TODAY is the 126th anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Paris, ceding the Philippines by Spain to the United States, which happened on Dec. 10, 1898. Supposedly, this treaty wouldn't have mattered because we were already establishing our own government through the Philippine Congress at Malolos and were already writing our own constitution. But I guess superpower moves.
When we were winning against the Spaniards and declaring our independence on June 12, 1898, they did not want to surrender to our brown faces. They wanted to surrender to white men. And so, they staged the mock Battle of Manila (read: fake) on Aug. 13, 1898, and after that, the Spanish flag went down after three centuries, and the American flag went. The Filipinos marched to Intramuros to claim an American consul's promise that they would assure our independence, but they were not let in (of course, the consul could not make that decision). That was when we transferred the revolutionary capital to Malolos, Bulacan and started the work of establishing the First Constitutional Democratic Republic in Asia.
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