15 MARCH

Sta. Ana, Manila, Feb 5, 1899 - Filipino freedom-fighters dead a day after Americans triggered the Fil-Am War

1899 - Gen. Mariano C. Trias submits to Gen. Emilio F. Aguinaldo, President of the fledgling Philippine Republic, the report showing that the imperialist Americans started the first shots of the Filipino-American War (1899-1914) and that, moreover, the initial February 4 attack had been premeditated;  historians would later learn that the United States Congress decided to go to war based on a fraudulent claim that Filipinos began attacking American soldiers in Manila,as part of the vile “prearranged plan” by the U.S. military to precipitate the Philippine-American War immediately after an incident has been provoked; racist U.S. soldier Pvt. William Grayson fired  the first shots at Filipino soldiers trying to cross Sta. Ana bridge as part of the  secret orders made by regimental commanders some two days earlier to bring about conflict; Bald Eagle President William McKinley schemed to trick the U.S. Senate to approve  the Treaty of Paris and, thus, secure funding for military operations to annex the Philippines as part of the imperialist policy for Bald Eagle's overseas expansion.

1900 - Colonial officials at Manila, Philippines try to comply with the controversial 1898 Treaty of Paris forged between the imperialist United States and Spain, with the Spaniards leaving the Southeast Asian archipelago and being urged to bring their Filipina wives with them; the compliance with the Treaty which supposedly cedes the Philippines for $20 million dollars--despite the fact that the Filipino revolutionaries had already declared independence after virtually wresting control of the archipelago from the Spaniards--marks the end of the over 300 years of Spain's presence in (and colonization of) the Philippines; occurring a year and a month into the bloody and protracted Filipino-American War (1899-1914), the Treaty of Paris that ridiculously tackles Spain's sale/ceding of a territory it no longer owns has met severe criticism from the Filipinos, including Gen. Antonio N. Luna who early on lambasted the paradox of American claims of democracy and the inhumanity allowed by international law:

People are not to be bought and sold like horses and houses. If the aim has been to abolish the traffic in Negroes because it meant the sale of persons, why is there still maintained [in international law] the sale of countries with inhabitants free to be unwilling to form part of a[nother] nation?

Photo credit: http://www.yonip.com/archives/history/1899%20feb%205%20after%20the%20battle%20of%20santa%20ana,%20manila_edited.JPG