Independence Day

BAGUIO CITY—Emilio Aguinaldo Suntay III, the 42-year-old great grandson of Gen. Emilio Aguinaldo, opened the family museum during the 111th Independence Day celebration Friday and was surprised to find 57 high school students.

Jasper, one of the students, said they were looking for the museum which housed the now decaying Philippine flag that was hoisted by Aguinaldo in Kawit, Cavite, on June 12, 1898.

The flag, whose sun icon bears a human face, was discovered tucked in Aguinaldo’s deathbed. A few years ago, Suntay said the days of this historical relic, were numbered.

Often ignored by government and unsupported by national resources, the flag had been gradually fraying at the seams inside a glass case after experts pronounced that technology alone would not keep it from decaying.

But Jasper said the original flag was “new to us.” He and the other high school students write for the Pine Tree, school paper of the Baguio City National High School.

“Our adviser asked us to write about Independence Day, but we were surprised when they talked about the first flag during [7 a.m. flag raising ceremony at Baguio’s Rizal Park],” Jasper said.

“We started to look for it. We found it. This is a better story. This is cooler,” he said.

Acrylic mold

Suntay said the enthusiasm of the teenagers convinced the family to try one more option to rescue the flag, as well as its replica that was donated by the National Historical Institute during the Philippine Centennial in 1998.

He told the students that his family was planning to replace the glass case with an acrylic mold, to hold in place the flag’s tattered and thinning fabric.

He said experts could not determine the weave used by Marcela Agoncillo when she and several other women sewed together the original banner in Hong Kong in 1898.

Breathe nitrogen

Suntay said the flag would then be forced to “breathe nitrogen instead of oxygen.”

Oxygen contributes to a relic’s decay, but sealing the flag in a case that has no air would only endanger the relic, he said. “Once it is opened, it would crumble to dust.”

The other solution was to displace the oxygen with nitrogen, an industry solution for preserving meat and other products in many countries, he added.

Suntay said the family was securing funds to preserve the replica “because that will be our original flag for the next hundred years once the first flag is gone.”

Unique

The family members are now considering offers from companies to help conserve the relic, an option they ignored in the past for fear it would raise questions about the flag’s authenticity.

Despite the probes, neither the NHI nor other conservation groups had authenticated this relic, Suntay said.

“The flag is a symbol of the many sacrifices of our forefathers,” he said, and should remain “the symbol of what we aspire to be as a nation.”

The flag is unique, he added. Aside from the human features on the mythological sun, the banner bears the embroidered words “Fuerzas Expedicionarias del Norte de Luzon (Expeditionary Forces of Northern Luzon),” “justicia (justice)” and “libertad (liberty).”

The ninth ray

Meanwhile, at the Barasoain Church in Malolos City, where Aguinaldo convened the Malolos Congress 100 years ago, Education Secretary Jesli Lapus has proposed the addition of a ninth ray to the flag’s sun to represent Bataan.

“The sun represents only eight provinces. It should represent nine provinces. It should have included Bataan. Five of the eight provinces in the symbol are in Central Luzon,” Lapus said in Filipino during his speech after the flag-raising ceremony at the church compound in Bulacan.

Sen. Richard Gordon has also filed a resolution seeking to add another ray to the flag’s sun to recognize the Moro resistance against foreign intruders.