Although the official day for the Philippines, Day of Independence is observed on June 12^th, Filipinos here on Grand Cayman celebrated it two days early on Sunday 10^th June.

At 10.00am on Sunday a convoy of around 50 (fifty) vehicles drove from Grand  Harbour to the Public Beach on West Bay Road

The route was as follows – Grand Harbour, Crewe Road, Smith Road, Hospital Road, Elgin Avenue, Shedden Road, Eastern Avenue, West Bay Road, Town Hall Road, West Church Street, Willie Farrington Drive and ended at the Public Beach around 11.00 am.

So if you were anywhere in the vicinity of the route and you saw this flotilla of vehicles passing by I hope you gave them a friendly wave.

There are over 2,600 people from the Philippines on work permits here in Cayman (according to the latest quarterly report from the immigration department) representing 13% of the migrant workforce, so I expect there was a lot of celebration on Sunday which will probably last until Tuesday (12) ends.

It is timely then that the Cayman Islands has been removed from the Philippines government’s workers black list. On 22^nd May the government of the Philippines confirmed that the Cayman Islands have been compliant in safeguarding the rights of immigrant workers.

So what is the history of the Philippines Independence Day? According to Wikipedia:

The declaration of Philippine independence from the colonial rule of Spain concluded the Philippine Revolution. Philippine independence, however, was not recognised either by the United States or by Spain. The Spanish government later ceded the Philippine archipelago to the United States in the 1898 Treaty of Paris, and the United States granted independence to the Republic of the Philippines on July 4, 1946 in the Treaty of Manila.

July 4 was observed in the Philippines as Independence Day until 1962. On 12 May 1962, President Diosdado Macapagal* issued Presidential proclamation No. 28, which declared Tuesday, June 12, 1962 a special public holiday throughout the Philippines, “… in commemoration of our people’s declaration of their inherent and inalienable right to freedom and independence.[” On August 4, 1964, Republic Act No. 4166 renamed the July 4 holiday as “Philippine Republic Day”, proclaimed the twelfth day of June as the “Philippine Independence Day”, and enjoined all citizens of the Philippines to observe 12 June with rites befitting Independence Day. June 12 had previously been observed as Flag Day, which was moved to May 28.

The photograph of the Aguinaldo Shrine’ where Emilio Aguinaldo declared independence from Spain, is the national shrine located in Kawit, Cavite. The house is now a museum.

The shrine is the ancestral home of General Emilio Aguinaldo who became the first president of the First Republic of the Philippines. The house was first built in 1845 made from wood and thatch, and reconstructed in 1849. It was in this home where the general was born on March 22, 1869.

Aguinaldo died on February 6, 1964, at the age of 94 at the Veterans Memorial Hospital in Quezon City.

*See our separate story: “June 12 as Independence Day by Diosdado Macapagal”.