the Philippine flag was first unfurled after the Philippine Revolutionary Army defeated Spanish forces in the Battle at Alapan, Imus, Cavite. The national flag was yet to be formally announced on the day of that battle. It was formally presented to the people on June 12, 1898.
On May 28, 1898, days after the return of General Emilio Aguinaldo from exile in Hong Kong, Filipino troops were once again engaged in a battle against Spanish forces in Alapan, Cavite. It was in this skirmish that the Philippine flag was first unfurled as the revolutionary standard. Sewn in Hong Kong by Filipino expatriates and brought to the country by Aguinaldo, the flag was a tri-color featuring red and blue with a white triangle framing three yellow stars and an anthropomorphic eight-rayed sun.
Half a month later, on June 12, 1898, following the proclamation of independence from Spain, the same flag was waved by at Aguinaldo’s residence in Kawit, Cavite, as the Marcha Nacional Filipina played.
Throughout the Filipino Revolutionary War until the capture of Aguinaldo that precipitated the end of the Philippine-American War, the flag of the same design was flown with the red field on top to denote a state of war. Aguinaldo wrote about this unique feature of the Philippine flag in a letter to Captain Emmanuel A. Baja dated June 11, 1925:
Upon Aguinaldo’s capture, the Philippine Republic was abolished; the American Insular Government, under the jurisdiction of the U.S. War Department, was established. With the war over and Philippine leaders officially accepting American sovereignty over the islands, the Philippine flag was flown with the blue field on top. It was to be displayed that way henceforth during peacetime.
1901 – 1907
American Occupation and the Commonwealth Government
For six years, the Philippine flag and other banners and emblems of the Katipunan continued to proliferate. In response, the Philippine Commission, dominated by Americans, passed Act No. 1697 or the Flag Law of 1907, which outlawed the display of the Philippine flag and replaced the country’s flag to the stars and stripes of the United States of America. The same law prohibited the playing of the national anthem.
