The first flag-raising in Cebu (April 10, 1898)
The country celebrates Independence Day on June 12 in memory of the Declaration of Independence and the flag-raising by General Emilio Aguinaldo on June 12, 1898 in Kawit, Cavite. Yet national historians may have omitted an important ceremony that happened in Cebu.
In the book "Ang Kagubut sa Sugbo 1898" written by Cebuano historian, Manuel Enriquez dela Calzada printed in July 1951, a compilation of articles written by Cebuano patriots and veterans of the uprising against Spain contains an article that categorically says that the flag-raising in Cebu was months ahead of the ceremony that took place in Kawit, Cavite.
It has been established that Cebuano patriots launched the uprising against Spain on April 3, 1898, that is why we celebrate the Battle of Tres de Abril where at the start the Cebuano patriots won, but reinforcements sent to the Spanish forces holed out in Fort San Pedro turned the tide.
Pantaleon Villegas, a.k.a. Leon Kilat, Chief of Army of the KKK Cebu, was assassinated on April 8, 1898 in Carcar, Cebu, but his death was not the end of the revolution. It continued because, although Leon Kilat played a major role as the inspiration of the warriors, the KKK Cebu survived and continued to struggle as majority of its officers did not die.
The article entitled "Pasko sa Pagkabanhaw" or Easter Sunday in the book of Enriquez, written by Don Elpidio Rama and Isidro N. Enriquez, narrates the events of the day. In the Catholic Church calendar it was called the Domingo de Pascua which fell on April 10, 1898, that was a week after the Battle of Tres de Abril. Rama wrote that there was a mass in San Nicolas, the residence of the majority of the patriots. He then narrates the events that happened in the mountains.
It was in "TABLA," the lower part of Sudlon and Bitlang (a very important historical site, it is called the Bitlang Pass, where Cebuano patriots held their ground against the American soldiers in 1899) where the leaders of the KKK appeared in public led by Don Luis Flores accompanied by Don Alejo Miñoza, Don Elpidio Rama, and Don Anatalio Tabar.
It was Luis Flores who became the President of the Provincial Revolutionary Government of Cebu and it was upon his edict that patriots come to Tabla to attend to what was called as "Jura dela Bandera." The first Philippine flag sewed in Cebu was raised on that day with patriots taking an oath of loyalty to a country of its own, the Philippines.
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