30 APRIL

Photo art: JB

1896 - Emilio Jacinto y Dizon, the so-called "Brains of the Katipunan," the underground society-turned-revolutionary-government fighting for liberation against Spain, pays homage to the legacy and heroism of Fathers Mariano Gomez, Jose Apolonio G. Burgos,, and Jacinto R. Zamora (GOMBURZA), the three patriotic Filipino priests executed by the Spaniards wearing their priestly robes; writing under the pseudonym "DIMAS ILAW," Jacinto expresses belief that while compatriots would honor the priests' memory and continue the pursuit of justice and equality, he admits that some are not yet prepared to fight for the said noble ideals; the priest-martyrs, who incurred the ire of the colonial Spanish officials for advocating the secularization of the clergy, were executed on February 15, 1872 through garrotte at Bagumbayan, Manila after being tried with practically no counsel by the colonial Spanish military tribunal at the Fort Santiago on trumped-up charges of instigating the Cavite Mutiny during the Spanish colonial period; Jacinto's ode to the fallen compatriot priest entitled "¡¡¡ Gomez, Burgos, Zamora !!!" goes in part:

Buhat sa araw na yaun, ang kanilang mga pusung bukal ng sagana’t wagas na pagibig sa kanilang mga kalulu’t kapatid, ay hindi na tumitibok; ang kanilang kaloobang karurukang mataas ng mga banal na nasa ay hindi na nagpipita; ang kanilang mga bibig ay hindi na nangungusap, hindi na tumututol sa pagsasangalang ng Katuiran at ng kagalingang lahat... Ang kapusungan at ang lilong galit ng mga palamara ay nagdami’t hukom, at sila’y kinitlan ng hininga nang walang makawangis na katampalasanan.

Raw photo credit: http://fil.wikipilipinas.org/images/3/32/Gomez-burgos-zamora.jpg

29 April

1897 - Procopio Bonifacio y de Castro, brother of  Supremo Andres Bonifacio,  President of the underground society-turned-revolutionary-government Kataastaasang Kagalanggalangang Katipunan nang manga Anak nang Bayan fighting for liberation against Spain, testifies that the men of Emilio Aguinaldo's camp struck his nose with the butt-end of a gun, an act he says surprised him since he did not offer resistance during their and other Katipuneros' abduction in Limbon in Cavite; Bonifacio, had earlier issued the Acta de Tejeros and the Naic Military Agreement that nullified the election and newfound authority of Aguinaldo's camp on grounds of fraud in the March Tejeros Convention polls and the treasonous act of negotiating for truce with the enemy Spaniards, respectively; Procopio's testimony is part of the kangaroo court martial proceedings conducted by the camp of Aguinaldo led by Brig. Gen. Mariano Noriel against the Supremo; the Bonifacio brothers were shot at, with Ciriaco Bonifacio dying on the spot, and President Bonifacio being hit in the arm and stabbed in the throat, seized and, with Procopio being tightly bound, forcibly taken to Naic from Limbon, Cavite a day earlier; Gen. Santiago Alvarez will write about the very pitiful physical state of the Supremo and his younger brother just before the court martial proceedings. 


Raw photo credit: http://kasaysayan-kkk.info/gallery.kkk.htm

28 APRIL

1897 - Andres Bonifacio y de Castro, leader of the underground-society-turned-revolutionary government Kataastaasang Kagalanggalangang Katipunan nang manga Anak nang Bayan fighting to liberate the Philippines from the Spanish colonizers, is shot, stabbed to the neck and seized, along with brother and some 20 others by Col.  Agapito Bonzon, alias "Yntong" and other men of Capitan Emilio Aguinaldo y Famy whose camp has earlier moved to seize the revolutionary leadership from the Supremo through the fraudulent Tejeros Convention; Bonifacio's wife, Gregorio de Jesus, would later be raped by Yntong  and the wounded Supremo himself and his surviving brother, Procopio (Ciriaco dies from gunshot wound in the head) would be forcibly brought to Naic, from barrio Limbon, near Indang, Cavite, imprisoned in a dark, cramp cell without visit, be subjected to kangaroo court martial, with his assigned "lawyer" Placido Martinez judging and condemning for trump-up charges of supposedly trying to assassinate Aguinaldo; on May 10, 1897, Bonifacio would be murdered-by-execution on Aguinaldo's orders in the latter's provincial turf in what future Prime Minister Apolinario Mabini y Maranan would describe as "the first victory of personal ambition over true patriotism."


Raw photo credit (Procopio Bonifacio): http://kasaysayan-kkk.info/gallery.kkk.htm

27 APRIL

Graciano Lopez Jaena
Photo art: JB

1883 - Graciano Lopez Jaena, member of the so-called
triumvirate of Filipino propagandists aiming for reforms during the Spanish colonial rule, declares his desire for all territories under Spain to be given equal treatment, attention and consideration under the law; Jaena expresses this call during his well-applauded speech delivered in Madrid, Spain and attended by the press and personages from the other Spanish colonies Mexico, Cuba and Puerto Rico; Jaena, along with Jose M. Rizal and Marcelo H. del Pilar, Jaena were the leaders of the Propaganda Movement aiming to awaken Spain as to the needs of the people of its Southeast Asian colony and to effect a closer and more equal association between the two lands; Lopez-Jaena's historic speech goes in part:

Next I must tell you that my earnest desire is for our dear Spain to give all her overseas possessions equal treatment, attention, and consideration, instead of leaving some in pitiful neglect, the very ones which might be of greater usefulness to her and which had always been obedient to her. All of them contribute to her welfare and grandeur, which are our own good and aggrandizement; all of them should be esteemed and heeded; all should be respected and taken into account; all of them should be loved by their common Mother. (Enthusiastic applause.)

26 APRIL

Moluccas ( Indonesia) and Felipinas/St. Lazaro (Philippines)

1525 -  Spanish King Charles I issues the "Royal decree of the Fray Garcia de Loaysa, appointed governor of the Moluccas, to allow Captain Sebastian Caboto and the people of his armada to trade in the Island"; following Spain's "discovery" [read: first learned about]of the nearby and future colony the Philippine archipelago (Islas de San Lazaro) with the arrival of the expedition of Ferdinand Magellan in 1521,  the Spanish colonizers have begun to try to gain control of Moluccas, the so-called “Spice Islands” (future Indonesia] in the bid to thwart its naval nemesis, Portugal, which had forged alliance with the sultan of Ternate; the two colonial powers earlier sought to prevent disagreements with their colonial expansionist undertaking through the 1494 Treaty of Tordesillas, with Pope Alexander VI drawing an imaginary north-sough demarcation line, 100 leagues west of the Cape Verde Islands, in which all lands west of the line should belong to Spain and anything east, to Portugal; about four years later, in 1529, the king of Spain will forge a peace deal with Portugal, nominally abandoning interest over Moluccas for a sum of money although Spanish interest over the islands will persist for some century and a half, sending expeditions from Manila until the colonial Spanish governor of the Philippines, Manrique de Lara, decides to dismantle all garrisons in the Spice Islands by 1663.


Photo credit: http://www.tooleys.co.uk/tas3.htm

25 APRIL

1899 -  Gen. Antonio Luna y Novicio, the Chief of Operations of the Philippine forces informs Pres. Emilio Aguinaldo y Famy about the fierce gun battles between Filipino troops and imperialist enemy soldiers in the province of Bulacan nearly two months into the bloody and protracted  Philippine-American War (1899-1914);  Gen. Luna reports on:  the death of 200 Filipinos and 700 Americans, spirited resistance of Bagbag's defenders until the lack of ammunition forced their retreat; and the successful repulsion of imperialist forces in Calumpit followed by their strategic destruction of military bridges and abandonment of said town; the lost Battle of Bagbag River (April 25) is controversial because Gen. Luna left the battle front to punish Gen. Tomas Mascardo, then in Pampanga, for refusing to heed his orders--ultimately resulting to the decisive defeat of the Filipinos who were left under Gen. Gregorio del Pilar under the hands of the imperialist forces of America's Gen. Arthur MacArthur although both sides suffered heavy losses.

Photo credit: http://www.philippinephilatelist.net/Views/War/Various%203.html

24 APRIL

Photo art: JB

 
1897 - Andres Bonifacio y de Castro, Supremo of the Philippine underground-society-turned-revolutionary government Kataastaasang Kagalanggalangang Katipunan nang manga Anak nang Bayan, writes to his confidante and Commander of Manila's revolutionary forces Emilio Jacinto y Dizon about the detestable acts of treason/collaboration with the enemy Spaniards that was engaged in by certain members of the the Magdalo faction of the revolutionary movement: "Daniel Tirona, Mtro. De Guerra, Jose del Rosario, Interior Minister, Jose Caelles, teniente Gral., almost all of Tanza residents along with the priest there; all of whom were partisans of Capt. Emilio [Aguinaldo];" Bonifacio relays to Jacinto the fraud and anomaly that characterized the Tejeros Convention elections held about a month earlier, including how the convention was rushed despite the lack of representation from other districts and Don Artemio Ricarte's declaration about the fraud  of the elections; the Generalissimo also expresses fears that his company seems to be in danger not only from the Spanish enemy but, also, from the local [Caviteno] revolutionary leaders (true to his fears, Supremo Bonifacio will be seized, subjected to  kangaroo court martial, and executed by Capitan Emilio Aguinaldo's forces).

23 APRIL

Gat Andres Bonifacio
Photo art: JB

 
1901- The poem "Un Heroe del Pueblo - Andres Bonifacio" which pays a lofty homage to Supremo Andres Bonifacio y de Castro, the great hero, co-founder, and soul of the Philippine revolutionary movement Kataastaasang Kagalanggalangang Katipunan nang manga Anak nang Bayan (KKK) , is penned and read by Filipino poet, essayist, writer, editor and lawyer Cecilio Apostol; the poem read during the first commemoration of Supremo Andres Bonifacio's tragic murder-by-execution, is published in the nationalistic newspaper El Renacimiento", along with Apostol's French translation of "Decalogue"; dubbed the "Father of the Philippine Revolution," Bonifacio was the Supremo of the secret-society-turned-revolutionary-government Katipunan during the Himagsikan launched in August 1896 against the Spanish colonial rule but was deposed from revolutionary power during the fraudulent and scandalous Tejeros Convention by the Magdalo faction of Capitan Emilio Aguinaldo; the Supremo nullified the anomalous elections through the Acta de Tejeros and, together with other Katipuneros , signed the Naik Military Agreement declaring that several Filipino revolutionary leaders (referring to but not naming the camp of Aguinaldo) committed treason by negotiating for a truce with the enemy Spaniards and should therefore not be recognized; a week after the Naic Military Agreement, the Supremo would be seized by the men of Aguinaldo, subjected to kangaroo court martial, and finally executed with his brother Procopio on a tragic Monday on May 10, 1897.

22 APRIL

 
1529 - Spanish and Portuguese monarchs Cárlos I and João III sign the Treaty of Zaragoza that relinquishes Moluccas to Portugal as Spain retains the Philippine islands; the treaty basically continues the meridian of Tordesillas in the opposite hemisphere to settle their claims over Moluccas (future Indonesia), as the Philippines, where Spanish colonization already began, is made to stand on the Spanish side; in fact, both Moluccas and the Philippines belong to the Portuguese sphere based on the Treaty of Tordesillas, an agreement forged after Pope Alexander VI drew an imaginary demarcation line from north to south, 100 leagues west of the Cape Verde Islands, where anything west of the line was Spain's and anything east, Portugal's; the Treaty of Zaragosa, which stipulates Spain's cession of its rights over Moluccas in exchange for the payment of 350,000 gold ducats, is forged in the context of the the uncertainly of the size of Earth and Spanish breech of the Treaty of Tordesillas: with regards the Philippine Islands (originally named by Magellan as St. Lazarus.

 

Raw photo credit: 

 
http://people.hofstra.edu/geotrans/eng/ch2en/conc2en/img/Map_Spanish%20Portuguese%20Empires%2016-17c.pdf

21 APRIL

Mariano R. Marcos,
with young Ferdinand E. Marcos

1897 - Mariano Marcos y Rubio, educator, lawyer, lawmaker and father of future Philippine President Ferdinand E. Marcos, is born in Batac, Ilocos Norte, 1 1/2 years into the Philippine Revolution against Spain;  raised as militant follower of Gregorio Aglipay and the Philippine Independent Church, he will be elected a congressman under the Nacionalista Party but, following his lost in the 1935 elections for the National Assembly, will be accused, tried, but acquitted of killing of Rep. Julio Nalundasan three days after the polls; the prosecution will charge that Mariano Marcos, along with brother Pio Marcos, son Ferdinand Marcos and brother-in-law Quirino Lizardo,  has been pushed to conspire against the life of Nalundasan by the latter's poll victory;  his son, Ferdinand Marcos, along with his brother-in-law, will be convicted  but later acquitted of the crime on appeal to the Supreme Court in a celebrated case where the young Marcos who will soon graduate magna cum laude in law from the University of the Philippines, will begin to organize his own defense and eventually win in a decision a short while after making history with the highest score ever garnered in the Bar examinations

 
Photo credit: http://library.thinkquest.org/15816/thetwoleaders.article1.html

20 April

1572 - "Relation of the Conquest of the Island of Luzon," which narrates the Spanish conquest of Luzon island in the Philippine Islands, is published in Manila; authored anonymously, it describes how the colonizing Spanish forces captured Manila from the Moros, discussing the campaigns that led to the subjugation of the Southeast Asian island -- from the experiences of the Spaniards in Panay to Luzon's eventual exploration and pacification [read:colonial subjugation]; the book disputes many 'fables' about the Philippine Moros, including the supposed presence of Moors similar to those of Barberia and how the this island's Muslims are supposed to fight like the Turks; writing from a pathetic condescending perspective of superior religious complex, the author refers to how the natives call their "chief idol" as "Batala" or "Diobata" and describes healing rites participated by aged women priestesses as a feast where everyone "eat and drink to the point of losing their senses"; the book also insists that only a few Muslims practice abstinence from pork, claiming that the practice was limited to "villages nearest the sea" and was done by the people not because they understand the "nefarious doctrine of Mahoma" because they supposedly "do not know the commandment or anything" about the Muslim prophet.

Photo credit: http://jibraelangel2blog.blogspot.com/2010/06/relation-of-voyage-to-luzon-1570.html

19 APRIL

KKK Council/Supreme Council seal

1896 - The Supreme Council of the Kataastaasang Kagalanggalangang Katipunan nang manga Anak nang Bayan (KKK), the secret revolutionary society devoted to terminating Spanish colonial hold on the Philippine Islands, holds a meeting wherein the number of its members (kasangguni or councilors) is increased to twelve, some four months before the Philippine Revolution erupts; what could possibly have been the last change of membership in the Kataastaasang Sanggunian before the Himagsikan is marked by the presence of a number of non-Supreme Council activist members, indicating that attendance in the governing bodies of the Katipunan was not rigidly and preclusively circumscribed, and thus shows the democratic character of the KKK; the Kataastaasang Sangunian members now include the Supremo Andres Bonifacio y de Castro, Emilio Jacinto y Dizon, Dr. Pio Valenzuela, new member Enrique Pacheco, and also Francisco Carreon, future Vice-President of the Katagalugan Republic that would continue the aspirations of the Supremo and the Katipunan during the Filipino-American War (1899-1914).

KKK Flag, with art rendering
Photo art: JB

1897 - The Naik Military Agreement declares that several Filipino revolutionaries (referring to but not naming the camp of Emilio Aguinaldo y Famy) had committed treason against the nation and the revolution by trying to forge a peace pact with the Spanish colonial forces; signed by Generallissimo Supremo Andres Bonifacio y de Castro and other Katipuneros; the signatories resolve that they are no longer bound to recognize the authority of the traitors and that all revolutionary forces shall be unified under the command of Gen. Pio del Pilar , who, ironically, will later betray Bonifacio and advise the latter's nemesis, Aguinaldo, to have the Supremo executed; three days earlier, the Supremo reported to Northern Manila chief commander, Emilio Jacinto, about how the Magdalo faction led by Aguinaldo has negotiated with the enemy Spaniards to abandon the Revolution and explained that he needed to nullify all the resolutions that were adopted in the fraudulent and scandalously anomalous Tejeros Convention; many of the signatories of the Naic Military Agreement also earlier signed the “Acta de Tejeros” that nullified the outcome of the Tejeros convention, thereby denying that a republic, or a revolutionary government, had just been created and repudiating Aguinaldo’s election as president of the (new) revolutionary body that would supersede the Katipunan.



Raw photo credit: http://kasaysayan-kkk.info/gallery.selyos.htm

18 APRIL

1947 - The Treaty of Amity between the Philippines and China (pre-communism) is signed at Manila by Vice-President Elpidio Quirino and concurrent Foreign Affairs Secretary and Minister Plenipotentiary Chen Chih-Ping in the bid to maintain and strengthen the good relations between them; the treaty renounces the use of force in settling disputes and referring them instead to the International Court of Justice; the Treaty is interpreted to exclude alien registration and immigration and other fees from its scope; also notable is how the Treaty is interpreted by Quirino to define the term "nationals" under Article IX as including American corporations and associations--this, when the Philippines has supposedly been 'granted' independence by the imperialist United States more than ten months earlier on July 4, 1946; the Philippines was invaded by the U.S. via the bloody and protracted Filipino-American War (1899-1914) essentially for its "mountains of coal" and others and its strategic market in the Pacific; despite the 1946 granting of"independence," the Southeast Asian country has continued to be under American neo-colonial domination owing to the US-RP Treaty of General Relations and the Parity Amendment that has allowed U.S. access to 22 military, naval, and air bases in the Philippines and gives Americans the oppressive right to exploit Philippine resources; specifically, the non-discrimination principle stated in the Amity treaty between the two Asian countries excludes:

...treatment, benefits or advantages that are now or may hereafter be granted by the Republic of the Philippines to the United States of America or to its citizens, corporations or associations.

17 APRIL

Bonifacio out, Aguinaldo in, says Tejeros coup
Photo Art: Jesusa Bernardo

1897 - Filipino revolutionary Emilio Aguinaldo y Famy names his all-Caviteno cabinet members following his supposed election in the fraudulent and scandalously anomalous Tejeros Convention as President of a new revolutionary body less than a month earlier and some three weeks before he will order the murder-by-execution of Kataastaasang Kagalanggalangang Katipunan nang manga Anak nang Bayan (KKK) Supremo Andres Bonifacio y de Castro; earlier, the Supremo issued the Acta de Tejeros that  nullified the Tejeros Convention  on grounds that it was marked by fraud, even as the "brains" of Katipunan, Emilio Jacinto y Dizon, had reiterated that Bonifacio is still the leader of the Philippine revolution in a letter dated April 11, 1897; Gen. Artemio Ricarte, one of those elected in the Convention, held the elections to have been marked by fraud and initially hesitated to take his oath as as General-in-Chief of the Revolutionary Army in a clandestine ceremony surreptitiously kept hidden from the Magdiwang chapter of the KKK on March 24.

16 APRIL

Signature of Supremo Andres Bonifacio as Maypagasa
(reflection as art rendering)

1897 - Philippine revolutionary leader Andres Bonifacio y de Castro ascribes the failure of the Kataastaasang Kagalanggalangang Katipunan nang manga Anak nang Bayan (KKK) forces in defending Cavite against Spanish troops to factionalism within the movement; in a letter to Emilio Jacinto y Dizon, newly appointed Supreme Commander of all revolutionary forces in Manila, Supremo Andres Bonifacio relays how the Magdalo faction led by Capitan Emilio Aguinaldo y Famy has negotiated with the Spaniards to abandon the Revolution and explains that he needed to nullify all the resolutions that were adopted in the fraudulent and scandalously anomalous Tejeros Convention owing to the dirty tactics of Magdalo in the bid to discredit him and the Katipunan; Generallissimo Bonifacio also reports about the deceitfulness of Aguinaldo and Magdalo in apparently scheming to abandon the Revolution and forge a deal with the enemy Spaniards:

Ang nasabing Capitan Emilio [Aguinaldo] ay mag ginawang Condiciones na ibig na hingin sa kaaway na gaya ng paalisin ang mga fraile, diputados a Cortes at iba pang mga bagaybagay, at itoy ipinahatid sa kay M. Mariano Alvarez at hinihingi ang kanyang pag ayon, itoy isinanguni sa akin at ng hindi namin sang ayunan ay ang ginawa ng taga Imus, ay sinulatan ng lihim ni Cap. Emilio ang mga Pangulo sa Bayang sakop ng Magdiwang.

Photo art: JB

Raw photo image: http://kasaysayan-kkk.info/gallery.kkk.htm

15 APRIL

KKK Appointment Document of Gen. Emilio Jacinto y Dizon

1897 - Andres Bonifacio y de Castro, leader and co-founder of the revolutionary government Kataastaasang Kagalanggalangang Katipunan nang manga Anak nang Bayan (KKK), appoints Emilio Jacinto y Dizon as Supreme Commander of all revolutionary forces in Manila during the Filipinos' struggle against Spanish colonial rule; the appointment comes some three weeks after the infamous and anomalous Tejeros Convention that fraudulently and scandalously dislodged the Supremo from revolutionary power but which Bonifacio's camp nullified by way of the Acta de Tejeros; in less than three weeks' time, Generallissimo Bonifacio, along with his brothers, would be successfully seized, subjected to kangaroo court martial, and executed by order of his revolutionary nemesis and perceived virtual coup plotter, Gen. Emilio Aguinaldo; the appointment of Jacinto, "Brains of the Katipunan" and Bonifacio's trusted friend and adviser says in Tagalog:

"SA PAGKAKILALA sa tapat na paglilingkod at pagtatangol sa Bayang tinubuan ni M. Emilio Jacinto Pingkian itong Kataastaasang Panguluhan sa pag-ganap nang kaniyang kapagyarihang tungkol, minarapat na inihalal ang nasabing kapatid sa katungkulang Pang-ulong hukbo sa dakong Hilagaan ng Maynila."

Photo scan credit: Dnvzs Zjzllg

14 APRIL

Pre-guerrilla-warfare Filipino

1900 - Emilio Aguinaldo y Famy, President of the fledgling Philippine Republic under siege from imperialist American forces, congratulates Capt. Galicano Calvo, a guerrilla force commander in Ilocos province, for victories scored against the enemy 2 1/2 months into the Filipino-American War (1899-1914); Aguinaldo also congratulates the patriotic stance of the Ilocanos for their role in the victories they scored in the guerrilla warfare the province has staged against the forces of the imperialist Bald Eagle nation and at the same time exhorts the Ilocano freedom-fighters to implement effective guerrilla strategies with minimal use of ammunition as possible against the superior enemy forces; the congratulation came amidst Aguinaldo's feeling of dejection when two Filipino generals surrendered to the enemy earlier during the Philippine-American War; the Fil-Am War would launch the imperialist course of the United States, becoming the first of many Vietnams; the U.S. decided to invade the Southeast Asian nation, a former Spanish colony that revolted and declared independence, over its rich natural resources, including "mountains of coal" and its strategic importance to American commercial domination.
  

Photo credit: http://philippineamericanwar.webs.com/ilocosandcagayan1899.htm

13 APRIL

Filipino soldiers in the plaza of Malolos

1899 - Two months after the breakout of the bloody and protracted Filipino-American War (1899-1914), the victories of the Philippine Army in intense gunbattles in Malolos, Marilao, Polo, Novaliches and Mariquina and the great losses suffered by the imperialist American invaders are communicated to the local chief of Gerona, Tarlac; the communique mentions about the Filipinos' positive expectations of their triumph in the Phil-Am War, including the  how the vile Bald Eagle invaders will supposedly be unable to advance to Marilao in Bulacan;  the assessment is based on the analysis of the war defense by the Gen. Antonio Luna y Novicio, Philippine Republic's military leader said to have the greatest capacity for war,  two months before members of the Kawit company assassinate Luna on orders of President Emilio Aguinaldo y Famy.

12 APRIL

1899 - Gen. Licerio Geronimo y Imaya appoints a foreigner, Arthur Howard, as a Captain of Infantry of the Philippine army and orders his forces, as well as civil and military authorities, to accord the new captain the respect due his rank 21/1 months into the bloody and protracted Filipino-American War (1899-1914), Geronimo's division, his Tiradores de la Muerte (Sharpshooters of Death) troop in particular, will be responsible for felling imperialist American Gen. Henry Ware Lawton eight months later during a historic battle in San Mateo, then wholly part of Rizal province; Howard, said to have been a  deserter from the enemy American ranks,  supposedly trained the Filipino snipers that will tenaciously and courageously kill Lawton, the highest-ranking Bald Eagle military officer killed in action by freedom-fighting Filipinos;  the invading Americans would later appoint Geronimo to the Philippine Constabulary [read:imperialist police force] after a number of U.S. officers found Lawton's killer to be "the most honest, straightforward native that they have ever known"; the Phil-Am War was precipitated by the vile  American soldiers' shooting at some Filipino soldiers crossing the Sta. Ana bridge in Manila on secret orders from  U.S. regimental commanders who were implementing imperialist U.S. President William McKinley's 'pre-arranged plan' to blame the hostilities on the Filipinos so as to push their Senate into approving the Treaty of Paris and, thus, allow the military funding for the annexation of the Philippines; the army and guerrilla forces of the fledgling Philippine Republic will eventually lose to the North American imperialist and future superpower U.S. that set its sights on the Southeast Asian nation for its rich natural resources, including very fertile plains and valleys and "mountains of coal," projected potential markets and its strategic position in the Pacific.


Raw photo credit: Macky Hosalla

11 APRIL

1899 - The Treaty of Paris by which Spain supposedly 'cedes' its former colony, the Philippines, to the imperialist United States is ratified by the US Senate two months after the Philippines-American War (1899-1914) was deliberately precipitated by the American military; 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 instigate a war by implementing the secret orders made by regimental commanders to bring about conflict by firing the first shots at native soldiers trying to cross Sta. Ana bridge in the bid to trick the U.S. Senate into approving the Treaty and, thus, secure funding for military operations to annex the Southeast Asian country; less than a year earlier, the combination of Filipino revolutionary forces and, to an extent, the resulting Manila blockade (following the Spanish-American War), had effectively wrested control of the archipelago from the Spain; most unfortunately, the Republican administration of William McKinley has begun steering the US towards an imperialist course of overseas expansion that would victimize not only the Philippines but, as well, Guam, Puerto Rico, US Virgin Islands, Northern Mariana Islands, American Samoa and, for a time, Cuba, during the early part of the 20th century.


Photo credit: http://www.revolutionintheair.com/histstrategy/forbidbk.html

10 April

1915 - "The Independent," a radical weekly periodical and the last of five major pro-Philippine Independence journalistic efforts by Vicente Yap Sotto, sees its maiden issue during the American colonial period; walking a thin line between resistance and collaboration with the imperialist Americans, future senator Sotto was earlier arrested and imprisoned in 1899 by the imperialist American military governor during the height of the Filipino-American War (1899-1914) over his publication of "La Justicia," the Cebuano publication dedicated to espousing Philippine Independence but accepting "the fact of American military control"; Sotto as future Filipino solon during the colonial American rule of the southeast Asian archipelago will author the pivotal  Press Freedom Law (later to be known as the Sotto Law, Republic Act No. 53).

Photo credit: http://senatorvicenteyapsotto.blogspot.com/2008_01_01_archive.html

9 April

World War II Bataan (Death) March

1961 - "Bataan Day" is proclaimed as legal holiday in the Philippines under Republic Act No. 3022 to commemorate the start of the Bataan Death March, the World War II atrocity in which some 75,000 Filipino and American prisoners of war were forcibly and often fatally made to march by their Japanese captors from Bataan peninsula towards prison camps; the 1942 event came after the retreating American forces in Bataan surrendered to the Japanese who earlier made victorious surprise attacks against the United States Pacific fleet at Pearl Harbor and subsequently the air base at Clark Field in Luzon island, the Philippines that was then an American colony; "Bataan Day" would later be changed to the euphemistic "Araw ng Kagitingan" by President Ferdinand E. Marcos in 1979 following anti-American criticisms and arguments that war defeats should not be celebrated; the inhumane treatment and experience met by the approximately 63,000 Filipino and 12,000 Americans during the march is said to have been caused by the big number of prisoners overwhelming the Japanese whose operation plan was only for 25,000 prisoners of war; the original text of the Philippine law proclaiming April 9 as "Bataan Day" reads:

Section 1. The ninth day of April is hereby proclaimed as Bataan Day, and all public officials and citizens of the Philippines are enjoined to observe such day with a one-minute silence at 4:30 o'clock in the afternoon, and to hold appropriate rites in honor of the heroic defenders of Bataan and their parents, wives and/or widows.

Photo credit: http://naturalhealth.ph/fitness/why-im-running-the-bataan-life-march-this-weekend/