The President of the Republic of the Philippines, President Benigno Simeon Aquino III will lead this year’s annual celebration of the Independence Day which will take place in Santa Barbara Plaza, Iloilo. The celebration is part of the President’s ongoing thrust to commemorate the role of our regions in our nation’s liberation.
The Philippines will mark the 117th anniversary of the proclamation of Philippine Independence as the administration showcase the Visaya’s role in the Philippine revolution.
Pres. Aquino is expected to raise the Philippine flag on a 36-meter flagpole on June 12, this will be the first time that the Independence Day rites will be held outside Luzon. The flagpole is located just a few meters across a marker at the town plaza where Iloilo revolutionaries first raised the flag on November 17, 1898. That was the first time the flag was raised outside Luzon.
According to Philippine history, the 137-year-old Santa Barbara Church and Convent, played a key role in the uprising, the church has been restored in time for the commemoration of the event. It was the church and its convent which served as the general headquarters and military hospital of the revolutionaries.
As part of the national government through the National Historical Institute declared Santa Barbara Church and Convent a national historical landmark on July 6, 1990, as the country recognized the church’s role in the struggle for Philippine Independence.
The restoration work, supervised by the National Historical Commission of the Philippines (NHCP), cost P50 million. Aside from restoring the church and convent, the NHCP also improved the town plaza located across the municipal hall at the cost of P12 million.