7 MARCH

American-sponsored Philippine Congress, circa 1916

1919 - The American-sponsored Philippine Legislature passes a Declaration of Purposes that officially spells out the purported position of the Filipinos on the vital issue of the "Philippine question"--the grant of independence by the imperialist United States; the Declaration come after some five years after the Filipino freedom fighters have been completely subdued and the last shots of the bloody and protracted Filipino-American War (1899-1914) fired; earlier in 1916, the Jones Act was passed by the United States Congress, providing for the recognition of Philippine independence supposedly after Filipinos would have been able to establish a stable government; the Senate and the Lower House would be established and control over most of the executive departments be given to the Filipinos, with the notable exception of the important Education portfolio; the Bald Eagle nation stole the Southeast Asian nation's virtual independence during the turn of the century during a lull in the Philippine Revolution against Spain when it conned revolutionary leader Emilio F. Aguinaldo into helping fight the Spaniards during the intersecting Spanish-American War, all the while making verbal promises to honor the independence of the Southeast Asian archipelago, only to annex it and then secretly provoke war in February 1899 against what was then the fledgling Philippine Republic.


Photo credit: http://www.ssc.edu.ph/centennial%20website/SSC%201910-1919.htm