May 24 or June 12?

I do not wish to stir another history beehive but how many really know the circumstances of June 12? While a lot of words were spoken about our Independence Day, what is it really?

What comes to mind is akin to that of the United States declaring July 4 as its Independence Day but I have yet to hear or read our officials or our teachers tell us what happened that led to this day.

In fact there is still a controversy whether June 12 is really our Independence Day or it is July 4 when on this day in 1946, there was a solemn moment at the Luneta where the American flag was lowered slowly at the same time that the Philippine flag was being raised. By the time the American flag reached the platform, the Philippine flag had reached the top of the pole.

This ceremony was preceded by the reading of the provisions of the Tydings-McDuffie law that the US Congress passed in 1935 granting Philippine Independence ten years hence and after the Philippine Commonwealth was established to prepare the country for full independence.

July 4 was thus specifically provided by law and since then we celebrated July 4 as Independence Day and continued to remain free, at least politically. On that day, other nations recognized our independence.

What about June 12, 1898? How was the declaration made, by whom, which nation recognized our independence, the sine qua non of being an independent state and what happened after the declaration? Was the entire country united under the government so declared?

The date June 12 is not the day the declaration was made by the Revolutionary Government President Emilio Aguinaldo.

In his manifesto of January 5, 1898, Aguinaldo protested against the appointment of US General Elwell Otis as Military Governor of the Philippines. He said that he made a proclamation of May 24, Revolutionary Government but he placed his government and the country as well, under the protection of the “Great American nation.”

He was naïve to think that this act would make the Americans his partners against Spain, but without him knowing it, America and Spain had already agreed on the terms for the capitulation of Spanish forces to the Americans and the isolation of Aguinaldo, ignoring thereby his government.

Aguinaldo took the word of the US Consul General in Singapore that there would be an alliance between the US and Aguinaldo for the expulsion of the Spaniards. Aguinaldo, not exposed to international diplomacy also thought that once he has proclaimed his government, the Americans would go home.

In that January 5, 1899 Manifesto Aguinaldo adverted to May 24. He wrote “in my proclamation of May 24 last, and I published it in my Manifesto addressed to the Philippine people on the 12th of June” his belief that the Great American nation “has come to offer its inhabitants (Filipinos) protection as decisive as it is disinterested.”

It was a wrong assumption because the Americans did not come to prop up his government or his proclamation.

It is clear then that the declaration, not of independence, was made on May 24 that American came to protect him and that he only published this declaration on June 12, 1898.

This declaration is therefore not of impendence but a wrong belief of American protection. He probably did not realize that he just made the Philippines not an independent state but an American protectorate.

Not a single country recognized his government as an independent government, albeit revolutionary, and the Philippines an independent state.

In international language, a country must be recognized as an independent state by other nations, at least two, otherwise, it is merely a rogue or sham government.

This is also the reason that we do not have a real proclamation document of May 24 or June 12 as that of the US with its document declaring independence. What we have is that July 4 declaration.

Note that in his manifesto, Aguinaldo did not make a clear and distinct proclamation of independence as Andres Bonifacio did by tearing his cedula and declaring a revolution against Spain.

Aguinaldo, however, celebrated on June 12 the first anniversary of his May 24 declaration. June 12 then is actually the date of publication, not declaration.

The Aguinaldo government, not recognized even by the Negros leaders who declared their own government, collapsed in 1901 and he took allegiance to the US.

The government under President Diosdado Macapagal changed the date of the celebration of our independence from that of the US to June 12, Aguinaldo’s declaration of a protectorate. July 4 became Philippine- American Friendship Day.

This change was acquiescence to the nationalistic fervor that swept the country in the 1960s, especially after his predecessor Carlos P. Garcia declared the Filipino First Policy.*

back to top