14 APRIL

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 United States 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 much 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 North America's imperialist course, 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; the Fil-Am War was deliberately and secretly precipitated by the imperialist American military under the vile pre-arranged plan of US President William McKinley in the bid to push the American Senate into approving the ridiculous Treaty of Paris wherein Spain supposedly 'cedes' its former colony to the US  following the Peace Protocol forged a day before the infamous Mock Battle of Manila on August 13, 1898 as part of the two powers' imperialistic, shoddy and detestably anti-democratic deal.

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