n exhibit at the Aguinaldo Museum at Happy Glen in Baguio City is an old flag identified by a caption as the "First Philippine National Flag." A historical note says:

"Sewn in Hongkong by Dona Marcela Marino Agoncillo, this flag was brought to the Philippines by General Emilio Aguinaldo on May 19, 1898. It was first unfurled by Aguinaldo in his headquarters in Cavite (now Cavite City) on May 28 before victorious Filipino revolutionists and more than 270 Spanish soldiers of the Marine Corps who surrendered to them in the Battle of Alapan, Imus, Cavite. A large group of officers and men of the U.S. Asiatic Squadron under Admiral George Dewey witnessed the unfurling ceremony. This same flag was officially unfurled for the first time during the Proclamation of Philippine Independence at the Aguinaldo Mansion (now Aguinaldo Shrine) in Kawit, Cavite, at 4:20 PM., June 12,1898."

            The museum was inaugurated in May 1985, and the flag's recorded history and identity leave little doubt regarding the claim that it is indeed the original Philippine national flag. Aguinaldo said it was captured "somewhere in Luzon" during the Philippine-American War. Unknown to him, however, the flag had been carried out of the country. In answer to my inquiry, Lynn Smith Houghton, curator of collections of the Kalamazoo Public Museum in Michigan, wrote on November 26, 1985:

            "According to our records, the flag was captured from General Aguinaldo's troops in 1901 by Frank L. Riley of Company F, 160 Indiana Infantry. He presented it to the local organization of the Spanish­American War Veterans... the Richard Westnedge Camp #6 United States War Veterans. The flag was given to the Museum on February IS, 1956 by the last surviving members of that group. These three men, and our Museum director at that time, Alexis Praus, decided to return the flag to the Philippines. According to our records, the flag was red, white, and black."

The Detroit Times Qune 12, 1957, in an item titled "U.S. Returns Flag to Aging Aguinaldo," says: "Funston and his men took (Aguinaldo) prisoner - and hauled down his flag. A member of the American party... confiscated the flag. No one else seemed to want it as an added burden on their way down the mountain trail."

This same flag, by arrangement of the U.S. State Department and the Kalamazoo Public Museum, was returned to General Aguinaldo through Ambassador Charles Bohlen in appropriate ceremonies on June 12, 1957, and the flag settled into quiet existence, hanging on the wall of the Aguinaldo Shrine in Kawit.

            Seven years later, the general lay dying in a hospital and wanted to kiss the flag for the last time. It was brought to him. In the ensuing distraction after his death, however, only Cristina Suntay - one of the General's daughters - knew for certain what happened to the flag, for it was not returned to the shrine in Kawit. Virgilio Almario's Students' Philippine Almanac (1991) reports that "its last public display was at the death of Emilio Aguinaldo in 1964," when in fact it had by then been on public display for six years.

A 1985 controversy concerning the shade of the blue portion of the flag was triggered by Ferdinand Marcos's Executive Order 1010, and interest in the original flag and its whereabouts came alive, with the hope that finding the original would settle the dispute. Target of the attack was the National Historical Institute, which E.O. 1010 identifed as the source of the information that the blue was "lighter" than the dark blue then in use. The controversy spewed a great amount of emotional argument and counterargument, which in the end had to be closed by dicta rather than good historiography.

The surviving members of Aguinaldo's immediate family kept silent, except for the categorical caption on the flag displayed in their Baguio City Museum. It was Ms. Marcela Agoncillo, surviving daughter of Marcela M. Agoncillo, who had made the original flag, who spoke for the originality and authenticity of the flag returned to Aguinaldo by Bohlen in 1957. She lent me documentary photographs given her by Aguinaldo after the 1957 ceremonies, and showed me a life-size replica of the flag. Asked why the blue stripe appeared practically black, she said she had in her youth seen in her mother's trunk scraps of very dark blue cloth which her mother identified as "sacred" to her because they were cut from the original flag made in Hong Kong. She also arranged with Mrs. Suntay for me to take a look at the flag displayed in the Baguio museum.

The flag lay in a wood-and-glass case along with two others. It was exactly as Ms. Agoncillo had described it, and as shown in the photographs. Its seams and edges were stitched, but the sun and stars were painted gold-yellow, with human faces outlined on them, drawn in black just as Aguinaldo had told Director Luis Montilla of the Bureau of Public Libraries in a letter dated January 10,1953, in answer to an inquiry regarding specifics of the flag the general brought from Hong Kong in 1898.

Asked about the painted (rather than embroidered or appliqued) sun and stars, Ms. Agoncillo explained that her mother was a painter, and had painted the sun and stars in the original Hong Kong-made flag.

Since the 1985 controversy remained unsettled, with E.O. 1010 specifying a lighter blue than that in use in 1985, the Riley flag showing a very dark, practically black stripe, and the eyewitness drawing of Mariano Ponce (sent to Ferdinand Blumentritt) saying it was azul oscuro (dark blue), we turn once again to Aguinaldo who, at one time, had seen it as "black." A manuscript in his handwriting says:

"Behold and see the flag!

            "The three colors, three stars and sun with its eight rays... the red stands for the bravery of Filipinos...; the black manifests... that Filipinos prefer to die in battle than to allow themselves to be overpowered by whatever nation may desire to acquire and dominate the Philippines; and white stands for the desire for peace."