After Admiral Dewey's naval victory at Manila Bay weakened Spanish control, revolutionary leader Emilio Aguinaldo proclaimed independence from his hometown balcony in Kawit, Cavite. The declaration went largely unrecognized internationally, and within months the United States purchased the Philippines from Spain for $20 million, triggering the Philippine-American War rather than the sovereignty Aguinaldo had fought for.
Emilio Aguinaldo stood on the balcony of his home in Kawit and watched the Philippine flag rise for the first time as a national banner, accompanied by a new national anthem played by a band. Spanish forces had just been routed from Manila Bay by American naval guns, and Filipino revolutionaries believed liberation was finally at hand after decades of uprisings against Madrid's rule.
The optimism proved tragically premature. The United States, having fought Spain ostensibly to liberate Cuba and the Philippines, instead negotiated to purchase the islands outright in the Treaty of Paris that December. Aguinaldo's government, which had already established courts, a congress, and diplomatic missions, found itself unrecognized by the very power that had aided its fight against Spain.
By February 1899, Filipino and American soldiers were killing each other in a brutal new conflict. The Philippine-American War would drag on for years and cost hundreds of thousands of Filipino lives, mostly civilians, before the islands finally gained true independence in 1946 — coincidentally, the date chosen for that later independence ceremony still nods back to June 12, 1898, which the Philippines now marks as its official Independence Day.
Key people: Emilio Aguinaldo