ILOILO CITY – Ceremonies were held in this city and Santa Barbara town, Iloilo province to celebrate the 127th Philippine Independence Day on June 12.
A GIANT Philippine flag at the 127th Philippine Independence Day celebration in Santa Barbara town, Iloilo province. The town is said to be where the Philippine flag first flew outside of Luzon. (Santa Barbara Ugyon)
Events were held in the two places that played pivotal roles in ending the more than 300-year Spanish rule in the country.
Santa Barbara is where Gen. Martin Delgado, the Ilonggo revolutionary leader who became the first Filipino governor of Iloilo, proclaimed the Provisional Revolutionary Government of the Visayas on Nov. 18, 1898.
It was also in Santa Barbara where the first Philippine flag was raised outside of Luzon.
On Christmas Day in 1898, Spain officially gave up its colony at Plaza Libertad here when Spanish Governor General Diego de los Ríos surrendered the Philippines to the Visayan revolutionary forces.
Historian and former Vice Gov. Demy Sonza said Iloilo played a contradicting role.
Iloilo initially defended the Spaniards when the Philippine Revolution started in 1896. The Ilonggo elite sent a battalion to Luzon to fight alongside the Spaniards against Gen. Emilio F. Aguinaldo’s troops.
Iloilo City is also where journalist Graciano Lopez Jaena was born on Dec. 18, 1856. As the first editor of the La Solidaridad newspaper, his works revealing the abuses of the Spaniards inspired revolutionaries to fight the colonists.