16 FEBRUARY

Gat Andres Bonifacio monument

1921 - The day November 30, the birthday of Andres Bonifacio y de  Castro, the "Father of Philippine Revolution" is declared legal holiday under Act No. 2946 during the American colonial period; the declaration comes some 24 1/2 years  after Gat Andres, Generalissimo of the secret-turned-society-turned-revolutionary-government Kagalanggalangang Katipunan nang  manga Anak nang  Bayan (KKK) was ousted from revolutionary leadership through the  controversial Tejeros Convention and then executed by the same mutineer camp of Gen. Emilio F. Aguinaldo; Act No. 2946 effectively makes Bonifacio a national hero, although in an unofficial sense, in contrast to the imperialist American government's official declaration of Jose P. Rizal as national hero in the early 1900s; the law making every November 30th of each year Araw ni Bonifacio [Bonifacio Day] began as a bill sponsored by Senator Lope K. Santos.

World War II comes to the U.S. colony, the  Philippines

1945 - United States troops land on the Bataan Peninsula, Philippines in the bid to recapture the former American colony during World War II; the Southeast Asian country, invaded by the Bald Eagle nation at the turn of the 19th century when it declared itself independent of Spain, fell to the Japanese Imperial forces in 1941; over three years earlier,  Japanese planes attacked United States  military installations in Pearl Harbor and in Baguio, Davao, and Clark Field in the American colony, the  Philippines, leading to the Pacific Theatre of World War II; the Japanese landed in Pangasinan and headed towards Manila, prompting the escape of the  colonial Commonwealth government leaders President Manuel Luis Quezon y Molina and Vice-President Sergio Osmena y Suico towards  Corregidor fortress in Bataan and later towards the Visayan Islands and  Mindanao before being  picked up by U.S. B-17 bombers that eventually flew them to Washington.


Photo credit: http://history.howstuffworks.com/world-war-ii/axis-conquers-philippines.htm/printable

Photo art (Bonifacio monument):
Jesusa Bernardo