallied around a common symbol, each in his own way, standing against oppression and tyranny, in the name of freedom and self-determination.