This small barrio is the center of major activities today, as the nation commemorates the 124th anniversary of the first time that the Philippine flag, in its present form, was hoisted. President Rodrigo Duterte will lead the ceremonies by raising the Philippine flag, while President-elect Leni Robredo will do the same at the Rizal Monument in Luneta Park.
It was in Alapan, 124 years ago, where a ragtag band of Filipino revolutionaries tied the Filipino flag to a bamboo pole and proudly raised it after a victorious assault on a Spanish arsenal guarded heavily by better equipped Spanish soldiers. General Emilio Aguinaldo had entrusted the Hong Kong-made flag to the Imus rebolusyonaryos for safekeeping.
Because Aguinaldo was not present, the event was overlooked by historians, who presumed that the Philippine flag was first publicly displayed June 12, 1898, when Aguinaldo proclaimed independence in his Kawit, Cavite home. Generations of Filipinos learned from history books that June 12 was not only the date of the proclamation of independence, but also the first time the flag was unfurled on Philippine soil.
However, the Imus veterans of the Spanish-Filipino struggle did not forget. They commemorated the event with annual parades capped by the raising of the flag atop a bamboo pole in the original site, which later became a barrio public school.
On May 28, 1969, while working for ABS-CBN News, news reporter/producer Sol Jose covered the Alapan parade upon the urging of her cameraman -- Imus native Doming Topacio. The stirring interviews with ageing rayadillo-clad veterans moved Sol into visiting Alapan every May 28 even after she left the news department.
Two years ago, when top officials of the newly-created National Centennial Commission were guest panellists of the Bulong Pulongan media forum, Sol called the attention of NCC Chairman Salvador Laurel to the historical inaccuracy surrounding the flag's first hoisting. Laurel put historians and researchers to task, and ordered new research.
Last year, the NCC announced that May 28 was going to be called "Flag Day" and would be celebrated at the site of the first flag hoisting in front of the public school in Alapan. Laurel and NCC Executive Director Luis Morales lauded Sol, now Mrs. Sol Jose Vanzi, for being mainly responsible for rewriting our history books to reflect the events of May 28, 1898.
Mrs. Sol Jose Vanzi is the Philippine Headline News Online Manila Bureau Chief. She is also the Philippine stringer for The Los Angeles Times, Australian TV's 60 Minutes and a French TV documentary group.
(The entire PHNO Newsflash staff along with all our cybereaders proudly congratulate our editor Sol Jose Vanzi for being an incredible piece of our Centennial history! Lee Quesada)
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