Here and There
Independence granted not “proclaimed”
By Gerry Garcia
ON JULY 4, 1946, the church bells in the city of Manila rang loud the joyous news. While one flag was lowered, another was raised, and a new nation was born the Republic of the Philippines.
This historic grant of independence from Mother America took place after almost fifty years when American occupiers first set foot on the country – far cry from the more than two centuries that Spain held it as a colony.
July 4, which truly marks our actual Independence Day, has by executive order from then President Diosdado Macapagal been renamed Fil-American Friendship Day and June 12 has become the Republic’s Independence Day, to commemorate the day in 1898 when the independence of the Philippines was first proclaimed in Kawit, Cavite, by General Emilio Aguinaldo in his historic house there.
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Star columnist Alejandro R. Roces, who was a cabinet member during Macapagal’s presidency, explains the change saying that “all countries celebrate their Independence Day not on the day when they attained it, but when they declared it. Being able to proclaim independence means that not only were they Filipinos who fought for their country but a nation united in shared values and shared pride.”
Rather dense. Or hard to grasp. Isn’t it?
Just the same. Fil-American friendship, signified by our new July 4 celebration goes into something deeper-the roots of a relation between two friends, not between colonizer and the colonized but between an elder brother and a kid.
In the first place, the United States, expected to annex the Philippines after the treaty with Spain following their war over Cuba, did not follow through because annexation was against the US Constitution. It was also impractical for the US to hold sway over the Philippines which were 6,000 miles from the Pacific coastline of the mainland.
It was the investigative commission headed by William Howard Taft, who later became the President of the United States and Chief Justice of the Supreme Court which was instructed to remember that the government (of the Philippines) it was to create was designed “not for our satisfaction but for the happiness, peace and prosperity of the people of the Philippines.”
Earlier the Schurman Commission was picturesque in its proclamation. “The destiny of the Philippine Islands is not to be a state or territory in the United States of America, but a daughter republic a monument of progress and a beacon of hope to all the oppressed and benighted millions of the Asiatic Continent.”
(Readers may reach columnist at sundaypunch2@yahoo.com. For past columns, click http://sundaypunch.prepys.com/archives/category/opinion/here-and-there/ For reactions to this column, click “Send MESSAGES, OPINIONS, COMMENTS” on default page.)
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