31 JANUARY

Iloilo, 1899, during the enemy American invasion

1900 - Pio Claveria, Military Government delegate of Iloilo province, Philippines warns the chief of Tigbauan town that if he and other residents do not retract their recognition of the sovereignty of the enemy imperialist Americans, they will be punished in accordance with "a most summary trial and execution as traitors to the country"; the enemy Bald Eagle forces under Brig. Gen. Marcus P. Miller began invading Iloilo on February 11, 1899, with the local Filipino freedom fighters being led by Gen. Martin Delgado and Teresa Magbanua y Ferraris; the written warning that came nearly a year in the bloody and protracted Filipino-American War (1899-1914) adds that:

'"As the government which the invaders are endeavoring to establish is always provisional, if all the inhabitants of this province are true Filipinos, they can easily and simply answer that we are subject to the will of the Honorable President Senor Emilio Aguinaldo, whom we follow and recognize in this new born Republic as the President of the Nation."'

1946 -  Maria Paz Mendoza-Guazon, Filipina suffragist, doctor, educator,  scientist, writer, social reformer, feminist, philanthropist and civic  leader, is appointed the first female member of the Board of Regents of the University of the Philippines; Mendoza-Guazon is also the first Filipina to acquire a high school diploma, the first woman graduate of the UP College of Medicine (1912), and first woman to receive the degree of Doctor of Tropical Medicine; in the 1920s, Mendoza-Guazon also figured in the 1920s struggle for women's suffrage during the American colonial period.



Photo credits:
http://en.wikipilipinas.org/index.php?title=Maria_Paz_Mendoza_Guazon
http://philippineamericanwar.webs.com/thewarinthevisayas.htm (raw photo of Iloilo)