(Editor’s Note: The writer is a senior history researcher at the National Historical Commission of the Philippines.)
Flags flutter in the breeze in this file photo, stirring pride in Filipino hearts. National Flag Day was celebrated yesterday, commemorating the waving of the tricolor in Cavite City by Gen. Emilio Aguinaldo, to mark the victory of Filipinos on that day in the Battle of Alapan in Imus, Cavite.
The nation is celebrating National Flag Day today (Monday), May 28.
On this day in 1898, some of the 2,000 rifles and 200,000 rounds of ammunition that arrived at the Cavite port two days earlier were delivered to a little known revolutionary enclave, a barrio named Alapan, now part of Imus, Cavite.
The Spaniards learned about the delivery and sent an infantry force of about 270 soldiers to the barrio to confiscate the weapons.
But the local revolutionists put up a fight, engaging the Spaniards from 10 in the morning until 3 in the afternoon.
The gun battle ended in victory for the Filipinos, who took their Spanish prisoners to the revolutionary headquarters in Cavite that same day.
As they approached the headquarters to the shouts and cheers of the locals, Gen. Emilio Aguinaldo, leader of the Philippine Revolution, waved the Philippine flag that he had brought back with him from exile in Hong Kong.
It was a moment of glory for the revolutionists and for the Filipino people. It was the eve of the birth of a new nation.
Revolution’s first combat
As a tribute to the Filipino victory at Alapan, General Aguinaldo cited the battle in his memoirs as “the first combat of the Filipino revolution of 1898, which we may call a continuation of the campaign of 1896 to 1897.”
Preempting even the general uprising Aguinaldo called for the 31st of May, the battle also presaged the successive victories of the second phase of the Philippine Revolution.
The Battle of Alapan was memorialized as “Flag Day” under Proclamation No. 374 of 1965 and as the start of National Flag Day under the Flag and Heraldic Code of the Philippines. These are the bases of our celebration today.
But the road to the victory at Alapan had not been easy or bloodless or without tears. From the first day of the Philippine Revolution, which broke out in August 1896, the Filipinos’ struggle was hard and tragic.
Children lost their fathers, wives their husbands, families their daughters and sons. They suffocated in the crowded prisons of Fort Santiago or were executed in Bagumbayan or perished in the battles that took place within and outside Manila in the succeeding months and years.
The revolutionist
One such battle was the Battle of Zapote Bridge on Feb. 17, 1897. It was one of the bloodiest battles of the revolution, and its hero was the noble Edilberto Evangelista.
A native of Manila, Evangelista saved money to finance his studies in Ghent. In that Belgian city, his love of country was nurtured through his friendship with Jose Rizal and other Filipino expatriates who were part of the reformist movement.
Evangelista was one of the few Filipino expatriates who shared with Rizal the same level of patriotic zeal that pushed to the sidelines all other concerns of life, focusing all efforts and activities on one goal: the attainment of freedom.
In 1892, Evangelista wrote to Rizal about “the duty to die” for country and people. He believed that “for a patriotic man, there is no sense in this stupid expression, ‘What a waste of blood.’”
Even before the founding of the Katipunan, which espoused separation from Spain through armed struggle, Evangelista had already been speaking of waging a revolution and organizing a “revolutionary club.”
Evangelista returned to the Philippines in 1896 with a degree in engineering from the University of Ghent. He had excelled in his studies and received an offer for a job in a Belgian company. But he chose to return to his homeland to join the revolution.
Excellent defenses
Although initially rebuffed, he was later appointed by Aguinaldo as director general of the engineering corps and given the rank of lieutenant general in the revolutionary army.
Under Evangelista’s expert supervision, trenches and fortifications were built in the revolutionary bastions of Aromahan, Zapote and Cavite Viejo (now Kawit). The excellent quality of these defenses enabled the revolutionary troops to put up a fierce stand against the charge of the enemy, eliciting admiration even from a Spanish writer, who described the defenses as “fortifications of the future.”
On the battlefield, Evangelista gained the praise of his peers for displaying an almost devil-may-care attitude toward death. He once said that a fighter never knew anyway whether the next enemy bullet would hit him.
Battle of Zapote Bridge
With that awesome courage, Evangelista faced the enemy in the Battle of Zapote Bridge.
The Spaniards were at the time in the midst of a campaign to recapture territories that had fallen into Filipino hands in the early phase of the revolution in 1896. While a battle raged in Silang, enemy forces suddenly appeared at Zapote, where Aguinaldo, Generals Mariano Noriel, Pio del Pilar and Evangelista commanded the defense.
Led by Aguinaldo and armed only with spears, bolos and a smattering of pistols and rifles, the Filipino army fought fiercely, successfully turning back wave after wave of enemy troops.
The Filipinos’ stubborn resistance delayed the enemy plan and caught the admiration of the Spaniards’ commanding general for the revolutionists’ fortitude.
Died for his country
But the revolutionists’ tour de force was a pyrrhic one for Zapote River flowed red with the blood of those who perished, one of them Evangelista. Shot on the forehead during one of the enemy charges, Evangelista fulfilled his duty to die for his country.
The 1897 Battle of Zapote Bridge—inspired by uprisings, revolts and battles, whether triumphant for the Filipinos or not, in the previous 300 years—was a step in the right direction, to echo Salud Algabre, a Sakdalista leader of the 1930s, for the Philippine Revolution. It was a step that eventually led to the victory at Alapan in 1898 and ultimately to the glory of Philippine independence on June 12, 1898.